Ava Tab ‐ Avatar Settings - ApertureViewer/Aperture-Viewer GitHub Wiki

The Avatar Tab (labeled "Ava") in the Aperture Phototools Suite (APS) provides controls related to how your avatar and other avatars are rendered and displayed in the world.

Access: Click the "Ava" tab within the APS window.

[!NOTE] This tab currently has some empty space. Future development plans include adding significant new avatar-related functionality here.

Avatar Settings

These options allow you to customize various aspects of avatar appearance and behavior.

  • Show HUD Attachments:
    • Function: When checked, all Heads-Up Display (HUD) items attached to your avatar will be visible on your screen. Unchecking this hides them.
    • Purpose: Useful for temporarily decluttering your screen for photography or general viewing, or if a HUD is obscuring your view.
  • Show Avatar Particles:
    • Function: When checked, particle effects emitted from your avatar or its attachments (e.g., sparkles, smoke) will be rendered. Unchecking this hides such particles originating from avatars.
  • Show Attached Lights:
    • Function: When checked, light sources attached to avatars (e.g., facelights, scripted lights in accessories) will illuminate the scene. Unchecking this disables their light-casting effect.
  • Show Avatars:
    • Function: When checked, all avatars (including your own) are rendered in the scene. Unchecking this will make all avatars invisible.
    • Purpose: Can be extremely useful for landscape photography or machinima where you want an empty scene, or to improve performance in very crowded areas by temporarily hiding everyone.
  • Avatar Display:
    • Function: A combobox that determines how avatars are rendered based on their complexity and your relationship to them.
      • Limit by Complexity: Avatars exceeding the "Max Complx" setting below may be derendered or simplified (e.g., turned into an impostor/jellydoll).
      • Always Show Friends: Friends on your friends list will always be rendered fully, regardless of complexity settings (within reasonable performance limits of your system).
      • Only Show Friends: Only avatars on your friends list will be rendered; all other avatars will be hidden or heavily simplified.

[!NOTE] There have been user reports suggesting that even with "Limit by Complexity," some avatars might not render correctly even if their complexity is below the set limit. This is under review.

  • Max Complx (Maximum Complexity):
    • Function: A slider that sets the complexity limit above which avatars may be derendered or simplified if "Limit by Complexity" is the active Avatar Display mode. The text next to the slider dynamically updates to "No Limit" when the slider is at its maximum.
    • Purpose: Helps manage performance in crowded areas by reducing the rendering load from highly complex avatars.
    • Default Reset Button (D): While not explicitly shown with a 'D', the behavior of graphics presets will influence this.
  • Avatar Count:
    • Function: A slider and spinner to set the maximum number of nearby non-impostor (fully rendered) avatars. Avatars beyond this count and farther away might be rendered as impostors or not at all, depending on other settings.
    • Range: 0 to 66.
    • Default Reset Button (D): Resets to the value defined by the current Aperture Graphics Preset.
  • Avatar Phys (Avatar Physics LOD Factor):
    • Function: A slider and spinner to adjust the Level of Detail (LOD) factor for avatar physics calculations (e.g., for flexible prims like hair or skirts that react to movement). Lower values might simplify physics for performance; higher values aim for more detailed physics.
    • Range: 0.0 to 5.0.
    • Default Reset Button (D): Resets to the value defined by the current Aperture Graphics Preset.
  • Anim Speed (Animation Speed):
    • Function: An exclusive Aperture Viewer control that acts as a global multiplier for the playback speed of all avatar animations.
    • 1.0 is normal speed.
    • 0.0 effectively freezes all avatar animations.
    • Values between 0.0 and 1.0 create slow-motion effects.
    • Values above 1.0 speed up animations.
    • Range: 0.0 to 5.0 (slider optimized; spinner allows higher).
    • Default Reset Button (D): Resets to 1.0.

[!TIP] This is extremely useful for photography to freeze an avatar in a specific pose during an animation, or for machinima to create slow-motion or fast-motion effects. This setting resets to 1.0 when you change global Aperture Graphics Presets to prevent users from being stuck in a non-standard animation speed.

  • Hvr Height (Hover Height):
    • Function: Adjusts your avatar's vertical offset from the ground plane, effectively making your avatar hover slightly higher or lower.
    • Range: -0.2 to 0.2 meters.
    • Default Reset Button (D): Resets to 0.0.
  • Force Appearance Update (Rebake):
    • Function: A button that triggers a full rebake of your avatar's appearance textures.
    • Purpose: Can resolve common appearance issues such as blurry textures, clothing layers not loading correctly, or other texture-related glitches on your avatar.

[!NOTE] The "Name Tag Display" option, which controls how avatar name tags are shown, is planned to be moved to this Avatar tab in a future update for better logical organization. Currently, it resides on the General (Gen) tab.