SL Go Viewer Improvements And Offer Of Paid Work For Viewer Developers

Inara Pey brings news of some improvements to the SL Go Viewer from OnLive. The improvements include SL share for Flickr and Twitter now working as well as a fix that means fitted mesh now works properly via the SL Go viewer. SL Share for Facebook should also work but Inara doesn’t have a Facebook account to test that with.

SL Go offers the potential for people using mobile devices to use Second Life as well as offering the opportunity for people running older hardware to get a better experience. This is because you run the Second Life viewer via Onlive’s hardware and therefore you can have higher graphics settings without bringing your machine or mobile device to its knees and feel like you’re walking through treacle. This of course comes at a cost, which is currently comes with the following options :

• $9.95 (£6.95) per month for unlimited access. Starts with a 7 Day Free Trial.
• Pay as you go for only $1.00 (£0.70) per hour.

I’m not associated with SL Go in any shape or form, nor am I on their list of bloggers, but I will say that this is not a bad deal at all for those who want to explore Second Life. The system does have some drawbacks, one of which Inara explains in her post :

There is still no capability to save snapshots locally. This isn’t surprising, given SL Go is a streamed service, rather than something running locally with access to the local hard / flash drive, and so is likely going to take a lot more banging on things before it works – if it can be made to work.

As I said earlier, you use SL Go via their hardware and therefore the local disk drive is going to be their hardware. This should not be insurmountable. There are security issues with allowing people access to the SL Go local hard drives, but with some care this could be worked around. Another option would be for a SL Go viewer only email texture option, although this would be rather clunky for end users, it would work.

Inara also posted an very interesting blog about the fitted mesh improvements as well as information regarding paid contract work for viewer developers : SL Go: viewer update fixes fitted mesh issue.

This in turn leads me to linking to a hat trick of Inara Pey blog posts : Calling viewer developers: help enhance and improve SL Go! That post was from June and Inara announced :

The work would be offered on a paid contract basis, and subject to applicants passing an interview process. However, the benefits could be far-reaching, as Dennis pointed out to me, “I would think that this would be a fantastic opportunity for developers,” he said. “They would get to create cutting-edge technology and work with a world-class development organisation.”

So, if you have a solid track record of viewer code development and enhancement, and you would like to be involved in a project at the very cutting-edge of viewer development and implementation, then OnLive would like to hear from you.

In her more recent post, in reference to the above, Inara stated :

So far as I’m aware, the company is still seeking support and assistance with the project, so if you are a TPV developer, and you’d be interested in helping OnLive carry the product forward, adding additional features (and even advising them on features), tweaking the UI and so on, please refer to that article and drop Dennis an e-mail at: dennis.harper@onlive.com.

So if you’re a viewer developer and would be interested in some paid contract work, it wouldn’t hurt to contact SL Go and see if anything is still available.

SL Go and indeed OnLive itself, are very interesting developments in the arena of making games and virtual worlds reach more users. The project is ambitious but it certainly works quite well for Second Life, I’ve tried it and I was generally impressed with the results. The price is not bad at all for those who have the need of such a service. If you haven’t tired it, they offer a seven day trial these days, so it’s definitely worth a look. However bear in mind that there are limitations, a seven day trial will definitely allow you time to experience the SL Go viewer and see if those limitations are showstoppers for your Second Life experience.

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