Supercar @ 60
This is an extended version of an article which appeared at https://www.gerryanderson.co.uk/ on 28th January 2021 –
60th Anniversary of the first broadcast of Supercar on TV.
Supercar – The Wonder of the Age for Six Decades!
First Broadcast: 28th January 1961
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercar_(TV_series)
Gerry Anderson TV was a backdrop to my school years in the early 1960s, a favourite when returning home from school. Having seen the programmes from Twizzle, Torchy and Four Feather Falls.. Kaiya Kalamakooya kala kaiya! … and beyond. But my absolute favourite was always Mike Mercury in Supercar!
Supercar is an experimental multi-purpose vertical take-off and landing craft. As well as its ability to fly, Supercar can travel on and under water, on land with a ground effect cushion from its vertical boosters, and even go into space. It is designed to perform a range of missions including search and rescue. Supercar is based at the Supercar team base in the remotely located Black Rock Laboratory within Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA.
Well… there she is Mike….Supercar! [YouTube Episode 1 (3:25)]
… exclaimed by Professor Popkiss to Mike Mercury as Supercar is finishing a ground test in the first episode still sends tingles through my spine. The tech details were really appealing to my interests in science, engineering and aerospace. All the procedures for the familiar Gerry Anderson “launch sequence” began in Supercar…
Charging port engine, …, 9000, 12000, 15000, interlock on, Fire One
There are lots of superb details. I like the one where Dr. Beaker is examining a Supercar engines test and commenting on the crazing of the ceramic material of the blast shield. Reg Hill did a fine job of designing Supercar and giving it exciting capabilities on land, under the sea, in the air and even into space.
The sound effects for Supercar startup and flight added much to the atmosphere and Barry Gray’s music added a lot to all the Gerry Anderson TV series.. and Supercar has a very rich repertoire of themes and incidental music. The “Mike Mercury March” (aka “Mike’s Theme”) played as Supercar races to the scene of another rescue is wonderful.
While still at school I was so keen that I arranged a petition and got thousands of signatures from locals to send to ITV and AP Films to ask them to produce more episodes and show Supercar more on TV.
Having seen adverts in TV Comic, I was an early member of the Supercar Club which had a tie up with National Benzole “Super National” petrol and produced a flexi-disc with a Supercar story along with the Supercar theme and more Barry Gray music. I still smile when I remember my dad pulling into a National station to fill up, and as we drove away he accelerated fast and shouted out “zooooom”. The annuals each year, several Shipton Plastics “Plaston” PVC models (which we floated in our fish pond and tried to film in action in front of a back projection sheet), Budgie diecast Supercars and more merchandise followed. My dad, who had been in the Navy, even got me a captain style hat like Mike Mercury wore which I mounted my Supercar wings on.
It is wonderful that over the years since then we have been able to get the whole 39 episodes of Supercar from Series One and Series Two on DVD and that many new merchandising items and fan produced materials have appeared to keep the contents alive.
TV Comic ran strip stories in colour for many years and promoted the “Supercar Club” offering a golden “wings” badge and pilots licence to members.
When Supercar was still on air in the early 1960s, I was taken by my dad to a TV trade show at Earls Court on London, as he ran a TV retail and repair store. And as we went around I heard a loud announcement that “Anything can happen in the next half hour”! Turning round to the big screen just in time to see the black and white image turn to COLOUR and STINGRAY appear. So there was plenty to look forward to, even though Supercar remained my interest.
A number of scientists and engineers have noted how they were influenced in their career choices and areas of interest from watching early Gerry Anderson programmes. And so it was in my case too. The Black Rock Laboratory team under Professor Popkiss and Doctor Beaker created Supercar (fictionally) using a grant from the US Air Force and their research people. Reality can follow fiction… I have (in real life) received research funding for my Artificial Intelligence work on planning, command and control of spacecraft and in search and rescue applications from the US Air Force Research Laboratory and the US Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) using the very same research mechanism that funded the X-15 rocket plane (and, one imagines, Supercar).
I have been fortunate to be part of the international community who continue to enjoy Gerry Anderson TV and work with some very creative people all round the world who are also very interested in Supercar over the years.
60 years later and Supercar is still in my life via the detailed and accurate 3D models produced 25 years ago with friends and collaborators around the globe and still looking good today as computer graphics have improved. The fan produced resources and computer models created with others internationally has enabled me to create virtual world and virtual reality experiences to continue to enjoy Supercar, to visit the (virtual) Black Rock Laboratory and take Supercar out for a spin in flight simulators and space simulators.
