Releases: ApertureViewer/Aperture-Viewer
Aperture Viewer 1.0.0: May the 4th Be With You!
🚀 A New Force in Visual Control Arrives!
Greetings Aperture Pilots and Visual Navigators!
Today, May the 4th, marks a landmark moment. We are thrilled to announce the official launch of Aperture Viewer 1.0.0! This release is not just an update; it's a transformative hyperspace jump for Second Life visual artistry. Version 1.0.0 fulfills the core Aperture vision: to provide Second Life photographers, videographers, and visual enthusiasts with unparalleled, real-time control over their creative canvas, embodying our motto, "Nothing Is Not Possible."
This release bundles the foundational feature set we envisioned, establishing a new benchmark for in-world visual artistry and unlocking new potential for Second Life as a creative platform. No Second Life viewer, official or third-party, has ever offered such a comprehensive and powerful suite of real-time visual manipulation tools integrated directly into the rendering pipeline. We are charting new territory, and we're incredibly excited to share it with you.
✨ Major Feature Highlights
🌌 (FEATURE) Vastly Improved Starfield Rendering: A Galaxy Reborn! (c17a470c5d)
For May the 4th, we wanted to show we're serious about visuals. So, we tore down the old stars and rebuilt the galaxy. This completely replaces the nearly 20-year-old legacy star system with a sophisticated procedural generator, representing a significant leap in visual fidelity. It's the first major piece of our environmental rendering overhaul and a taste of the immersive enhancements planned for Aperture's future. We hope you love gazing upon these new cosmos as much as we do!
- Realistic Density & Appearance: Hundreds of thousands of stars, Primary/Dust layers, Milky Way simulation, scientifically-informed Black Body coloration, luminosity distribution.
- Dynamic Effects: Realistic atmospheric twinkling/scintillation (including color variation, scaled by airmass/intensity) and horizon extinction (dimming/reddening).
- Resolution Adaptive: Star sizes adapt to screen resolution and FOV for consistent appearance.
- Note: This is a complete rewrite with robust C++ and GLSL foundations. Like the Post-Processing pipeline, the code features numerous meticulously designed internal tunables, offering flexibility and hinting at the ongoing evolution of Aperture's environmental rendering capabilities.
⭐️ (THEME) Choose Your Side — New Star Wars Skins!
In celebration of May the 4th, personalize your viewer with four brand-new Star Wars themed skins: Vader, Yoda, X-wing, and Obiwan (41ab707cde). May the Force… or the Dark Side… guide your visual journey!
🎛️ (FEATURE) All-New Aperture Phototools Suite (APS) Alt + P
The heart of Aperture 1.0.0 – rebuilt from the ground up, this central command center integrates numerous powerful tools into one streamlined interface:
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Revolutionary Real-Time Post-Processing Pipeline: (
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This is groundbreaking. For the first time in Second Life, achieve professional-grade image mastering live within the viewer. Accessed via the 'Post' tab, this integrated system gives you unprecedented, granular control over the final rendered image, fundamentally changing the creative workflow. Say goodbye to constant external editing – get the look right, in real-time. The power rivals industry-standard tools like Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, directly embedded into the rendering pipeline:- Photographic Tone Mapping: Go beyond basic brightness/contrast. Master your scene's dynamic range with independent sliders for Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks, plus a nuanced Crush Blacks control with fade-out.
- Complete Color Grading Suite: Achieve perfect color with perceptually-aware Vibrance, Saturation (with customizable Luminance Weights for unique B&W/color effects), and a powerful 3-Way Color Balance tool (Shadows/Midtones/Highlights) with optional Luminance Preservation for pro-level grading.
- Cinematic & Creative Effects: Add adjustable, high-quality Film Grain (Amount, Size, Roughness) for texture and mood, plus realistic Chromatic Aberration (Red/Cyan, Green/Magenta, Blue/Yellow shifts with Softness control) for creative flair or realism correction.
- Note: These aren't just basic filters; they represent a deeply tuned and robust shader implementation. We take considerable pride in the underlying GLSL code – technical users are invited to explore it and might even spot the numerous intentionally exposed tunables that hint at where we're heading next!
