Allegory Malaprop

Adventures in Exporting

2011-12-30T14:53:00.000-08:00

This is a run down of my personal glitches with the collada exporters in Blender. Your builds may not have the same problems, but I had to stumble around in the dark to find the ways around mine, so if these issues are plaguing you too, might be worth a try. This is not telling you how to export in Blender, or how to use Blender, it assumes you know that already- just that you are having these particular export glitches when doing it.

I primarily use Blender 2.49 (an old Jass build, that's long since not been available for download. It's comfortable for me, it predates Primstar, and it doesn't have some of the other glitches/intentional refusing to do what I want that was introduced that messed up my workflow). I haven't really jumped on the 2.5 bandwagon much yet, 2.49 does what I want, how I want it, and I haven't spent the time to find the way to work around 2.5 (just trying to cam around in it irks me with the new settings, and I haven't spent the time to get used to it or change it!)

Around half the time, exporting with the collada 1.4 exporter works just fine. The other half...it randomly divides out a few faces and assigns them to new texture space (the closest to tracking down any reason behind which faces it chooses I've come to is that sometimes, but only sometimes, when I merge edges, it glitches some of the faces to one side into a new texture space). This is NOT visible in Blender- it assigns texture faces just as you would expect, you only find out when uploading the collada and either the uploader fails because your models do not all have the same texture faces (or have too many- also note that you actually have to have all the _same_ textures assigned, not just the same number as well- or at least I do!), or you get it uploaded and find out you've got some straggler faces sprinkled around here and there that have a different texture face.

I've tried all sorts of ridiculous and time consuming experimentation with trying to track those down, fix them, replaced my collada exporting scripts with new versions, all to no avail. Finally I found one thing that actually fixed it: opening that blend file in Blender 2.5, and exporting in there.

BUT. The collada exporter in Blender 2.5 is twitchier. You MUST always make sure to tick the "export only selected" box in the file popup or it will export your entire blender scene with all pages in one piece (with my workflow, extra pages have the other LODs and collision and in progress working bits, so it's an enormous mess). ADDITIONALLY. IT ONLY SOMETIMES DOES NOT EXPORT THE UNSELECTED THINGS ANYWAY. This last go round, it would export around half of the rest of the stuff that had nothing to do with what I wanted to export, even though it wasn't selected! It was a consistent half, but it was not a helpful half.

So, time for making a copy of your blend file so you don't save over and lose everything. Open that in Blender 2.5. Delete everything on ALL the other pages. Delete everything you DO NOT NEED on the page with what you want to export. IF YOU ARE EXPORTING RIGGED MESH, DO NOT DELETE THE SKELETON. It needs that for the skeleton data. The body you're building around? All that can go, but not the skeleton itself. (And make sure it's the right skeleton if you've duplicated things for alternate working versions, of course.)

Last note: current version of the SL mesh uploader seems to require the collision object to have the same number of texture faces (and the same textures!) assigned as the LODs. Previous versions of the uploader did not, future versions may not again. There is no reason for collision to require textures assigned, and there is no helpful red error message, the button to calculate and upload just silently disables itself.

Drowsy

2011-05-21T17:09:00.001-07:00

Drowsy has been closed for a while, while they remodel. I'm always a bit sad when that happens to a good sim- often it's great, but it still means all those places that I used to love are gone. For now, Drowsy has just a little bit open, high in the sky, while they work below.

The island in the sky hasn't quite escaped the wolves, but there are far fewer wolves lurking around, and quite a few more cats!

Bits and pieces of the sim below have collected together in shards, the clocktower, the library, the swings from the playground, all collapsed together in a small space.

Only BP* and Kurotsubaki have reopened in the sky, with their signature beautiful little bits and pieces, tucked here and there around the library and the rest of the island.

There's a room with a projector and mementos of previous festivals, ephemeral memories of Drowsy past.

Visit Drowsy.

2.0 jiras

2010-02-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

List as of 2/28.

This is not every single jira relating to 2.0. I have weeded out some (all the language ones, for a start!) I'm including a mixed bag- some I have kept are badly worded, but good issues at the heart. Some are issues that I am in fact NOT voting on, but I can see how they would appeal to some people. Some I have not seen for myself as I do not use said features (like Voice), or cannot reproduce due to not using the system combination in question. Many do not really cover the whole issue, but are at least a start. I urge you to read up on the issues and make an informed choice of what you want to see fixed/added.

I WILL be adding more, and dividing them up into categories, until I run out of steam- they will be added to the end of the category for new additions.

SERVER SIDE:
No notifications when someone accepts inventory offers

SECURITY ISSUES:
Ability to copy UUIDs on NOT full perm assets
Automatic acceptance of inventory
HTML on a prim: IP and UUID security issues

GENERAL USABILITY:
Skins so we aren't limited to the harder to read light text on dark
Text too small, contrast, font options
Text too small, bold options
Again, readability issues

PERSISTENCE ISSUES:
Parent persistence catchall- appear to NOT include a few issues
RenderVolumeLODFactor sometimes reverts to default on relog
Ruthing issues

SNAPSHOTS:
Snapshot bugs, parent catchall Note: this parent issue is NOT viewer specific, there is a lot relating to many viewer versions
Hi rez snapshots broken
Hi rez snapshots broken
Hi rez snapshots broken- plus glow
Hi rez snapshots broken- INCLUDES TEMPORARY WORKAROUND OF UNTICKING RESTRAIN PROPORTIONS (and this is why it pays to slog through the jira- not only do you find issues to try to get them fixed, but sometimes people have found workarounds until they ARE fixed)

HOVERTIPS:
Bring back hovertip info
Hover has no context on how the object interacts- Touch/Sit/Buy/etc.

SIDEBAR:
Parent catchall for sidebar issues- this links to individual behavior issues
including: Americans with Disabilities Act violations, camera movement, HUDs getting messed up, sizing issues, undocking items
Only one Profile visible at once under current sidebar
Similar single Profile issue
Profile images are not the same ratio across Profile and Search
Missing Interests (Language!) in Profile
Proposed fix to many sidebar issues:pop out everything!
Group notices and Inventory occupying same space- added 3/1

INVENTORY:
Object properties difficult to use- can only edit one at a time due to side menu restrictions.
Request for easier renaming, following Windows convention

CHAT:
Object chat behavior broken
Make the chatbar go all the way across unused space
Chat popups too fast
Chat bar focus issue
Chat popups too fast- seizure and migraine issues
Ctrl-T shortcut to minimize chat removed
No minimizing chat at all
Popups too fast to join group without having to reopen
Visibility of popups, again

CONTEXTUAL MENU:
Build missing
General size and order issues
Useful and intended default functions like Sit/Buy/Pay buried low in menu

TOP BAR:
No build/script/fly/etc. icons on by default
Coords on by default

SEARCH:
Easy way to see what Events are on right now request
Search efficiency issues
Partial names no longer return results
Missing coordinates on Search results: harder to find things

MAP:
Coords not on Map view

NOTECARDS:
No Discard button

CLOTHING LAYERS:
Tattoo layer doesn't have tinting ability all other layers have
Drag and Drop broken on some parts of new layers (Note: appears to also effect the Upper/Lower bodies on the Tattoo Layer in my testing)

SCRIPTS:
Set Running progress window missing

MEDIA:
Flash not working for some users

VOICE:
No way to tell active/inactive speakers
Voice not connecting period

ALPHA ISSUES:
Unable to Pay object with transparant texture
Alphas on HUDs getting in way of interaction

ASSORTED BUGS:
Play and Pause buttons reversed
Group Role Abilities not applying correctly
Perfomance degradation on some systems
Sculpt loading issues
Cannot create clothing in appearance (Note: I've also experienced some wonky Save As issues with items saving OVER the current as well as Save As. I have not tested fully to report a jira, and if this is a problem for more than me there will eventually be a jira for it so I haven't started one up, yet)
Antialising won't turn on until you relog
Chatlogs saving in random places
Parcel media not restarting under after relogging
Standing from sitting makes you fly
Grid options not applying to Y immediately
Selection working strange (for me, this is but one part of how selection is working strange, but the rest may be related)
Prims not rendering randomly

Key binding request (Note: this is not the first time this issue has come up, but why not add it in now when it's easy?)

2.0 interface

2010-02-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

This is all, obviously, personal opinion. I encourage you to develop your OWN opinions about what is right and what is wrong, and jira accordingly. Some of this will probably never make it to jira, or if they do, be totally ignored (limitations of the side tabbed thing, which I'm sure they're all chuffed about and won't be able to admit limitations). This is open letter no one of any import will read, as well as a personal reasoning through the reasons behind the knee-jerk annoyance. Plus! Maybe you found some of these preferences that I haven't found groping around in the dark yet to fix some of this!

Herein being a random smattering of things that hit me, edited periodically with more and for clarity. I'm harsh, I'm blunt, I'm not writing this as a true appeal, this is a recording of thoughts. I am talking about interface here, not features- they are not all the same thing. Alpha masking, the extra layer, HTML on a prim? Nothing to do with the interface, we just got them at the same time because there was a feature freeze until this interface was ready. They are the cherry on top to make you like the rest of it, which isn't a bad way to lure people to learn the new way, but that's what it is, they are not integral to the new interface, at all. That said, the UI for HTML on a prim? Bravo. Good solid intuitive focus changes behavior of tools to what you expect when you're doing the equivalent with tabbing out. It's intuitive to get in and out, to browse, when what shows where so you know what's happening (like the top bar- the way it goes in and out dependent on what it thinks you want...and it guesses WELL), degrading gracefully to texture on older viewers, everything is perfect (to me). I haven't seen a single thing I would want changed (other than bugfixing some issues of people not being able to see certain things even in 2.0). Still, this interface has nothing to do with the interface of the viewer as a while.

Stability is HUGELY improved for me in this version. I can do whizbang stuff that crashed me hard previously. I haven't crashed yet once, period. I lag significantly less. Backend here, they've done some seriously good work. This is THE most solid viewer I've used, hands down, since WL went live (weird funfact? The First Look WL viewer was a very good viewer for me, the day it went live everything tanked). That is ALSO not interface.

Interfaces are HARD. They really are. You take them for granted using them, but developing a successful interface is really really difficult. There are a lot of things you need to juggle- making things familiar enough that using the interface comes naturally (i.e. basing interface on existing things with somewhat similar function- look at how many MMO's have copied WoW's interface to a large degree, WoW itself being based on things that came before it, etc.), making them different and exciting enough to not be boring and add new functionality (just directly copying an existing interface is bad from a lot of viewpoints), finding ways to "fix" previous interface mistakes because even the best interfaces have room for improvement, working ergonomically and being intuitive to a huge diverse subset who are all coming at it from different directions with different desires- which just becomes more and more of a problem when you've got something that does a lot. You're also prone to fall in love with your interface and be blind to its faults. Even when it's a team, and there are focus groups and feedback, it's very common to ignore concerns because you want to do it THIS way. An interface this complicated, that has so many hurdles to overcome, that no one yet has done truly right? That is really REALLY hard. But there are problems inherent in this, from very basic tenants, and that's an issue. (Now, if I believed they were this devious and thought ahead, I'd think that 2.01 was the REAL interface, and this was to shake us up enough to accept it, something that has some of the aspects of this but excludes a lot of the more radical and hard to deal with parts.)

My problem with any new interface is twofold- 1) I've been using the previous one and know my way around. This presents serious problems in any interface overhaul, the learning curve to the new is always a frustrating experience, even if it is 100% better (take Blender. Please. Er, I mean, look at Blender- it's got a clusterfuck of an interface, but once you find your way around it starts making sense. Almost anything would be an improvement, and yet, anything would cause a lot of stress in anyone who actually knows what they're doing because they know how to do it the hard way, and the easy way isn't obvious until they learn it). The aim here is new players, who are not familiar with this system in any manner. I'm not sure they've succeeded in a lot of what they were attempting, in part because they've gotten hung up in what's "slick", as well as using things for interface basis that doesn't necessarily carry over because we've got a lot more functionality, and things needing to be used across and at the same time (for instance, I go to _another interface_, my desktop, to drag and drop an image over a trillian window to offer an image the easy way. We've got drag and drop here, but we've got the place you drag from and the place you drop to, occupying the same space at the same time, which makes it impossible without breaking away from the _default_- that's an interface fail, if I have to find a way to make your system work in an unusual way to do simple tasks). 2) I'm not their test case, even as a noob- day 1, after groping my way out of Orientation Island, I started making a fishnet shirt. Literally, the first DAY in SL I started the process of making things. As the new interface is designed, creation tools are "out of the way" so as to "not confuse" the new player. That would have frustrated the crap out of me. I've always been interested in a 3d chat program far less than a 3d immersive world that I can create.

I'm trying to put aside BOTH of those biases to evaluate this and its usefulness to everyone. I may not always succeed.

The whole side menu thing: Herein we're going for style over function. It's "slick", it's gimmicky. It serves as a one window holds everything which is an interface trick that I'm never fond of, and usually falls flat on its face because it's confusing, and requires a one size fits none sizing scheme. Some, but not ALL, of the things stored there seem to have tear aways (new window inventory still hangs on my computer, and will probably crash me if I try to do it after being logged for a while, which is why it's a function I ceased using in previous viewers- in fact, so far inventory is the ONLY thing I've been able to tear away, I want to have the option for every. single. thing. Flexibility in interfacing is a GOOD thing). Inventory AND everything you want to drop things into FROM Inventory in the same space (Profiles, Group Notices...)...right there you're forcing people to find ways around the default. There's the "mini tab" with profiles, but this still requires more clicking through (ergonomics fail), but Group Notices just generally seem to say "well, we failed here by the default scheme, find the way around it!" That is not good interfacing. They've also generally introduced more action required to do a lot of tasks- the side tab is a big reason that's necessary, and that is also never good in interfacing- you want quick, easy, ergonomic design, not clunky. They're following the web interface linear click this to this model- but I thought even IE had tabbed browsing now? Not that I have used IE for anything but testing for....a very long time (that period when Netscape went the way of the dodo, before the rise of Firefox, those dark and dismal years), but I think that's been added to the feature list, and I've been using it on Firefox since it started. Prior to that, I opened a mess of windows at once. This moment, I have more than 20 sites open (yeah, I may have a problem), and tabs make for easy navigation back and forth, multiple windows wasn't bad either, I'd minimize what I wasn't looking at at the moment and grab new from the list. I do not browse linearly, and with the rise of tabs, I think it's pretty obvious I'm not the only one. I still open new windows at times when I want to see two at once instead of the tabbed thing. Yeah, we've got side tabs, but I want to have multiple of the same things open at once: profiles, groups, group notices, the list goes on. The popping out and recentering camera is understandable with the way this works BUT makes one queasy. Can I get used to it? Yeah, I can. There are people with disabilities who have serious problems with it, so even if I can, that's not the issue. That's a very serious issue regarding this choice, period- and it's a larger interfacing issue that's a very basic thing for anyone who knows anything about interfaces. Plus trying to scale it if you need to increase the size of the text in places is absolutely atrocious. Pros: you know where to look for (almost) everything.

On the absolute opposite side: defaulting chat to _un_ tabbed, so that's a huge clutter spread across everywhere. That has a setting, but I can't think of an IM client I've installed for years that didn't default to tabbed and let you tear away, instead of starting off the other direction (they also all had easy ways to merge tabs by dragging and dropping them over each other, not having to find a setting. I keep trying to merge chat windows and they just won't drop in). (Disclosure: I've never downloaded a straight AIM client, all my AIM has always been in a multi system IM client, so I don't know how AIM does it.) New users will be left tearing their hair out if they try to talk to more than one person at a time- power users won't have a problem to adapt, they will find the settings, but they're also trying to make new users have a better experience. Additionally, world chat can't be collapsed into that, so I'm still stuck with an extra window I would rather have the _option_ to be able to collapse into one, even if I _chose_ to expand it into multiples. Again: flexibility and the option for the user to alter the interface to suit them, and not being forced to conform to an interface that's awkward to them, is key, especially when it can be so easily managed. The user has to adapt, but the interface should make adapting EASY, and as flexible as possible.

I'm of 2 minds of the way popups are handled. Out of the way and non intrusive when I'm doing something else? Awesome. Super easy to miss entirely? Less awesome. Small icons in the corner of screen are an indicator, but not much of one. Lots of notices will go unread, lots of IMs will be accidentally ignored. That's a hard hard thing to find the sweet spot for though, the fine line between too intrusive and too subtle. All in all, this is probably a reasonable choice as is. The popup duration itself may bear more investigation. I don't have a problem with it. Other people DO have legitimate problems with it. I read fast and I don't have a history of seizures- those that differ from me in these respects have valid points. Have a setting for duration and you can get by all of those issues AND please everyone.

Inventory:
No contextual icons for "system" folders...now, icons can be cumbersome and cluttered, but I can't even tell the Trash at a glance? Tack on icons were easy indicator "you can't delete this folder". Ease of interface, no. I'm hoping this is just a "we're not done yet" because it's random and weird to exclude when everything else has new icon art (and they understood the concept in the previous viewers).

There's an inconsistent "sticky" inability to scroll past what item in inventory that's selected that is not useful. Not only because it's completely inconsistent and pops up when it pleases, but also if I tell you to scroll...I want you to SCROLL. This is consistent across most interfaces we are familiar with, and popping me back up is annoying and bothersome. Most let you keep selected off screen and only pop back when you move your arrow keys to select a neighbor- not just lock out the ability to scroll entirely. (This popped up a lot. It's a minor issue. It's also a stupid issue.) Because I've seen it happen sometimes and not others, I don't even know what is as intended and what's the bug functionality, or if there's context in the working/not that isn't readily apparent to me. I can find ways around it. Other users can find ways around it if they don't just simply get frustrated and say "fuck this" and leave SL before even starting. However, there is no apparent advantage to breaking from tradition in other interfaces- so interface fail.

Inability to edit properties on multiple items at once. This...has always been tedious and badly done (I should be able to batch set perms in inventory, always- the alternative of having to change settings, close window, change settings, close window, is tedious but less tedious than having to change settings, optionally go back if you haven't torn off a new inventory window, choose new item and right click to go into properties, etc.- a lot more work than click click ctrl-W. Of course the flip side to the problem the old way is that sometimes I want to change properties, sometimes I want to double click ctrl-V ctrl-W when batch renaming- still easier than this, but a speedbump to batch perms. Which is also tedious and a pain in the ass and there are easier ways but they are rarely used anywhere so I understand SL not trailblazing here, though it would be nice), but to remove it entirely...not so awesome.

Related: double click pulling up Properties. This is counter to just about every interface we use. Look at your desktop, cluttered with icons of various sorts (or if you're not a desktop slob like me, look in a folder). What happens when you double click any of those things? Why, they do their task. I get to see that image, read that text file, listen to that music, browse that website. Properties/File Info have always been just a right click away (or an apple-I/flipper click away in my beloved Mac of a decade plus ago. I still miss apple-I), but you need that LESS than you need them to do their purpose: in inventory, that means wear that stuff! With the rise of double click to take off as well in alt viewers, I'd say that should also be included: it's obvious, it's easy, it's intuitive. Even though they are not always worn, it's actually even MORE imperative for the new user with Objects- prim hair, shoes, skirts, etc. will be confusing to a new user when they can't figure out how to put them ON. Notecards: read that notecard! Script: read that script! Landmark: oh shiny crap I didn't mean to TP in my underwear! (Not their fault I think about About Landmark instead, that is the way it should be done. As for finger slippage, it happens with any interface.) We're looking at new user experience here: how often do you NEED to go into Properties unless you're building something to give away/sell? Changing clothing? WAY more useful, especially to new users. And it's just a right click away, just like on your desktop, when you need it. I'd love to see a similar renaming ability (i.e. you don't have to right click, select, pause, select to rename, or some combo of hover and select) as that _is_ a bit tedious, but I hardly ever rename there anyway (I go into Properties....which adds to the blow-age of only being able to do one at a time that steals focus from what else you were doing). Generally: the old way of inventory management did a lot more obviously, more intuitively, and more what everyone, even a new user would expect- and there are a lot of changes made just to change, with no redeeming features at all I can find.

Tabs no longer respond on drag: I'm torn on this. Doing it accidentally is annoying as sin, but this is a very obvious and common way of doing things (other interfaces use this a lot- and consistency is good to follow in interfacing unless you have a very good reason not to) and does have drag and drop advantages. (To illustrate what I'm talking about, Edit an object, grab a texture in inventory, whole holding it drag it over the Texture tab to go into Texture to be able to drop it in the correct place. Pre 2.0- this would pop into Texture for you so you could change tabs on the fly. In 2.0 it does nothing.)

Notecard links (like images) are too long. Across the entire line means it's easier to accidentally click. This is not a big gripe, but this is a "this is confusing for people and a simple little choice that should have been made the other way." This is also a very common interface snafu that slips by (accidentally or intentionally) and people often complain about it. Sometimes it gets changed, sometimes it's left as is. Landmarks in notecards seem to have some sticky issues with triggering, I'm guessing/hoping that's a "beta" thing, not as intended. Everything going straight to inventory (like LMs), no having to choose to copy over, will mean a HUGE amount of inventory clutter. Which also is an issue with no Discard button on things- I read notices, check out what I want, and Discard so I don't keep them- now I've got a bunch of notecards I need to keep going back and nuking.

And where did my About Landmap, view on Map, copy slurl to Clipboard go? I like not having to haul ass all over creation (in my underwear) to be able to make slurls. Or have to build them on my own. New user unfriendly. Old user additional unnecessary tedium.

Map coordinates! PLEASE! Why can't I enter in my coords on Map, there's even the empty space for it right there? I NEED my z. I go from 1300 one place, to 50 another, to 1100 another, to 30 another, etc. Flying the whole way is tedious when I can just GO straight there. Yeah, I can go, THEN type in new z in top coords. But...why? I don't need to double teleport constantly. Why not just have it in Map where it makes sense? I can't find a setting to reenable anywhere, if we think new users will be scared of all those nummmmmmbers.

I rather love the multipurpose top bar (which hid my coords until I found out it did stuff- as well as hiding land icons which make more sense to be on by default than off so you know damage/no build/no script/etc.) for the most part. It's something that I thought the OnRez viewer did really really right. However, the multipurpose search next to it (that they also did), is less cool. Bring back a search button. I'm ALL for having both- top bar quicksearch is like my google bar. It's awesome convenience. Search button that opens search window (like, going to google.com) gives more straight up targeted searching, which is ALSO good, so both would be nice. Search in SL is already tedious and somewhat awful, making it more restrictive makes things harder, not easier. You know how interfaces are hard? Good search algorithms are also hard. I'll cut you some slack, though you've still got to integrate basic basic search interface features that should have been there from the start. In practice though, there is a HUGE step backwards in how search functions as well, that actually makes it HARDER to find things now.

Images...I really really love the aspect ratio dropdown in the bottom corner. But why, oh why, can't you open it by default to the ratio of the actual texture? You already do that in previous viewers! It's easy! I could change it if necessary, but the, what is that, 3:2?, default is silly. Nothing is that size natively, nothing. You even made profile square (finally! Though that's going to be a long period of everyone's profiles looking like crap in one or the other). Though...and here's the huge issue: INCONSISTENTLY. Now you can see the same image in multiple places, with different aspect ratios (Search vs. actual Profile). This means you can NEVER EVER have a profile image that actually works across everything- huge, and I do mean HUGE, mistake. Pick one and stick with it everywhere, period. That just speaks of utter carelessness, and not giving a damn. More parts of profile at a glance, like 2nd and 1st lives? I'm all for. Or more accurately I don't care either way, people should have always been filling out their profiles like anyone could be looking through all of it...because they could be. Maybe this will be a "hey, don't put shit in 1st life you don't want people to see" reminder. We've lost some info as well, or appear to have at least- the Interests tab, while most of the info was potentially interesting if they filled it out and you wanted to know if they were a builder or not, also held LANGUAGE, which is a huge thing. Huge. Have you forgotten we are multicultural and don't all speak English? (Maybe you have. God knows the jira is full of very careless fuckups on alternate language versions of the viewer. Lots and lots of typos and stupid little mistakes that never should have made it this far, because you should have had actual decent translators working with you on this. Again: going public with this degree of careless mistake, even in a Beta, makes you look bad and like you don't give a fuck. A few things slipping through? Fine. Pages and pages of jira entries just on language screwups? Should have been fixed in internal Alpha.)

Context menus: A-fucking-MEN getting rid of the pie menu, but these need to be scalable without scaling everything (the sidebar scales horribly: the context menus, however, start out on the small side by default). I'm sure most of the people reading loved it- it's not intuitive. It's limiting and you either have wasted space or need to divide into new pages for no good reason (see: the problems with the side tab, you've replaced one one size fits none with another). The plus side to the pie menu is that you don't have strenuous order enforced, so contextually you don't have to decide on a good order for "Sit" and "Edit" (and all the rest of the stuff that's in a bad order in the contextual menus), and nice _large_ trigger spaces make things easier- especially with the aforementioned scales horribly. Unfortunately the contextual menu's advantages are offset by options in the Context menu being an an order that I can't see making sense to ANYONE, and the entire "Remove" menu is just plain in backwards order. Accidental ARs for everything, hoo ray! The actual order of options now makes a HUGE difference, as you are saying "this is more important than this." (And apparently we don't actually want you sitting on chairs any more, let's discourage interactivity!) Most of the menus I would juggle order, and even coming at it from a not-builder I'd still be juggling the order of most of them. So far the groupings have been great though, just badly ordered. Generally all the menus are...weird and some following in the footsteps of some interfaces that were later scrapped in some cases, but they've actually pretty well organized for all that they've spread things out. As someone who runs with Advanced options all the time I like the easy link to the _second_ Advanced menu at the bottom of the first, having a menu option (in Help maybe?) to the first as well, instead of just relying on hotkeys, would be a really good idea. Maybe you haven't noticed, but people access Advanced a LOT- especially unhobbling certain features (like RenderVolumeLODFactor)- even people who aren't exceptionally well versed learn how to get into those options because the default is just plain too low. Upload in Inventory threw me for a loop initially, but it actually makes very solid sense since that's where you're uploading _to_- that's very much a user of previous system bias.

User list: why oh why have you hidden who can see me online/map me/mod my stuff/whose stuff I can mod? You've got ACRES of space there to continue it across like current because you're in the huger than necessary side tab. It's harder to accidentally turn on, yes, but you always had warnings- and now it's very very hard to get a feel for who still has mod on your stuff following a project, and that slipping and THAT causing problems (you had a falling out with your best friend and you forget to take that off? WHOOPS). Going into stealth mode for a few hours so you aren't pestered by IMs while working (bravo to the Busy and Away easily accessible, btw- but those are not always enough, sometimes just not appearing online is better) just became a LOT more complicated/tedious/pain in the ass, as well as a lot easier to miss turning it all back ON visible (yeah, not a fan of Emerald letting you know if someone has you invisible for that reason: it may not be permanent. It may be "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck I have too much to do if anyone talks to me I'm going to SCREAM"). I now have to go through a complex process just to see what people are set to to remind myself. Info at a glance: good. Hiding things: bad.

