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Imprudence vs Emerald Viewers

Emerald was taken off the Third Party Viewer list sometime yesterday, presumably after they announced a huge shift in the way the organization will be run. I missed the drama and reading last week's blog posts on the Modular Systems site didn't really clue me in. Thing went awry and the head guy evidently did some less than great things. He is no longer part of the Emerald team.

[Morning update: you can read the (very engaging)  backstory on last eve's TV show with the Emerald folks here.  The audio is up now and the video will be up soon. ]

I downloaded the Imprudence viewer yesterday morning on rumor of some big issues in the works. I can still log in using Emerald and according to the Emerald team's blog post, they are resubmitting the viewer for consideration. For those of you thinking about installing a different viewer, here is my quick feedback.

It works similar to Emerald and the older LL viewer with most things in the same menus. Many of the Emerald improvements have made it into the current Imprudence build (or visa versa). It is a change and there are some things missing , but my biggest problem is with the clarity of the graphics. On the plus side for fashionistas that don't want to go to Viewer 2, the tattoo layers work in Imprudence. On the down side, the secondary attachment points (like nose 2 for a facelight while wearing glasses for a photo) do not. There is no spell check, but I haven't found much that I would miss.

I can confirm that objects and textures rez much faster with Imprudence than with Emerald.  This is good and for most people it would be a enough reason to switch. I have been told by folks that have been crashing a lot and with rezzing issues that Imprudence solved their problems. Since I haven't been having those issues (just sloooooow rezzing) I can't verify that information.

What I noticed right off, however, was that the inside of my office looked "off". It wasn't the lighting since I was using the same settings. It was the quality and clarity of the graphics. I did several tests and the photos below show what I, at least, am seeing.

Note: this problem has been solved, but be aware you may find this before makeing adjustments.




Notice the pixelated edges on any of the angled lines. I have written to the Imprudence forums in hopes that there is a fix for this -- something obscure that I haven't needed to turn on or change in the past. I guess I can get used to it if I have to and high rez photos work well. It is just the visuality that is disturbing to me.

Update: The comments from readers had me changing the antialiasing number in the hardware settings and that worked. So I am off for a day of testing. It did solve the issue. Closing out and coming back was necessary as my window backgrounds disappeared, but that's a small price to pay for SMOOTH LINES! Yeah. 



It would be a really good viewer for hunts though. I had forgotten how fast things used to load, what was it? Three weeks ago?  :D

Just passing my research on in hopes it will be helpful.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It looks like you don't have anti-aliasing turned on in the Imprudence viewer. I always have to go into the hardware options and turn it up to 4x when starting with a new viewer.

Betty Doyle
Ingenue
Isabeal Jupiter said…
Hi Chic,

I switched, too. There are many things in different places (the buy option in the pie menu) but overall, I am very happy with Imprudence. Perhaps your pixellated graphics is due to antialiasing? I have mine turned on in Emerald and forgot about it until I wanted to take some pics in Imprudence.

Did you notice the boob bounce automatically turned on? That scared me a little. LOL
Liliana Barrs said…
I'm on Imprudence since saturday and I don't have any graphical problems at all. Be sure to uncheck "constrain proportions" in snapshot window, that does weird edges to me (even in Emerald). :)
Chic Aeon said…
Thanks oh smart readers!

I will try and find the antialiasing. Imagine that is the problem although I don't EVER remember setting that on any viewer - LOL. Fleeting memories maybe.

I don't have any boobs to speak of, Isabeal so I doubt it will matter, but I'll check that too.

Taking snapshots actually worked pretty well; I couldn't tell much difference. It was the screen resolution thing that was depressing.

Appreciate the help. I'll go check out my hardware settings.
Liliana Barrs said…
@Isabel: In Advanced tab in preferences you can switch to the old pie menu, there is a checkbox for that :)
Anonymous said…
My biggest problem with Imprudence compared to Emerald is there is no zoom feature on Imprudence. In Emerald you just double clicked on a name in your radar box and it zoomed in on that person. Am I missing something on imprudence or is thie the case. Othere than that fairly happy with the viewer.

Launa Torrance
Chic Aeon said…
I don't use the radar except when I am chair watching to make sure there aren't a lot of "C" folks, so not sure. I have seen comments on the Imprudence board about radar, how far it doesn't go etc.

I suggest you log into the forums and mention your concerns. I have noticed that the devs really pay attention to what people are wanting and move those things up the list .

Good for them.

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