VIEWER USE
One thing I learned yesterday was that the items listed in the inventory aren't the actual items themselves, but shortcuts to entries in the simulator's databases. That's why you can several copies of a texture, each with a different name (or, as I found out, the same name) all pointing to something like 01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef. My aim yesterday was to eliminate all the copies and give what's left meaningful names. The SL Cache viewer (see http://www.slcacheviewer.com/, thanks Garry) might help in that.
It got me thinking as to how I've set up my viewers. I reviewed all of those a few months back and uninstalled all of them, and then downloaded and installed fresh copies. I divided the viewers into two groups - for use in Second Life only, and viewers that can be used with the Hypergrid - that is, support adding and using grids other than just SL. The split is:
Second Life: Black Dragon, Catzip, Kokua (SL version), UKando, and of course the Linden Labs viewer.
Open Simulator: Firestorm, CoolVL, Singularity, Alchemy, Kokua (OS version), and the Metropolis dedicated viewer.
I've pointed the viewer caches to discrete folders rather than the default, like E:/Applications(Resources)/SL-Viewers/Catzip. That makes them easy to find (instead of something like C:user/Laura/Apps/Roaming/OntheGlomin/Catzip! But also in the past it made good sense for when I was doing shoots in SL. I have 5 Alts there, and the AV doing the snapshots would use a viewer set to a decent graphics level, whereas the other alts would use a different viewer with the graphics settings set low. That way I'd minimise bandwidth with 5 AVs online at once. Due to the limitations of my PCs, I can practically have two AVs logged on a single PC at once. Shooting a scene with all 5 (as per the image below) would involve going between 3 PCs in different rooms of the house (or sometimes I'd move one PC to be next to another PC, and save myself some running around).
Now I have 5 AVs on the Hypergrid (1 per grid I'm a member of) and theoretically I could do the same technique by sending them all to the same grid, but that's terribly wasteful of bandwidth and just as awkward to coordinate. Better to either get other folk to help me do shoots, or to do the shoots on a local grid using one (or two) AVs and lots of NPCs, who can be dressed and posed as I want.
So, when I set up the OS viewers, I made sure that CoolVL, Singularity Alchemy, and Kokua (the logical choice for a low graphics use) could also be used for my local grids. If the NPC option was too complex, or not not yet set up properly (more likely) I could still use the old technique to do shoots for the comic. I could add any number of Alt AVs to a local grid, and just log in the "actor" I needed for the shoot. Of course that also requires being able to use the local grid across the home network. The Diva Wifi mod did that, and I was hoping that setting up Hypergrid access to and from the local grid would as well. But that's a bit down the track I think.
Below: result of a photoshoot using 4 AVs