Tooltips: why have you forsaken me? Not only can I not find settings ANYWHERE (on all is good sometimes, trust me), but only item name? This is really REALLY bad. Especially for new players- they NEED to be able to see the price of things at a glance (we ALL DO). Tooltips need to have name, description (because there's often useful info when it is set- a LOT of Pay vendors put the price there so you can see it without opening up Pay, and it's a really good idea so you have an idea what something costs at a glance), PRICE, and owner. These are necessary. Not in a separate popup, but in hover, so you can see things at a glance. Having to click through to find out necessary info loses sales in a world driven by commerce, not to mention all the other problems it creates, ESPECIALLY for new users. And don't truncate that because you don't feel like putting it all in, either. Don't throw the baby away with the bathwater just because you want a change.

The Worn tab: now, I get that with virtual links and junk that worn works differently now, so I can understand this choice....but not being able to see the folder the ACTUAL items I am wearing are in is really kinda...not so cool. Worn tab in alt viewers is great because I can put the rest of my boots back on after taking the uppers off for pants, without trying to hunt for where I put the damn things- or any other other parts of the same folder/area, it's both good for easy reference of "oh right! That's where I filed that!" and Attach All in a folder when I know there are just the other bits I want to wear at the same time. This is a minor annoyance, but it does make this Worn tab less useful than the Worn tab in everything previous.

Colour scheme: This...is...Interface 101. I saw previews of 2 additional alternate skins on a blog a while back in addition to this one. I'm rather shocked I can't find an easy way to flip back and forth now (did we learn NOTHING from Dazzle?) Both of the alternates were dark text on light. Anyone who knows anything whatsoever about interfaces knows this simple fact: dark text on light is significantly more readable than light text on dark. Light on dark is cool, it's pretty, it's slick for the gamers and the kids with good eyes, it's something you see on games and blogs that don't actually care. SL is not targeted exclusively to that group- in fact, SL is only vaguely targeted at it period (for reasons including SL being a joke in the gaming community due to engine, prims instead of meshes, and a lot of other things they've been trying to do something about like, oh, WL and shadows. It'll NEVER be a real gaming platform, because from a basic control standpoint, combat sucks, and is largely thrown in as an afterthought and clunkily hacked and slashed in with LSL). Educators, people with disabilities, older users, people who want to read without wrecking their eyesight...DARK TEXT ON LIGHT. (That said, I'm happy with light on dark, I've been using dark skins for a while. I have white text on black here, you can see. I'm a spooky fucker, but I would never ever present this as the only option to a client, and would only suggest it as an option at all if it fit them. It's just not a good idea to be the only option, period.)

There are a LOT of useful features that were just removed for no reason at all (tooltips are but one example). Why take out things that weren't "confusing", that added obvious functionality, without giving anything back? Just because you wanted to throw out everything? This is a bad bad move. Also a puzzling one.

And, you know, in any interface: hotkeys, hotkeys, hotkeys. Need to be more, preferably need to be user set, and defaults also need to be in the menu (be it context or bar) next to that option so you can find it and look and say "oh, hey, that's useful, I need to remember that!" (They are, at least- but being so they also illustrate how few there are.) Say...oh...ctrl-I for Properties? Hotkeys are a HUGE boon in ergonomics for those users who choose to use them. No user should be forced to use them (unless you are Blender, and then you just delight in making us grab our heads in pain).

Generally, feature list: look to Emerald and other alt viewers. People want built in radar (which is here...but often broken, I was finally able to get it to work and it seems to be 1/4 sim, with zero context on distance. How about settable range, to at least entire sim, preferably everything you can see on minimap? And colour coded chat range please- bold and strong in chat, not bold and faded out of. Generally the ability to SEE how far away people are helps, a lot, in meters- so you know where people actually are), people want built in AOs (with script limits impending, this is ALSO a big thing, though generally it's friendlier to do it client side for lag anyway). I want to throw away my flight feather (or equivalent), and be able to ungimp my flight height in viewer. I'm fine with default being default, but give me the option, I want to fly up to MY OWN SKYBOX without an attachment. I'm not talking boob physics (though some people want that too), but there are a lot of solid features alt viewers and script attachments have pioneered that have made the user experience better- AND easier- even for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. I want to be able to NOT have to give a friend I'm introducing to SL a huge pack of confusing script attachments to get them around limitations in the viewer.

p.s. Can we have auto follow finally? Pretty please? Yes, I am still a refugee from WoW at heart and I miss being able to tag along AND type when someone is showing me around (yes, I know there are attachments, but shouldn't more things be built into the viewer and not hacked around it? Like AOs!) I lose people when touristing around a LOT, at least yellow dots mean I have some faint hope of figuring out where they went now. WoW has the ability for addons to improve the viewer experience, having an official viewer that could be altered with plugins wouldn't be a horrible idea either.

My problem with the roadmap

2009-11-22T17:13:00.000-08:00

So, I've been pondering the real reasons I'm so displeased with the xstreet thing. The initial knee-jerk is of course "wow, fuck you for adding yet another surcharge without providing anything in return." But the real reason I really really don't like the change goes a lot deeper than that.

The freebies thing...kinda sucks, and kinda doesn't. I don't like it, but it may actually not be a horrible idea: I don't know whether it can actually _work_ (in fact, I think it stands a snowball's chance in hell of actually helping any), but it's a reaction from LL to the fact that freebies have gotten out of control, and freebies do not drive the economy. They can't ban freebies in world, where the problem has gotten to be more of an epidemic, this is one place where they can try to stem the tide and hope that it spills over- problem being, there are a LOT of freebies that benefit the community as a whole that wouldn't be as useful if they weren't freely available, as well as the fact that freebies lure new users into joining and staying, and eventually putting money into the system to stimulate the economy. I don't know for sure, as I don't browse the freebies on xstreet really, but I think that most of the free swag on xstreet is of that type, and most of the type that stagnates the economy is available only in world. So I doubt this will truly have any positive impact upon the real base problem, that too much is available for free as "promotion", but that's backfiring and causing people to not see the reason to pay for anything, period.

The bigger problem, is the 10L per month per item fee that's slipped in there. Firstly, they tried to slip it in so we wouldn't notice- note the name of the article is Managing Freebies, and that's the main thrust of the article, and this is snuck in such that many people (including myself) missed it on first reading. That is underhanded, and you don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when you realize someone is trying to hide the fact they want to fuck you over.

And fuck you over it does: aside from the fact that, quite simply, merchants will have to waste a shitload of their time delisting items to avoid fees that xstreet does not support (after having wasted a shitload of time listing in the first place on a system with a miserable interface), this also inherently changes the entire service of xstreet- it removes a service that worked in one way, and replaces it with an entirely different service that I do not think will be anywhere near as useful- I know, with absolute certainty, that it will in fact turn a useful service into a useless one, for me personally. And THAT is my deeper issue here.

I've talked to a number of people about xstreet (and onrez before that) for a number of years. Everyone that I've talked to uses these services in somewhat similar manners:

1) Web based searching, even though xstreet has an absolutely horrible search system (onrez's was far superior, which was just yet another reason killing off onrez and not implementing the better features as promised was a mistake), is still a lot easier than in world searching. In world searching will always have a lot of problems because there's simply too much out there, and it's a lot harder to find what you're looking for. You need to search in All to be able to _try_ to pick up on people who've thought to tick their vendors for search, and then you have to sift through all the things that have nothing to do with what you want to buy- if I'm looking to purchase a particular style of building, I don't really want to end up in sims with that theme instead. Additionally it takes a lot of time to go to a sim, wait for things to rez, find the particular vendor you're looking for, wait for it to rez, and then find out if you're actually interested in that, or want to keep looking down the list. There's a huge inconvenience factor when it comes to shopping in this manner- and xstreet fills a very necessary gap in services. I'm far more likely to get frustrated and give up, if I'm limited to in world options- and with less being listed on xstreet, I AM limited to in world options. It won't be worth it to even try to find things on xstreet, knowing that an already limited pool is limited even further to such a drastic degree- I just plain won't bother to even try. They should be moving towards having more listed on xstreet, not less, for a convenience to find what I'm looking for. Now, the real kicker here, is that unless there's a special deal or only available on xstreet, I would go IN WORLD and buy the item I found. There's no way to know that xstreet fostered that sale, because I wanted to see the other things people had in world, as well as the whole buying process being a bit more cozy if I can go see their place, and the way they've decorated and get a feel for the whole thing, and pay the box and get the thing instantly- instead of fearing yet another layer of failed transactions (there are still failed transactions on xstreet, far more commonly than in world, and my transaction records prove it). And if it's something I can actually _see_ physically in world, like poses? You'd better believe that xstreet fostered that sale, but could not MAKE the sale on its own.

2) Gifting no transfer items is also a huge convenience perk on xstreet- I can try to do it manually, but I have to notecard the merchant, wait for them to be online, find out how they want me to deal with it, get them to send the item, hope they actually do (thankfully I've never run into anyone who didn't, but you do need to have a certain level of trust in who you're buying from, a stranger who is doing it by hand and in whose control it entirely lies). Doing it through xstreet means I see something that I think a friend would like in SL, I know this merchant has xstreet so I bring up their profile, find the item, send it off, and I'm all done. Convenience is a huge motivator in commerce- or really, the converse is more true, inconvenience is a huge detractor. If the line at the store is too long and I don't really need what I've got in my cart, I may just walk out without buying what I'd chosen- I may buy the items there later, but on the other hand, I may buy them somewhere else, or I may simply not buy them at all. xstreet provides a very necessary way to conveniently bypass a problem inherent in the way SL has to work- especially as copy/no trans is what more people have moved towards because of transaction and asset failure (additionally there is a huge convenience factor in resizing prims and such- but that could also be gotten around if the permissions system was more sophisticated). In other words, xstreet provides a way to work around the problems that LL has never FIXED. And, the Christmas season is coming up! A time when gift giving (whether it be Xmas presents or Hanukkah or whatnot) is on the rise- this is the LAST time you want to encourage people to be taking things off xstreet. In fact, this is the time you want to be encouraging merchants to put their entire stock ON xstreet.

3) In a related point, xstreet serves as a great place for a merchant to keep stock- they can keep old retired stock, but additionally they can provide a different browsing experience- both "Textures loading slowly for you today? Browse on xstreet!", and offering an alternate organizational scheme (which, unfortunately, is another something that xstreet does NOT do well, and onrez did far better, between tags and the ability to browse tags by owner, I could easily "build" pages with different options that were related and link them in the description, in a far more flexible manner than could ever be presented in world). I had my entire catalog, constantly kept up to date as part of my releasing process, on onrez before it was bought out and discontinued. It worked as a great supplement even though people rarely bought through it. I've recently started trying to build up my catalog on xstreet again, as listing is far less friendly and takes far longer than onrez- so you've also got the pissed offedness over all the wasted time- I've spent literally DAYS updating xstreet, and will be deactivating at least 90% of what I have there, if I stay at all. The whole system with alternates (say, different colours) of an item also means that if I stay, I will be unlisting a LOT of things that LL has received sales commissions on- there's no reason to have more than one "display" colour up, even though they sell, on xstreet as well as in world, in _all_ colours.

The new system is trying to turn xstreet into a standalone marketplace- and I don't think that SL is a system that can truly support that. I know that it's not something I can actually see any benefit in having, turning the entire system just into a "spotlight" of "best sellers"- on top of that, I don't think LL really wants to be showing the world, in a forum easily viewed by outsiders without taking the time to even create an account and see the system, what ARE the top sellers. Badly made stripper wear, blinging stripper heels, that full prim schoolgirl skirt with the dropping and mooning animation that was constantly on the front page? You already have enough of a problem with SL being seen by outsiders as a den of iniquity and sex and perverts, and this is NOT an image you want, and you know this. It's the image you are more than likely to get however, because these things _do_ sell, and I could make a hell of a lot more money in SL if I sold out and didn't care and made crappily made stripper gear. Sex sells, and the internet is made for porn (the internet is also a filthy perverted place, and for the tiniest bit of proof, go to google and type in- why won't - and watch what it autocompletes. This is also why searching in SL DOESN'T WORK, until the computer can read my mind and interface with other sophisticated computers that are capable of truly understanding, we rely on algorithms, and they are always inherently flawed, it's just a case of making them the least flawed possible. Also, be very very happy I chose that as an example, not any of the truly fucked up things out there, that make clown gangbangs look tame). Now, thing is, sex doesn't sell to me, and the higher proportion of stripper wear and blingtard heels will serve to alienate me, and all the people like me who aren't interested in it, out of the market. It may not be all that's there, but it will go up in percentage, which will make it look like there is so much more of it, and so much less of anything in which I am interested. Not only will there be less I am interested in, but there will appear to be EVEN less because the things in which I am not interested will stay in a higher percentage than the things in which I am. And as that happens, it will foster the trend to continue, snowballing until there's no reason to ever use it for anything else.

People have been defending it by comparing it to ebay- without considering that ebay does offer a number of free insertions a month, it's an insertion fee, not a recurring one, and, when it comes down to it, you're comparing apples and oranges. They're both fruit, but the two systems are, and always will be simply due to the way SL works, completely different in very fundamental ways. I can't see a truly ebay like system being able to flourish in any real way in SL- limited quantities and time sensitivity are things that are more foreign to this medium, and you have to do intentionally, instead of coming naturally.

There are some other intrinsic problems here: if xstreet is such a money pit, why did you buy not one, but two of these services that were doing quite alright on their own, where they didn't have the rest of the infrastructure in place that should make this cheaper for LL to run, not more expensive. Either someone didn't do their research to start with (and a very high, higher than has happened, growth after the takeover should have been expected and included as part of this research), or something has been handled very very badly. Neither inspire any sort of confidence whatsoever in LL's ability to handle ANYTHING.

Additionally, "money" doesn't mean the same thing to LL- it is the carrot and the stick approach (mostly the stick), not what money converts to. They print the money, they control the supply, they have the money sinks of uploads, classifieds, etc. as money sinks to keep the economy moving (outside money needs to be brought into the system for it to continue functioning, additionally this means _less_ money can be taken out of the system, leaving them with the difference)- they give things worth. Textures have some intrinsic worth not simply because of the work involved in making them, but they have also an actual dollar amount (fractional as it is) added on top of that- which ceases it from being entirely "free" in any way, which instills some sliver of actual concrete "worth". Classifieds have the money system so there's a way to be "on top" by being willing to spend more than anyone else. LL doesn't "make money" directly off of these fees, instead they make money by removing this money from the system. Lindens are imaginary money until they are cashed- except to LL, when they are real money that belongs to them, until they are cashed, so they need to keep money coming into the system to keep paying for things, as well as have certain ways to keep it in the system. (Land fees are a somewhat related issue, although there's a more direct added cost on top of that that gives it more direct "worth".)

So, by instituting these fees, they're adding another money sink- but its direct result will be the stick. It actually serves as a disincentive, just as upload fees serve as a disincentive to upload trash to the asset servers. The disincentive is a mechanism of control, to mold the system into what they want it to be instead of what it is, NOT a way to make money.

And, the real problem at the end of it? The system they want it to be, is one that certainly is less useful to me, and may in fact be entirely useless. It certainly means that I have been operating under an entirely different set of assumptions when using this system, both as consumer and merchant- and the new rules don't have any benefit to me. They want to foster commerce because that's what brings them money- however I can only see them removing convenience, and placing roadblocks in the way of commerce, instead.

xstreet alternatives- a recap

2009-11-20T00:11:00.000-08:00

So, a short form of the 6 services:

Metaverse Exchange:
My top choice, as the services are currently, semi tied with apez. Beats out meta-life because that excluded itself from being useful to me. Beats out apez (somewhat) because it has somewhat better bulk listing. Listing itself is weird and takes a lot of getting used to, may in fact be harder to list individual items than any other service, so it's not super awesome.

apez.biz:
Semi ties with MVX, in fact I'm still waffling as to which of these two I prefer. MVX has easier and more interesting bulk listings (which I like...but also kinda don't like, because you can't SEE everything at once easily), but apez has some semi decent bulk listing features, so long as you never, ever, EVER change your mind. I would say it's easier set up than MVX for singles, LOVE the collections way of grouping items.

meta-life:
Mostly a pretty damn great service. Pretty damn near totally useless for me because of the image thing. Wish it would have website image uploads, and apez's collections- with a few very minor interface tweaks on top of that meta would quite possibly be my perfect service.

slapt.me:
Of the four I could get up and running, slapt was the most lackluster. No bulk features, just about as clunky listing wise as xstreet (and if I have to choose something else, I'm choosing something with BETTER features), and interface problems that make it almost unusable for me because I have problems figuring out what things say at all.

vitty:
Suffers from the "if I need to move, I should move to something that makes my life easier" problem- listing looks similarly clunky, about on par with xstreet. Geared towards the Japanese market, _and_ has a deal on commissions for low priced items, so, as a consumer, this is quite possibly a hidden gem full of holy crap that's amazing and I need it right now. It's just not something I'd use for selling on, currently.

Cariama:
Not yet open (the website itself only launched at all the beginning of last month), so out of the running.

xstreet alternatives- cariama & vitty

2009-11-19T23:28:00.000-08:00

Test drive 5: Cariama

Not actually open yet! So. That was fast. Somehow someone has listed 1 item (maybe a test item in some manner?) but otherwise, this isn't running yet.

Test drive 6: vitty

I am guessing vitty's having issues with the influx of people, I'm incapable of getting a box delivered to me to try a listing. However, looking through the help docs, there is no bulk listing feature at all, so that kinda excludes it as an option for me. Additionally, I'm not fluent in Japanese (and not even barely literate), so as it's a Japanese site, I would be excluding most of the audience by being unable to list in Japanese. The website itself is set up well for English speakers though, and for people looking to expand into the Japanese market, I think this would bear looking into just for that.

Additionally, there's no commission at all on any item under 51L, so it would be a great market for cheap promos. (Standard 5% on 51L and up)

xstreet alternative- metaverse exchange

2009-11-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

Test drive 4: Metaverse Exchange

We may have a winner, for me. It's strange, and not 100% ideal, and reinvents the wheel. But, it might be my best option.

Also, you'll see that my evaluation is coloured by previous things- meta-life plus proper image integration is currently what I'm measuring things against (in other words, I want to see them get close to that, _or_ similar convenience in another package- this approaches the second). I'm also more concerned with cursory listings and will work on more of the extras later, while skimming through each to get the overview.

For convenience (and my wrist's) sake, I'm going to be referring to this as MVX because I can barely _remember_ the full name, aside from it being long. The info from digging around the website looked interesting- a "listing here is weird, but that's because we actually let you group alternates". And listing IS weird.

Signup's a little strange because this is an "integrate all your virtual worlds into one account" thing (as well as multiple SL accounts, from the looks of it)- there's currently one other world (Legends Online? or something like that. I've heard of it, never been), set up an account, integrate it to your SL account second, and they actually USE your email address in sign up...so it makes sense to ask (maybe that's why the whole email signup process on slapt was weird to me? I don't know). Box gets sent, you don't have to leave the privacy of your skybox while wearing awesome but wacky demos and other neat things people send you while you're standing around. p.s. I'm also a fan of convenience.

Good Things:

Multiple options of the same item (like colour alts) collapse into one really easily. One listing, dropdown for all the items on that listing. Totally different system than any of the others, and a nice one- cuts down on the dreaded clutter that omg is the reason the sky is falling and we have to fuck with you. Editing the batch is also pretty quick and reasonably simple...once you know what you're doing, which is not easy.

Image uploading with multiple options, including the ability to grab previously uploaded images fairly easily. Also, you can assign a crapton of images to any single thing (I threw in all 30 alts of the shirt, just to see if I could- it doesn't have a scrollbar, so it's rather useless beyond the first 5 or so, but it DID let me), though it doesn't tell you in the thumbnail that there are other images than just the default. It automatically reorders things as you assign in a manner that appeared random to me, so beyond image 1, who knows what the order will be- this only makes any difference when you have too many images and some may get shoved off screen!

edit: I just looked back- thumbnails are smaller than before so I can see more, AND it now scrolls sideways if you have more than fit. So, something may have been hinkey when I first checked that's ironed itself out.

I think you can do copy and transfer options integrated into single listings easily as well, if you choose to. I largely avoid transfer on web based systems when I have a copy alternative because I don't trust redelivery and unscrupulous people. (Generally, this is why I don't like transfer, period, btw, and only offer it in very particular cases now.)

Bad Things:

Holy crap is listing confusing. It sort of kinda makes sense once you've done it, but even then, parts are NOT where you expect them to be, divided up between two sections- and some things in one part don't carry over but others do...generally, very steep learning curve. You WILL need to have the Help page open while you're listing, and will have to look back at it for every. single. step. The instructions are pretty good, but they are 100% necessary, and it will probably take me a handful of listings to get used to it at all to where I _don't_ have to refer back constantly. I also got totally turned around trying to edit a listing, and learned a lot the first time that will help out next time, but did a LOT wrong the first time, even going through their instructions. It would be nice if there was an easy way to integrate fatpacks too? However I think that would involve changing the system a bit- prices seem to be constant, and that should be a somewhat different option in the dropdown instead of just alphabetical...so, I don't see an easy way to do it that wouldn't just cause more confusion. This is also assuming that there isn't that ability and I just didn't see it because I'm still picking up on the system. But I was able to easily edit the non fatpack and the fatpack listings to link to each other (BB Code, not HTML- I'm more comfortable with HTML, but BB is pretty common and what most of these sites use anyway, and it's not bad)...once I figured out how to edit active listings (I also made it active before I meant to- again, first listing WILL confuse the crap out of you).

Generally, I'd overhaul the organization in certain ways and move some of the info back and forth- the setting info from one to apply to all thing doesn't make as much sense when you've also got a SECOND place to put in info that applies to all, and the division doesn't entirely seem to make sense. Some does. I also found it may not have applied things across right, and couldn't see where to change the info in the individual and apply it across to all _again_- which is useful.

Images are not bad, but could be yet less clunky. Meta-life's the only one that gets close- let me apply secondary images to all the selected at one click, please. Also, would love to see thumbnails at the item list so I had a clue which ones I'd done what with yet! I had to go through my listing repeatedly to make sure I hadn't listed everything, and some of that won't change with practice, because it isn't so easy to see how the lot of it is set up at a glance. This is less a "bad thing" and a "wish it was this way thing", of course!

All shirts, plus fatpacks, listed. Took (quite a bit) longer than meta-life because a) figuring out system, b) actually changing the pictures for each one! Proper meta-life listings WILL take longer as I didn't slot out the image for each, and c) it may still take slightly longer generally because of the way things are set out across two pages, and how that info there is organized. But, listing all didn't take much longer than one (main problem being assigning images to each)- so for colour alts and such, very good. Listing singles is divided up in the same manner, so that _is_ a little clunkier than some, but not altogether horrible. Still, this is my current personal frontrunner, with meta-life not having uploadable images supported. It has beaten out apez in my book, although single listings are probably a bit more time consuming in the long run than apez.

xstreet alternatives-slapt.me

2009-11-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

Test drive 3: slapt.me

Now, people have been raving about this one, so I figured I would go with it next. But I started off less into it, and I'm not entirely sure why. Was it the initial screen before you can go into the site proper? Was it the "look" of it generally? The sign up process continued this slightly...off feeling. Put in a valid email...not your av name. We won't do anything for signing up with that email, go here, say this in local chat out loud on channel 0 (not that it's something that matters really...) and we'll sign you up. The whole thing is just...not the way I want it done, and makes me slightly uncomfortable for reasons I can't put my finger on.

But, then we've got nice shop profiles, yay! Mind you, it's one per avatar, the multi shop thing on meta-life spoiled me, I like that feature. There are split profits- I'm not doing that right now, so I don't know if it applies to all across the board or what (nor will I be looking into that now, as it doesn't apply to me- if it applies to you, check it out!)

Door to door box service, which is "how it should be." Something good about all of them so far- they wait to update so you aren't constantly cycling when adding a group, or changing or whatnot (I've had to change in box perms on a bunch of things before, my xstreet box went postal).

Bad Things:

The category listing box...is too narrow...and I can't SEE the categories to figure out where to list something. /facepalm Now, this is because my browser window isn't maximized, but, even with it, I can't see it all and it will cause more trouble with listings. Generally, the interface is too size dependent and has the sidebars that block it in, and this causes a lot of "wait, what's that supposed to be? Ok, first two letters...what might that spell?"- some even with my browser maximized. My screen may be a laptop screen, but it's large for one of those, so I can see this causing trouble. I could lower my font size to squinty...maybe.

The image file cutoff is _way_ lower, and my first try told me "no sir, this is too big!" Now, this _is_ a fairly large image, but is effectively 1024x1024, not above SL sizes.

I'm not seeing any way to make "bulk" listings easier. I put up with that from xstreet because it was "the" thing, there are alternatives that have it, and that means thumbs down from me. I only listed on onrez until after the takeover and killing of it, and never listed as much on xstreet (in fact, until a month ago, I had very little on xstreet, and only just started listing more with the spotlights).

It strips out HTML (oh, you wanted to link to something there? Too damn bad, you get the links that we tack on to the end of everything, and you'll like it), and ignores BB code, so looks like just text is what you get. This also...does not thrill me. The links there at the bottom of each entry auto generated? That's awesome. But, I want the ability to offer other links, for various reasons. What if this has something to do with a location that only this item has to deal with? And I obsessively link pages to the blog entry for that item- this links to the blog...but not the right page. Now- some people DO have lists. So, there may be a way around some, if not all, of this. But the obvious ways to me are not it.

Collections appear to only apply to in world vendors? Which makes them useless to me.

Good Things:

It's not xstreet? Honestly, it's about on par for clunkiness with xstreet (though it's prettier), unless there is a way I'm not seeing here. You can upload images, unlike meta-life, which continues to make me curse the world for not allowing that. In other words: not a fan, don't know why people are raving so much.

And the searching system doesn't suck- but so far all of them do it way better than xstreet, so that doesn't give it a leg up in this race.

I listed....2 shirts. And gave up. Barring not seeing a LOT of useful features, slapt is not for me.

xstreet alternatives- meta-LIFE

2009-11-19T01:33:00.000-08:00

Test drive 2: meta-life. I'm...less of a fan.

Step 1: sign up and get a box! In fact, I ported into the one and only place listed to get started 3 times- first time, getting password; second time- got the wrong box full of stuff because I found the popup menu confusing. That was my own fault though! I also changed out of the lingerie during this as I kept porting over to random stranger being there. So, following the doorstep service of apez, minus .001, meta-life (because really, this is not something you'll do often, so it doesn't really matter! Just teeny tiny annoyance).

Rezzed the box in my corner, dumped shirts in. Headed off to the site. The site...confused the crap out of me. In fact, I still don't know if I'm listing properly.

Now, as an aside here- I am NOT interested in using the in world vending solutions provided by these services. I don't like scripted vendors generally. Scripts = lag, even low lag vendors add up if you've got a lot, and I use scrolling vendors somewhat sparingly because seeing everything is better. I think, if I liked in world vendors, I would like meta-life more.

Content management tab takes you to options for setting up stuff. First, set up the brand(s) you want to sell things under- this is great. I then made a group for the Oxfords with My items groups. Then went over to my items to start editing.

Bad Things:

Images. Gah. I HATE the way they do images. They just want you to dump UUIDs for the textures uploaded, not upload your own images. They still need to upload these to their servers...the quality is shitty. The aspect ratio...is shitty. I am not interested in making these things available in world through an affiliate or my own vendors, so this gets _me_ no advantage. Mostly I cry because the quality is shitty and I have to dig through inventory, copy the UUID, paste it in, and can't update my listings when I'm logged off SL. Images are basically my only real hate, but oh, how I hate. Also, I put in a secondary image. It has the UUID there. It ignores it everywhere on the site other than sitting in blah blah numbers in that text box.