Mick Imrie in the UK in the late 1990s created Supercar and Black Rock Laboratory 3D computer models, originally in Cinema4D and subsequently ported by others in the Gerry Anderson Model Makers Alliance (GA-MMA) to Studio 3D Max, Lightwave, etc. See Supercar 3D Model – Mick Imrie and Austin Tate – 1998
Shane Pickering, a private pilot in New Zealand, in the late 1990s worked on schematics and internal details for Supercar compatible with the TV shows and annuals. See Supercar Schematics – Shane Pickering and Austin Tate – 1999.
Brian Douglas, a Microsoft Flight Simulator enthusiast in the UK, worked with me in 2003 to improve the visual appearance and flight dynamics for the earlier versions of Supercar for Flight Simulator I had created. See Supercar for Flight Simulator – 1996-2003.
Kez Wilson at Misc!Mayhem in Texas created the Supercar Comic published in 2003, working with script writer Michael Wolff, and I was happy to help with its production using our 3D models used to get accurate outlines for rotascoping of some image panels. I met up with Kez and Graydon Gould, the voice of Mike Mercury, at a Fanderson event that same year. See Supercar Comic – Kez Wilson and Michael Wolff – 2001-2003.
Playing Mantis in the USA produced the Johnny Lighting miniature diecast Supercar models originally in 2001 with colouring reflecting “The Little Golden Book” drawn images. Working with their designer Alan Pletcher I was able to give a little input to improve the later versions for colour and details to better reflect Supercar as seen on TV. I was fortunate to get deliveries of each new variant and limited edition that came out over the following years.
I have also had fun interactions with Martin Woodhouse (who along with his brother Hugh wrote the stories for Supercar series one), Dirk Maggs and some of the good folks at Fanderson.
The fan produced resources and computer models created with others internationally has enabled me to create virtual world and virtual reality experiences to continue to enjoy Supercar, to visit the (virtual) Black Rock Laboratory and take Supercar out for a spin in flight simulators and space simulators. See Supercar for Virtual Worlds and Virtual Reality.
Roof Doors Open!
More info, computer models and images: http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/GA/supercar.html
Supercar at 60 in OpenSimulator
Supercar 60th Anniversary Limited Edition Treasury Box
Availability February 2021 – Anderson Entertainment – Supercar 60th Anniversary Limited Edition Treasury Box (alternative URL: http://andr.sn/supercar60). Reversable DVD cover art by Chris Thompson (who also did the Pilot’s Licence Replica artwork) and new artwork by Lee Sullivan and Tim Keable. Note the spacing of “Made Expressly for THE SUPER CAR CLUB” on the backing card for the Supercar Wings badge. As confirmed by Jamie Anderson, this is a deliberate nod to the original backing card from the maker… J.R. GAUNT & SON LTD (Ribbon Makers).
Watch the World – Starry Night
Robbie Dingo (aka Rob Wright) produced the “Watch the World” machinima in Second Life in 2007 depicting a build of the Vincent Van Gogh “Starry Night” painting…
More information via
Watch the World – Starry Night
Robbie Dingo (aka Rob Wright) produced the “Watch the World” machinima in Second Life in 2007 depicting a build of the Vincent Van Gogh “Starry Night” painting…
More information via
Second Life 2001 Lavender Lake Balloon Festival
Lavender Lake Air Balloon Festival for the month of January 2021 explore four regions floating through the sky in your personal hot air balloon. You can also rez a boat and sail, or jump in the water and explore marine life the whole year. See Second Life Destination Guide.
Teleport via: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tonal%20Destination/10/249/28
Second Life 2001 Lavender Lake Balloon Festival
Lavender Lake Air Balloon Festival for the month of January 2021 explore four regions floating through the sky in your personal hot air balloon. You can also rez a boat and sail, or jump in the water and explore marine life the whole year. See Second Life Destination Guide.
