Two Viewers, One Grid — What's New with WolfViewer and WolfStorm

Wolf Territories Grid has two fully-functional 3D viewers, each serving a different need. Over the past couple of months we have been working hard on both — and there are some meaningful updates worth sharing. Let us walk you through what is new, why it matters, and where things are headed.

The Big Shift: WolfStorm Comes First

For a while now we have been gradually promoting our browser-based viewer, WolfStorm, as the first option anyone lands on — whether they are signing up for an avatar or browsing the download pages. This was not accidental. We want anyone who clicks into Wolf Territories to be in-world in under a minute, no download, no installer, no admin rights required.

Everything that points at a viewer now leads with WolfStorm: the home page, the "Get a Viewer" comparison page, the signup success screen, and even the onboarding flow. Firestorm is still available for those who need it — it remains our fallback for heavy building sessions or very dense regions — but the default path has changed.

What WolfStorm Is Today

WolfStorm is a full 3D viewer that runs inside your browser tab. It was written from scratch in JavaScript and WebGL, speaks the same protocol as a desktop viewer, and shares the same world, inventory, chat, and voice channels as everyone else on the grid. The feature set has grown well beyond its original scope:

- Full chat (local, instant message, group) and spatial voice

- Your avatar — mesh bodies, attachments, animation overrides, outfits

- Complete inventory browsing, searching, rez and organisation

- Building tools with prims, linksets, and the full LSL script editor

- Map navigation, landmarks, double-click teleport

- Media on prims, shared media, audio streams

- Screen sharing onto in-world surfaces

The one thing that is still rough is VR. WolfStorm can render to a WebXR headset and it works, but performance is well short of where we want it. It is in active development — treat it as something to try, not something to rely on. We would rather tell you that than have you discover it.

WolfViewer — Now with macOS

The desktop viewer just got a new release: WolfViewer 7.2.4-w2. This is the second point update in the 7.2.4 series, built on top of Firestorm 7.2.4 and verified against the OpenSimulator grid protocol.

What's New

The headline addition is the first official macOS disk image (DMG). Until now, WolfViewer had been available for Windows and Linux — macOS users had to find their own path in. The new DMG joins the existing Windows installer and Linux tarball, all downloading from the same place: https://wolf-grid.com/downloads/wolfviewer/

Beyond that, this release carries everything we have been refining since the last point update — and before that, the entire 7.2.4 series. The WolfViewer experience is built on top of the Firestorm base and adds a substantial layer of grid-specific enhancements on top:

Interface & Look

WolfGlass skin — our dark slate and lime interface, with translucent floaters, matching wolf-grid.com's visual identity rather than the stock Firestorm chrome.

Transporter teleport effect — instead of the standard loading screen, you get a shower of light around your avatar as it arrives at its destination. Subtle but delightful.

Analogue movement joysticks — a mouse or touch knob that follows your pointer. Push further to move faster. Much more natural than the binary WASD toggle.

Water & Terrain

These are some of the biggest visual differentiators between WolfViewer and the stock Firestorm:

- Real waves on water — waves rendered as actual geometry, not a flat plane with normal maps tricking your eyes

- Spectral wind sea (FFT) — GPU-computed wind waves and whitecaps every frame

- Shore-aware water — breakers steepen at the shore; rivers and harbours stay calm

- Natural water — streams follow the terrain's drainage lines and pool in hollows

- Underwater effects — Snell's window, sunlight shafts and caustics on the sea floor

- Boat wash and wake — propeller wash, Kelvin V-bow churn stamped into the water surface

- Enhanced terrain — per-pixel composition, snow in high hollows, triplanar cliffs

Wolf Territories Grid has some of the most beautiful natural regions in any OpenSim world. The water and terrain work in WolfViewer does a better job of letting them shine through.

Voice & Chat

WolfVoice positional voice — WebRTC positional audio fixed at startup for OpenSim. You hear people where they stand, just like in-world. No configuration required.

Built-in chat translator — incoming and outgoing chat translated automatically. No API key needed, no subscription.

Music stream titles and cover art — song titles and album art show up in the viewer when listening to streams (opt-in). The same music you hear through WolfVoice is now visible in-world for everyone nearby.

Map & Navigation

3D terrain mini-map — the default map view is now a full 3D model of the terrain, orbitable and zoomable. Double-click anywhere on it to teleport there.

Pre-set to Wolf Territories Grid — log straight in. No grid address to paste, no manual configuration.

Always on the current build — refresh to get updates. No download manager required, no version mismatch anxiety.

A Note on Windows 10 and Later

WolfViewer now requires Windows 10 or later. We have received reports of crashes with the message "entry point CreateFile2 not found in KERNEL32.dll" when running on Windows 7 — the underlying OpenSim libraries we depend on no longer support it. If you are still on Windows 7, that is a good nudge to upgrade if at all possible.

Where We Are Headed

WolfStorm: More VR, Less Load

We are pushing harder on WolfStorm's WebXR support because the browser path should be every bit as capable as the desktop one — even if performance in VR is not quite there yet. We want to get to a point where someone can put on a headset and have just as good an experience as they would in WolfViewer.

We are also working on reducing the initial load time. The viewer is written in pure JavaScript, which is powerful but means everything has to be fetched and compiled before anything renders. Caching improvements and better code splitting are on the way.

WolfViewer: Closer to OpenSim Parity

WolfViewer already talks to the grid at protocol level, but we are continuing to refine how it handles newer OpenSimulator features as they roll out — especially around avatar appearance (new PBR material pipelines), shared media improvements, and the evolving region-to-region teleport protocols. We want WolfViewer to be first-class for anyone running an OpenSim world, not just a good-enough option for this grid.

Which Viewer Should You Use?

Honestly: whichever is nearer to hand. Both speak to the same grid, share the same voice system, and put you in the same world. People on the grid use both interchangeably depending on what they are doing.

Pick WolfStorm when:

- You want in right now with no install

- You are on a machine where you cannot install software (schools, libraries, borrowed laptops)

- You are showing the grid to someone for the first time

- You are teaching and everyone needs to be in-world simultaneously

Pick WolfViewer when:

- You are doing heavy building or long content sessions

- You want every advanced preference and RLV feature

- You are pushing very dense regions and want maximum frame rate

- You prefer a native application with keyboard shortcuts you know by heart

Either way, welcome to the grid. If you have not got an avatar yet — that is free too. The Welcome Mountain awaits, and there is always a Peacekeeper nearby to help.

Stay tuned. Both viewers get updates regularly, and we will keep posting here as new features land.