Item groups don't appear to have searching goodness- it's great for listing, put all the things to mass edit in one place so it's easy. But, I don't see any way to _see_ everything that's in there as a consumer, which is not as useful.

Good Things:

MASS EDITS! HUZZAH! Tick your checkboxes for items, edit the slew of them at once, and boom, there you go! You'll still need to edit individual bits, but that gets you way way way ahead started on listings- PLUS you can go back and change your mind and edit them all easily. I wish Apez had mass edits _this_ way too. Annoyingthing: perms are NOT one of the things that are in the mass list...THERE. Images are...but perms aren't. Which is less cool. You CAN mass set perms, BUT it has to be a different step, which is clunky. Not seriously clunky, just teeny tiny bits of clunky, but still, offputting and seems left out in the other thing, and easy to miss. Category listings...is also weird and easy to miss, in a similar fashion.

Tags! That I can see! And use! And click on to see all the other things with the same tags!

I listed all the Oxfords, every single one, in less than 5 minutes. BUT, that's because I didn't slot out the images for each individual one. Because I hate hate HATE getting all the damn UUIDs. The image thing is quite obviously a deal breaker for me, for a LOT of reasons (hell, the image for the oxfords is fucked up because of the way I had to cheat to get it to work in SL and fix on prims). I have zero interest in also having in world vendors linked to the website presence, and always have, and have always avoided tying SL textures into vendors, even when it was _easier_ to do than this. If meta-life changed the image thing to allow uploading off my harddrive, I would probably be saying, right now, "let's all switch to meta-life". It's not as slick looking as apez (but black text on white, so better for readability), but it's got solid functionality aside from the image thing.

xstreet alternatives- Apez

2009-11-19T01:01:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to test drive alternatives to xstreet, following today's awesome announcement. So far I've started with two, apez.biz and meta-LIFE:

Apez.biz is my frontrunner. It threw errors every so often, possibly entirely due to being overburdened with people flocking to it, and it caught up and fixed itself pretty well.

It uses a bit different listing system than xstreet, thank god. This does mean, woo hoo, learning curve. Step 1, obviously, sign up and snag a box through their procedure (it was painless, I 'ported over to set up my password while wearing lingerie to one of the list of places, it was deserted and no one saw my rumpled sexiness. p.s. Apatia Hammerer is to blame for the state of undress. And then I had the box sent to me while standing in my messy skybox server box corner).

Dumped the oxfords in the box. They sell pretty well, and they are _very_ multi listing dependent. They could be listed super easy (onrez was pretty easy!)...or eye stabbingly hard (xstreet). Then went to the website to try to figure out...what to do. The what to do was helped out by the aforementioned errors, which popped up as I tried to muddle through setting up the system and helped confuse things.

"vend" tab, then "inventory" shows your list. I got a bit lost in there, and went to "products" first (note: "catalogs", the next option, is currently not implemented). I created a new collection- with that option being at the right hand side it was less intuitive (eyes go left first. It's a super minor thing, and later it works), to put all the oxfords in to set them up together. I'm guessing this is how it's done, but it's just a guess. Back to "inventory" and clicked on the icon with the fairy wand, which now let me create a new thingie since I have a collection to put it in.

Bad things about listings:

There doesn't appear to be anywhere to fix the perms. So, it shows perms of box, which are probably none, not perms of contents, which usually are not.

The text interface for the description threw in lots of messed up characters when I was editing it, and it took a bit to find a way around the excess bullshit and crappy formatting. This may be due to copy/paste from xstreet listing. I went into the html view, because a) I know it and have more control, which continued to fuck me up with the special characters on saving, and b) I could play around with accepted tags. One really awesome useful tag that's not allowed? img. So....no images in your listings, oh people with logos and such at the bottom making things prettiful. Because yes, I was going to try that, but massively failed. Which is sadface.

No shopfronts, dammit. I liked that about onrez. Also, joint listings, branding, etc. would be nice, for side projects, partnerships, things like that. Maybe you'll get some of that ability with catalogs, who knows.

You can't select a bunch, and edit them all at once. This makes listing, even with the duplicating listings thing, take a hell of a lot longer, because I have to constantly click through and create new and wait for loading blah blah.

Good things about listings:

You can "duplicate" an existing listing and just change the bits you need to. It doesn't update the listing name when you update the object...which is not so good.

It _does_ carry images over so you can have the same extra alt views, plus you can pull down a drop down to access the other images you've uploaded on other items! Which is super duper awesome. I have only made one collection- if it doesn't limit by collection, that list will get unusably long, so we'll see if it retains usefulness at all.

It looks like you can view just the items in the currently selected box. THANK GOD. I can never find a damn thing in my xstreet list because there's too damn much of it.

Tags! Yay! And mini descriptions are neat. Ok, the downside to tags is I don't see a way to USE them other than just invisible search terms, but at least they're there, and will be useful for search terms.

Collections! YOU CAN SEE ALL THE ITEMS IN A COLLECTION AT A CLICK! For items that go together, colour alts et c. this. is. awesome.

Listing multiples of the same colour is still a little clunky as you have to click through to each item to change most of the stuff (onrez had that pop out thing that was REALLY useful, but the carrying info across thing is not bad), but still, head and shoulders above xstreet.

The look is slick- BUT it's white text on dark background. This looks cool...and is harder to read. I would strongly recommend the ability to choose stylesheets and have a nice crisp black text on white for people who aren't so wild about that. Me, I like the dark, but it's a well known _bad_ thing for usability.

p.s. I listed about half of them before I said "fuck this noise, I'll play more later." Still, even with going back and constantly editing all of them (because I was still fighting with formatting), it went way faster than xstreet. BUT nowhere near as fast as meta-LIFE.

Drowsy

2009-07-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Drowsy does festivals in a space that changes from time to time. They're filled with awesome.

Hotel Dare

2009-06-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

An interactive art installation.

This installation at Poetik velvets. The Hotel periodically closes and changes in entirety.

Decripple your build tools

2009-01-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

I recommend skimming through Tentacolor if you're a huge geek, there are some amazingly awesome things in there.

One of which is how to decripple your build tools.

Disclaimer: the TOS is sort of murky on the legality of this maybe? I don't think that's what they intended with that clause and it's more towards don't copybot shit, but yeah, I feel I need to give the disclaimer. But hey, it's all in xml files, so it's EASY to edit, if they didn't want us doing it, there are other ways they could have approached that instead. Basically, read Jacek's disclaimer, because I can't be arsed to write a decent one.

Go to skins\default\xui\en-us and open up floater_tools.xml with a regular vanilla text editor (unless you like Dazzle Jazz Hands, in which case you want skins\silver\xui\en-us. I avoid it like the plague, so if things are done differently, you'll have to figure that out yourself). Head down to Position (meters), and in the next 3 declarations of code, change decimal_digits="3" to decimal_digits="5" (in my testing, 5 is the max amount SL keeps track of, you just get wiggly numbers you can't do anything with if you go higher). label="X" is doing it for the x, "Y" for y, "Z" for z, of course. Things are in the same order as the actual Build menu in here.

Do the same for Size (meters)! You can up Rotation as well, but 5's probably excessive for use there. You can also play around with the decimals in the rest of the declarations, as sometimes you can get more out of it (sometimes you can't).

The other SUPER DUPER AWESOME thing to do is fix your texture tab (which is talked about in this entry, this is all Jacek's smarts here). Transparency is capped in the editor...because the Lindens think we're idiots? I don't know. There's no reason not to make that puppy 100, so you can do full transparency in one click WITHOUT resorting to another texture.

Go to Transparency %, and bump max_val="90" to max_val="100"

I also up both the Repeats Per Face, max_val="100" to more than 100 too, because it's useful for Planar mapping (normal people have no need of this, but I've passed 100 repeats more than once. I haven't had to bump past 500...yet).

Unfortunately EVERY SINGLE TIME you have to update a viewer you have to go through this process again, which generally leads to me swearing, making due for a brief period, and then telling people I'm logging off to make my tools not awful (because you get used to them being awesome, and going back....sucks).

Adjustment Layers, yay! Also, a tad on Actions

2009-01-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Ever wanted to, say, change the Hue/Saturation on a bunch of layers without flattening? Or Levels? Or Curves? Or wanted to change any of those things but keep the original stuff uneditted in case you change your mind? Well then, my friend, Adjustment Layers are for you!

However, I'm a total tease, and FIRST I'm going to tell you about Actions. Actions are another way to apply the same adjustment to multiple layers. It doesn't stay edittable....but it can also do so much more!

Lights, Camera, Actions!

Actions are great when you have repetitive motions you need to go through. Say you need to go through a bunch of files, auto level them, hue/sat them to the exact same value, rotate them 90 degrees clockwise, and resize them to exactly the same size. Actions can try to save our poor carpal tunnely wrists by doing this in one bing bang boom click, once we've done the first one. Actions can record any repeated motion with exactly the same settings, and save that to be applied with one click, regardless of how many steps, at any time.

Firstly here, I'm going to assume throughout this (and, really, all my other) rambling, that your window setup is like mine. There's no real reason for this assumption, other than I think I pretty much keep the default, and you may have to.

You see on the probably right side of your screen (your right, not its right....ok, so I don't think I've mentioned this, but I have a really hard telling my left from my right. So if it's not there, look at the other right, ok?) there are these windows. One of them, possibly the bottom, is where you do your layering magic . But anyway, each of them have these tabs at the top with other options. Right now, I want you to find the one that says History. It should have another tab that says Actions.

If you can't find it, pull down the Windows menu, and choose Actions. If it has a checkmark next to it it's already center stage- if not and you click it, it becomes active, and pops out if you don't have it up already.

There are a couple of folders- Default Actions, possibly Textures. Make a new one, name it "Mine" or "Tralala I can't hear you" or what so ever you please. This is where you will keep your actions so you can find them.

Take your first file, or layer, that you will be applying all these same things to, and make it active. Create a new action in this folder with the same new icon you should be familiar with with Layers. Name it something you can remember, and hit "Record".

Now, do your stuff! Remember, Actions are reeeeeally dumb. They can do exactly the same thing, nothing else. However, they're also kind of smart, you can set your resizing to width by pixels, or percentage, or whatever, and it defines by what it sees set (so you can always scale by 50%, or always 512 wide, or set both height and width to pixels)- it also can apply identical filter settings, or adjustment settings, or pretty much anything really.

Once you're done, hit the stop button, that looks like an old timey cassette tape player stop button. (It's the box.) Now, go to whatever you want to do just like you did....and hit the play button (the filled in arrow), with that Action selected. Sit back and oooooh and aaaaaah over the magic!

You can see everything your action is doing by expanding the arrow next to it, it will show each step with a checkmark next to it. You can toggle steps on and off with these checkmarks, and some expand further to see their settings, what it will apply when the Action is played. Actions will play from the one selected down, if you select one in the middle, skipping the first steps.

Actions are useful in some cases, useless in others. They may or may not be something you want to use. But keep them in mind, for they can save you a lot of hastle, time, and typing, when you do have things you can automate.

But! To get back on the train of thought that got toooootally disrailed there, plowed through a pasture with some cute bunnies, hopped on other tracks and went around a few circles, and finally is reconnecting with what we came here for: Adjustment Layers!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Love the Adjustment Layers

Sorry about that. I get distracted by shiny things, and oh! hey! that's kinda useful crap too! My brain, she is kind of a cluttered mess.

Adjustment Layers are pretty damn superduperawesomefunsauce. They've got a lot of great advantages:

1) They are non destructive. Your original layers are still intact and full of every last drop of juicy information they started with.

2) They are infinitely adjustable. You can go in and tweak that red value 2 degrees up more if you want, you can do a rough "oh, I'll shove everything in that general dirction" and go back and do settings for reals later.

3) They apply to EVERYTHING below them. All layers, without flattening or doing each by hand.

4) They can have masks. You should have learned in our last installment how damn jibbing awesome masks are. This will make you love masks more.

And probably many more, but, eh, that'll do for the sales pitch for now. Once you've used them, you too will squee with delight.

Now, to do: Look to your Layers palette. There are a bunch of wacky icons at the bottom. Mine are chain, squiggly f in a circle, box with a hole in it, circle that's half black/half white diagonally, folder, folded up page, trashcan. In real world terms that translates to:

Link (chain), which links layers so when you move one, you move all, and such things;

Layer Style (f in a circle), which lets you do fancy smacktacular things like drop shadows the easy way, none of this making a selection, filling it with black on a new layer underneath, and blurring it until it looks good like the old days;

Mask (box with a hole), which should you should somewhat understand from our previous installment;

Fill or Adjustment Layer (half black/half white circle, diagonally), which is what we want!;

and New Folder, for putting layers in folders; New Layer, which you should be well versed with; Trash, which you should also be well versed with.

Pull down your half black/half white circle. Pick the type of adjustment, like, say, Hue/Saturation. The normal Hue/Sat thing pops up, move your sliders. Every layer under what you've got selected, including what you've got selected, goes what you choose, like magic! You've got a layer now that's got a wacky sort of control panelly thing instead of a drawing box as its icon, with a drawing box full of white next to it.

If you want to hue shift everything there, we're done. If not though, we have options for applying this selectively. If you want to change your selection by masking, turn to Page 3. If you want to have your adjustment layer apply to cutouts and not a background, turn to Page 5.

Page 3 - Masking for Fun and Profit

You have chosen to play with masking! Masking is a highly rewarding way of dealing with your adjustment layer. You can do things like apply a black to white gradient on your mask to fade the change, or guassian blur selections, make selections off of other layers, or draw what you want directly on your layer. White will show the effect. Black will hide the effect. Draw right on your layer with black and white to change how the effect deals with the layers below it. You can, for instance, make an adjustment layer for shading on clothing, delete it all so it's black, and draw on it with white for the shadows, and this will apply your adjustments. You can easily shade patterns! You can change base layers instead of hue layers on top to change colours of things! And, best of all, you can go back and tweak your shading at any time without messing up your original image- those of you who dodge and burn shade may find that you can get the same effect with adjustment layers without having to start all over when the cat hops up and knocks your mouse arm!

In short: anything you can do to a regular layer, pretty much, can be done to an adjustment layer mask. It will be done entirely in greyscale, and the amount of white in the pixels will determine how much the adjustment shows. Adjustment Layer masks are exactly like layer masks, folder masks, and channels.

For the end blabbering that doesn't really make any difference, turn to Page 8.

Page 5 - You Mean You Kept the Easy Way for Last?

You have chosen the easy way, when you have cutouts! You're smarter than I am, you know, I ALWAYS forget this, and end up selecting and knocking out my selections in the mask the hard way instead.

Put all of the cutouts (basically, but this I mean "anything that isn't a full layer that covers the background and has an alpha") that you want your adjustment layer to apply to in a new folder. You get that with the Folder icon, as if you didn't know already. Now, place (or create) your adjustment layer on top of all of the layers. Still applying to the Background, and you don't want that. But, with one little tiny click...

And that tiny click is you at the top of our Layers palette, there's a dropdown that says "Pass Through". You probably already know about layer modes- if not, they're reeeeally fun. Overlay for highlight layers, for instance. Multiply when you want to make the darks pop. But I digress. Change that from "Pass Through" to "Normal", and now your adjustment layer only applies to things that are "solid"! Magically your background is now happy and free of your adjustment layer, since it isn't in the folder.

For the end blabbering that doesn't really make any difference, turn to Page 8.

Page 8 - The Mostly Unnecessary Conclusion, in which I Blabber Randomly

You're actually going to be happy I didn't illustrate this tutorial at this time. 1) It would have taken me way way longer to do, 2) I would have been illustrating everything with a really badly drawn cartoon of a mantis, and it would have been really bad as I am a totally incapable of using a tablet, as I thought through a lot of this last night as I was trying (and failing) to sleep, as my brain that makes sense decided to try to get a nap, and the other brain that suffers from really bad insomnia makes no sense, ever. Like, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'M NAKED! GIMME A CUPCAKE!, but worse. It sometimes involves imaginary critters and going over the same phrases of nonsense over and over like they are the most profound things in the whole wide world.

But anyway. That's adjustment layers! This has only passed on the very slightest and tiniest bit of how awesome they are. This should give you enough of an introduction to find out some of that on your own as you experiment and play with all the amazing things you can do, and enough choice words to drop in a google search for a real proper tutorial, which is how I learn 90% of the stuff I know how to do in Photoshop. Dear Google, I love you. Even when perfectly innocuous search terms drop me into yaoi websites. Or, wait, did I mean especially when?

A treatise on image formats

2008-12-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

A few unrelated things lately have led to this. Now, a lot of you already know this, so please do skip over and ignore, but people from SL come from all sorts of backgrounds, so this is new (and rather important, if I do say so myself) information to some, as they aren't versed in such.

There are a large number of image formats available to us today. Some are more suited to certain applications than others. I come from a webnerd background, to a degree, so that's where some of my bent comes from, and I've been around long enough I've seen a few of these formats come to popularity. Now, you'll have to bear with me being opinionated and the memory of my failing brain, so some of the history here may not be entirely accurate. I'm old, dagnabbit.¹ I'm also almost entirely self taught, so this is all stuff I randomly picked up here and there- and to add on, I'm going to gloss over some of the more accurate seriously technical bits and try to translate it into something that is, I hope, easier to understand, although possibly less technically accurate.

In brief: JPEG bad. BMP pointless and stupid. PNG awesome except for transparencies. Yay TGA!

I'm also going to do a bit of a runthrough of how _I_ do alphas with TGAs, at the bottom. This applies to Photoshop CS2, your mileage may vary when using any other version.

The JPEG and You

Ah, the ubiquitous JPEG. I've never really liked you, you know. Not even when you were the only viable game in town² when it came to full colour- even though the poor little GIF was limited to 256, I always liked him better. (Note: I'm not going to cover the GIF. GIFs are lovely for small and portable oldskool pixel images with either/or transparency. They're pretty much useless when it comes to the sort of things you'll be doing in SL.)

You see, Mr. JPEG, you're a lossy format (lossy = oh, I can lose some of the information here and it won't really matter! No one will notice! Except when they will!). I really don't like it when someone decides that, oh, only parts of my image are important, let's just divide it into chunks, and make guesses about what the contents of the chunks are. I like all of my pixels equally, they are all my dearest darling wonderful children of light, and I am rather offended you think that it's "good enough" to just get kind of close.

In the land before the time of the PNG (oh, my favourite dearest for everything but SL, you magic format you), JPEG was really the option we had if we wanted to not have things be friggin' huge, and if we wanted to actually, you know, be able to load them. It's good for images with a lot of information in which not all of it is pixel specific- like photographs. Our eyes throw out a lot of that info anyway, since there's so much noise and variation. BUT, and here's the problem- JPEGs throw out MORE information. They use this funky algorythm that looks at chunks of pixels, and then instead of saving what each one is, it builds something that it is more efficient (at the time, as we're talking the deep dark ages here) than saving each pixel individually. But....if you ever save a JPEG a second time, it does that AGAIN, and it gets less acurate, each time. Plus, that slider of compression? Tells it the size chunks, the accuracy of guessing, and the more compression, the more assy your picture will be. This causes worse artifacting- you know when you look close and you can see those square muddy areas that aren't quite right?

Basically, AVOID AVOID AVOID. You do not EVER want to use JPEGs with SL. EVER. Trust me. There are better formats (and due to SL's recompression, the file size isn't even a deal). Also, in anything you do, NEVER use JPEGs for working copies. Save things you'll be working with again as any lossless format instead, because you lose information every time you save a JPEG, until you start seeing the mush, and that's crap.

If you're making sculpts, and you save your sculpt maps as a JPEG...You're fucked. 100% double fucked. Your sculpt map turns to jelly, because those actually need pixels to be WHAT THEY ARE, not just a half decent guess with a blindfold on. If you've got some severe lumpy mesh deformation going on, this could be your problem. Make sure no exporter or anything along the way uses JPEG.

Plus, SL uses JPEG itself. It recompresses everything you upload into JPEG2000 (which is a fancy smacktacular JPEG format that does more stuff, but is still a pissy little bastard and I hates him), so your artifacting gets worse due to the multiple save rule. Bright side? Your hugeass TGA file is a managable size and can actually be loaded by people's computers faster, and that's why they use it. Even though I'm still kind of against it. I told you I was opinionated!

The Mighty BMP, or Mommy, Why Is My File So Huge?

BMPs (Bitmaps, should you ever be at a dinner party and feel the need to show off that you are a GREAT HUGE NERD) are a really old skool format. They are lossless, so they fit my "use a lossless format" criteria. They're an old Windoze format that lets you save what you actually want (PICTs were the Mac equivalent, as they wanted to do something different, read: more efficient. Once upon a time it wasn't always easy to open PICTs on Windows, but I never had problems with BMPs on Macs. This is all ancient history, and feel free to completely ignore the old lady nattering on about her childhood and walking uphill to school, both ways, in the snow).

The downside though? Dear mother of god that's a big file. SL used to save your screenshots as BMPs, and you had no say in the matter. Which is why your harddrive filled up by leaps and bounds if you took snaps, because it's a horribly inefficient format, and we live in the modern age of miracles and flying cars, and have better options now. The newer SL viewers allow you to save your snapshots as PNGs. Do that, and be happy, as you don't take one snapshot and have your terabyte drive going "oh hai, I gots no more space."

Basically, we've another example of AVOID AVOID AVOID. Not because you're fucking yourself over with the actual image, but because there are better ways to do things now, and we don't need to bother with this jackassery anymore.

The PNG Comes to Save the Day. Sort of.

Once upon a time, there was this new up and coming format, the mysterious PNG. It was going to be magical and mystical, and let you put images in webpages that had more than 256 colours, but also were lossless and crisp and beautiful. What's more, this magical fairyland format was going to let you do transparency, which JPEG did not, and, oh!, you could also do gradual transparency so it wasn't just one colour set to clear, but you could have gradients and fades and it was all wonderful and beautiful and we lived hapily ever after.

And, of course, while this was a format targetted towards the web, Internet Explorer dragged its feet on implementing it properly, taking years and years to implement the transparency on the PC, while the Mac, and Netscape, had it wonderfully. Yes, I'm talking about Netscape, back when they actually updated it regularly, when it was the viewer of choice for most people. I told you, I'M OLD.

PNG is my format of choice when saving snapshots, it's lovely and portable, and it loves each and every pixel as all of its beautiful and perfect children, and wouldn't dream of forgetting one. I used to batch my screens as PNGs and trash the BMPs, to make space. It's as crisp as BMP, and your screen as you're seeing things, but it's smaller file size and takes a lot more to fill up your harddrive.

In short, it's perfect. All of the advantages, none of the disadvantages.

Oh, wait. That's not entirely true. There are disadvantages for content creators: the white halo of dOOOOOOOOOOm.

When it comes to making textures, PNGs are not quite as perfect as you would hope.

If you are making textures with no alpha, you're golden. Now, if you're making those textures in PS, you want to make sure they are REALLY without alpha, due to the dreaded alpha flicker- so make sure your PNG is totally and entirely flattened before saving, and says Background, not Layer 0³, in the layers palette. Layer 0 gives you an alpha channel you aren't using- so it all looks nice and lovely, but you get it in SL and put a texture with alpha in front of it and cam around...and oh crap. Our z sorting issue is the price we pay for features like light, so we put up with it....for now. Even though it can bite my shiny metal ass.

The problem with PNGs, see, is that any pixel that's fully alpha, doesn't exist in colourspace. And because we read things at multiple resolutions with SL, and the way that it deals with the transparency (I'm going with "it's all JPEG2000's fault"⁴, although I sort of mostly ignored that format because it did a lot of floundering and dying in the areas in which I was interested....it was totally someone's pet nerd project, to use JPEG2000. One of the devs fell in love with the format and convinced everyone else he was right), the dead space gets SEEN. And dead space = white. So you get white edges, because SL divides the image up into "pretty colours" and "this is what we see" and loads them separately.

(Note: That Interlaced or none prompt? Is a loading order thing⁵. It means nothing to you, since SL makes them JPEG2000. I always leave it on none.)

Oh, Wait, You Mean You Want Me to Use a Real Game Format, Mr. TGA?

Our workaround here, is the TGA. Now, TGAs have disadvantages: namely, like BMPs, they are inefficient in their lossless compresion. TGAs are an actual proper format used in game design for real things, and it's got all sorts of extras that BMPs don't, and that's part of why it has the file bloat- even if you aren't using it, it sort of leaves the door open and decides that it needs to keep track of it all anyway.

I didn't say it was really the most brightest crayon in the box. Just that it was what worked the best!

I save ALL of my textures as TGAs, regardless of whether they have an alpha channel or not. It's easier for me than flipping back and forth to PNG, but that's a decision I leave up to you. Things with alpha channels should be TGAs though, period.

You see, TGAs save the dead space! They do alpha channels separately. This can make them more of a pain to work with, if you're used to the PNG way of just leaving areas you don't want seen with nothing on them. Because, see, with TGAs, your entire image is filled, and flat, and you don't see the transparency at all. And in the next section....we'll talk about the solution to adding your transparency. Look, really useful stuff finally!

Masks, Channels, Alphas, and How to Make It Not a Filled Up Square

TGAs are so useful because the alphas are separate from the image. You paint outside the lines on the image proper, but you make the lines somewhere else. If you're unfamilar with this way of working, it might be a bit of a challenge adjusting how you do things to make it work. I'm not going to tell you the way to do that, you're going to have to find out what works for you, as everyone finds a different way to do things. (After all, they're sort of endless!)

Now, technically, this applies to CS2. It MAY apply to other versions, however, I make no guarantees.

Do you know about Masks? Masks are lovely. If you have every used an adjustment layer, you see that black and white box, where the white areas get the adjustment layer applied, and the blacks don't? That's a Mask. Basically, a Mask is a separate alpha channel you can apply to any layer or folder, it's a little black and white box that pops up next to your layer (or folder), that lets you draw on it in greyscale. White = visible, black = invisible, and the greys in between are the gradient along the way to give you pretty edges and not make things pixelated. To add a mask to any layer, select that layer and hit the square with the circle in the middle in the bottom of the layers tab. When you have a mask and a layer, the one actively selected will have a dotted box around it in the layers tab, so you know which one you're drawing on.

Yes, a drunken monkey drew this. Obviously, this is not what it should REALLY look like.

Now, to see your transparency in this brave new world of TGA, so things look like what's you're used to, make a folder, put evvvvvvverything in that folder, all your layers, and make new layers as you go in this folder, and make your mask on _that_ folder. Now, everything that gets seen, gets seen! And everything that doesn't, doesn't! It looks just like when you were doing PNGs! (Even if it means you have to _do_ it differently.)

When you turn that mask off, by holding Shift and clicking on it, you should see all the spaces outside the lines. Which should be very similar to the pixels next to them, that are seen. I leave it to you to decide how this is done. Fill a background layer behind it all with a colour that fits? Smudge an underlayer out? Draw all over the dead space in the first place and make things keep going? (This last one is my way, but I also come from a different graphic background....so I was doing it anyway.)

To make your mask, you have a few options. You can select a layer, or just make any selection, and either make your mask while that selection is active and it will apply it, or fill the mask with white (or black, if you want it invisible) in the selection (delete with your choice as the background colour, as a real fill may screw you over). You can also take your paintbrush and draw your mask right there as you go, using white to reveal areas, black to conceal. You can also use vector masks, which let you use Paths (PS's gimpy vector tools) to make hard edged selections that remain edittable. (Note: If you are interested in this, look up PS tutorials on Paths and Vector Masks for the techniques, I'm not going into it here. Its usefulness entirely depends on how you want to do things- it can be useful, or it can be extraneous and something you'll never want.)