Teleport via: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tonal%20Destination/10/249/28
Century Wings SR-71 Blackbird
Century Wings produces a range of high quality diecast aeroplane models… one being the 1/72nd scale Lockheed Martin SR-71 “Blackbird”. I have the following article:
SR-71 Blackbird USAF 60-6937 NASA YF-12C 1975
Century Wings Item No. 910720
Production No. 0401 of 1,200 limited edition
https://www.centurywings.com/model72/sr-71.html
Images from Century Wings
Century Wings SR-71 Blackbird
Century Wings produces a range of high quality diecast aeroplane models… one being the 1/72nd scale Lockheed Martin SR-71 “Blackbird”. I have the following article:
SR-71 Blackbird USAF 60-6937 NASA YF-12C 1975
Century Wings Item No. 910720
Production No. 0401 of 1,200 limited edition
https://www.centurywings.com/model72/sr-71.html
Images from Century Wings
Diva Canto – OpenSim Tutorials
Diva Canto has created a number of YouTube videos (originally in live session on twitch) to document the steps to create an OpenSim grid (version 0.9.1.1) on Linux Ubuntu…
https://youtube.com/user/divacanto
OpenSimulator: How to set up a multi-simulator grid (Part 1) [2hr. 20 mins.]
OpenSimulator: How to set up a multi-simulator grid (Part 2) [1hr. 2 mins.]
OpenSimulator: How to set up Wifi on a grid [57 mins]
More details and advice for educators using OpenSim in classes can be found in this New World Notes blog post (11-Feb-2021).
Diva Canto – OpenSim Tutorials
Diva Canto has created a number of YouTube videos (originally in live session on twitch) to document the steps to create an OpenSim grid (version 0.9.1.1) on Linux Ubuntu…
https://youtube.com/user/divacanto
OpenSimulator: How to set up a multi-simulator grid (Part 1) [2hr. 20 mins.]
OpenSimulator: How to set up a multi-simulator grid (Part 2) [1hr. 2 mins.]
OpenSimulator: How to set up Wifi on a grid [57 mins]
More details and advice for educators using OpenSim in classes can be found in this New World Notes blog post (11-Feb-2021).
Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12
Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.13.63251 was released on 17th March 2021 and created using “GitHub Actions” (GHA) thanks to Humbletim. The user instructions are identical to Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12 as described below. For Firestorm VR Mod latest release see
https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/releases
Firestorm VR Mod is a version of the popular Firestorm Viewer for Second Life and OpenSimulator with modifications to provide VR capabilities for VR Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) via SteamVR. Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 is now available from https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/releases (Assets)
For Firestorm VR Mod community support use the Discord Discussion Channel:
P373R-WORKSHOP by p373r_kappler [Invite]
Firestorm 6.4.12.62831 includes support for EEP (the Environmental Enhancement Project), support for the Chrome Embedded Framework Live Video Streaming, and various improvements for OpenSim support.
Peter Kappler maintains “P373R VR Mod” source code modifications to allow the Firestorm Viewer to work with VR headsets at https://gsgrid.de/firestorm-vr-mod/ – go there to download his latest viewer add on modification source code and for his usage information, advice on trouble shooting, etc.
@humbletim has created an automated scripted build system initiated by @thoys using GitHub Actions (GHA) which merges Peter Kappler’s VR Mod code additions into stock Firestorm and which can autobuild a release executable version. See https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/. Look under the Releases tab for the Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 entry and then the installer for Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 for various platforms is under the “Assets” chevron.
VR Mode instructions are available via prompts in the viewer or via information on https://gsgrid.de/firestorm-vr-mod/. In short…
- Press CTRL+TAB to load or unload the SteamVR driver. Do this each time you want to enter VR mode after starting up.
- Press TAB key to enable and disable VR mode.
- Press F5 to open the settings menu, you should see a text menu in the middle of the screen. The settings menu works only when VR mode is enabled.
- Press F6 to increase the selected value. Press F7 to decrease the selected value.
- Press F5 again to switch to the next menu entry.
- By pressing F5 on the last menu entry the menu will close and save the settings in a config file which is located in
“C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\FirestormVR_x64\vrconfig.ini”
and which can be edited directly. Pressing TAB for VR mode reloads the config file. - Hold F3 to see some debug info (example here).
- Press F4 to disable and enable HMD’s direction changes. It is better to disable the HMD’s direction interface when editing and flying with the camera. This may be subject to change in future versions.
- In the camera floater two buttons has been added to offset the HMD’s base rotation.
- Moving the mouse to the corners or the sides will shift the screen to this direction so menus can be accessed more easily.
For issues on some specific headsets you might wish to try the Firestorm VR Mod Discord Channel: P373R-WORKSHOP by p373r_kappler [Invite]. Peter Kappler also offers the following advice…
- Firestorm VR Mod works best while sitting and using mouse and keyboard.