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Integrated Environment Editing (Windlights!): (
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Directly edit all Atmosphere, Cloud, Sun/Moon, and Water parameters in real-time within the 'Evn' tab (requires editable local environments). Browse Sky/Water presets and optionally hide non-user presets (APPhototoolsShowOnlyMySettings) to reduce clutter. Massive workflow improvement! -
Enhanced Avatar Controls: (
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Fine-tune your presence via the 'Ava' tab with direct controls for Avatar Hover Height and Fluid Global Animation Speed. Manage complexity, rendering options (HUDs, particles, lights), physics LOD, and force rebakes easily. -
Direct UI Scaling: (
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Adjust the entire viewer interface scale dynamically using a slider/spinner in the 'Gen' tab for perfect viewing on any display. -
Integrated Viewer Camera Controls: (
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All standard viewer camera controls (Orbit, Pan, Zoom, Roll) are now built into the 'Cam' tab, eliminating the need for a separate camera floater for many tasks. -
Graphics Preset Management: (
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Select predefined graphics levels (see below), or Save, Load, and Delete your own Custom Graphics Presets directly from the 'Gen' tab. -
Centralized Quick Toggles:
Quick access to Shadows, SSAO, Reflections, Mirrors, LODs, Draw Distance, Fullbright toggle, and more across logical tabs ('Shd', 'Refl', 'Ava', 'Gen').
📊 (FEATURE) Performance-Tuned Graphics Levels: Rethinking Quality Settings (d7235ef41c, 0a6ab683f1, b72d982426)
Tired of vague 'Low'/'Ultra' labels that mislead or crippling performance drops since PBR? Aperture completely rethinks graphics settings to solve these widespread issues.
- A Bespoke Foundation Built on Research: This entire system relies on our completely custom, from-the-ground-up
featuretable_aperture.txt. (Those familiar with SL development will understand the significance and effort involved.) We tackled the post-PBR performance problem head-on through an exhaustive investigation into virtually every relevant graphics setting (~200+), meticulously documenting and testing their impact. Our goal was clear: empower users to actually enjoy Second Life's advanced visual capabilities without tanking their FPS. - Proven Performance Gains: We're thrilled that feedback from our dedicated beta testers confirms this approach works! Many report noticeably better performance in Aperture compared to other viewers using similar visual features – sometimes describing the difference as "night and day." While technical, we believe this foundational work is essential.
- Feature-Driven Progression, Not Meaningless Labels: We introduce 9 distinct levels named for the key visual features they progressively enable (e.g., 'Level 2 - Shadows', 'Level 4 - SSAO', 'Level 6 - Reflections'), replacing useless terms like 'Ultra' that often don't even enable all features.
- Balanced Starting Points, Not Rigid Limits: Each level is carefully tuned to provide a balanced starting point, designed to let you experience the beauty of progressively added features without crippling your system by default. These are intelligent baselines, not the final word.
- Full Control Remains: The full power to fine-tune nearly every meaningful rendering control exposed by the engine remains at your fingertips within the Aperture Phototools Suite (APS). Use the levels as a base, then customize to your heart's content.
- Understanding "Candy" Levels: Higher 'Candy' levels primarily push settings known to impact performance significantly (e.g., texture resolutions for Shadows/Mirrors/Probes, rendering distances, LOD factors), rather than enabling fundamentally new core features.
🎨 (FEATURE) Comprehensive Custom Preset System: Create & Share Your "Look"! (118011fc7e)
Go far beyond the base graphics levels! Aperture's Save/Load Graphics Preset functionality transforms how you manage visual styles in Second Life. It captures all relevant graphics settings defined in graphic_preset_controls.xml, including the entire state of the revolutionary Post-Processing suite.
- True "Filter" Creation: For the first time, craft complete visual styles encompassing everything from core rendering settings to nuanced color grades and effects. Save these as presets.
- Instant Recall: Recall your signature looks instantly with a single click.
- Like Pro Photo Apps: This system brings a capability familiar to users of Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, or VSCO directly into SL – the power to define, save, and reuse distinct aesthetic filters.
- Sharing Potential: Opens the door to potentially sharing these complete visual styles with other Aperture users in the future.
- Manage your custom presets via the buttons in the Phototools 'Gen' tab o...
Version 0.10.0 - Hotfix Release & Upstream Merge
🚀 Aperture Viewer 0.10.0 – Critical Hotfix & Upstream Sync
We are releasing Aperture Viewer 0.10.0 today as a critical hotfix and upstream sync.
This release focuses on stabilizing the viewer with a temporary workaround for a serious inherited performance issue and integrates a substantial set of updates merged from the Firestorm and Second Life upstream codebases. While this important stability work clears the path forward, development continues full steam ahead on our next major feature release, which we're excited to bring to you soon!
Aperture Viewer remains focused on its core purpose: empowering visual creators through clarity, fidelity, and control. Even smaller releases like this one reflect that mission.
⚠️ Performance Hotfix – Critical Bug Workaround
During development, we discovered a serious performance bug originating in the upstream Firestorm codebase that Aperture is based on. This bug, not introduced by Aperture, could cause significant FPS loss (potentially halving expected FPS), especially after viewer restarts or when loading the texture cache.
While the issue exists upstream, we found it and patched it within Aperture Viewer to protect our users' experience. This release applies a temporary workaround developed by our team:
- The viewer now enables VSync and FPS Limiter at startup and prevents those settings from persisting across sessions.
