From the Shadows
I'm still using Kirstenlee's Special Shadow Draft 2-4 as the SD5-R1 didn't render alpha right for me, and it still works as well as ever, despite being somewhat hoary. Now Cool Viewer developer Boy Lane has come up with another shadow viewer called Shadow Viewer :-D It's to be had HERE, and I just spent some time wandering Kubrick in it. I was going to take comparison pictures in the same spot but I got sidetracked - maybe I'll do that now. Or, er, in a minute ;-D

Oh, OK >:[

Round One
Same spot on Kubrick, Ultra settings with 178 draw, 1280x720 window, 5:10 pm default sky.
Snapshot taken with Kirstenlee's SD2-4
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Snapshot taken with Kirstenlee's SD5-R1 ======:OScreenshot taken with Kirstenlee's SD5-R1
-------------------------------------------------------Snapshot taken with Boy Lane's Shadow Viewer 1.23*
I dunno what that distorted shadow triangle is under my left foot.

I think Boy won that match, which is very good as that's the new one, and Boy is actively developing for and enthusiastic about SL. Note: I did copy over the short list Boy specified of nondistributable components, of course, because I ALWAYS FOLLOW WHAT I AM INSTRUCTED TO DO (yesterday my doctor, who I hadn't seen for four years, upon hearing me say that, did a very theatrical and expressive non-verbal movement to indicate how true he believes that statement to be i.e. not at all :-D)

The SD5-R1 might run better for me if the right setting were tweaked; I haven't fiddled with it for ages but I did try a few combination including fast alpha, I think, with no solution to the problem which is solid alphas. I would've banged on it harder if I hadn't had SD2-4 all working and shiney and nice.

I did notice that when the snapshot pane is open fps drops by about 10 or 15. I suppose not too surprising.

Round Two
Same spot in Bodega, Ultra settings with 178 draw, 1280x720 window, default sunset sky.
Snapshot taken with Kirstenlee's SD2-4

This was very interesting - the outside of the skybox is solid, the inside a kind of filigree texture. Kirstenlee's viewer rendered it as it logically should be rendered.


Screenshot taken with Kirstenlee's SD5-R1

Alpha textures are teh whacky for me. The shadows render as I'd like inside this box, even though it's solid on the outside.

Snapshot taken with Boy Lane's Shadow Viewer 1.23

Unsurprisingly given that it's the hot off the presses version Boy's version works very well. I should be fair and point out that initially some of the alpha textures showed up opaque, however that sorted itself after a few minutes. Fps FTW, too.

IMPORTANTISH
One thing I just noticed: I crashed a couple of times entering Appearance, then got into it and saw there are no underpants - I'd been trying without luck to get my underpants off my gorilla* avatar - and this explains why it didn't work.

*Lucia's book came out today and she wanted a picture of a gorilla avatar with the book. Makes perfect sense!