- WindowsMixedReality users may need to press windows key + Y to unlock the mouse when the HMD is worn.
- If your Hardware cannot maintain constand 90 FPS you could try enabling motion reprojection in your HMD. In WindowsMixedReality it can be done by uncommenting “motionReprojectionMode” : “auto”, in the config file located at “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MixedRealityVRDriver\resources\settings\default.vrsettings”.This will make the HMD interpolate between frames and create a smoother experience. Vive and Oculus should have similar functionalities which can be accessed from SteamVR settings.For Vive it is called Motion Smoothing.
Black Edges or Strips in HMD Display
Firestorm VR Mod shifts the display in VR mode to an edge if the mouse or pointer is placed towards an edge or corner of the viewer window. This is to allow easier access to menus, user interface buttons and HUDs. It can be confusing though if you enter VR mode and find that part of the view is black. It is usually because the mouse is placed towards a corner or edge. Just move the mouse back to the centre of the screen and the full VR view should appear.
This was an issue in earlier versions and is mostly resolved now… but it can still occur with some headsets. In case you encounter issues with a black HMD display… Peter Kappler suggests the following:
- Create a program-specific profile for the viewer in your graphic card settings and enable FXAA.
- Second Life only supports FXAA. Other types of Anti-aliasing can be disabled.
Firestorm VR Mod installs into its own folder and uses its own user Settings directory so that the VR Mod viewer can be installed alongside the standard Firestorm viewer. Note that if you want to import existing Firestorm accounts/settings you have to manually copy them over between AppData/Roaming/Firestorm_x64 and AppData/Roaming/FirestormVR_x64 folders.
As usual, Ctrl+TAB initially sets up SteamVR (and HMD support as needed), TAB is used to toggle VR mode on or off, F5 lets you select and step through the various VR HMD or user specific settings for IPD, texture shift to register the left and right eye images, and focal distance to change depth perception, etc. F6/F7 are used to increment and decrement each setting selection.
Peter Kappler suggested the following process to establish suitable settings for your HMD:
- Set IPD to 0 (zero)
- Then adjust Texture Shift until image is sharp and focused
- Then adjust IPD which separates your cameras to left and right to get a good 3D effect
If you see a lot of hover tips showing under the mouse it could be that the debug setting “ShowHoverTips” is set to TRUE (the default) which may show something constantly under the mouse even for inert unscripted objects. You can turn that off via Debug Settings or via Preferences > User Interface > 3D World > Show Hover Tips. Via that same preferences panel, you might alternatively prefer to lengthen the delay before hover tips are activated.
In VR Mode it may be useful to show local nearby chat in “bubbles” over each avatar’s head. This can be done via Preferences > Chat.
You do need to ensure you have a good frame rate to have a comfortable VR experience. The Firestorm VR Mod Viewer will not work well if the Second Life/OpenSim region you visit cannot normally be displayed in 2D with a decent frame rate. In VR mode you can assume you will get roughly 50% of the frame rate that shows on the 2D normal screen. At low frame rates bad flickering will occur in VR mode. My suggestion is to look at the frame rate (in Firestorm it is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the viewer) and to adjust the graphics settings (especially draw distance, shadows and quality sliders) until you have around 100fps (and definitely more than 50fps) and then try VR.
Peter Kappler also suggested: Particles… a fireplace is going to eat 20 to 30 fps! So turn them off for VR.
In some situations the rendering of Linden Water, the water surface and its effects, can significantly reduce frame rates. In an environment that makes sense, such as a meeting room, disabling Linden Water can boost frame rates. Do that via Advanced (Ctrl+Alt+D) > Rendering Tyles > Water (or keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+7).
Tips from David Rowe for using the CtrlAltStudio VR Viewer (which is no longer maintained) may also be relevant:
- To improve your frame rate, reduce your draw distance and/or tweak other display settings such as advanced lighting model, shadows, FOV, pixel density, etc.
- Make sure you don’t have Preferences > Graphics > Rendering > Limit Framerate enabled.
- To display avatar chat above avatars use Preferences > Chat > Visuals > Show chat in bubbles above avatars.
- With floating text you may want to adjust the distance the floating text fades at so that distant text is not so annoying in VR mode: Preferences > User Interface > 3D World > Floating text fade distance.