Now, once you're done, and you've got your image that spreds out beyond the invisible edges, and your lovely alpha mask....Turn that alpha mask off. Hold Shift, and click on it, and boom! your lovely selection goes away. Now, select your alpha mask (ctrl+click on mask), and go to the Channels tab. It should be in the window with Layers, it should say "Layers", "Channels", and "Paths" for the tabs at the top. Make a new channel, the same way you make a new layer, and fill that with white by deleting, or hitting invert, or whatnot.

Now. DUPLICATE YOUR IMAGE. Trust me. You don't want to lose everything when you flatten it and accidentally save instead of save as. And you DO want to keep a layered backup, I'm sure you know by now!

Now, flatten your image. With the mask inactive, so it's all that messy outside the lines, and you have no lovely alpha....OR DO YOU? Because, see, you've got it in your channel!

Save your image as a tga. Make sure Alpha Channels is ticked on (and As a Copy isn't), then, it will prompt you:

16 bits/pixel
24 bits/pixel
32 bits/pixel

Ignore 16, forever and always, it means nothing to you. CHOOSE 32. If you have an alpha channel, you NEED 32. On the other hand....if you don't have an alpha channel, to get away from the dreaded flicker, you NEED 24⁶. That says "oh hey, no alphas for us, nevermind!" instead of "I have an alpha channel even though it doesn't look like it, I just choose to make everything visible, so I can fuck with everything with transparency around me." Those extra 8 bits ARE the alpha, if it has that many, it has an alpha, period (and, as an added oh hey PS hates us bonus, if you don't have Alpha Channels ticked on in the save as dialog...it trashes your alpha channel and puts in a pure white one if you save as 32). If it doesn't have them, no alpha, regardless of your masking. You can open that file up again to look at it, and see if there is an extra channel there. (Remember, there will ALWAYS be 4 layers in there, for full view, red, green, and blue. The colour separations are awesome if you get into some wacky sculpting stuff- but generally not so useful with regular textures.)

Other uses for channels: you can cntl+click a channel and it will load that selection. If you have a selection you want to keep? Hey there sailor! There are also certain filters that can be used in conjunction with channels for whizbang effects. Now, you MUST make sure to delete all extraneous channels before you do your saving, since you don't want it to get confused!

For a last somewhat helpful note: if you're making clothing, save your image as 512x512, always. I make them double size, but my last step is scaling down. Why? Because SL will scale to 512x512 for you, regardless of what you want. That IS the resolution the avatar textures will be, period (and you gain nothing but crappy jagged edges if you go smaller). There is no way to squeeze more out, and this way you aren't making SL do another step of work, so things load better, faster, stronger. I work larger because I can play around with more detail and have more fine control.

¹Ok, I'm not really THAT old. But I might be older than you. I remember the day before you young whippersnappers and your css, when we had to do all our formatting in HTML and tables, and we liked it.

²There was the BMP and PICT, of course, but I'm coming from a webnerd background here, and those were not viable options. Plus, I'll be getting to the BMP later.

³The thing you have to understand about computers, is that they're sort of dumb. They can't figure out there's no alpha unless you tell it repeatedly⁷. Flattening to Background is how you tell a PNG that no, really, FOR SURE, you didn't mean to have an alpha channel. Honestly. For reals. Trust me. No, really, PNG, I'm serious.

⁴In reality it's probably Photoshop's fault, with the way it does PNG alphas- since there AREN'T any pixels there in the first place, so it has to make shit up, and white is the colour of imaginary angel pixels, or something. However, I would really rather blame it on JPEG2000, because I keep grudges. Also, because of the way SL works, you get to see those imaginary pixels, so THERE, that IS JPEG2000's fault. Neener.

⁵Interlaced is kind of nifty for the web, back in the day when we were all on dialup and things went slooooooow. It would load the image in "stripes" kind of, instead of top down, so you would sort of see the image, and it would get clearer as it loaded. Kind of. Again, ignore.

⁶Again, see "computers are dumb". Because really, TGA, even though I told you once before already, I REALLY TRULY want an alpha channel if it's 32 bit⁷. And I REALLY DON'T if it's 24 bit. Also, if you save a TGA with a channel at 24 bit? Your channel GOES POOF. So make sure you save as the right bits! Also, this is another reason we make a duplicate of the image!

⁷There are, of course, limited cases in which you WANT an apparently solid image to actually have a transparency channel- if you're doing something fancy with invisiprims (like the flea with the magnifying glass), things that "look" solid will become invisible, and in limited cases, it's quite a clever effect. Just...not so awesome, unintentionally.

I dream of wide open spaces

2008-11-20T23:31:00.000-08:00

The Open Space announcement from LL was...disappointing. It's the right decision done in totally the wrong way, basically. Yes, limitations needed to be added to the existing, and obviously there needed to be another tier, in between the two.

But this....is verging on ridiculous. To go from 3750 to 750, for the same price, is just... Really, did they think this was going to make anyone happy? And then, the new Homesteads, still to be stacked in 4 (oh, _maybe_ we'll consider 3), since the stacks of the Open Spaces were what they were stating as the problem?

Really now. This is just another way to get people to leave. God knows, I'm considering it (I won't, of course. At least, not until my friends do. But I have signed up for another grid in the meantime, but they're a ways away from being a real threat....but eventually, they will be).

Instead, what I think they SHOULD have done, is make Open Spaces what they were meant to be, what they were SOLD as: 3750 prims. However, add in the hard limits to avatars and scripts to ensure they aren't "abused". Then a midway sim that's stacked in 2, rather than 4, that's more of a half sim, again with limits that are somewhat less restrictive than Open Space. I fear this is a case where they saw all the money they "could" have been making by charging more for the minisims, and got too greedy. There were problems that they should have seen coming (seriously. I saw them coming and I'm not on the damn technical staff and don't know much about their load capacity), and could easily deal with, since they run the whole system.

There's a huge amount of art and beauty that will soon be dead because of the change: places that could have been worked as legit Open Space sims with the limits placed upon them, but which need the higher prim limits (750? That won't go anywhere). A lot of people were able to justify the price tag for sims that served little purpose other than to be a playground of beauty, and SL NEEDS more of that.

I'm sad I won't see them all before they go- I will only see a small fraction of them.

Mapping problem, cont.

2008-04-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

(These are mostly personal musings on problem- I'm not explaining it explicitly enough to describe it for others currently [primarily because I think to really explain, I'd have to draw diagrams, and I'm still not sure how well I could translate 3D deformed space to 2D flat and still retain any sort of clarity]. I'm still looking around for potential solutions, but am just coming up with more problems instead.)

Upon further research, the wall gets taller. Apparently there are a number of imperfect tools out there to try to get around the problem (including one that takes an obj and imports it as a sculpt through the SL menu...which, aside from the fact it's extremely touchy on what you can ever try, I generally don't trust at _all_), and it sounds like they all do it badly. There's a big discussion on the forums about trying to do it and how tos in ways that...I just don't understand why they're trying to do it _that_ way, as it seems like the hard way to me. Looks like Blender is not the only program to not map proper though (no programs were raised as "well, you know x does it right, even if it is expensive" which isn't really heartening. If Maya actually got around it without all the hoops and etc....)

Tacked on, I'm not 100% sure I'm on the right page with the way SL does it. Mostly I'm a little perplexed as to texture mapping regarding, as they seem to be at odds to me (which is another dimension of The Problem with inaccuracy). At least in certain ways- it mostly comes down to "well, you stitch it this way and I get it. But you stitch it that way and I'm starting to get a little confused." There's also one more somewhat esoteric and bizarre stitching method I'd love to have, just generally (a modified sphere stitching, basically. It's odd and strange enough although it makes sense while modeling that I can't see it even being something they would consider adding, as much as it would be useful).

Worse, in regards to my immediate problem...I'm not sure where I stand on that at all. This is not 100% due to the inaccuracy problem (now, raise the prim limits to 20x20x20, and I wouldn't have any of that dimension at all, because I wouldn't have to worry about splicing bits and could skip my problematic steps. *sigh* I wih megaprims came in more useful sizes, and the massive chunk of them weren't just hacked to make it work in one particular manner this way, which means it won't with anything else), but also due to a bit of uncertainty how to actually approach certain features of the object itself. This is a point at which existing architectural reference would come in handy, as I'm not sure how x and y would translate properly, nor how much they would be desired. So yeah...spinning my wheels entirely until I can get a concrete vision on what I'm doing.

Tacked on, the thing for me...I'm still very heavily in the "that would be a nice thing to have" mode, not really the "ok, let's do this!" It's another thing that I need to wrap my head around the scale of before I can get much done, and I'm just...not sure at all. At least a) it's something that there is architectural reference of, even if I am not going those ways a lot, and b) I've already figured out how a fair bit of that will function regardless, prims willing.

Improper Mapping in Blender: a problem

2008-04-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to be a little more zen about certain things annoying me (times when people refuse to stop jumping up and saying LOOK AT ME I'M RIGHT LOOK AT ME DO WHAT I WANT!...take a step back, a deep breath, and just stop feeding into it and walk away. They are free to think they won, in reality they aren't worth my time. There's a reason I'm a misanthrope). I know I'm also a bit less able to deal because I've effectively had a bad cold for a year and a half now. *sigh* I want to go home.

My new new irksome though is not related to people. I've finally run into the wall that I've known was there for a while about Blender's imprecision on mapping the sculpt texture. Instead of mapping the points where SL maps them, it has a tendency to basically map in between (this is most disasterous on the edges, as that's where the problem begins, and has the greatest deformation). This is not such a huge deal for a lot of sculpts: SL does a bit of deforming your mesh here and there anyway, although your seams may still be somewhat messy, which is not cool. This becomes a greater deal with sharp edges (which have needed a fair bit of PS post anyway, in my experience- even when they shouldn't), as, even when you redo the edges you've still got a pixel of messy lead in (which can be eliminated by making it the edge as well, so long as you can sacrifice it- but it still means the sculpt and texture are pulling off. One top of this, the corner corner top/bottom edges...are just a total wreck, because it doesn't pull them where it ought to.

In this case, I can probably reason through the math and do it all in PS from a Rokuro (not that I actually want to do that, but this problem right now is entirely fueled by the 10x10x10 prim size limit, it's not a hard shape in of itself), but that simply won't work in some cases, nor does it change the fact it's always stretching things improperly. I'm not comfortable with many of the tools in sculptypaint yet, and I don't think it has the robust _sculpting_ tools that I need, but it does map properly (too bad it doesn't import .objs itself for mapping), and, damn. Stairs. Truly, totally, awesome. Too bad I don't see a way to work another staircase I'd like to with it, that's going to be "a challenge" and require a lot of fixing it up in PS, I'm sure- although I think perhaps the map here has given me a good concrete view of how to (until I try it and find the niggling things I haven't thought of, of course). Aside from everything else, it's pretty brilliant for importing your sculpt map and finding out what havok Blender has dealt with the way it goes about it- whether it's even worth trying to pull into SL.

I've got an idea to try that will, I'm reasonably certain, require a bit of post to get functional (if it's even possible, which I'm not sold on- it's a kinda sorta maybe, not a perfect answer), to get around the problem. This model has enough other troubles inherent in the way Blender deals with it I'm not sure it's a model case to try though. (I think it would actually be pretty straightforward to write a program that would take the one data and convert it to the other correctly, that's just not something I'm up to. I do not write programs, and haven't any desire to learn that, a little light coding and scripting is more than enough, thanks.)

New viewer and code, joys and flaws

2008-04-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

I've been running the Windlight Release Candidate for a while. The regular viewer started cascade crashing, and the other options out there (read: fan made viewers) weren't working right (one had the same crashing, the other corrupted textures constantly). I had found it to be a far more rock solid uncrashing viewer than the regular, by far. It's...not as much anymore. It's still not horrid, but not as stable as it used to be.

I'm sure they merged the code branches less because they were actually ready, and more because they didn't want to be working on multiple code branches at once, so they could just apply everything to WL (especially with the big move to Havok 4). Shoving both out at once makes it harder to see what is causing which flaw though.

I don't think it was lost on anyone what a massive clusterfuck the launch of Havok 4 was. Some of it wasn't even their fault.

Something has gone rotten with the camera. I don't know which one started it- the RC WL wasn't doing it, and the beta grid running Havok 4 wasn't doing it. But the proper viewer...yeah. They "fixed" the camera in the 1.20 RC, and I had to switch to the regular viewer instead, because it was making me queasy. The camera was often moving with less constraints and more sensitivity, and, and this is the bad part for me, it isn't updating the location of the selected outline properly. It lags behind the camera rotating around, which is very disconcerting, and well, not a fan. I'm not sure what's up here, but it ain't good.

(As an aside, I wish they'd rework the camera in regards to focusing on objects. Most noticeable in larger prims, so it shows in builds, not in jewelry, the camera has serious issues with hollows and dimpled cube/cylinder/prism surfaces. It wants to focus on the "outside" that isn't there. This is mostly not a deal...except that they've now semi sanctioned megaprims so more people are going to be using them, and with the extremely limited number around, a lot of them are dimpled to mimic other sizes, and, worse, the interior of cylindrical buildings of any type just doesn't work well. It would also be a great primsaver with hollowing and cutting for right angle walls and such- which some people do, to the camera's detriment.

As another aside, I wish they would just go ahead and up the prim size limit legitimately. I would kill for 20m instead of 10. More would be nice, but that would be a great start.)

1.20 also has Jazz Hands (aka Dazzle), which is ugly as sin, and has a lot of really bad UI choices. I really hope people are already working on skinning this hideous thing so it doesn't have to look like crap when they do force it on us.

The SKIRT BUG. Motherfucking pudding, but I can't believe they let this thing go live with that. Obviously, from things they've said, they just plain don't care. They've also been trying to say WL isn't the problem...in which case, why is that the thing that makes them go away? I know, I know, it's a packet thing blah blah, but come _on_. If you never used WL, you never got the bug. Therefore, don't make people change, until the bug is gone. Is this so hard to grasp? I know, we don't think skirts matter. This is why you will never truly be a viable economic platform, and people will jump ship when something else comes along. Not because you didn't "keep up" and put in voice and awkward lighting effects. (God, voice. I still think my random laggy hangs have to do with that, since that's when they started.)

Memory leak! Yes, it's complex, yes, you have to track it down, yes, this should be your number one priority. I've heard, *cough*, that some of those 3rd party fanviewers do not have this problem. Maybe you should actually consider listening to these people who are fixing your viewers? Because it isn't as if they aren't trying to share this information with you.

I know, it's too much to ask for that friends going on/offline, group notices, and, in fact, being anywhere with more than 5 people not cause random lagspikes that freeze me entirely.

This new texture thing makes me cry. Ever so occasionally I'll get the useful thing back...briefly, and then it will break again. Matching offsets becomes so very much more of a headache. And it looks like it's yet another "oh, you use an Nvidia card. Well, too bad"- which was also apparently the source of my cascading crashes, from the information I could track down.

Blender, the avatar, and you.

2008-04-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

You know those evil seams? Yeah, there are things that, while not perfect, can make it easier. With Blender, you can draw right on the avatar. Not with the same precision as a graphics program (in my experience, at least, maybe you're better at it), but for matching up stuff in the problem areas? 100% awesome.

I'm not super great at tutorials, because I tend to skip steps, but here's hoping this is something that isn't totally random. I'm going to try to give a really basic crash course to take you through the whole system. And hope I haven't forgotten steps on the way.

Download Blender, install and all that. Blender is a very weird program, but I think the installation was reasonably straightforward.

Download these avatar Blender files:

(Note: the first one may not be good. The second one is more useful, it should be good as of now, up to when they decide to nuke it again.)

Default model for cross section seams- the avatar on the green axis line has some sections joined crosswise. The one next to it is divided up into each image. Both are in the T pose, so shoulders are not as useful for how things will really hang.

Ruth in 3 poses- the mother of us all. I don't find the model you download off the website to actually be accurate, this is actually Ruth. This is entirely divided into the per images, there are no cross image sections. Also, her feet are the Ruthfeet size, so don't sculpt shoes around it unless you're willing for them to not be size 0. Yes, one of them has shoe morphed feet with max height anyway. This is better for things you want to see the sleeves in, as well as being a nice way to preview what something will look like before importing to SL, if you don't have the clothing previewer (which I think you ought to, personally! I don't know how I could live without it, even with this. It's far more lightweight and compact for previewing). (Bonus for skinners and the like: the eyelashes should be connected properly, and the eyes are also included as a separate texture mapped thingie.)

I'll be working on more avatar models (including guys) to make seeing where things really go easier eventually. You can use the male model off of the website (note: you will have to do a lot of prep, including importing the .obj, which requires a plugin), but I find that it doesn't map particularly true in a lot of areas.

Open the file of choice. Now the fun starts, because there are a jillion and 4 options in Blender, and it can be daunting. Below the black avatar wireframes, there should be a menu. You should be in Object Mode, which is what you need to switch to any time you want to choose which part of the model you want to work on.

First, a note on camera: Hold down Alt, and the mouse button, and you rotate around. Alt+Shift and mouse, and Alt+Ctrl and mouse move different ways (drag around the scene, zoom in/out). I just hold down alt and play around with the others to see what's what, since everything has to use a different camera and it's hard to keep straight! If you've got a mouse with a scrolly wheel, that also zooms in and out (generally, mouse settings vary and all).

Here, have a picture that may not help much that I've scribbled all over:

I've spliced the bottom there in while in Texture Paint, you can't see all of those options while in Object Mode!

Choose the bit you want to work with, with the right button. If you want to join parts of the model together (note, this will mean they share texture images! So don't join unless you _want_ that), shift, select the other parts, and then Ctrl+J to join. Note: Blender does very weird sensitive submenus, if you mouse off of it before clicking to verify, it will not do what you ask! This includes things like saving! Joining is useful with the 3 avatar file, as you can join all the heads, all the torsos, all the legs, and they will all update at once. Currently they are each separate.

The new version of Blender has done away with UV Face Select mode, and collapsed it into Edit mode. Change everywhere I say "UV Face Select" to "Edit Mode" if your version of Blender doesn't have UV Face Select.

Once you've got your selection, go to the Object Mode dropdown, and choose UV Face Select. Now, the windows should all be set up such that in the next panel, you will now see the UV outlines for that piece laid out in that space (this is the UV/Image Editor mode, which only has a face icon visible, click on the dropdown to see the name). If that panel does not have them outlined, hover over the avatar and press A (select all, which toggles selection on and off). It should be selected unless you've clicked off of it. At any time you can unselect a section, if you've clicked on one face, and then select the entire model by pressing A twice (yes, just A, no shift, control, or alt. And you have to have your mouse hovering that section). Your image will not be applied to the entire model, unless the entire model is selected. That includes not being able to draw on it, even though it looks like it's right there.

If you are using the cross image seamed avatar, the stomach will have lines at the bottom, and the pelvis at the top, but the legs and arms and such won't be there! This way we can draw across it all on one image, and it will update top and bottom. You'll have to divide these out later, as well as the fact it won't do anything about the parts that aren't outlined there. (Note: I tend to not do this that much actually due to laziness, since I have to splice out the pieces back to where they belong. Your mileage may vary.)

In the panel with the UV map laid out, go to the Image menu, New, or Open (note: I think it only accepts tgas, but it ignores transparency entirely¹, so denote that with a contrasting colour when working on it), and either create a new image of your choice or import something you want to check. Remember, if you're doing the stomach/pelvis, you will have had to prep an image to have both of the necessary pieces in it, that you will divide back up again later.

¹This is no longer true in newer versions of Blender. It DOES do transparency, so save your working copies as 24 bit tgas, or don't drop your channel in. Transparency is awesome for trying to get the $*%@#! skirt mesh to line up, crap for everything else.

The image should now appear under the UV map. To get it to appear on your avatar, in the menu under it, there is a strange outlined box thing next to UV Face Select. Click on that dropdown, and choose Textured.

To actually _do_ something with all of this, change UV Face Select to Texture Paint. Hit A to deselect the model so you can see it better. The vertex lines will still be there. If you want them to go away, switch to Object Mode and then to Texture Paint (don't change your selection any), and it will just outline the entire thing in a light pink line around the area you're working on. Both things have their uses.

In the bottom panel that has all that scary menu text, hover your mouse, and hit F9. The Paint panel lets you choose paint colour, opacity, brush size, and all that fun stuff. Draw all over the avatar! Once you're done, go back to that Image menu where you created a new image or opened one you already had, and save it. Blender WILL let you close things without saving! It does not prompt!

If you want to save what you've done with the model as a whole, for instance the joining, you can save it under the File menu. As I said before, Blender does not prompt for saving if you've changed anything!

It actually is less complicated than it looks, once you've done it a few times!

Again, wah wah wah, and rampant speculation

2008-04-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

Oh god, this way-too-easy-to-post-to-the-wrong-one strikes again. Hah, crap. I didn't mean to keep stirring shit up where it was so visible. I really don't like dramaqueening, but I had to get some of this off my chest so it wasn't just running circles around in my head.

So...crap. I pulled it once I found out, but damage is done, and well, whatever the fallout will be there's no going back and fixing it.

So...today she's sort of "given her notice" that's she's quitting. I'm still confused about a fair bit of the whole matter.

I've heard second/third hand, that she revised the post, and the original version actually went to in to particulars. I want to read that post. Apparently, she ripped into the baby, which would have made me laugh my head off, because if that isn't a case of not getting it, I don't know what is. (I'm sure the rest, of course, would have just pissed me off- although if she'd actually said useful things? I might have let it slide. Violet stared at her cameo until she figured out that due to newscaryWL and SL refusing to save states when updated, that 5 of the gems weren't set full bright. THAT IS EASY TO FIX, IF SOMEONE JUST FUCKING TOLD HER. And you know, when it's not a freebie? A lot of people tend to hunt through their records and send fixed copies to everyone if something's messed up like that. It's pointless doing it with freebies, because there are just too damn many transactions. I overran my 500 a day repeatedly.) I still don't know what was "wrong" with mine- I'm wondering if it's some of the intentional things (oh, I would have cackled if she'd complained the way the pattern worked on the back of the men's version on a woman, because THE MODELS ARE DIFFERENT, and that's why there are two versions! The peck/boob shading and cuts are just an added thing because I had to anyway, and isn't too terribly uncrossable [well, men in the white women's, maybe]. Or bitched that my blacks are too black, hand-staple-forehead, believe it or not, they are dark _and_ have depth, which is a painful line to walk. Maybe your monitor doesn't show it all, mine does. Or that the top/bottoms don't quite match up, which is height of irony given some of the other things she's said- and they come as close as I could manage). Yeah, artists, by nature, tend to be insecure beasts, it's partly to do with tearing our souls bare and sharing them with strangers.

I am still wondering if its a vendetta against someone in particular- but no one I know has ever even heard of her before. An alt, maybe...but still, none of us can think of anyone we've pissed off. That still leaves a couple of people, but seeing as they didn't really have anything to do with the actual build itself...I don't know. I'm sort of peeved she dissed the poseballz, because I wasn't even vaguely started on those. I was way more focused on getting the place up and running, and added a few around as I came to it, whereas I'd been intended to poseball the place up a fair bit more, making some poses for it and such, as well as replacing a bunch that are there, since they were just placeholders while I was figuring out the rest. And now, because she threw a bitchfit, people may think that's all due to her. Um, no, not even a little. It was just one of the little ironic things that made me laugh though, the one pic at the motel, she's in one of the ubiquitous freebie poses that isn't particularly well done- and that's hers, not ours, there's no pose there at all (and, if we're bitching about not having put fancy sits in all the chairs, as that LIBRARY chair there doesn't have one...)

Reading through her archive, also just adds more perplexitude. While she does some feature freebs of quality...there is also a lot of not so much that she gushes over. So, whiskey tango foxtrot?

If I were a really vindictive bitch, I could try to get her banned from groups/sims of people I know. She at least used to be in one group I have a banhammer for, if I wanted to abuse my powers (which I in no way would- I'm not even going to bring up the possibility with the owner, as _she_ might do it anyway if she knew, as yes, we are protective of each other), and I'm sure I could get her banned from the sim as well, if I really wanted. I could probably get her banned from at least one place she actually "shops" (although she pointed out that she's basically a drain on the economy, and not willing to get a job or put money into the system), as she's a friend of a friend, and I haven't really met her entirely due to not being in the same place at the same time yet (and, *cough*, she's bought things from me when I wasn't around, as well). And, I wonder how long it would take her to notice and figure it out, since I certainly wouldn't tell her.

I've even considered the idea of touch-give and pay eventing all my freebs, instead of buys, entirely so I could keep a blacklist of people it wouldn't give stuff to. I won't because it's petty (although, if they aren't going to be gracious, they don't deserve it), and it would be asspainy with the lack of transaction records, that I kind of like even though they aren't all that relevant, just because, you know?, but on the other hand, a networked blacklist with this script very stealthily distributed to content creators so these people didn't know, would be fucking hysterical.

I had thought, perhaps, that aside from backpedal faster bitch damage control, her follow up "wink wink something else is going on here" post (which INFURIATES me, as to me, at least, it implies that she's got something going with ME, and as aforementioned, I have no idea who the fuck she is), was a play at grabbing a piece of the freebie blogging pie. Even bad press being press and all, and a play like this might get her the attention she craves from the blahgosphere. But, since she's backing out, I don't know. Maybe it _was_, until she got a much negative attention as she has (although she says it's all been positive...and maybe it has. Maybe people do feel entitled to not having to spend any money, in which case, yeah...back to my previous "maybe people will eventually figure out this isn't worth it". But at least one of her consistent cheerleaders is a friend, from references in earlier posts, and those I generally negate as useful posts, as friends will have your back even if you're wrong, a lot).

On the other hand, I think a crapton more people went to the motel because of it though, so it actually ended up being a positive thing in every way except emotionally.

In which we whinge and complain more, as this is a less public forum

2008-04-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was all prepared to bitch more about that certain someone and things related, and I may still because things still somewhat infuriate (not even her in particular, honestly. It's been building a long time with the general thing, and she's just getting my ire as being the last, and most egregious that I've seen directly instead of just hearing about, case of it).

Then there was stuffs on shopping cart re: Cachet and (sloppy) stealing from designers, and *sigh*, yeah, it depresses me how much this is done. (Ok, first off though? How much did upon first glance I think the actual model was the avatar, and that was some damn fine sculpties? Seriously, even at closer inspection, that doesn't look entirely out of the realm of possibility.) Not just the big names like McQueen, but also Leg Avenue (which, gah, is sloppy enough to begin with, although occasionally the design ideas are cute, but wow, do you own any of it? I own one or two and they are so crappily made), Threadless (which is total bullshit unless you're the one who made it there too), Urban Outfitters, etc. etc. I'm not talking inspiration here, I'm talking dead stealing (I skimmed the comments a bit- for instance though Alla Ruff is totally not in the category I'm talking here, even if she did see two things and do a third that had some influences from both but was a totally different thing). (And PC actually gets another category entirely from me, because I don't think they are doing it for serious, but instead for the lollercopters, even if the vast majority of people don't get that it IS parody. It's not hard to spot that it is if you actually look. Look at the blog or website, and tell me they aren't shooting the piss. This is all 100% carefully planned. And, christ, it's even funnier the more people who do this stuff for serious.)