- The LocalCacheVersion is also reset on each launch to ensure a clean cache rebuild.
These measures prevent the bug’s trigger conditions within Aperture, though they temporarily limit preference persistence. Fixing the root cause upstream is outside our scope, but this workaround ensures Aperture users are not impacted. A more permanent solution within Aperture's framework may be explored later.
🛠️ Aperture Fixes and Changes
- Fixed missing UI callback hooks in Phototools (previously harmless log warnings).
- Corrected a typo in the viewer loading message.
- Cleaned up internal rendering-code merge conflicts.
- Disabled the “Quick Stats” panel in Phototools to improve floater responsiveness.
- Removed legacy AVX2 checks in the Windows installer script.
🔁 Merged from Firestorm and Second Life (Highlights)
This release incorporates extensive upstream work:
- Firestorm Viewer (through commit
17dc04aa8a) - Second Life Viewer
release/2025.03branch
Key inherited improvements include crash fixes, PBR and GLTF updates, OpenSim enhancements, KDU 8.5, texture-handling refinements, UI tweaks, updated translations, and more.
📝 Note: A lot of upstream commits are included; see the Firestorm and SL changelogs for full context.
🔧 Platform Support and Installation
- ✅ Windows 64‑bit
- ✅ Second Life and OpenSim compatible
⚠️ Mac and Linux builds remain under evaluation
Download:
👉 Aperture Viewer 0.10.0
* SHA-256: c5eef869af72ecb56a96ebd7be2787b4374b54779caedbbbd58042067e7d7487
🔍 Transparency
Every commit and merge is publicly documented. You can always review our detailed change history or open an issue:
Thank you for your continued support. As always, we’re focused on making Aperture a reliable, powerful viewer for creators.
—
Aperture Viewer Team
Aperture Viewer 0.9.965 – First Public Beta (Pre-Release)
We are proud to introduce Aperture Viewer 0.9.965, the first public release of a viewer designed to bring new depth, control, and expressive potential to Second Life and OpenSim.
Aperture Viewer was created to push the boundaries of visual fidelity in virtual worlds and to give users—from casual residents to professional image makers—the tools they need to shape their environments with intention and clarity.
This release follows a period of private testing and refinement. While we are currently awaiting final review for official Third Party Viewer approval from Linden Lab, Aperture Viewer is stable, fully featured, and ready for daily use.
ℹ️ This release is marked as Pre-Release only to reflect its status in the Linden Lab application process. It is not experimental or incomplete. All features included have been thoroughly tested and are in active use.
🌌 Ethos and Vision
“Nothing Is Not Possible.”
This principle guides everything we do. Aperture Viewer exists to serve virtual creators, not limit them. We believe that every user should have access to meaningful, precise, and fully integrated visual tools—tools that treat lighting, tone, and motion not as background effects, but as core elements of self-expression.
Aperture is not a stripped-down viewer for creators. It is a full-featured viewer for everyone that happens to offer exceptional power for those who want to shape the virtual world with intention. We invite all users to explore Aperture, whether you’re here to take a single photograph or to live in high fidelity every day.
🚀 What’s in Version 0.9.965
This release includes:
- The complete Aperture Phototools Suite (APS) – a unified interface for controlling shadows, lighting, glow, color tone, animation speed, avatar visibility, and more.
- Dramatic upgrades to SSAO, shadow rendering, and camera control.
- Global switches for fullbright, animation speed, luminance weighting, and grayscale tone control.
- Brand-new UI themes (Nocturn, Phantom, Umbra, Dusk) designed for visibility and minimal visual noise.
- Substantial privacy improvements, removing web probes and external content calls.
- A leaner, faster viewer startup experience and modern performance defaults.
🔧 Platform Support and Installation
- ✅ Windows 64‑bit
- ✅ Second Life and OpenSim compatible
⚠️ Mac and Linux builds remain under evaluation
- Filename:
ApertureOS-Beta_AVX-0-9-65-77779_Setup.exe - Download Link: 👉 Aperture Viewer 0.9.65
- SHA-256 Checksum:
50a539821b12d5b2049cbb24d92f66d2cbee0535acba5cf66df24e7debe690c7
📜 Transparency and Change History
We believe users deserve full visibility into how a viewer is built and maintained.
All code changes made by the Aperture team—including modifications to the Firestorm codebase and, by extension, inherited code from Linden Lab’s viewer—are documented in our detailed commit messages.
🗂️ You can review every version’s change log here:
👉 Aperture Viewer – Change Log
Thank you for being part of this release. Aperture Viewer is a space for exploration, expression, and high-fidelity presence. We look forward to your experience and feedback.
—
Aperture Viewer Team