If you have issues with some of the Function keys (F5 or other Firestorm VR Mod keys) not working… look to see if the F keys involved are mapped to active “Gestures”. You can find a list of the gestures you currently have active and the keys associated with them using the “Gestures” toolbar button… or the Comm -> Gestures menu item (Ctrl+G shortcut).
An Xbox One controller as used with the Oculus Rift (or an Xbox 360 controller) can be enabled, as usual, in Firestorm via Preferences -> Move & View -> Movement -> Joystick Configuration -> Enable Joystick.
You will probably find the controls are under or over sensitive, or some buttons and triggers don’t do what you expect. See this blog post and the image here (click for a larger version) for some suggestions as to how to amend the settings…
https://hugsalot.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/joystick-settings-for-firestorm-with-xbox-360-controller/
You might want to enter “-1” rather than axis “5” as an indication that axis is not mapped. With the setup suggested the “A” button toggles between the normal avatar view and “FlyCam” mode allowing you to move the camera separately to the avatar.
3D SpaceNavigator or SpaceMouse
As with all versions of Firestorm, the viewer supports other forms of “joystick”. One is the 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator (aka SpaceMouse) which is a “3D mouse” supporting both avatar motion and by clicking the left hand button the separate “FlyCam” camera control.
My recommendation is to install the SpaceNavigator just by plugging it into Windows and receiving default Windows drivers for the device. I do not install any special SpaceNavigator drivers as suggested on the Second Life Wiki, some of which are incompatible with Second Life viewers.
This version of Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 is based on the Firestorm source code at Commit r63477:5b44308aee43 (Wed, 02 Dec 2020 21:32:05). Firestorm source is available at https://vcs.firestormviewer.org/phoenix-firestorm. Look under “Commits” and select the branch for Firestorm_6.4.12 (link here).
With Firestorm VR Mod Peter Kappler uses a coding approach which injects VR capabilities into the Firestorm Viewer to make the mod easier to maintain in future and for others to repeat or adapt. The source is available from his web page at https://gsgrid.de/firestorm-vr-mod/ [Local Copy].
Impressively, the source is written in a way that it requires only some editing in the llviewerdisplay.cpp and adding 2 files to the project. All changes are marked with #####P373R##### comments. Peter also included the openvr header and lib files you will need in the rar. For information about the rest of the files you will need, read how to compile Firestorm at https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_compiling_firestorm.
Note that the VR Mod source remains stable since version 6.3.3 with no changes are needed for insertion into Firestorm 6.4.12.
The GitHub Actions (GHA) source by @HumbleTim used to combine Firestorm source and Peter Kappler’s P373R VR Mod addons and build it using Visual Studio 2019 is available via https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha (Firestorm_6.4.12_VR Branch)
VRLand on OSGrid is a metrics area for performance testing and to establish virtual field of view in your headset.
hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/VRLand/128/128/20More detail at: https://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2016/07/20/vrland-a-community-and-test-region-for-virtual-reality-in-virtual-worlds/
You can also pick up a VR Headset attachment for your avatar in OpenSim on the OSGrid VRLand region. The 3D models of the Oculus Rift were provided for free use by William Burke (MannyLectro)and imported to OpenSim by Michael Cerquoni (Nebadon Izumi).
A free copy is also provided on the Second Life Marketplace by Grebo Fright … https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Free-Oculus-Rift-DK1-DK2-Case/5906047
Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12
Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.13.63251 was released on 17th March 2021 and created using “GitHub Actions” (GHA) thanks to Humbletim. The user instructions are identical to Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12 as described below. For Firestorm VR Mod latest release see
https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/releases
Firestorm VR Mod is a version of the popular Firestorm Viewer for Second Life and OpenSimulator with modifications to provide VR capabilities for VR Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) via SteamVR. Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 is now available from https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/releases (Assets)
For Firestorm VR Mod community support use the Discord Discussion Channel:
P373R-WORKSHOP by p373r_kappler [Invite]
Firestorm 6.4.12.62831 includes support for EEP (the Environmental Enhancement Project), support for the Chrome Embedded Framework Live Video Streaming, and various improvements for OpenSim support.
Peter Kappler maintains “P373R VR Mod” source code modifications to allow the Firestorm Viewer to work with VR headsets at https://gsgrid.de/firestorm-vr-mod/ – go there to download his latest viewer add on modification source code and for his usage information, advice on trouble shooting, etc.