There are people who try to defend it..."RL and SL aren't the same thing!" and such, and yeah...I'm not onboard with that. I'll bet that neither are the people you're copying, if they do decide to turn their eye to you.

Worse to me though, is the cases where you can probably just step up and fucking ask, and they'll say "yeah, go ahead, and my url on it would be totally awesome!" (There are a couple of places that I'm very...sketchy about, I might buy from there otherwise, but they've got items that, while they give credit, I don't see any mention of permission when it most likely could have been obtained...and yeah. It doesn't make me feel good. It's still way less creepy...but still a little "well, did that person say you can make her x?") Case in point: the newest issue of GLAM.

First off, I want to say, not everyone in the mag should be tarred with the brush. There are articles and ads there that have absolutely NOTHING to do with the whole bullshit, other than they ended up in the same publication. There's an awesome article on Jessica Ornitz, and another great article with Fallingwater Cellardoor (and that's not all by half, those are just the ones that jumped out to me). I also love the BJD spread, which, yes, that whole thing is inspired by an actual thing, but I see it as something totally different really. To my knowledge that's based on the general phenomena, not directly one person's thing, and it's become really a huge huge widespread thing that has taken on a life of its own. (I'm also assuming the Nicky Ree ad that makes me cringe is a case of model error, wearing 2 different shades. It sort of has to be, nothing else makes sense, other than possibly Windlight deciding on some new fuckery. Which, you know, really is a possibility. *sigh*)

But. I turned to the 7 Deadly Sins spread (which was actually what caught my interest, following a link from Fleur, curious about their post of "something that worked with the spread but was still something our customers would like"). Vanity is the one that SCREAMED the source material to me (and is currently still her featured). She hadn't finished the whole set when I first saw that, ages ago, but Vanity was one of the 3? if I recall correctly, but it's been a long time, and the memory is fuzzy- but it was the one that stuck out to me (Natalia Zelmanov did a dress of it at one point in the past as well, but she was 100% up front with "this is exactly where it came from"- which still, makes me a little twitchy as forementioned...but she came out and said it, which is a damn good start. AND she gave the url to the source material, which is pretty damn close to good enough, I didn't even have to google it- although explicit credit would still make me more comfortable. I mean, this whole idea is why I won't sell some stuff, period- the Sandman and Transmet stuff I gave out a while back, and it'll never go on sale sale, unless I talk to the respective authors about putting them up for the Comic Book Legal Defense League or something. And as much as I've thought about making a set of Death skins...probably not something I'll ever let other people have. I've got one I wear upon occasion now, but my my skins I don't distribute beyond a very very tiny circle). I thought her art was really neat (and I'm in awe of people who really really digital paint like that, that takes talent. I fuck around a bit, but I don't think I ever have a hope of being that good- although honestly serious recreation of paint in a digital medium is not something I ever plan to spend that much time mastering, it's neat, but I have other things that grab my personal attention more. If I want to paint, I have paint, you know? And, oddly, even though I almost entirely only draw people unless I've got something else in mind or I'm totally scribbling, I hardly ever paint people, and never in the same style as the way I draw. Don't ask me, I don't know. But I'm also not into super realism unless I have a serious reason for it.)

Unless there are credits somewhere I don't see, there's zero mention. And...I wonder how many of the people involved in the spread had any clue what was going on. Casa del Shai's stuff definitely predates (and, doesn't look as much like it as it does there, but god, if I were them, I'd be pretty embarrassed about how it made me look if I found out about it afterwards, since I think their stuff was used the most there). Sloth, which starts it off, has some obvious changes (the skin is quite obviously not "HERE, MAKE THIS" which makes one think that yeah, some of these people probably did get drawn into this unknowingly, and there's the butterfly instead of bubbles, and the hair and dress are only vaguely. I'm thinking the poses all are direct rips, and were made for this, and the heads are just free in some of them. I could be wrong...but they are really really close). Wrath also, disturbing pose/background, but only passing similarities to dress/skin/hair/jewelry. Vanity is from a different angle, and with a direct comparison between the two isn't as direct as it seemed, but still, very obviously trying to recreate it (the makeup is semi generic enough that it's close...but that doesn't actually mean anything). Envy is even trying to do the very distinctive hair, although it's a definite case of not the same makeup. Lust is another case of doubtful on the makeup (note, I'm stressing the makeup here, as it was started as being created for the spread, and I'm thinking that most/all of the people making the skins were not complicit), but you've got the pose, background, and accessories right there. Gluttony is, on inspection, a fair bit different, and most obviously due to head turning- but I'm unfortunately thinking that's just due to not locking the head/neck, and the same goes for Avarice.

Personally...if I were one of the people featured in any of the spread I'd be very uncomfortable with it. But, I don't think they really had anything to do with it, this may just be a case of photographer's etc. Which, hell, they do in Vogue from time to time to some degree...but any time I've noticed it they are 100% up front about it, even when it's generic enough they don't have to be. That's what makes me squirm- doubly so because it's a person who's a solo artist, and probably does actually answer their emails, so actually clearing it might have been really easy. (Yeah, there's the possibility they'll say no, but is just steamrolling ahead without clearing it better? I say no, personally.)

We've all, I'm sure, been guilty of it to some degree, from fan doodles to whatnot. When money enters into it, I become a lot more uncomfortable about the whole thing though. If I was contracted to do something, would I? To a degree, probably yes (in fact, to a degree definitely yes, although it was far less of a clearcut thing, I still wasn't superthrilled), if I'd agreed to beforehand without knowing whatall exactly was involved. I'd be far less likely to continue my contract beyond the original term, and I'd try to make it as much "inspired by" and not "oh hai, I just ripped that off" as I could, generally. As much as there are sometimes things that yeah, I might like to have, I don't really like directly copying, just generally.

Will I prove myself a total hypocrite somewhere down the line? Quite possibly. It's easy to stand in judgment over someone else, whereas you may not see it when you're in it. I'm also way less into it when it's a little guy. Big corps, yeah, you might get your ass sued if they turn their lawyers loose on you, but the little guys are a) approachable, so you can actually do something about clearing it, and b) way less obvious, although moreso in the world post internet and sensory overload, so yeah, you may well still get caught with your pants down.

Limitations of Blogger

2008-03-21T01:50:00.000-07:00

I've been hunting for a while for a way to do cuts. So far...not good options. I want to do a proper CUT, which doesn't show the stuff anywhere but on the page for the post itself. This is great for, say, cutting bits for the feed to chunk a post nicely. WTB lj-cut text="This should be simple"

Apparently, not so much. This looks like the most straightforward manner (and, don't try to use Blogger's official help as it's completely hopeless and incomprehensible). But, this does 2 things. 1) if you can find the body tag (which, I can't), and add the second bit, every single post will have the "read more" link, regardless of whether it's got a cut or not (if not, you need to manually add a link to the post before the cut to take people to the page with the rest of it). 2) And in my mind, the thing that makes it useless, all it's doing is having you drop the stuff you want cut in a span that it hides. Which means...it's still there. All of it. Just invisible only on your page o' posts because that's the only place the stylesheet turns it off. Feedreaders completely ignore the cuts, and show the full text, because they haven't been told to ignore it with css.

Wordpress appears to have a _real_ way to do cuts, I'm pretty disappointed blogger doesn't even consider the possibility.

ramble

2008-02-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

SL is being a brat today, and constantly crashing me- I am lucky if I get 5 minutes before I crash again, and that's just too much to bear, so I give up.

I'm, in my plodding way, working on a few things. Most of my energy has been going towards a jacket (the shoulders alone took a day, and I'd still prefer them a bit crisper, but we work with what we're given), which still needs little tweaks here and there, and then gets the rest of the 12 variants worked up (that should at least be a, comparatively speaking, easy part- half are variations that SL leads to, with the way it works, and divided the other direction, they are things that one would be able to do if it were an actual item of physical clothing). Currently I think it will be just the one colour though, I'm not sure anything suits it but black. The pants were easy, assuming I don't decide they are too plain, but then I need to come up with a shirt. I'm sort of floating on that and haven't really figured it out yet.

Mind you, this jacket was going to be something a fair bit different, as part of a completely different set. Which I still may try to put together soon, although to look at them I don't think anyone would see how the one could be related to the other (general spookiness and colour scheme aside). I'm still referring to both sets by the same name in the meantime, as I haven't decided which to rename, what.

The shoulder things, which are just me being masochistic as shoulders already fill me with irk since I generally want them to sit not where the inherent seams are, were only made as possible (without me working on it for a month or so, still being thoroughly disgusted, and finally giving up after upload after upload after upload) with a different workflow I've managed to get functioning with Blender. I would say it's like cheating...but it still takes for frigging ever, even with the help, and honestly if we were doing Real Professional Video Game Things, this is even a gimpier version of what would be available (primarily due to just using Blender, and not one of the fancier 3D suites). I'll be sharing it soon as I get things together enough to do so, right now I'm very seat of my pantsing it- more scattered, and more work required to make it useful. I'd like to get things a bit more organized and less painful to work with before I try to encourage others to use it much- but on the bright side, I've picked up a few tricks that make it easier for me to set up once I get that far now, that will increase consistency and such other useful type things.

I'm 50% done with the female set for the original concept as well, although it's taken a back burner to getting this suit working. Frustration aside, the jacket's somewhat exciting (even if certain poses, as always, have a tendency to distort things in less than optimal ways, that annoys the crap out of me- even AOless, the shoulders, especially, are far enough forward to wreck the lines around the chest/shoulder area, nevermind all the slouchy or leaning poses that disrupt beautiful lines of buttons...it can't be helped, of course, even with a more sophisticated model, there will always be Things. It is largely my fault for coming up with things that require fighting the system instead of working with it), and I'm pretty chuffed with how it's coming out.

And then there's that corset dress. That should just be a case of coming up with colours now, I believe (which, as evinced by the striped pants, I have a tendency to over engineer- but even though I'm rarely in anything other than black, black, and black, I like a good shocking colour range- I'm highly tempted to go for 2 shades in each of my fav colours [yellow and orange, as always, excluded], and then there's the possibility of duotones...which I really really don't have the room for. Maybe someday I'll do up some of the other alts in my head for special occasions or whatnot), which is always a beast with prim limits and all. (I've got to vendor up the pants, to reduce..8? to 3.) I've tweaked it slightly from the last version I was working with (I'll probably still wear the other, as Alle isn't all that attributed in the chest area), but I think I've gotten the majority of a handle on all the bits. Annoyances with attachment points and skirts aside, which I've at least figured out a way to get good enough, if not perfect (as, in this case, perfection is technically impossible).

I've still got to do something about my HUD as well- I'm now down to minor interface things, convenience vs. lag. I'm leaning towards convenience, as the way to manage multiple bits the less laggy way is quite inconvenient really. Added on, I've never seen any real indicator comparing the two methods (nor a way to get the concrete numbers myself), other than a "well, this is bad unless necessary, and don't do it too much." I would like to know ways to really judge load on scripts- there are things that I've been doing in a less efficient way on the one hand, trying to avoid functions that are stated as inefficient themselves- and have no way to judge whether it's a good idea or not.

I'm also a touch irked I figured out I can't do all my sits in one script in a parent prim, being no Link equivalent function. I could use the SetLinkPrimParams hack, but I don't know whether that is actually working again, nor whether someone will decide to break it in the future, as well as it being substantially more regimented, and not in a desirable way in this case. While I would assume just sit targets (and anim calls) wouldn't be super nasty on server load, by their very existence scripts cause some, before they even actually _do_ anything, so the minimal number is better (when not trumped by convenience, or script limitations).

Treasure hunts

2008-02-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

I've got to get back to useful things, I haven't been in the mood to get all the things I want together for something that, to me at least, will be insanely useful for actually making things without quite so much trial and error.

But I wanted to collect my thoughts on this now, while I was still thinking about it.

I like a good treasure hunt. I end up throwing away half or more of the things I get, but the looking can be fun, as well as the potential for bargains. I love me a good sale, even though I don't really have any plans to hold any myself. But to be brutally honest, I don't think the grid wide Valentine hunt was as successful as it should have been.

1) It was over too short a period. One weekend, with that long a list of participants, means people are just going to be running through. As I would assume the entire point here was a marketing/visibility/traffic thing, having people scrutinizing underneath your furniture and up in your rafters and then running to the next location isn't as useful as, say, having it go for a week bookended by two weekends, so people can look around and oh hey, what's that over there, I rather fancy that.

2) It was a tad disorganized- I know we're not official hunt coordinators here and things go wrong, but at least one person had nothing to do with it and didn't know how they ended up on the list (and was probably pissed when people kept IMing them "where's the box? can i have a hint?"). One person didn't realize they were in it because they thought they missed the deadline, and so didn't make anything for it, and hurriedly threw something together to put out in another manner as an apology. One place had an old LM and had moved locations (and, I heard chatter than their box was broken or somesuch). Am I the only one who thought they would have double checked everyone on the list to make sure they were ready?

3) Some items were hid too well. If you've got a small shop area, yeah, feel free to shrink your box and stash it behind something. When your shop spans half a sim, put it in the back, or upstairs, fairly obvious. Make them work enough to wander through and see things, but not so much they get frustrated and pissed- remember, you want to make a good impression on these people so they think of you and come back when they have more time. One place apparently hid boxes inside of prims, which is dirty pool. Added on, the short time period meant people were likely to get frustrated and pissed in fast forward. Honestly, I don't think the places that made the boxes tower over people with big blinky arrows did it right either- while they didn't get people irked at them, neither did they encourage any looking around and seeing what they had.

4) There was no clarity as how many boxes were where. A couple of shop owners placed out signs "there's one here, and two over there" or thuslike, but otherwise it was a total crapshoot. Is there a valentine or an anti here? Are there both? And some places there were more than one of one type. With how hard some places hid things, you were left unsatisfied not knowing whether you'd finished that place or not.

SLUP!

2008-01-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'm trying out SLUP, which lets you upload 20 textures a month for free. I hadn't really known what I was going to use it for, and I'm still not sure how much I shall, but I figured it was a neat thing to have, just in case, someday. Maybe pictures of my cats when I'm feeling cheap.

I might use it when the Beta Grid's being a pissy beast. Like, oh, now. Eventually I plan to have real avatars exported so I don't need to do as much testing on things with the less-than-accurate models they provide for us.

Note: it's in Japanese, so my very broken and out of practice kana tells me that キャンセル means "Cancel" and アップロード means "Upload". Aside from that...just guess a lot, like I do, I suppose. Currently there is no tga or png support, although it appears planned (I tried a bmp however, and it appeared to work- but there are no options in the SLUP like upload lossless and such). When you upload, the creator will be slup Reiko, not you- they do not ask for your SL account info beyond your username. As such, I wouldn't really recommend it for anything you want to have your name as creator on, obviously- which is why I shan't be using it for real versions, but I might use it to, say, compare SLuploader and regularly uploaded versions of sculpties. (As an aside, I uploaded a couple of small textures that needed pixel perfect reproductions, and while it may be on SL's part when you see it, even with SLuploader, they are not pixel perfect, and the seams are quite obvious. Means that I will have to unnecessarily use larger textures for some things, which it somewhat irksome. I'm trying to reduce the load on your system here, and you just tell me no.)

Attention designers!

2008-01-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

My tenure at Le Cadre' (which is changing it's name to Sensual somethingorother anyway now) is coming to an end. I could petition to stay, but I've never made that place a priority, I've been far more concerned with building up the La Reina shop. However! the end of me being there is the beginning of you being able to!

Go to http://blog.sensualdesigns.net/ and check it out. Live rent free for 3 months (well, the cost of a classified ad). If you help work the area, you probably can work on being able to stay longer, as well.

(Also, the Marasmius or however it's spelled shop is gone. I'll be moving into a new place sometime, that has exciting possibilities. But I'm not immediately planning on replacing the third location again.)

Texturing the Avatar with Blender

2008-01-07T02:05:00.000-08:00

You should know basics of texturing first- see Natalia Zelmanov's tutorials, they are quite well done.

Mostly I recommend this for seam matching and some previewing, I, at least, don't have the sort of fine control to want to use Blender to do the whole thing (especially without layers!), but seams can be a bitch (although I did just paint a sculpty in Blender, and he came out pretty nice really- but still, I did a little bit of post processing in Photoshop to make it all happy and right). I just figured out how to maybe make them less bitchy! I would have loved knowing this forever ago. But at least now I have hope with this damn corset that's been giving me a headache and still not quite working with massive amounts of guessing and zooming and pixel tweaking (stupid complex irregular pattern).

Go to the SL site and download the avatar mesh, if you haven't. Mostly you will have it somewhere, in some form, because you're using something to preview it unless you really are crazy and like working without a net (I do all my previewing with the SL Clothing Previewer- it isn't perfect by any means, but it gives me enough of an idea I can manage in most cases), but basically, you need a file that ends in .obj that has the avatar mesh (male or female, I always work on female because I find it wraps a bit more accurately to SL, although still not accurate, especially around the face).

Go to the Blender importer page and grab the Wavefront obj one, and put in your Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts directory, as previously stated in the av painting intro.

Delete the cylinder that's probably there with the delete key (and say yes...Blender's popups sure can be annoying). Go through the same annoying importing in Blender: File->Import->Wavefront (.obj), navigate the clunky file navigation, don't move your cursor because the popup window will go away and leave you wondering why everything's broken, say ok to the popup at default values. Now you should have a teensy tiny person. Zoom in (remember nav keys are holding down alt and nothing, shift, or ctrl, and the left mouse button, as well as the middle scrollwheel doing strange and potentially useful things). You're still in Object Mode, so select the pieces you want to match seams on. For matching the waist seams, select the stomach and then shift select the pelvis to have both of them highlighted, and ctrl-J to join them into one (say yes to another annoying popup). GLEE. Now that horrible awkward seam there can be painted directly on! (Do a separate join and image for the arm and shoulder seams, so you don't have things overlapping on the UV map, since those are also one of the horrible things, same with legs.)

With your stomachpelvis selected still, choose UV Face Select Mode in the dropdown menu. In the dropdown next to it, pick Textured, the weird nobbly thing at the top. Your second window, as always, should be the UV/Image Editor, and you should see odd highlighted outlines of the stomach and the pelvis, in the places in the image that they are in the map files we get to do all of our mapping from.

Now, your choice: you probably have something that just needs some seam fixing, so take the pelvis part of that and paste it in the proper place at the top over an image that has the stomach part, and Open that image in the UV/Image Editor; or you can just paint the whole thing directly onto the avatar mesh in Blender. Me, I'll be going with option 1, because I am far more comfortable with my lots of layers and things in Photoshop. (When doing the shoulder/arm seams you can just grab an upper body texture without the splicing, since it's all in one image to begin with.)

Hit A to deselect all, so you can see what you're doing better (The light grey lines are still slightly annoying, but they do show you were you need to pay attention to, and they aren't super huge), and change the UV/Face Select panel with your 3D view to Texture Paint Mode. In the Buttons panel with all the menu options, hit F9 to go to Editting, and play around with your brush settings in the Paint panel.

I'll be importing particular layers with the parts (wrinkles, etc.) that go over the edges, not the finished product, myself (both so I can keep working with all my layers, and so it's easier to finish the fine tuning fixing). Also, note that it doesn't always do the very edge that's only a partial pixel- keep in mind that you will probably still need to clean up and expand those parts to make them work properly (especially with shrinking down, since you ought to be working at 1024, at least), as well as the fact it tends to do hard pixely edges if you've dropped your brush small enough for detail work. Once you've finished with this image, Save it off in the UV/Image Editor window menu, and then you can move to cleanup in something else. Once you've done all that cleaning, import it again to make sure you've pulled things across properly.

It might be a good idea to save your joined up avatar for later, so you don't have to reimport and rejoin all the assorted bits. You may want two copies, one with the upper all together, and the lower all together, and a second with the upper/lower joins, since side seams are also a pain to align (this might speed up my guess, import to the clothing previewer, move one part one pixel up, import to clothing previewer, move one more pixel up and one over, import to clothing previewer...etc.)

Of course, there's also the importing into SL to take into account- things will not be as perfect there as they are here. For one, avatar textures get resized to 512, for another we have to deal with the crappy JPEG2000 compression. In fact, I find to match up my waist seams, I usually have to import the lower body that connects to an upper at 1024 (i.e. my corsets- they have enough fine detail it really does matter, the coats don't), just to trick the compression into being less awful (I upload everything else at 512, including lower bodies that don't need to match up exactly).

Importing Sculpt Maps to Blender

2008-01-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Say you are (an idiot) like me, and after playing around with modifying a sculpty you've been working on you remapped the UV and saved that off....and then forgot to save the file. Since Blender doesn't prompt to save new versions when you've changed something, sometimes you accidentally screw yourself.

Step one: curse profusely. Step two: do a google search and find these plug ins (if you can't see the forum post for whatever reason, here's the download link (and thank you, Domino Marama).

Drop those files in your Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts directory (only the import_sculptie.py is required for importing, however the others may be useful!), and there should be an option in your File->Import dropdown that makes the magic happen. Yay! Once again, watch for that option popup (read the readme attached for what the options do, this time some of them actually are useful to change sometimes, although it defaults to what you usually want to work with, assuming sphere mapping and less pain with seams).

If you change your sculpt and need to remap it any, you will have to add a new material (F5), set to Texface, add three new textures set to blend (F6), and set them (F5) to: x, blank blank, red 1.0, Add; y, blank, blank, green 1.0, Add; z, blank, blank, blue 1.0, Add, and then Bake (F10) Textures, going through the normal material setup (I've gone over that in more detail before if this is too sketchy for you, however, these are the reminder for the things that need to be hit). Once the new materials are added and set up, hit that big Bake button, as you should know by now, to make with the flavour rainbow- and now we're back to just as if we hadn't lost it all in the first place. (One can also use Rokuro for the basic shape and import for making it a less regimented shape in this way, so if we wanted to not admit I'm an idiot, we would use this as the excuse for figuring it out instead.)

Blender and Av painting intro

2008-01-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

I'm still learning the ropes in texturing in Blender quite heavily, but I'm currently trying to paint a sculpty to go with avatar mesh stuff, so here are some notes to remind myself how to not be frustrated for 3 hours trying to figure out why my view is on crack.

First step is to download the av meshes- SL's website has that downlaod section with the obj files, and I think I have 7 other copies from other sources (q/avimator might have them in formats that help, the clothing previewer, who knows what else). I do basically everything on the female mesh. One part because I am one, and one part because I find the "default" male mesh doesn't wrap quite right (of course, the one in SL is somewhat of an annoying mess, I think, as well- just in slightly different ways).

Next is to import- go to Blender's importer list and snag the Wavefront OBJ Importer/Exporter, drop that file in your Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts directory.

Fire up Blender and choose File->Import->Wavefront .obj, and a file menu will appear at the bottom. Navigate through the amazingly clunky DOS like interface to find your file, and import it- but don't move your cursor from the button! This popup happens with all sorts of options which you mostly want to ignore, and just hit ok. However, if you move your cursor it disappears and your file does not import, and you're standing there going "well, crap. I thought that was supposed to work" for a month or two.

The avatar imports really small, so zoom in to see it. It's also all detached bits, select all the ones that map together with shift, and hit crtl-J to join them into one (everything will be UV mapped properly). I haven't tried it because I just figured this all out tonight, but I'll bet you can connect the top of the lower body and the bottom of the upper, and be able to paint across those dastardly seams!

When trying to paint a sculpt with the av mesh around for reference, still in Object mode select the avatar first, then shift select the sculpt so it's last selected. This way you won't get the sculpt making the avatar invisible walls (try switching to UV Face Select just with the sculpt selected, and you will probably see what I mean. It drove me nuts for a bit until I found out how to make it not happen. EDIT: Or even with it your view may decide to be on crack with a new file for NO APPARENT REASON even when you do do this, so...yeah, I've got to find a new way to trick it into behaving). To put an existing texture on the avatar mesh (or anything else), select it in Object mode, select all in UV Face Select mode, and then import your image. You can paint directly on that in Texture Paint mode, as well.

Freebies and SL

2008-01-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

There has been a freebie explosion in SL lately. There's a bit of controversy over it, some shopkeepers throwing fits because people are taking their freebies but not buying.

You will never sell as much as you give away. It's just a simple fact, people will take things that are free, whether they like them or not. Some will try them once and throw them away because they don't like them, but there's no way for you to know that. Expecting to see the same number of sales as freebies is completely unreasonable.

Freebies can be a good marketing tool. I timed the stockings to my first clothing release, and more people came with the announcement of "hey, get the free stuff" to actually look at what I had, and yes, some people bought as well. I attracted people who would not have come to the store, including a few who did buy things, by pimping the free. Freebies also can get you blogged, so you have another chance of sticking out amongst the crowd- because there is an insane amount of competition in SL, as well as the world itself being so huge that people aren't going to know you exist. By adding more freebies irregularly during the season, I had a little bit more traffic trickle back, as well.

Comparing my sales (although it isn't a completely legitimate comparison, as many things converged in one case to all make it better), being blogged by a high profile fashion blog is better than freebies, but you can't count on that- I got an amazingly awesome review, and this one was cold because I found sending things off to reviewers didn't really work. However, the way for bloggers to find you if they aren't going to pay attention to their inventories is to see your name somewhere else. Grabbing attention with freebies gets your name out there!

Of course, there are a lot of people who simply won't put money into the system. New accounts start with 0 Lindens, which is pretty daunting, especially when you're talking the influx from CSI, people who aren't there for the SL experience, but for the TV tie in, who may be sucked in...but it may take a while. They get a lot of freebies to try to hold their interest! If good things are thrown at them, they may say "gee, this is neat, maybe I'll stick around" and eventually end up with money to spend, as well. But, there are people who won't buy things because they're cheap (or, very rarely). I don't buy things often, most of the clothing I wear cost me 10 Lindens a piece...for upload fees. This is for a number of reasons, partly Allegory is hard to outfit because she does have such a concrete style and attitude in my mind, but partly it's that whole DIY thing, I like making my own clothes (I also don't buy skins because I like Alle's ridiculously pale skin and wacky makeup whenever I get bored). I've often considered funneling money into an alt who could wear pretty dresses...but then, I spend a lot of my SL time building, not showing off.

The vast majority of people who would have bought your products, without all the freebies, still will. You are not losing out on a customer base. If you've got a lot of traffic and nothing is moving, maybe you should re-evaluate: is what I'm selling of a good enough quality people will want it? Is it universal appeal enough (and do I want to make things I don't want to make it be)? And, in one particular case: am I trying to sell things based upon my "celebrity" and then deciding people suck because they don't all run to throw money at me? The Paris Hilton phenomenon isn't as prevalent in SL, THANK GOD.

Some getting started in Blender

2008-01-04T03:09:00.000-08:00

SL is being a crashy little bitch tonight, so I might as well get to some of this finally.

Work smarter, not harder: download the premapped sphere. I have my own that I did the hard way, with a bit different window set up, but this means you don't have to go through all that! And really, my setup is not much different. One less window on the side (I just have one 3d view and the texture on the side, then the panels at the bottom). But, this gets you what you need, so run with it!

Spheres are the most useful to me. Nine times out of ten, I'm using a sphere to start. Occasionally another shape is better, and for that you will have to prep your own- this tutorial gives you a pretty good rundown on that, just choose a different shape for starters if necessary (remember to prep your seams: it has to be able to unmap into one big flat square, so you need a top, a bottom, and 2 sides. Also keep in mind that it has to be a perfect grid).