@humbletim has created an automated scripted build system initiated by @thoys using GitHub Actions (GHA) which merges Peter Kappler’s VR Mod code additions into stock Firestorm and which can autobuild a release executable version. See https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha/. Look under the Releases tab for the Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 entry and then the installer for Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 for various platforms is under the “Assets” chevron.
VR Mode instructions are available via prompts in the viewer or via information on https://gsgrid.de/firestorm-vr-mod/. In short…
- Press CTRL+TAB to load or unload the SteamVR driver. Do this each time you want to enter VR mode after starting up.
- Press TAB key to enable and disable VR mode.
- Press F5 to open the settings menu, you should see a text menu in the middle of the screen. The settings menu works only when VR mode is enabled.
- Press F6 to increase the selected value. Press F7 to decrease the selected value.
- Press F5 again to switch to the next menu entry.
- By pressing F5 on the last menu entry the menu will close and save the settings in a config file which is located in
“C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\FirestormVR_x64\vrconfig.ini”
and which can be edited directly. Pressing TAB for VR mode reloads the config file. - Hold F3 to see some debug info (example here).
- Press F4 to disable and enable HMD’s direction changes. It is better to disable the HMD’s direction interface when editing and flying with the camera. This may be subject to change in future versions.
- In the camera floater two buttons has been added to offset the HMD’s base rotation.
- Moving the mouse to the corners or the sides will shift the screen to this direction so menus can be accessed more easily.
For issues on some specific headsets you might wish to try the Firestorm VR Mod Discord Channel: P373R-WORKSHOP by p373r_kappler [Invite]. Peter Kappler also offers the following advice…
- Firestorm VR Mod works best while sitting and using mouse and keyboard.
- WindowsMixedReality users may need to press windows key + Y to unlock the mouse when the HMD is worn.
- If your Hardware cannot maintain constand 90 FPS you could try enabling motion reprojection in your HMD. In WindowsMixedReality it can be done by uncommenting “motionReprojectionMode” : “auto”, in the config file located at “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MixedRealityVRDriver\resources\settings\default.vrsettings”.This will make the HMD interpolate between frames and create a smoother experience. Vive and Oculus should have similar functionalities which can be accessed from SteamVR settings.For Vive it is called Motion Smoothing.
Black Edges or Strips in HMD Display
Firestorm VR Mod shifts the display in VR mode to an edge if the mouse or pointer is placed towards an edge or corner of the viewer window. This is to allow easier access to menus, user interface buttons and HUDs. It can be confusing though if you enter VR mode and find that part of the view is black. It is usually because the mouse is placed towards a corner or edge. Just move the mouse back to the centre of the screen and the full VR view should appear.
This was an issue in earlier versions and is mostly resolved now… but it can still occur with some headsets. In case you encounter issues with a black HMD display… Peter Kappler suggests the following:
- Create a program-specific profile for the viewer in your graphic card settings and enable FXAA.
- Second Life only supports FXAA. Other types of Anti-aliasing can be disabled.
Firestorm VR Mod installs into its own folder and uses its own user Settings directory so that the VR Mod viewer can be installed alongside the standard Firestorm viewer. Note that if you want to import existing Firestorm accounts/settings you have to manually copy them over between AppData/Roaming/Firestorm_x64 and AppData/Roaming/FirestormVR_x64 folders.
As usual, Ctrl+TAB initially sets up SteamVR (and HMD support as needed), TAB is used to toggle VR mode on or off, F5 lets you select and step through the various VR HMD or user specific settings for IPD, texture shift to register the left and right eye images, and focal distance to change depth perception, etc. F6/F7 are used to increment and decrement each setting selection.
Peter Kappler suggested the following process to establish suitable settings for your HMD:
- Set IPD to 0 (zero)
- Then adjust Texture Shift until image is sharp and focused
- Then adjust IPD which separates your cameras to left and right to get a good 3D effect
If you see a lot of hover tips showing under the mouse it could be that the debug setting “ShowHoverTips” is set to TRUE (the default) which may show something constantly under the mouse even for inert unscripted objects. You can turn that off via Debug Settings or via Preferences > User Interface > 3D World > Show Hover Tips. Via that same preferences panel, you might alternatively prefer to lengthen the delay before hover tips are activated.
In VR Mode it may be useful to show local nearby chat in “bubbles” over each avatar’s head. This can be done via Preferences > Chat.
You do need to ensure you have a good frame rate to have a comfortable VR experience. The Firestorm VR Mod Viewer will not work well if the Second Life/OpenSim region you visit cannot normally be displayed in 2D with a decent frame rate. In VR mode you can assume you will get roughly 50% of the frame rate that shows on the 2D normal screen. At low frame rates bad flickering will occur in VR mode. My suggestion is to look at the frame rate (in Firestorm it is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the viewer) and to adjust the graphics settings (especially draw distance, shadows and quality sliders) until you have around 100fps (and definitely more than 50fps) and then try VR.
Peter Kappler also suggested: Particles… a fireplace is going to eat 20 to 30 fps! So turn them off for VR.
In some situations the rendering of Linden Water, the water surface and its effects, can significantly reduce frame rates. In an environment that makes sense, such as a meeting room, disabling Linden Water can boost frame rates. Do that via Advanced (Ctrl+Alt+D) > Rendering Tyles > Water (or keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+7).
Tips from David Rowe for using the CtrlAltStudio VR Viewer (which is no longer maintained) may also be relevant:
- To improve your frame rate, reduce your draw distance and/or tweak other display settings such as advanced lighting model, shadows, FOV, pixel density, etc.
- Make sure you don’t have Preferences > Graphics > Rendering > Limit Framerate enabled.
- To display avatar chat above avatars use Preferences > Chat > Visuals > Show chat in bubbles above avatars.
- With floating text you may want to adjust the distance the floating text fades at so that distant text is not so annoying in VR mode: Preferences > User Interface > 3D World > Floating text fade distance.
If you have issues with some of the Function keys (F5 or other Firestorm VR Mod keys) not working… look to see if the F keys involved are mapped to active “Gestures”. You can find a list of the gestures you currently have active and the keys associated with them using the “Gestures” toolbar button… or the Comm -> Gestures menu item (Ctrl+G shortcut).
An Xbox One controller as used with the Oculus Rift (or an Xbox 360 controller) can be enabled, as usual, in Firestorm via Preferences -> Move & View -> Movement -> Joystick Configuration -> Enable Joystick.
You will probably find the controls are under or over sensitive, or some buttons and triggers don’t do what you expect. See this blog post and the image here (click for a larger version) for some suggestions as to how to amend the settings…
https://hugsalot.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/joystick-settings-for-firestorm-with-xbox-360-controller/
You might want to enter “-1” rather than axis “5” as an indication that axis is not mapped. With the setup suggested the “A” button toggles between the normal avatar view and “FlyCam” mode allowing you to move the camera separately to the avatar.
3D SpaceNavigator or SpaceMouse
As with all versions of Firestorm, the viewer supports other forms of “joystick”. One is the 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator (aka SpaceMouse) which is a “3D mouse” supporting both avatar motion and by clicking the left hand button the separate “FlyCam” camera control.
My recommendation is to install the SpaceNavigator just by plugging it into Windows and receiving default Windows drivers for the device. I do not install any special SpaceNavigator drivers as suggested on the Second Life Wiki, some of which are incompatible with Second Life viewers.
This version of Firestorm VR Mod 6.4.12.62831 is based on the Firestorm source code at Commit r63477:5b44308aee43 (Wed, 02 Dec 2020 21:32:05). Firestorm source is available at https://vcs.firestormviewer.org/phoenix-firestorm. Look under “Commits” and select the branch for Firestorm_6.4.12 (link here).
With Firestorm VR Mod Peter Kappler uses a coding approach which injects VR capabilities into the Firestorm Viewer to make the mod easier to maintain in future and for others to repeat or adapt. The source is available from his web page at https://gsgrid.de/firestorm-vr-mod/ [Local Copy].
Impressively, the source is written in a way that it requires only some editing in the llviewerdisplay.cpp and adding 2 files to the project. All changes are marked with #####P373R##### comments. Peter also included the openvr header and lib files you will need in the rar. For information about the rest of the files you will need, read how to compile Firestorm at https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_compiling_firestorm.
Note that the VR Mod source remains stable since version 6.3.3 with no changes are needed for insertion into Firestorm 6.4.12.