In the big window with your rainbow sphere, switch from Object Mode to Sculpt Mode in the dropdown. You may find switching to Solid in the dropdown next to that is more useful, since otherwise you can't really see highs and lows and shadows so well. Hit F9 while hovering over the Panels at the bottom to bring up the Editing Panel, and the third block of things over should have tabs: Multirez, Sculpt, Brush. Hit up the Sculpt tab, and start playing with brushes! I start off by blocking out my basic shape (the wireframe view may even be of use here, so you can see your vertices: where your vertices are counts! Textures will map differently, you'll have different amounts of detail, and you may need to cluster vertices in certain areas and leave others as large expanses to get the detail in the model you need) with grab, draw, and even hopping over to the Edit Mode and grabbing points and shoving them where I want them. First run of my sculpts are usually very rough sketches, just to get everything in vaguely the right vicinity. I go in and clean them up with a lot of the smooth tool, white still flipping back and forth with the others to keep detail. Some things require hopping over to Edit to pull individual vertices where they ought to be. Select with the right mouse button (hold down shift for more than one), then hit G to move them around. I cannot tell you how long it took me to stumble across the right thing to find that.

Watch your poles. Depending on how you're going to map, they may make a huge difference. Because you're starting with a mapped sphere, there are no end points. Look in wireframe to see the fact you've got open circles at each end. This causes some problems. If you're not mapping sphere, these ends are going to do other things, but in that case you know what they'll do, so I'm ignoring it. If mapping sphere however, those ends are going to be somewhat messily filled in, with textures pulled off the other side of the model if the texture is mapped 1x1. I've talked about it before at more length, this is just a reminder- grab the whole line of them, and shrink them down to one point, and work with them that way. I usually do that earlier _and_ later in the modeling, as I generally end up pulling them out of whack when prodding at my shape. Select two vertices next to each other, hit ctrl-E and select Edge Loop Select to highlight the whole circle of them, then S and scale it all down to one little bit. Now you don't have to worry as much about texturing (but keep in mind, if either end is massively different in texture, you're going to end up with the dotbleed you already get on spheres at 1x1 texturing).

Switch brushes in that bottom panel, type and size both, to achieve different effects. There are easy peasy symmetry buttons at the bottom of that too- if your model needs to be symmetrical select what you need- you can do a lot of your modeling with symmetry to get the basic shape, and then take it off to do more detailing on either side as well.

Basic camera controls: Hold down alt and left mouse button rotates. Alt+crtl+left button zooms, alt+shift+left button moves. The scroll wheel does odd things in these modes as well that you may or may not find useful.

At a glance, I think the map you come with is 64x64, which is what you want, so you can even just bake over that and save it off. Once you've got your sculpting all happy (for starting out, try something simple so as to not get frustrated: I have a long line of wacky melty skulls I played around with, only some of which I've bothered to keep, but basic construction is one direction symmetry, poke some holes for eyes, poke a nose hole, and shove around the jaw. I wasn't going for realism, because I knew I couldn't attain it, as well as not really caring to achieve it), hit F10 in the Panels, and press that big Bake button in the Bake tab. Your rainbow image should now look like a different rainbow image, save that off as a tga, and ta-dah! you've got a sculpty!

Of course, make sure you save a new file often during this process so you can go back when you've messed up when trying to make it better and suchlike. I usually have 10 or 20 versions of even reasonably simple things, just in case I need to go back. Once you've got it sculpted, save off your final version, trash the earliers unless they have potential to turn into something else, and then you can move on to some of the evils of texturing. You've already gotten enough of a crash course here in the tools that you should be able to sort of muddle your way through it, I think.

Hack your UI!

2007-12-28T04:38:00.000-08:00

The decimals allowed in the basic UI make fine tuning alignment a royal pain. But, you can edit the xml files and fix that! This wonderful person tells you how. There are also some other neat things you can do in that blog! (Hint: search for 'name="ColorTrans"' in the tools too, and up the max_val from 90 to 100, and be able to set things ACTUALLY transparent without scripts or textures!)

SLImageUploader, oh how I love thee

2007-12-25T01:42:00.000-08:00

This sculpt was a test to push the system (basically...every vertex counts, and is required to be reasonably accurate, with this done in a 64x64 mesh, which it was), because my pirate hat...came out lessgood than expected. I also wanted to make this table (someday, I'll actually get around to making the legs, and texturing, and all that stuff). Firstly, I uploaded it with the default uploader, to see how bad that makes it:

Not only does it mush the details and can't manage a flat surface, LOD also wrecks it even more:

Something that is only really easy to tell when you're in SL, at the side seams it often doesn't quite match up. While SL's compression sort of wraps when chopping things into little bits and gluing them back together again, it doesn't do a great job of it. In textures this is generally not something you'll notice- although upload anything that actually depends on real pixel data, and yeah, you will (I've got a small texture I need to upload through SLImageUploader because it has very obvious seams...that aren't actually there).

Here you can also see where the top vertices all pull to one, because the top doesn't technically exist. I didn't have the vertices to spare to pull it all to the center, so I'll have to take care in my texturing. (Note: while this is taken of the default uploaded version, the good one is fairly similar, and identical in the vertex pulling)

Finally, what happener when I used SLImageUploader instead. Flat pristine surfaces, a little distortion but not even close to as much, and a generally much cleaner model. This is something I can work with. The other was something I could give up on sculpties with.

Things to still keep in mind: the interpolation in SL rounds off edges. This is good, in that things aren't all sharp and pointy because we've got limited points. This is bad when you want to make things with...sharp points. This is a problem that can be sort of gotten around by clustering a number of points to remind it you really do want that.

Code wrangling

2007-12-20T14:58:00.001-08:00

Overview I shall try to keep updated of the code bits and bobs that will end up here.

Simple attachment animation code: a simple script to throw in an attachment that you want to always play an animation when held. Good for carrying things around with you.

Network server code: this particular has an object that, when touched, delivers all the items included in the server to the toucher, but also provides the basic framework for objects communicating with a server for other uses. Server code is some deeply guarded secret, and it was a pain finding this.

Ring scripts: code for scripting rings that guess your hand state, and adjust accordingly. I use something that evolved from this in all of my rings- it has more adjustability on the user's part written in, and the right/left bias is written out and adjusted in another script. The version I use is sort of a great huge mess because I'm not a coder, even worse than this one that I'm putting out there to get the theory out for people to use in their own products. I'm...embarrassed to show the full version. This one is messy enough, and that one just adds more crap in- I'm so not a programmer, I'm someone who codes when necessary, so I'm very clunky, as this will show. Introduction, right hand, left hand, and a simple supplemental helper script for getting rotation for hard coding. The same basic theory can be applied to scripting fingernails/claws, as well as even more tenuously applying to intelligent skirts- however this is waaaay overkill for the latter, and I suggest using that free script, AttachmentSet, instead, as it is a far more elegant piece of coding, and the server will thank you for the reduction in processes.

Sculpty corralling

2007-12-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

You can use tags to find all of my ramblings on sculpties, but it's kind of word soup in there. So here's an attempt at a handy dandy guide of what's where.

Step by step...badly. Sort of. Tips with no shiny pictures, because I am lazy:

Getting Started: A very quick and dirty crash course in how to get up and running. Use a premapped sphere, and jump straight in to using the modeling tools (the fun part!). This is to get your familiar enough to hit the ground running, it doesn't teach you how to master Blender. Because Blender is evil and complicated, and I don't know how to do most things in it.

UV mapping the hard way: Say you didn't use that premapped sphere to start out with, and in fact, did your sculpting first, and then decided you needed to map it. It ain't pretty, unless you go through a number of seemingly extraneous steps. If you do this, it is imperative you preview your sculpts before uploading, as getting them backwards is really easy.

Texturing sculpts: some quick and dirty tips to get your started in the world of texturing with Blender. Does not include advanced techniques, but at least gets you pointed in a vaguely decent direction to start.

Texturing and the Avatar mesh: how to import the av mesh into Blender, and a few things to do from there, as well as how to be able to paint on a sculpt to line up better with an avatar clothing texture (note: your mileage may vary, since we don't get to play with the real av mesh, just a vague approximation).

Importing Sculpt Maps to Blender: we've covered how to make an object in Blender into a sculpty. But what about taking one of those rainbow maps and making it into an object in Blender we can play with? Here's how.

Awesome things that make life easier:

Link to a pre mapped sphere: Find mapping a pain in the ass? You're in luck! Here, have a sphere to start with that's already had all that crap done to it. You just need to rebake when you've finished your sculpting.

SLImageUploader: example of mush to awesome with SLImageUpload. Also, if you're having some side seam distortion, this should fix it, because it doesn't use the stupid JPEG compression...which is idiotic when we're talking something where every pixel does matter. Yes, even when you tick lossless in the SL client, it lies like a filthy whore.

Extra tips for other problems:

Mirroring: a very brief couple of tips about what to do if you find your sculpt map is inside out in SL. This is why you pretty much always want to preview the sculpt in SL, even if you're then logging out to use SLImageUploader.

Sculpt Mapping: an overview of the different mapping modes you can set for your sculpt in SL. Generally you'll go with the default sphere, but the others do have their uses.

Sizing Sculpties Smaller: Say you need miniprim sculpties for something. Sculpts only natively go down so far, and there's no dimpling to save you. However, adjusting the map in Photoshop can shrink them down nicely.

Sculpt mapping

2007-12-20T14:24:00.000-08:00

Sculpty UVs map 4 different ways in SL. Each have uses and pitfalls. To change your mapping mode, you have to insert a script defining the llSetPrimitiveParams:


default
{
     state_entry()
     {
         llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, "YOUR UUID HERE", PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE]); 
     }
}

Where PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE is changed to the type you need, and YOUR UUID HERE has been replaced with the UUID of your sculpt map (left click on the texture in inventory, Copy Asset UUID, Paste in script). After it's compiled, you can, and probably should, delete the script from the object's inventory.

PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_PLANE maps as a plane. The edges do not connect in any way, it's one face and invisible from the back side. Your sculpt is a one sided piece of paper you've done your crumpling or origami to.

PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_CYLINDER makes the UV map a tube. The sides wrap around and connect to each other. This is the first evidence of why it is 100% necessary to not end up with a sculpt map that's 90 degrees off, although it will screw you in all modes but plane. In cylinder, the top and bottom are open and do not connect to each other in any way, leaving an open hole on either end, through which you can look in and see that there is no inside to your prim, because of the way 3d faces only face one side.

PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE is the default mode. You take your cylinder, and now the ends have stretchy bits that cover them. These pieces do not technically exist in your UV map, so in your texture...they also do not exist. They are beyond the bounds of the texturing you've done in Blender, and wrap from the other side of the texture. Add more data at the top and bottom of your sculpt map if you need these things to have something else! They also wrap sort of oddly, pulling all to one point, which is why generally it is a good idea to keep all the vertices on the poles clustered up into tiny little circles and manipulate the group as if they were single points, to minimize this distortion. Select a sculpty in edit mode in world, and in 90% of the cases you can see exactly how it's pulling the ends with a cluster of lines.

PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_TORUS also started with the cylinder mapping, sides go to sides. Additionally, top edge goes straight down to meet bottom edge. There is less distortion here, as one vertex matches up with one vertex. However, the texturing rules still apply! Anything in between the vertices at the top and bottom is "dead" space to the way the texture is mapped, so either start out with a torus when you're sculpting and do the extra seaming, or keep this in mind!

Texturing sculpts

2007-12-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

Once you've sculpted your beautiful object, you may want to be able to texture it. The brilliant things about sculpties, is that unlike prims where you either have to recreate the object outside of SL or just have a really good idea of how things will map and hope you're right, you can paint directly onto your object in Blender. It's sex.

Once you've done your mapping and your sculpting, go to Texture Paint mode in the pane with your 3d object (assuming you work in the split 3d View/UV Image Editor with the bottom Buttons Window workspace that I find most useful). In the dropdown next to that, there's the view modes: choose Textured with the odd little nubby thing at the top, so you can see what's going on in your object. Select the entire thing with A, and in the texture view pane, create a new image. This one should be big! Bare minimum of 256x256- I generally work in 1024x1024 with the idea that I will scale it down to 512. I want it to be at least double size of the final product though, because I'm not so good at fine control, and really, shrinking down is always a good thing.

Warning: if you have only one face selected when you add this image, only the painting on that face will show! The rest just won't do anything! This can be useful when you, say, want to work with a cluster of faces and keep them separate from the rest of the object. This is not useful when you accidentally do it and can't figure out why the hell your painting isn't working except for one little square.

Unselect in the 3d view with A again, and your object should now be black, black as my soul, with grey lines denoting the faces. Your image should be similarly black, although without the grid. You can, at this point, just start doodling with the default paintbrush, which is rather large, and set to white. However! Hit F9 to be taken to the Object tool panel at the bottom, and there is a panel there, Paint, that gives you control over your brush! Opacity, mode, size, colour, etc, as well as a couple of different painting modes. Brush on your highlights and shadows! It's magic, not only does it show on your 3d model while you're painting, it also shows you exactly what section of the texture you're painting on. I still find I lack fine control, so I tend to do large markers for myself to use in Photoshop, and save off a number of layers (for instance, I do one image for shadows, another for highlights, in the black/white, and use Channels to pull out the stuff I want). Any time you want to use a new image, save your image off with a useful name, and create a new one in the Image menu of the texture pane again.

Another fun and easy cheat for basic shadows, is Ambient Occlusion. This will light your model with global lighting. Its results are very noisy and gritty, so you may want to do a bit of post processing, but it still gives you a quick and easy baseline that's great for some basic shadowing to start from.

Go back to UV Face Select mode, select all (A), and create a new image again. This also needs to be big really, again bare minimum of twice size (I generally use twice size, and then do a lot of smudging/blurring in PS to tone down the dirtiness). With all still selected, hit Ctrl-Alt-B, and choose Ambient Occlusion from the dropdown. It takes a bit to do all of its interpolation, and you can watch the image being build up in rows. If you've still got Textured selected on your 3d model, you can see exactly how the shades of grey are mapping to your model. Save that image off for use.

It is fully possible to do start to finish texturing in Blender- however I find the tools in PS are easier for me to use, due to familiarity, the vast toolset available there, and the fact I'm not having to worry about rotating a 3d object to get around it in the middle of what I'm doing. There are also a number of other texturing options available- setting up good lighting and doing a Full Render instead of the Ambient Occlusion, for instance, will get you more real baked lighting. Materials let you set things to have inherent reflectiveness for the lighting to play off of as well, so a really well textured shininess is not that difficult. But, these are things that have so far been beyond me- the lighting never seems to listen to me at all, and I ended up with crinkly cellophane looking highlights the time I tried to do a full render. I'm obviously missing a step somewhere, that I'll figure out eventually, once I decide I want something that I can't get otherwise.

You can also open images in the same menu where you create new ones, to do some of this stuff to an image you've already partially prepped (with, say, a pattern), as well as seeing how your current image will map once you've got all of your layers sorted (and paint directly on that, as well- with brush settings you can conceivably paint on some of your detail there).

Attachment makes with the animation

2007-12-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

Ha, I suck. Posted this to the wrong journal first. Please forgive fashion planet, not that you're going to see this there.

This is a simple attachment triggers animation script (things like holding a stuffed animal, or other static thing...like the stocking). I have no idea where it came from, other than the huge bin of random free scripts. This has a timer built in, so if it gets broken, it will re-engage automatically. For use: place your animation (one only please!) into your object, and this script. Attach (or re-attach, as case may be), and things should be golden.

Note: dumping the llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_ANIMATION,0) into a string variable will be more efficient...I think. But this way is easy and portable.



default
{
    attach(key id) {
        if(id!=NULL_KEY) {
            llRequestPermissions(id,PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION);
        } else {
            llSetTimerEvent(0.0);
            if(llGetPermissions() & PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION)
                llStopAnimation(llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_ANIMATION,0));
        }
    }

    run_time_permissions(integer perms) {
        if(perms) {
            llStartAnimation(llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_ANIMATION,0));
            llSetTimerEvent(5.0);
        }
    }
        
    timer() {
        llStartAnimation(llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_ANIMATION,0));
    }
}

UV the easy way!

2007-12-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

It took a bit of hunting (everyone seems to be linking to the Levitsky one in preference to anything else, and it _is_ the best thing out there to walk people who don't know Blender through out there), but I found a pre mapped sphere to download. After you've messed up your sphere, you just go baking when in UV Select mode (you may need to add a new image...I seem really good at managing to lose my images loaded. That's at least reasonably straightforward). Assuming you don't mind doing a bit of work _un_ sculpting, the Levitsky tutorial has the file at the bottom as well, so you can start with almost-a-cylinder that's pre-mapped. I think I found a clean cylinder base somewhere, but arsed if I can find where now.

This should get your map oriented the right way (and, one hopes, not inside out, since they changed the orientation necessary midway through development) so sides are sides and tops are tops, as well as skipping the beastly coord stage, which mostly just sucks with the power of a thousand suns.

Note: sculpt maps are most efficient (and, generally, successful) when the rainbow image map is 64x64, due to LOD and ceilings on vertices.

Network server stuff

2007-12-08T23:46:00.000-08:00

Before I forget! That network vendor code. The forum post is about a concept that simply doesn't work in SL (who would pay 2L for a drink, nevermind a drink that you "finish" and kills itself?), but the posted code in response to the question is beautiful.

Things of MASSIVE NOTE. Do not, ever, take your server into your inventory. If you need to move it, select Wear from the pie menu and attach it to your bod, go where ever you need to, and Drop it. Do NOT detach. You need to keep it in world at all times, because the UUID will change otherwise, which means everything breaks. Everything. So, this is dangerous in a "shit. I got kicked from my land and everything returned to me" kind of way. Just like onRez vendors and such, it has to be existent in world to work- which means attaching it to yourself and wearing it only works so long as you are logged in. The onRez vendors get around the unique UUID thing, but they've also got waaaaay more of a backend, I'm sure it's to do with contacting the outside server, which keeps track of things and updates when necessary (I would assume SLX has the same general rules, but I've only the experience with onRez. No listing fees = love). This only contacts the one thing in world, so it needs to know how to find it, they use a proxy to filter through, I'm sure.

Also note: 2 code chunks here. First chunk = server. Second chunk = on touch give all items from server. This also needs a little modding to work, period, so don't just copypaste and expect magic to happen (it's just plugging in the UUID from yours in the client code though, assuming you want it to work as is). Thankfully it's actually a reasonably straightforward bit of code, other than all that bloody nesting for the item giving, that I ended up stripping out anyway.


Server Code:

// Distributed item giver (I made it to use with my store landmarks, since I kept having to update multiple vendors)
// You do not need to change anything in this script, just put your items in the server prim that you want handed out when the "giver" prim is touched.
//
// NOTE: THE UUID OF THE SERVER MUST NEVER CHANGE! If it does you'll need to update ALL the child scripts. This means you can NEVER pickup the server prim.
// A simple way to move the server is to right-click the prim, and select "wear", "right hand",
// proceed to teleport or fly to your new location, right-click the prim again and select "DROP",
// (NOT DETACH! if you detach it will move into your inventory and the unique UUID will be lost)
//
// Lasivian Leandros

string gServerKey = "";
list inventory_types = [INVENTORY_BODYPART,INVENTORY_CLOTHING,INVENTORY_LA NDMARK,INVENTORY_NOTECARD,INVENTORY_OBJECT,INVENTO RY_SCRIPT,INVENTORY_SOUND,INVENTORY_TEXTURE];
integer j;
integer k;
integer type;
integer typecount;
string objectname;



default
{
     on_rez(integer i)
     {
          llResetScript();
     }

     state_entry()
     {
          gServerKey = llGetKey();
          llSetObjectDesc(gServerKey);
          llSetText(llGetObjectName() + "\n Key: "+ gServerKey,<0,1,0>,1.0);
          llSetTimerEvent(2.5); // I would not speed this up beyond one e-mail check per 2.5 seconds, it's laggy enough as it is.
     }

     touch_start(integer total_number)
     {
          gServerKey = llGetKey();
          llSetText(llGetObjectName() + "\n Key: "+ gServerKey,<0,1,0>,1.0);
          llInstantMessage(llDetectedKey(0), "Update Server Key is: " + gServerKey);
     }

     email(string time, string address, string subj, string message, integer num_left)
     {
          key target = subj;
          // This allows you to test the system without getting all the junk it's setup to give out
          if (target == llGetOwner())
          {
               llOwnerSay("Touch received on a client prim from you.");
               //return; // If you want to get copies of the given items yourself uncomment this line
          }

          integer total_number = 1;
          //gMessageList = llParseString2List(message, ["\n", "Object-Name: ", " Update", " System"], []);//Break up the content of the e-mail.
          integer i;
          for (i=0;i < total_number;i++)
          {
               integer inventory_count = llGetListLength(inventory_types);
               string myname = llGetScriptName();
               for (j=0; j < inventory_count;j++)
               {
                    type = llList2Integer(inventory_types,j); // get the next inventory type from the list
                    typecount = llGetInventoryNumber(type); // how many of that kind of inventory is in the box?
                    if (typecount > 0)
                    {
                         for (k=0; k < typecount;k++)
                         {
                              objectname = llGetInventoryName(type,k);
                              if (objectname != myname) // don't give self out so the user doesn't get fifty thousand copies.
                              {
                                   llGiveInventory(target,objectname);
                              }
                         }
                    }
               }
          }
     }

     timer()
     {
          llGetNextEmail("", ""); // check for email with any subject/sender
     }
}




Client Code:


//This half the the setup is dead simple, it just sends the key of the person that touched the prim this script is in off to the server, which then distributes the items inside it.

string gTargetKey = ""; // Update this with the UUID of your server prim.
//string gTargetKey = "b041bc00-3d6a-41f7-f65d-81aa36093fca"; //uncomment out this line to see how it should work if you're having trouble with your own.

default
{
     touch_start(integer total_number)
     {
          llEmail(gTargetKey + "@lsl.secondlife.com", llDetectedKey(0), "");
     }
}



Antlers!
2007-12-08T23:15:00.001-08:00
I'm still fighting with Blender, right now my problem is due to not really know _how_ to make the thing that's top priority right now.  It's not a fine control issue (it's a simple thing!  It doesn't actually need much, it just needs the right not much!), it's entirely a "oh, hey, I...don't even know how to make that look like what it's supposed to" (and texturing is even worse).  Bah!  I'll get there.

But anyway!  Last night I made some antlers to go in the stocking that, if I can get the aforementioned stone out of my shoe, will be released sometime next week, fingers crossed.  And by "some" I mean a crapton of colour variants.  But, just two types.  I learned how to do servery things (way easier than I thought, although some potential for danger and destroying the whole system), which NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT.  Seriously, it's like it's some desperately guarded secret (because, well, people charge massive amounts for networked vendors, and this is part of how they work.  Still, LAME).  I've got to snag the code off the forum post and put it here for future reference.  I've of course added lots of crap particular to my needs to it (including a "ok, you're this call?  Well then, you only send one of these items" so I can have just _one_ thing obsessively checking its email, since again, they do things the opposite of the way I think they ought to be done).

First!  The antlers alone- although only versions with stuffs on them are going in the stocking (I love this first picture, and may knock out the background sometime).  These are not your girlie understated little antlers, these are antlers for goring people and fighting over mates!  It should be reasonably apparent I have a fetish for curlies.







The last two pictures obviously taken in Le Zoo.  I sort of love Le Zoo, but on the other hand it just...could be better.  I think I'm a little disappointed by only 4 enclosures, not a single bat I could find in the batcave, and the shops mostly just aren't integrated at all (Chapeau, however, with the rhino- beautiful).  I still wouldn't mind trying to get a shop there (I'm not optimistic about said possibility), but I'd be likely to blow my prim allotment on rusty old cages.  I'm also very torn on the animals- prinimals do get around the "well then, sculpts killed the framerate" but sculpties would make far more impressive animals- especially in some cases.  They move though, which I only noticed spending time there taking photos, which is awesome.

The antlers of course come in brown as well.  I just...don't do brown.  Also, the coat in the pictures will be released in the upcoming week, if all goes well and I finish taking the photos and dropkick it all into Photoshop:



(It's again with my stealth spookiness.  It's named the NosferCoat, because it's inspired by the coat worn in Nosferatu.  I'm making up a creepshape to take some pictures of it in...although I may decide that's a little too out there for the fashiony set.  The first run is 5 dark and semi drab colours, the red is the brightest, but I'm considering a second set of brighter, I have a purple and a green in my head that might be pretty.)

The scarf in the couple of pics is currently sitting in one of the packages under the tree, free for warming your avatar, as is the little tiny black snowflake earring you can kind of see in the photo with the lion.  Emee's talked me into selling the boots, another "in this upcoming week," I hope.  The necklace...eventually.  I've got to resize everything all over again, and it was a pain in the ass the first time (5 sizes I think?), and design my damn HUD, because I suck and can't figure out what it ought to look like.

I splurged a couple of nights ago on Miriel eyes (splurged?  They're pretty cheap, really.  Got a 4 pack I've been considering for a Very Long Time, long pre September and the Jewelry Expo).  I had mostly been hesitant because I've gotten so used to Allegory's bright ass eyes, but it turns out they're tintable!  So I was filled with glee.  I love these eyes, and got just about everything I wanted in one little pack (Luminous I, which means I've got better purple eyes for shop pics, because I'm a wierdo, and a lovely monochromatic set for funtimes.  I suppose _sometime_ I'll find a reason to wear the blue, but they were free anyway).  The Eclipse are still a bit tempting as well, I'll have to see what I think about the grey sometime.


Mirror mirror on the wall
2007-12-02T12:23:00.000-08:00
Unfortunately the new way of mapping gets me an inside out object often (ALWAYS PREVIEW YOUR SCULPTS BEFORE UPLOADING!  Even if you don't upload them through SL's interface), which means the image needs to be flipped horozontal in post.  SL just sometimes get confused what's an inside and what's an outside, since it only textures on one side of the face.  (Of course, say you want an inside out texture for a bottle or balloon or something, flip a right side out sculpt map horozontal to get it inside out.)

Mirroring the actual object can be done in Blender as well- ctrl-alt-M if I recall correctly.  However it can also be done in post!  Assuming you have an image editor that divides up the colour channels, invert the red channel (note: this mirrors on the x axis.  Invert one of the other channels to mirror along their axes instead), and then flip the whole thing horozontal (this is to make it not be inside out, and assumes that the before copy wasn't inside out either- to un-inside out something, flip the whole thing horozontal).  If your sculpt is inside out, flip it back horozontal.


Hurdles
2007-12-01T12:20:00.000-08:00
So, after finding just the right search terms, I found this (+100 points for the Strangelove reference), which explains how to unwrap _after_ you've done your sculpting (which was the deal).

In text only, with no helpful images like the other people (and I'll be checking this through next time to make sure I haven't missed a step, so approach with caution now, also note that this assumes you've gotten this far on your own, refer to the others for more helpful stuff.  This is really just so I have something if they go poof):


Prep model for mapping.  If you've got a mesh, make sure you've marked your seams (Edit Mode, select 2 points in the loop you want, ctrl-E, Select Edge Loop, ctrl-E, Mark Seam).  It has to unwrap to a square, so you need good edges.  You _can_ kill sphere end points after it's UV mapped (and any other niggling things that muck up your nice square grid, if necessary.  Finding them can be annoying with the way modes work.)