The GitHub Actions (GHA) source by @HumbleTim used to combine Firestorm source and Peter Kappler’s P373R VR Mod addons and build it using Visual Studio 2019 is available via https://github.com/humbletim/firestorm-gha (Firestorm_6.4.12_VR Branch)
VRLand on OSGrid is a metrics area for performance testing and to establish virtual field of view in your headset.
hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/VRLand/128/128/20More detail at: http://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2016/07/20/vrland-a-community-and-test-region-for-virtual-reality-in-virtual-worlds/
You can also pick up a VR Headset attachment for your avatar in OpenSim on the OSGrid VRLand region. The 3D models of the Oculus Rift were provided for free use by William Burke (MannyLectro)and imported to OpenSim by Michael Cerquoni (Nebadon Izumi).
A free copy is also provided on the Second Life Marketplace by Grebo Fright … https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Free-Oculus-Rift-DK1-DK2-Case/5906047
SpaceX Starship SN8 Test
https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 – Raptor Abort at T-1.3sec
Wednesday, December 9th, 2020 – Go
Go to 1hr. 48 mins. into video for launch.
Richard Angle’s Timelapse of Launch and “Landing”
Image from Teslarti and @RDAnglePhoto
Try Starship Yourself – with X-Plane: Starship
From Laminar Research for IPad and iPhone https://apps.apple.com/us/app/x-plane-starship/id1540346715
SpaceX Starship SN8 Test
https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 – Raptor Abort at T-1.3sec
Wednesday, December 9th, 2020 – Go
Go to 1hr. 48 mins. into video for launch.
Richard Angle’s Timelapse of Launch and “Landing”
Image from Teslarti and @RDAnglePhoto
Try Starship Yourself – with X-Plane: Starship
From Laminar Research for IPad and iPhone https://apps.apple.com/us/app/x-plane-starship/id1540346715
Second Life – Firestorm Gateway SciFi Portal
The Firestorm Gateway in Second Life has developed a SciFi Portal. The portal provides roleplay explorers with a SciFi environment to explore and interact with:
- Starship bridge, engineering and other locations
- Shuttle flights
- Supply area to get free SciFi uniforms and equipment
- SciFi roleplay areas
- and more…
Details can be found at: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fsgw_scifi_portal
Some locations that may be useful are at:
- Teleport Hub: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/157/141/3790
- Hub/Trek Supplies: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/156/132/3813
- ShuttleBay: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/190/190/3527 (click on 01 pad to call a shuttle)
Second Life – Firestorm Gateway SciFi Portal
The Firestorm Gateway in Second Life has developed a SciFi Portal. The portal provides roleplay explorers with a SciFi environment to explore and interact with:
- Starship bridge, engineering and other locations
- Shuttle flights
- Supply area to get free SciFi uniforms and equipment
- SciFi roleplay areas
- and more…
Details can be found at: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fsgw_scifi_portal
Some locations that may be useful are at:
- Teleport Hub: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/157/141/3790
- Hub/Trek Supplies: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/156/132/3813
- ShuttleBay: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/190/190/3527 (click on 01 pad to call a shuttle)
Scenegate – OpenSim Viewer – Resources
- Viewer Prebuilt Downloads: http://downloads.infinitemetaverse.org/index.php/downloads
- Issue Tracker:
https://bitbucket.org/imadevelopmentteam/scenegate-viewer/issues - EchoVoice – integrated vice solution based on Mumble
Introductory articles on the SceneGate viewer in its simpler beginner mode and its extended more advanced modes can be found in this blog post [SceneGate OpenSim viewer with beginner and extended modes. 16-Feb-2020]
Scenegate – OpenSim Viewer – Resources
- Viewer Prebuilt Downloads: http://downloads.infinitemetaverse.org/index.php/downloads
- Issue Tracker:
https://bitbucket.org/imadevelopmentteam/scenegate-viewer/issues - EchoVoice – integrated vice solution based on Mumble
Introductory articles on the SceneGate viewer in its simpler beginner mode and its extended more advanced modes can be found in this blog post [SceneGate OpenSim viewer with beginner and extended modes. 16-Feb-2020]
OpenSimulator Community Conference 2020 – OSCC20
The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2020 (OSCC20) was held on 5th-6th December 2020 on the OpenSimulator Community Conference grid. This is the 8th virtual annual conference for the OpenSim Community which has run annually since 2013. More details at https://conference.opensimulator.org/
Opening Event
Talks
Shopping Zone – Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 Open Source Mesh Avatars
Organizers – Many Thanks
Attendees
VR – using Firestorm VR Mod
OpenSim Commits 2019-2020 – Gource Visualisation
[OpenSim code development from 2008 to 2017… Youtube]