UV mapping:

Window with object: UV Face Select.  Second window: UV/Image Editor

In UV Face Select pane, hit A (select all), hit U, select Project from View (Bounds).  This presents you with something fucking terrifying, and my problem before.

Select a face in UV Face Select mode, hit A twice to select all.  Hit U, choose Follow Active (Quads)->None.  Still a mess, but better.  In the UV/Image Editor pane, select Quads Constrained Rectangular from the UVs menu.  You _may_ need to hit A on your UV map, and G to move it a little, to get it to pay attention to the next step, it doesn't always unmap properly unless you've reminded it.  Back to UV Face Select window, hit U, Follow Active (Quads)->None again.  If all has gone well, it's all rectangular!

If you mapped a cylinder first, then sculpted (as in this tutorial), you won't need to force it to be rectangular repeatedly.

Use S (scale, if you hit Y or X after S you can scale in just one direction) and G (move) with A (all) selected to scale and move it within the bounds.  In the UVs menu, Layout Clipped to Image size will eventually help.

In Image menu, add new, 64 by 64.  (Note: if your model isn't that size with vertices exactly, you may need to burn that larger and shrink down.  I had a 63x64 due to miscalculation that worked perfectly when a 256 square was shrunk down, but had white lines at 64).

Note: There is a possibility, depending on how you've gotten your edges together, that the UV map will be at 90 degrees to where it ought to be.  Tick off Quads Restrained Rectangular (important!  It does nasty bad things if it's still on), select all (A) your grid mesh, and type in R (rotate) and 90 to rotate things nice and easy (you can do this later and rebake the UV map if necessary, since you've set up everything to make it happy to rebake at any time).


Texture mapping:

F5 selects the Shading panel, Materials.  In Material, Add New under Links and Pipeline.  Things change drastically.  Click Texface on in the new Material pane.

Either add 3 textures here under Texture (Add new), or add them in the F6 window (it makes no nevermind, but you have to go to F6 next- Shading, Texture).  At each of the 3 textures, set Texture Type to Blend.

Hit F5 to go back to the Materials panel, and in the Texture menu, select the first texture button.  Change Map Input to X, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 1.0, Green 0.0, Blue 0.0; select Add from the dropdown.  Second texture is Map Input to Y, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 0.0, Green 1.0, Blue 0.0; select Add from the dropdown.  Third is Map Input to Z, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 0.0, Green 0.0, Blue 1.0; select Add from the dropdown.

In other words: all textures set to Add.  Texture one is the X coords, which stores info in Red channel, two is Y coords in Green, and three is Z coords in Blue.  The 2nd and 3rd coord space in each is blank because we're separating out each coord to be translated into colourspace.

Switch to Scene->Render with F10, Choose Bake, click on Textures, and hit the button.  If your texture is predominantly white! go back to F5 and make sure you've selected Texface!!  I always forget that.  If it isn't shiny happy rainbow but has too much white or black, something Bad happened.  You can add a new Image texture at any point, and overwrite existings if something goes wrong.  However, in theory you have a psychadelic rainbow, so Save the targa in the Image menu in UV/Image mode.


Texture Painting:

Add a new Image in the UV/Image pane, make this one larger (256, 512, whatever.  I usually go 1024, so I can shrink down later).  Switch the pane with UV Face Select to Texture Paint.  Start doodling, and go wheeee!  In Panels, hit F9 (Editting), and adjust your brush in Paint.  Save your image off once you're done.  I only do certain things with this, then bring lots of layers into PS to make things happy and pretty- however, there is a lot you can do here, including texture the model entirely in Blender if you have the stomach for figuring it all out.

Baking up bits that Blender sets up for you can also be really useful.  Add a new image in the UV/Image mode.  Go back to UV/Face Select mode in the other window, select all, hit ctrl-alt-B and choose from the menu of baking choices.  If you can set up nice lighting, you can do some pretty fancy stuff here.  Although sometimes it looks like saran wrap and is all crinkly.  Ambient Occlusion can give some basic depth.


Sculpty growling.
2007-11-22T14:35:00.000-08:00
On sculpties, I've hit a rather massive (and insanely inconvenient and tedious) roadblock, that lead to 4 hours last night to not even get halfway through...it either taught me a very important (and inconvenient, again!) lesson, or there's a Better Way that I can't find the slightest bit of info about.  Partly, this is because Blender is incomprehensible at the best of times.  *sigh*

If I can find a way around it that doesn't involve massive amounts of brainless monkeywork, I may be able to lure Max back into making some things for SL.  He's very much beyond the general level available, and finds it all ugly and primitive- Windlight, for instance, has the downside that it just shows off how badly built a vast majority of the Grid is (oh, that's right, not supposed to call it that anymore).  Sculpties provide the more advanced objects, pair that with competent texturing, and you've opened the door to a lot more exciting...so long as the Grid can handle it, which honestly...it can't _really_.  (He also bitches about the crashing and slowing and laments that beautiful Babbage even brings _his_ computer to its knees, which, well, what the hell exactly are they running there?  High res textures are some of it, but it can't be the whole problem, can it?  Grid stability really does need to be a higher priority than fancy smancy features.)

But then, he plays more games than I do (for reasons beyond simply, "ooo shiny!" but that too)- I don't play much (pre WoW which sucked me in hard, and then I went back to SL), so I haven't lost the wide eyed wonder (I haven't lost, haven't lost, haven't lost that stupid fear of thunder).

But, if I can find an easier way, I've got a few things lined up that will be finished up in the (one hopes) near future, and ideas for more.  If I can't, I'll be completely rethinking my workflow to try to plan around it, which has certain less desirable elements to it (aside from scrapping everything I've already started).


What's in a name
2007-11-21T03:01:00.000-08:00
I've considered getting an alt, now and again.  I love Allegory, I really do, but she's a little limiting.  You see, there are certain things about her that are strictly defined.

First off, her totem animal is (and has to be, it's wrapped up in her name) the alligator (or crocodile, in this case there is no distinction).  Me, I'm much less scaly, more furry, and mostly not much of a predator (not a straight up prey animal like a bunny though, which is a bit better- I don't really need to be more timid).  This means a) her colour is most definitely green (alright, brown was an option, but, uh, no.  I detest brown), and b) she is way more fierce than I am.  While I don't wear skirts often, she wears them less (mostly only to Caledon or Babbage, and even there she often crossdresses).  So many pretty frocks I'd flounce about it, just sit in her inventory because they just don't fit.  She also looks just plain wrong when I try to put her not in a mohawk- great for everyday, less great for fancy dress parties when you aren't actively crashing (versus invited, not as in "SL crashed again"), or historical sims (that, again, you aren't actively trying to subvert in a way.  I don't actually mind wearing the left of normal to Caledon and Babbage that I do though).  Add in my own dress sense, which is primarily monochromatic to the dark end of the spectrum, and you've excluded a vast amount of the things out there.

While I don't role play, I do tend to be a little...different when I'm Allegory.  Not in a huge way, but I do talk a bit more (I'm not very social, and pretty quiet most of the time), and I tend to let her say more of the things that I tend to not say because I'm not sure how they will be taken (read: she's a smart ass, there are lots of random things that get said, and the occasional lascivious comment happens now and again.  Still not as much as I think, because I have a filthy, filthy mind.  Nevermind that trying to cybersex me is the fastest way to /ignore).

She does tempt me to upload very odd skins for her (not counting the dramatic makeup, that's perfectly acceptable, and something I'd probably continue with an alt), and make me dearly wish I could manipulate the face mesh (I might, perhaps, hinge her mouth like a snake now and again.  But really, generally the limitations put on the avatars irk me- from hand and facial meshes being so limited, as those are THE two places people express themselves, to limitations on animations themselves, hand control being unspecific [and broken], inability to mod anims once they've been uploaded at all [hand position, priority, looping, would all make for a lot more flexibility and ease of use]).

Bleh.  And after a day of fighting with my dying mouse (at least some small amount of progress was made...on things I may never finish), I'm out.


To do list
2007-11-16T23:49:00.000-08:00
I need to sort these things out in my head.  Bleh.  Sooooo much stufff....

1) Seam your damn gloves, woman.  Seriously.  When you close this blog post, open that file.  Seam.  Test.  Seam.  Test.  No doubt curse the way fingers map, and seam some more.  Some day you _are_ going to be releasing that thing, and even if the gloves are just a bonus afterthought, they need to be decent, dammit.  Also, you will appreciate the starting point for next time.  While you're at it, figure out the damn shading.  Right now it's sort of between two things.  PICK ONE, and be committed.  Plusplus, figure out your shirtsleeves theory for good and all.

Also, proceed to curse about compression formats, and bitch about how they are MAKING YOU upload something twice the proper size, entirely because the compression makes everything crap otherwise.  Seriously, you could have 1/4 the file size (entire), if you just didn't turn things to mush.  Things only really map to 512 on avs, but having to upload files at 1024 just so stuff matches up is a pain in the ass.  It's still being shrunk to 512 to be seen!

2) Speaking of that thing, make a light version and a colour version work.  Stop being a lazy ass with the shading, it will take you less than a minute to do it the other way, and you'll be happier.  See if things actually work in other shades, and then commit to uploading the black version.  See, then you can't change anything!  You're stuck!  You might actually finish something!  It's a good thing!  (And then probably rope Nivsy into wearing them for pictures because you're, ahem, lacking in the chest area.  And don't even have any good skins for faking it.)

3) Re: the thing that only Subs, Niv, Max, and random peoples at the sandbox where you built it ages ago have seen: SEAMS.  Yes, the seam between the upper and lower bodies make the head hurt, because you're talking one pixel matching up to one and a half, but get to the fixing.  You're almost there!  Well, maybe.  The bodysuit is probably sort of done, but decisions need to be made about the openings.  Match to neck?  Too fussy?  Something else?  Leave plain?  MAKE UP YOUR MIND.  Yes, I know they won't ever be seen when someone's wearing the whole deal, but you and I both know (in that we are the same person and all) that you won't be happy unless you've made a real choice and stuck with it.  Also, gah, test Windlight.  I heard that once upon a time, at least, shiny was out the window.  DO NOT MAKE ME CRY.  Also, that thing you were making this in preparation for?  Yeah, that's right, it's up.  You can't make one simple little outfit faster than they can add not one, but two sims.  (And then decide what rainbow sherbet flavours it ought to come in, that you will never wear.  Although some of the variants are rather purdy.  And, there is the whole possibility of green accents, at least.)  Also!  Prim wrangling!  Check your joint-goes-this-way-prims-go-that-way.  Gloves at least could do with some tweakage.  And girlyboots.  You've got the start sitting there, get to it.  Rivetting.  *twitch*.  Speaking of, minus 10 prims per boot while you're at it.

Argh.  And then comes the sizing.  I seriously hate resizing things.  Pains in my ass.

4) AO.  *sigh*  Sit down with QAv and muck about with walks and non static poses until you find something you can live with.  Bonus, the main AO(s?) actually needs a "sloppy" walk that doesn't mesh up the way a _real_ one would, so you don't have to be perfect.  However, the secondary AO(s?) do, although it's going to be all clompalicious.  I need to get a real concrete idea of how this is going to work.  I need to sit down and do something.  Trial and error is fine, just start the frigging trials.  Speaking of AOs, your default stands still irk you.  Figure out how you want to stand.  Argh, I still...dunno.  This is why I haven't bought an AO either, none of them seem "right."  Grumble grumble picky avatar.

5) You finally bought the bullet and uploaded a sculpty the scary way yesterday (after days of being terrified, gah).  Good for you.  And, even better, they proved there is hope for the sculpty!  So now, you need to actually get back to, you know, sculpting, since before you had (rather rightfully, with the regular uploaded version) given up on the system entirely until they made it less massively broken.  Pick a thing, start to finish, and actually finish.  Picking one thing...yeah, I know, that's the hard part.  Maybe Lumpy will get finished up.  He has potential, and doesn't push the system too hard, unlike the next one in line (which again, *fear*).  Better still, work on the damn legs and texture maps, and you can have a complete thingie.  Decide about handles.  They wouldn't be impossible now!  Of course, then you have to figure out all the colour variants...

And then, there's that other thing that The Way To Do hit you last night.  *warm fuzzies*

6) The almost VERY FIRST ARTICLE OF CLOTHING you ever tried to make is still sitting there, not on the grid.  Suck up the skirt mesh pain in the asses, it's impossible to ever be perfect with the way it deforms.  Stop being wishy washy on the skirt shading, make a choice, and commit.  Upload it all.  Make up the prim skirt(s?).  Wear it around and decide that it really doesn't suck and make with the releasing already.  Seriously, this is ridiculous.  Of course...decide on the colour variants and blah blah blah.

7) The two that followed soon on its heels are JUST AS BAD.  Ok, actually worse.  It is time for pants to be made.  Figure out what said pants should look like other than "er, black" and do something about it.  I swear, waistbands are my nemesis.  Not that that's the only problem.  Both of these things were supposed to be done before Halloween, after months of being worked on.  Are they done?  No.  Is it after Halloween?  Yes.  Do you need a kick in the currently nonexistent pants?  Possibly.

At least for those you've already got a pretty good idea on colours on launch.  The one that's only going to come in one might get more massively different later, but it's going to be a Thing if it does.

8) Garahgrumdra...ads, dammit.  Snaps need to be taken of old items with new metals, THAT IS NOT HARD.  Shoving everything in to fit might be, but suck it up.  You've also got a large folder full of earrings to be listed, and then some more earrings.  Make up a Digital Alchemy box.  Just rez all the silly boxes you've made, steal one bit from one, and another from another and just do it already.  Then fill up the dropbox so you need to get a second one, because you probably can already.  Last night you actually did good and started a massive multi sizing push- finish deciding on programmed variants and take some pictures of those puppies.  Yes, I'm sure the hat will take longer because oh noes, it needs more textures.  Still, they are not supercomplex texture, they are easy one.  Do eet.

Once you've finished the ads, it's time to go through your transaction history.  *cringe*  Then I have to actually try to talk to people.  This will be especially exciting when attempting to converse with the Japanese, I'm sure, but no doubt there are many other languages in my grab bag that are just not going to happen :/.  Grumble.  I suppose I could dump no trans versions on everyone who doesn't reply, so at least they'd have the replacements.  Of course, first it's required to GET OVER YOUR TERROR OF TALKING TO PEOPLE.

9) Decide about the pants.  Is there too much ass in your pants?  Or is it a reasonable amount of ass?  A couple of days of it has not driven you to distraction yet, so that's perhaps a good sign.  Finish up that first set of panttats, see if the theory actually works.  If you do decide they are worth letting other people have the opportunity to own, you know you still need to work on cuffs a touch.  It's not stuff you see, but people who wear actual shoes might sometime.  On the other hand, it's plain enough that you may not bother...but still.  Finish things up for your own sake.

10) Commissions.  In the future, just say no.  Especially just say no to things shortly before Halloween.  If you say yes, bare minimum of twice your current rate, it's just not worth it otherwise.  Yes, most of the headache is probably due to the fact we don't speak the same language so you don't know what he's saying half the time...but ugh.  Beating your head against the wall, not worth it.

11) Half napping in the 3+ hour car ride here didn't actually get things done, but did come up with some interesting ideas.  Get thee to building, bitch.

I swear, Tableau is so not helping my current voodoo obsession.  I <3 the new build, and it's the sort of thing that I could see myself doing something quite similar too (in fact, I've played with building a French Quarter dollhouse on my roof at Gogo's to possibly replace my shop with, since she first said "you can build something else if you want."  Erzulie is my current indulgence in the mood, but I'm not sure I want to go whole hog on it and run with it everywhere...hence the not having decorated anywhere else yet.  Also the not having replaced my signs with the old/new font yet, since I haven't decided on other decorative elements to go with).  It makes me kind of desperately unhappy to know they'll probably bulldoze it and replace it with something entirely new in a while.  They've done it before, I'm sure they'll do it again :/.

12) That thing you built 2 nights ago?  FINISH.  Then code up the earrings you've had since before the Jewelry Expo to match, and decide whether you're going to go for a necklace to go with or not.  Speaking of, SPECTACLES.  Seriously, you wear them all the time, sort out your theory on glass tints, find a nice steampunk-but-not-too-busy background, and list.


Happy Hallowe'en!
2007-11-01T02:18:00.000-07:00
Today (or, I suppose, yesterday now), being Hallowe'en, meant that there were a great number of things going on.  I've been scurrying all over for the past few weeks on and off with treasure hunting (and have gotten some very nice things out of it, including the lovely rust silent sparrow coat I've been wearing with my pumpkin head, and the lovely red dress and Gritty Kitty hat I was wearing for a bit before that as a witch)...and it did really get to the point that there was just _too_ much of it and I got a bit burnt out.

However, I took in some of the New Babbage activities.  I missed the parades and such as I wasn't around at the proper time for it, but today I first went to the barrel race.  Flaming barrels are flung around by the racers, trying not to drop them in the drink as they navigate the streets of New Babbage.  It was great fun.  At first I was the only adult participating (it was, I suppose, stated as an activity for the urchins), but then I was joined by a gentleman as well- we had more spectators than participants!  I was doing quite well with my barrel...except for crossing into Port Babbage, whereupon it blipped out of existence.  I gave up the search eventually, and found out that one of the others brought mine in with them instead of their own!  (Sadly, sim crossings were quite detrimental and ate a few barrels.)  Afterwards, we flew back to the theatre on Loki's airship, to ride the carousel.  Unfortuantely, I got stuck (on sim crossing!), and crashed.  At least I'd had the chance to ride it earlier, when going along the ghost tour.



A fair bit later in the evening I heard about Professor Nishi overseeing a Samhain ceremony.  It was not very well attended, but it was quite magnificent, and the intimate little group really did make it more special.  I do feel that I need to make a better marshmallow on a stick that the huge and not-so-awesome freebie I had, which I shared with the young Ms. Paine- especially as Bonfire Night is coming up soon, and I've heard that New Babbage shall have festivities for that as well.







Later still, I cleaned out all of the Hallowe'en decorations around La Reina and Le Cadre', the shops look so sad and sterile now, it is quite depressing.  So much so that I whipped up a quick (and really a bit sad, honestly- next year I shall have to think ahead and be ready.  And by then I shall have either given up on sculpties ever being fixed, or they will have fixed them, so I shan't be using the library skull as a base) sugar skull so the La Reina store wouldn't be completely bereft of everything.  The coffin with the treat bucket shall be available until the 4th, as the Ohana Isle treasure hunt ends then, and I had included a landmark with a note about picking up a treat bucket.  The pumpkins and the cauldron are gone though, so the pink brooms and the chewy eyeballs and martini and the spooky facelights are now unobtainable (some things will probably be available next year, but some may not.  The brooms, for instance, will be overhauled if I do brooms again next year).  Do make sure you get your bucket while you still can, as I do not believe I shall offer it again next year (something else perhaps, but not it).


Port Seraphine and the Dangers of Sculpties
2007-10-31T01:28:00.000-07:00
I'm quite saddened by the Port Seraphine build.  Even when I'm only sharing the sim with two other people, I can't move, I get stuck in terrain, I'm lagged to hell, etc.  So, yeah, from now on it's a place I shan't ever be going.  I rather liked the old build.  Maybe it wasn't as flashy as this, but it was still rather cute, and I could, you know, actually look at the shops in it.

This is why one should not make their entire sim out of lots of sculpties.  Technology can't handle it at this point, at all.


HAHAHAHA
2007-10-16T16:34:00.000-07:00
So, I say that "oh dear, no one loves me, I haven't been added to the fashionplanet feeds yet" before I LOOK at the feeds in the sidebar.  D'oh.  At least I didn't post that to that blog.  And scrolling down further, there's one more post about the treat bucket!

So, yeah.  Today is awesome so far.


Le Cadre’ shop!
2007-10-16T16:10:00.000-07:00
Holy carp!  I signed up for this thing on a lark, seeing the last call for submissions on fashionplanet (which, I tried to get the store blog added to and have heard nothing back.  Maybe he hasn't had time yet.  Assuming you're supposed to email him and ask even, since I couldn't find anything that actually told me how to get added).  I totally didn't expect to be accepted, but I figured I ought to send out an app anyway... AND I GOT IN.  I'm blown away.  So, soon there will be a third location!  There are bigger spots open in Ohana Isle too (or at least were as of a couple of days ago), and I wouldn't mind moving in to something bigger there, with the treasure hunts it gets some nice traffic, and I do really like the area.  But I so don't have the time for setting that up right now, so I'm going to have to wait for the next round.  I have to finish my treasure hunt goodie too- it's not going to be anything super awesome this time, but kind of cutesy, at least.

I need to look at the area and see what the style's like, so I can try to get a handle on how exactly I'm dressing up my shops (I finally installed my floor in La Reina last night, but I'm sure whether I'm going to bring that vévé over or not.  I chose it specifically for that location, I think she'd like the pink beaches.  And, I've sort of been plotting building a French Quarter dollhouse on the roof and seeing if G. would mind if I replaced the shop with it.  Not that I've had the time to get started yet [way too much happening way too fast!  Before this even!  I want to do some of the Halloween fun, but I also have this huge ass commission I need to finish, decorating and outfitting the shop in La Reina, and of course I get the "ZOMG MUST MAKE" bug biting me every so often.  Sending things off to bloggers to be reviewed takes time- of course, it's the bucket, so I'm kind of antsy that most of them haven't said head or tails about it yet since it will be going away in a couple of weeks, and wouldn't be surprised if they ignore me entirely anyway since it isn't fashion-fashion.  Got to say, it's been a bit disheartening as well as a pain in the ass hunting down the people to submit things to and the format they each want, and I'm seriously considering not even trying for anything ever again.  I'm sure it gets easier once you've done it a few times, but starting up?  Gah.  On the bright side, getting in to Le Cadre' is a massive ego boost, so I don't feel quite so "I'm not good enough for them, they're ignoring me"]).

And I HAVE to get the ad together of the thing I just made yesterday and the day before now.  I want to add another piece (thank you insomnia?) but I think I'll release the bits I've got now as one set, and have it be an extra, like the long eyeball necklace and the arachnophobia tiara.  With that much space...I need to take picture of way more stuff I've already got made up.  The crown earrings will be going in La Reina, at least, as well as the matching crown, and if I do end up expanding like this I may start offering different things in different locations more...


Sizing Sculpties Smaller
2007-10-11T17:31:00.000-07:00
I'm working on a (somewhat huge) commission right now, and one necessity to do things right is a small sculpted item.  It, however, has to be smaller than the .01x.01x.01 you can get to with just uploading a normal sculpty.  Prim torture doesn't work for the workaround for sculpts, the texture itself has be altered to get things smaller.

Considering I'm primarily obsessed with jewelry now, this is a wall I would be running into regardless eventually.  I've been avoiding sculpties because they tend towards massive lumpiness, as well as criminal inefficiency in most cases (all the vertices need to be interpolated, and we're talking way more than on a regular prim, and it makes quite a lot of sense that some people are sitting there chugging away with spheres where sculpties should be while they load the things that could have been done in 2 regular prims, which would have loaded far faster and easier).  A big part of the problem is we're talking about giving shiny toys to people who don't understand the real practicality behind them (at the Jewelry Exposition, someone was fighting about the exclusion of sculpties in our builds, because "they're the great new thing!  She's an idiot to not let us use them!  We can just give one of our texture allowances to them!" not realizing that it works on a substantially different principle, and does add more to lag.  Also there was a bit of "why can't I do _that_, it just adds to client side lag?" while ignoring the fact that client or server side, LAG IS LAG when it comes to the people who are trying to actually look around.  But, I digress).  Another big part of the problem is that the system already has serious constraints without adding yet another big imposition on it.  Sculpties are marvelous and fabulous and let us do things we couldn't before...and technologically we're not really ready for them, except in ideal conditions.  Add in the people who are using them entirely to cheat their prim limits on their sims...and yeah.  It isn't a system breaker, but it certainly does mean things run less smoothly than they could.

But yeah, off the soapbox, and back to useful things.  Johanna Hyacinth was the only reference I could find to anyone even suggesting cheating the size limit on sculpties.  However, I needed to do some trial and error to figure out how to cut the channels- this is how it's done in Photoshop:

Open your sculpt texture.

Open Levels.  Move Output Levels more towards the middle, in this case, I chose 60, 195.  The more towards the middle you go, the smaller your sculpt (also, as she points out, the more detail that gets lost!  So don't go too far!  And really, you can't actually make things out well once they're too small anyway), but this ought to be sufficient for my needs.

Save, import, voila!  An (almost) identical sculpted item, at a smaller size!

Of rather useful note: the UV mapping will be the same as if it were at the larger size- it doesn't do the thing with inner hollows and the percentage texture thing (Robin Sojourner has a great tutorial book in world on figuring all that out, close to the place to pick up her avatar uv maps).

(Yes, this is extremely basic, but I'm good at forgetting what I've done, and then being stupid trying to figure it out and ignoring the obvious.)


Bucket notes
2007-10-11T17:02:00.000-07:00
This is for me to keep track of the way in which I developed the bucket code.  This isn't really of interest to anyone else, and mostly is just so for the future I don't waste as much time trying to do things that can't be done (although, with Mono someday maybe, ha!, soon, some of this may be obsolete before I try anything like this again- although most of the problem was with the permissions system).  Also, it serves as some insight into how I feature creep, because, well, I have a tendency to.

At first inception the bucket was to: hand out items to anyone that touched it, have an arm animation for holding it standing, and have an animation to hold it out to say Trick or Treat.  The sound was pretty much included as something I wanted from the beginning, even though I tend to avoid sound, and in fact usually have my computer sound off (a habit I got into long ago when I had a particular roommate, and after that year all the burps and whistles annoyed me since I'd become used to not hearing them).

I decided I wanted the items handed out to be no copy.  This serves a few purposes- one, it means that once the bucket is not present, you're stuck with the few items you have, and you have to give away items, not just share them.  It's an analog world recreation, since with digital replication it makes far less sense.  However, it has the advantage to making it a game as to who gets what ("Awww, I wanted those horns!"  "I'll trade you for that hat!"), as well as reducing inventory clutter a little- giving away your candy means you don't now have the copy.  Again a having-cake-and-eating-it situation makes more sense in digital, this was to suggest real world conditions.

Now, with the way SL deals with permissions, this means that only I can easily do the system this way.  Giving the distributor out to people means that I really need to be able to set a second generation of permissions (items in bucket- copy, taken out of bucket- no copy).  That simply isn't possible with how the system is currently structured, there is no way to program more restrictive permissions beyond setting it in the properties tab for one next owner.  Telling people to set all the copies in the bucket no copy by hand?  Neither a solution that would happen, nor a solution that has any appeal for, well, anyone.

This gave rise to no-copy/transfer items in the bucket.  Contents are effectively unlimited (apparently), so I could cram multiple copies of everything into the bucket, so it would take a very long time to run out (there are quite a few distinct items [over 40 if I recall correctly, although a number are just hue shift candies], and I'd gotten up to 20 copies of each and the system was lagging on loading the contents terribly...and really, that's going to last just about anyone a good long time).  If it's going to run out...it needs to actually tell you it's running out.  So, I coded the attachment to have the "contents" of the bucket slowly sink, then start disappearing (it got quite spectacularly complex as I was doing a check to see if there were any lollies or apples left to take away the lolly and the apple when they ran out, as well as each individual candy of the...34, I think it is, to disappear one by one at the end- and that made for massive headaches and almost impossible testing, as the candy doesn't run out for me, so it was touch to load the script, open and delete item, touch again, for 40+ times.  The very last "pull" was to be a unique item to each bucket, the worm "bracelet", as the worm would be the very last thing to disappear.  The bucket would then appear empty, and touches would now turn the lights on and off instead- the animations and "Trick or Treat!" would still happen as usual).

So I coded all of that up, massive headache that it was, since each candy had to have a distinct script- llGetObjectName does not have an associated function for getting the names of child prims to make life easier, so it was pretty miserable.

Then I finally talked Max into making an appearance so I could make sure it worked...and every touch regaled me with a script error.  @$#%&*!  Now, this could have been avoided if I actually did read through all of the text on the wiki ("No-copy objects can not be given from attachments."), but, well, I tend to skim things a lot so I missed that crucial point of information.

Which meant that the objects given out had to be copy/transfer.  Period.  Otherwise you wouldn't be able to give things out to anyone (and copy/no transfer was never something I wanted for the contents, they should be shared).  All of the headache over the lowering candy level and checking for the last apples and lollies, and candy disappearing one by one at the end...now needed to be thrown out.  None of it would work, unless I decided to delete the contents as they were being given out, which would just be mean, really.  It made sense while items would be no copy, but once they are?  It ceases to make sense, since they are infinite outside of the bucket, they ought to be infinite inside it as well.

Which all meant that it could have been finished at least a week ago, maybe 2, if I would have just gotten down to doing the recording sooner.  (After scouring the net for a good royalty free "Trick or Treat!" sound from a gang of children, I finally gave up, and just recorded myself saying it a few times, pitch shifted some, and layered it all.  I think it actually came out rather well, even if it is just me masquerading as a gang of children, and not actual kids.  Thankfully I did it before my voice got quite so wrecked by this cold, as well.)

I did end up adding a mini AO as well so when sitting (or crouching), the arm is not held out straight, but instead holds the bucket up in your lap (and around that general area, mostly it tends to be inside your leg a lot, but that's partly to keep wrists from being bent at horribly ugly pointy angles).


Touch my bucket!
2007-10-10T22:24:00.000-07:00
So, I've been working on this treat bucket forever.  Numerous hurdles presented themselves, which eventually led to me doing it the easy way and bypassing all of the hurdles entirely, so it should have been done weeks ago- it was making the hard way work that took so long.



(That's the eyeball bracelet from My Mother's Eyes- I've been wearing lots of the pieces of it recently often.)

Come to La Reina, and buy the great big coffin gift box for $0, for a bucket of your very own.

(For personal reference: ATTACHMENTS CANNOT GIVE OUT NO COPY ITEMS!  Even if they are transfer.  It won't do it.  It refuses to take them out of the inventory and give them out, as expected.  So in the future, ignore all thoughts of "I could make it like a trading card game" and "this would help keep inventory clutter down" because it ain't gonna let you.  Remember this for the next time you do something like this.  Please.  It will save you weeks and weeks of headaches.)

Mostly for my reference so I don't forget, because I didn't actually document this code (yeah, I know.  Bad girl), functionality: on touch, the bucket hands out one of the (many) items it contains, which are some sort of candy (some of which is not friendly candy) or costume items.  Everything is meant to be worn.  Also, upon addressing the bucket in chat channel 13 it will: hold out the bucket and say "Trick or Treat!" both audibly and in chat (/13 tot, /13 trick, /13 treat, /13 trick or treat); extinguish the lights (/13 dark); light up (/13 light).  Included is a very rudimentary AO which holds the arm straight when holding the bucket, and holds it tucked up when sitting.  And, crap, I think the AO overrides the holding the bucket out.  I'll have to figure out a workaround for that...at least it isn't horrible breakage, and most people won't notice it- but it will irk me if I don't fix it.

Today, I ironed out (what I thought were) the last kinks (caused by over engineering expecting it to work the other way until I got an unsuspecting other-than-me person to help test it), and started distributing it.  First, G. got one, and I tested hers out just in case to make sure it all was working.  Once I knew I had a working copy, I knew I could load up the coffin  that I was very happy that no one had noticed and gotten a copy out of while it was broken overnight.

G's a bad influence on me, by the way.  I spent most of the day in a new _pink_ mohawk.



G. started inviting people to the shop (while I was...a very scary drag queen on the roof fitting something for a guy shape), and I came down to say hi instead of just being a disembodied voice once I'd gotten that done with.  I sent out a group notice, since I was finally ready (and I love my bucket, I'm really quite proud of it).  I got to meet some really neat new people, including one of the people who joined my group during the Jewelry Exposition (ok, _the_ person, although someone has joined since!) and we talked about Doctor Who for a while, as well as other this and thats.

In return, once everyone left and the place was empty, I checked out her groups, and found Octoberville.

!!!!!!!!

Pure awesomeness.  A scavenger hunt around an entire Halloween themed sim (so you have a reason to actually get your hands dirty and explore), which 100 random things you have to find.  The downside is that it is quite popular, so the lag can be somewhat brutal.  But it is something I highly recommend.  Although I still haven't figured out how to get past the first room of the haunted house!



(The horns I'm wearing while roasting marshmallows there?  They're in the bucket.)


IBM SOA adventure Island Haunted House
2007-10-08T23:06:00.000-07:00
I've been remiss about my haunted houses.  I haven't been to all that many- I've been far too distracted by making little nothings and setting up my shop and all.

However, IBM SOA Adventure Island has a rather neat maze.  The ways to get through it are not always readily apparent, which is totally awesome.  I really loved the prim ghosts, they were very nicely done.



I saw the best sculpty skull I've seen yet there- a Light Waves, of course.



It's not all spooktacular, but it's rather well done and pretty (it was filled with butterflies in one grotto when I went, due to an event, which sort of downplayed the spookiness factor).




New Shop!
2007-10-06T00:33:00.000-07:00


I've set up a new shop in La Reina- currently both my shop and the sim itself are in the process of being built, but I've got a start of it with things from the Jewelry Exposition.

I'm really excited!  And I've started putting pumpkins and jack o'lanterns all over for Halloween.


Limitations of the System
2007-09-27T14:12:00.000-07:00
There are a number of technical constraints to SL that drive me nuts.  I'm not talking about lag here (although that does indeed drive me nuts- but there are very good reasons for lag to exist, unfortunately).  My current largest headaches:

The avatar mesh...gah.  I wish they'd thought things through a bit more when they decided to use these things.  The head is the most problematic, as things are jammed together too close together.  The inner mouth is shoved right up against the back of the head, so either you get head seam or flesh tongue.  The eyelashes are up against the scalp, giving a black edge when you've zoomed out enough that it downsamples (also see head seam).  Only one arm for the torso puts some severe limitations on what's allowed in shirts/jackets/tattoos.  And only one foot...why?  You've got ample space for two.  I know, you've already got one arm, you might as well have a more efficient foot mapping, and that is even more likely to be symmetric than the arms, but still, limits what you can do severely.  There's no fixing that at this point, without just scrapping it for an entirely new UV map, which will just piss everyone off- people with custom skins will find their skins useless, and skin makers will just have people bitching to them for free upgrades.  At that point they might as well just go with an entirely new mesh anyway, since while this one does work reasonably well, it's older tech- plus the mesh was associated sort of messily, when you look at how things deform badly at not-even-out-of-the-ordinary sizes (look at skinny people's shoulderblades, my nose and cheekbones could cut glass, my knees are ridiculously nobby, and the entire neck shoulder area on the male model just makes me cringe.  I don't actually care that large breasts become boxy though, I admit- it certainly doesn't seem to stop people).  Some of that is a limitation in making it stretch so large to small, but it still could be done better.

Worse, whoever figured out the alpha for clothing items...*sigh*  Have you noticed that bastard seam that will show skin through around the middle unless you've got something in the jacket layer covering it up?  Because that's entirely because the alpha was halfassed.  Aside from the fact the lines don't match up in the least anywhere (and no, there really isn't any reason for as much of that as there is other than "I couldn't be arsed to care"), you can put all your sliders to maximum coverage, and still skin shows through because of messy alpha edges.  That could be fixed, now, with minimal pain to the system.  But they aren't going to do it, but it's a "minor detail issue" and see previous "can't be arsed to care."

And the skirt mesh...ugh.  That's just a massive headache.

There are also many suggestions that while possibly a good idea have negative ramifications.  I'd love to see more layers, so you could have skin tone, makeup and tattoos all in a "skin" layer, both for the problematic head area and so you aren't using up slots on the body, but remember lag?  Yeah, that just adds to it.  Every extra layer is just a little bit harder you're making the system work, and the system already has issues with how hard it is working.  More attachment points fall into the same "it would be nice but just going to cause problems" as well.

Animations could do with a bit of an overhaul.  Placing more control over them in LSL (or Mono) would be ideal really.  The hand position glitch has been a problem for a while and no one cares, so it isn't going to be fixed.  Only 6 votes?  That's rather disappointing.  Really, I'd far prefer to be able to dictate hand position in the programming language anyway though, I can already fix the expression glitch (since it also blips and goes away, if it even starts at all).  It appears as if it's an uploading glitch as well, not a reading glitch, which means everything that people upload now?  Broken.  Will need to be uploaded again if they ever actually bother to do anything about it.  That really pisses me off.  You're talking hundreds of wasted files.

I'd also like to see in general more animation control- in world control over priority would be awesome (instead of having to upload the same pose 4 times, upload one and assign them in world).  The ability to adjust centre point would also be a boon- consider all of the custom sits which fail horribly if you don't have the perfect height avatar, the ability to add a modifier to the hip location would make things far more feasible.  In general, the animation system gives you only just barely what you need, and not what you want, which really isn't helpful.


KillTower Halloween
2007-09-24T16:54:00.000-07:00
Halloween is coming up, so it's time to hit the haunted houses.  KillTower Park came up in a search, so I figured I'd check it out.

They've got a fair amount of activities, first thing I did was walk up the hill to the big tower.  There isn't much you can do there, although I did electrocute myself, and checked out the (occupied) lethal camping.




Taking the 'port to one of the boat rides and the maze, I took the blood river ride first.  Very county fair dark ride (at least of the sort we get here).  The maze is diabolical- you can't see where you're going at all.  Pumpkins are provided as markers, but it's easy to get turned around and going the wrong way (I ended up going in a circle once).  It's close enough to the ride that occasionally you camera through the walls.  It had become quite apparent by this point that they heavily recycle decorations, mostly flat cut-outs (however, most of them moan if you click on them, which is pretty cute).  I'm generally a tad disappointed by haunted houses even in FL, as I prefer a bit more sophistication in my effects that rarely happens.  However, still and all, not a waste of my time.

Next I 'ported back to the main area and checked out the blood falls ride- which does have a charge, albeit nominal.  The log ride, which loops over most of the area, doesn't currently though.  It did get a little stuck once on one of the ups, but it managed to unstick itself fairly quickly.




Transaction History
2007-09-19T18:25:00.000-07:00
So, ha, after deciding there was no way for me to have any idea who was buying what, or how much of anything was selling (mostly useful so I knew if something just wasn't selling so I could not bother with it) unless I was logged in at the time to see the little message, I found the transaction history.  Joy!  It's pretty awesome and useful, and something I never would have found without seeing another vendor's "how to give no transfer items as gifts" sign.  I'm pretty blown out of the water.  Over 150 things!

And because I totally already had to go hunting for how I found it, in SL, World->Account History sends a message to your trusty web browser of choice to load the page.


Freebies: Pirate Hat, Helios
2007-09-18T16:38:00.000-07:00
Incentive to join the Schadenfreude Enterprises group: I've released my first work-free freebie (since you have to find Helios, and really I have already been slowly distributing this to people for a while).  A sculpted tricorne hat.  I'm freebieing it because while it is still not too bad, it isn't perfect.  The loss of detail with the JPEG2000 compression irks me horribly, and it was my first sculpty after all, so it was expected it wouldn't be perfect.  I'll probably release head scarves for it at some point, but I doubt I'll texture it.  However, anyone can request the sculpt map, and they can export it to texture their own (I do ask that you not reup the sculpt map just so you can sell the hat yourself, because that's rather tacky).  I rather like my shiny black vinyl pirate hat, but that's because I actually have a shiny black vinyl pirate hat.


Picture taken on board The Black Sparrow in the Blackspot Shipyard on the Isle of Tao, one of the finest ships you might ever have the opportunity to sail upon.

I've been searching for treasure hunt items at the Exposition (and is it a pain!  While most follow the in plain sight rule, the boxes are tiny!), and discovered that Helios is being distributed no modify.  That was not intended, I must have accidentally given her the wrong permissions.  Please contact me to get full mod versions of what you've found.  (That goes for everything I've released so far, by the way- so if you've got something that's no mod, please let me know so I can fix it!)


Jewelry Exposition, first weekend
2007-09-17T01:45:00.000-07:00
I'm well chuffed, I logged in to SL to find quite a tidy pile of money waiting for me.  I'm sure it's quite modest in relation to the more well knowns (or, in fact, the known-at-alls), but it's quite substantially more Lindens than I've ever seen before!  I calculate Lindens' worth in uploads, so I consider myself quite flush.  I was a touch worried getting everything ready that I wasn't going to sell a blessed thing, and well, I was supposing just the cost of uploading all of the ad textures was getting off easy compared to rent plus that to give it a go in a case where I wouldn't have the built in traffic.  Does give me hope I might actually be able to afford a shop though (which isn't to say people haven't been supportive; Max is often encouraging about how well things will sell, but he both shares my tastes a fair bit, and is my friend; and a couple of other people have made "you should sell that" noises when they inquire where I got things, but only a couple and they may just be being polite and all), so I suppose I ought to give some serious thought to where and what sort of rotation to run.  Bleh, the responsibility of paying rent consistently is actually the worst bit.

I suppose either way this means quite a nice import cushion.  (I suppose I say "I suppose" too much, but you'll get used to that.)  I guess I'll just have to spend it building more clothes then!  I do have to sort out an AO as well, I just keep waffling on what sort of poses.  But standing around with the defaults really is beginning to irk me something fierce.


Booth!
2007-09-11T19:17:00.001-07:00
My Jewelry Exposition booth is set up.  The Exposition does not start until Saturday, however.  I needed to set up early because I have to take a trip out of town.  I should be back Sunday, barring new disasters.



Landmark.


Murders in Babbage, conclusion
2007-09-08T17:28:00.000-07:00
The murders in New Babbage appears to have been solved.  Jason Moriarty confessed to killing the Professor, and with the murders being so similar it is assumed that he committed the rest as well.  In the shopping alley, I discovered a book he wrote which provided an insight into his highly disturbed mind.  The Professor's experiments has obviously unhinged him, and he felt betrayed when the Professor left him to his own devices and returned to working on the Porta Terrarum device, which appears to have been what caused his mental instability- he heard voices which may have originated from beyond our world, from one of the worlds touched by the device.  The Professor was working on the device for the Thirteen, who were also seeking to destroy Moriarty.  Perhaps the disturbance in his mind explains the clues left haphazardly, as well as his desire to seek attention and vindication for his actions, as he saw himself as so betrayed.  It still seems a touch facile, perhaps, but then life often is.  The Van Greed Society, the Thirteen, and the Masonic contact within New Babbage remain mysteries for another day.

The device located in the Bow Street Police office was a fake, as I suspected- it didn't make much sense otherwise (in fact, it made little sense for the police to display it so openly if even they believed it genuine).  The real device was hidden beneath the theatre, and Moriarty used it to open a doorway to allow entrance to our world to monstrous things, which hovered above the theatre after the device reached some sort of critical mass.  Professor Nishi underwent a transformation into some sort of creature herself, and fought them off.  After the battle, she dropped to earth, apparently injured in some manner beyond the flesh, and disappeared before our eyes.



While it appeared that she might perhaps be gone from our world forever, it was revealed that in fact she was safe and sound, although drained from the experience.


Alcmund cross on velvet ribbon
2007-09-08T16:51:00.000-07:00
St. Alcmund was a bishop miracle worker, who died in 781.  In the eleventh century he appeared to a parishioner, telling him to move his bones, which had been forgotten.  His remains were later gathered together with other Hexham saints, and they were all destroyed in 1296 when the region was attacked by Scottish Highlanders.

The Alcmund cross has a single gem in the centre, and is on a velvet ribbon, tied with a bow in the back.




The colour key:



(Hair from Here Comes Trouble)


Fleur de Lys earrings and bracelet
2007-09-08T16:44:00.001-07:00
The fleur-de-lys is a stylized iris design, that was especially utilized by French monarchy, although it also featured prominently in heraldry in general as well.

The Fleur de Lys set is a bracelet and ring with the design, and assorted colour changing ability.  The earrings have gem drops or pearls, or can be without drops entirely with /49 earring clear.  The bracelet has the normal assortment of Cathedral gems and pearls.




The colour key:




Prouille ring
2007-09-07T02:48:00.001-07:00
A church in Prouille in France is where the apparition of Mary of Our Lady of the Rosary appeared to Saint Dominic in 1208.

Prouille is a ring, scripted with my regular hand scripts, that features a rose window, of the early Gothic style associated with Our Lady of the Rosary, with a pearl in the centre.




The variation keys:




Irmina necklace and earring set
2007-09-07T02:47:00.000-07:00
Saint Irmina was the daughter of Dagobert II, whose betrothed husband died on their wedding day.  She became a Benedictine abbess, and died in 716 C.E. at monastery of Weissenburg.

Irmina is a cathedral inspired set, with semi transparent gems and window inset, reminiscent of stained glass.  Irmina currently comes in a light version with white pearls, and a dark version with black pearls, which also features more aged silver.  Irmina actually features two necklaces, as the links were too prim heavy to be completed around the entire necklace in one attachment.  There is a version with a spine and a chest attachment, that features the links for the entire necklace, and a version with just a single attachment that has a simple chain across the back (the links go far enough back that both look identical from the front).

Both versions are scripted to change colours.  The gems and glass change, between red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, black and white- for instance, type /49 necklace red to turn it red, alternately you can type /49 all red, which will also change other items in the Cathedral set.  Telling it to change to clear will set the window open, without the glass, leaving the rest set to its current colours.  The earrings do not change colour.




A key for the colour changing is included.  And /49 necklace clear will make the window open.




A 3rd murder in New Babbage!
2007-09-01T19:18:00.000-07:00
There has been a third murder.  I find the whole case exciting- I'm in no danger, as I have no connections at all to any of the intrigue, and am a total outsider having to reconstruct the facts with no other reference.



The third victim was a Mr. Edler Reifsnider, a Mason, and someone on one side or the other searching for the mysterious device.  The body was found in the theatre, hung and stabbed, which seems a touch excessive, but on the other hand the knives seem to be more of a system to ensure the letters do not blow away in all cases, and there hasn't been any blood on any of them since the first.  Perhaps they were already dead some other way, for long enough to cease the flow of blood?

I'm in the Absinthe house next door, while assorted people mill about.  I'm having a drink, to settle my nerves...well, truly, any excuse is a good excuse, and though there is a pool of blood under the body it isn't that gruesome, although some of the more excitable of the crowd have been speculating on seeing the corpse move.  I believe the majority of the group started at a meeting earlier, which I tried to attend but as is the case in New Babbage, I simply get lagging out and can't even move, so I gave up.  I suppose I ought to have said hello or whatnot, but I never do know how to call attention to myself in social situations.  Regardless of what should or should not have been done, I'm taking the time to sort through the clues I have discovered to date, to attempt to organize things a touch.

At the first crime scene, where the deceased grandfather of Loki Eliot was discovered, there is a letter stating that he is going to be murdered by the Van Greed Society, and mention of both his grandson and another urchin who he refers to as "Ally Wunder."  This letter is bloodstained and torn- the only letter in the series to be either, and written with urgency suggesting that he was interrupted by the killer during the writing of it.  A second letter referred to the device, and the experiments on Sunrise, as well as one of the volunteers for his experiments, Jason, becoming psychotic, and performing experiments of his own upon the urchins (it has been theorized that Jason is one of the lycanthropes plaguing New Babbage currently).  A third is a follow up to the disaster on Sunrise, and includes an ominous reference to "Suqare & compass"(?)- it is occasionally difficult to decypher the Professor's writing, and it could be a misspelling if he was in a rush, he occasionally dropped capitals most definitely.  Possibly Square & compass, although still the actual source of the reference is still unclear.  An experiment diary outlines the disaster itself and the explosion of the island, from what the Professor witnessed, which wasn't a great deal.

All of the letters are addressed "Dear Friends," so it is a mystery as for whom exactly the Professor was writing these unsent letters.

The second body, Giles Canning, was discovered not far from the scene of the first crime, although the body was brazenly left just off the street, behind some crates.    He had a letter from The Thirteen upon his person, who he appeared to be working for, or otherwise associated with.  They appear to also be interested in the Sunrise Device, and wished Canning to aid them in covering up the whole affair that was brought to the attention of the authorities with the first murder.  Upon his person was also the infamous list:

Ally Wunder     Victor Wunderlich?
Loki Eliot     Grandson. where father?
Myrtil Igaly & Mckay Beck
----------------------------
Jason Moriarty
Nareth E. Nishi

I met Ms. Nishi at the site where the body had been, after escourting a doctor from Caledon there (I had stumbled across the body earlier that day, but it was removed before the arrival of the doctor by the Bow Street Police.  The doctor attempted to persuade the Mayor to allow him to resurrect the victim, but he appeared to be having no luck).  I met Myrtil Igaly at Sunrise, although I didn't know it was that island at the time, and she expressed fear for her life.  The true associations of the list, whether they are all potential victims, whether the last two are conspirators, or whether it has different meaning entirely, has been a subject of much speculation.  The first section is all composed of urchins and the second is not, so that could be the real reason for the split.  Moriarty could, of course, be the psychotic Jason referred to by the Professor.  Ms. Nishi seems to believe it is instead Canning's list of people to inquire as to the whereabouts of the device, but the killer still would have seen it, and does not appear to be adverse to murdering any in his way.

There was also a cylinder recording of the experiment, documenting the disaster, near the body, of what sounds to be an opening of a portal (or partial opening?) which had the horrifying repercussions.  This murderer seems to have a very strange motive, leaving all of this evidence about the Sunrise Experiment on the bodies.  He must want the authorities to find it?  One wonders why one would go to all the trouble for something so simple (perhaps feeling it would be easier to steal then, but it has been safely ensconced within the Bow Street office for a fair amount of time now, and one would think it would be easier to simply find on one's own, without calling all this attention to one's actions.  If one desired to use it, I should also think that the Professor, alive and captive, would be far more useful, as the device does not appear to function correctly as of the last reports.  Perhaps it is simply the shortsightedness of villains, and those they choose to do their bidding, but that seems a bit of a facile answer).  Especially as what purpose it would serve in the hands of the authorities is one of question as well.  Will they attempt to use it?  It appears to be something with devastatingly horrible potential, so perhaps the attempts by the Mason's to destroy it might be safest for everyone.  Still, it would be a shame for the Professor's life work to be destroyed, and it might have potential for betterment for mankind as well.

Of course, the potential exists that red herrings are left in with real clues, to throw people off of the real story, and that the clues left in so melodramatic a manner are to encourage armchair detectives to join in and obfuscate matters.  I am keeping myself to myself however, and do not believe I would be interfering with the investigations of the professionals in any way (beyond attempting to warn a couple on the list shortly after discovering it, just in case.  Any involved with the device are potentially in danger at this point, regardless of whether they are actually targets, and it would be wise for them all to be aware of their surroundings, just in case).

(As an aside, Loki Eliot, Mckay Beck, and Nareth Nishi all were milling about the scene of the last crime looking at the body.  Mckay was, I believe, the first speculating upon the corpse's movements.  One must not find too much suspicious in their arrival, as it was rather obvious and well attended.)

I explored the island a little, and found some notes and drawings of what one assumes is the device.  There is a device in the station set up by the Bow Stret Police, under glass, that appears to be it.  The motives of the killer become even cloudier (if his intention was to drop the device into the laps of the constabulary, why then do the murders continue?  And why would he desire to do such a thing anyway?).  There was also reference to lycanthropy and the undead upon the island, and another reference to their activity in New Babbage since the Professor started his experiments.  I've yet to personally witness any of either.

The newest letters confirm that the Van Greed Society is behind the string of murders, although there is also mention of the opposing force in search of the device, the Thirteen Club.  The victim was apparently attempting to gain ownership of the theatre, forcing out the urchins who have made it their home, at the behest of the Masons- and meeting with much resistance from the residents of New Babbage.  His Mason card was found under his body, next to a pool of blood.  The Masons also have some interest in Ms. Nishi, although "her case" was not assigned to the victim.  The victim was sent to destroy the Porta Terrarum, which appears to be an alternate name for the Sunrise Device (one must assume that the possibility exists that nothing is as it seems.  However, the device has been stated as a method to open portals between our reality and others, so Porta Terrarum would be an apt name).  There is an undisclosed (female) Masonic agent in New Babbage he was instructed to contact, as well as to attempt to involve the Mayor, although the suggestion seems against full disclosure of his intentions.

Regardless of speculation on the list, the Masonic agent that Mr. Reifsnider was to contact appears to be the most obvious next target, if the murderer can deduce her identity.  One would find it unlikely she would be one of the urchins, in such a society, as well as it being unlikely that she would be Ms. Nishi.  I had seen none of the victims about town before their untimely deaths though, so I assume I shall find out the identity of this mysterious agent after it is too late for her.  That is the problem with secret societies, I suppose.


Arachnophobia I necklace, earrings, and ring set
2007-09-01T13:54:00.000-07:00
This spidery set is a recreation of something I made with beads and wire.  The original is blue, although I plan to make a red version if I ever find good beads for it.

Again, inquire directly for different permissions, separate pieces, other colour versions.




Clock Island
2007-08-26T16:44:00.001-07:00
Another case of seeing something interesting on a random flickr is Clock Island.  It's sort of quirky and adorable, and mildly reminiscent of Dali (in that numbers fall from the sky and run around and you can walk around inside a giant hourglass, there isn't the melting involved).

There's also a scavenger hunt, which I am a sucker for, in the case of finding the 12 gold numbers.  I've found four or five, and beyond a couple of obvious ones, they head straight into the realm of dirty pool.  Inside objects, buried underwater (at least there is a subtle pointer), randomly falling from the sky with no discernible pattern...  However, it's still great fun, although the assisting text and whole design concept is in Japanese, so one who doesn't speak the language is left thinking that they've missed something.  There are also a couple of freebies hidden around- there's a lovely number dress that sadly isn't modifiable (I believe it would be quite lovely in black, but alas it is stuck in white), and a neat little pointer thingie that can be somewhat tricky to find as well.  Maybe sure you have your sound on, aural clues abound in giving you an idea where you ought to be looking.

Unfortunately one of the elevators looks unintentionally broken, and the intentionally broken one...I have a feeling it's doing something, but I don't have the clues to know what exactly, as my Japanese extends to only very simple and nonsensical phrasings (Your shoe is big).


Spinning fuses earrings and necklace
2007-08-23T13:45:00.000-07:00
These necklaces and earrings glow, and the elements inside them spin around, giving a somewhat pulsing effect.  I will probably only be offering one colour at the Jewelry Exposition (I'm leaning towards the blue), due to prim limits and all, but they are all available directly from me- just IM Allegory Malaprop if you would like some, or to see an in-world demonstration of the movement.  Please let me know whether you would prefer modify/transfer/no copy, or modify/copy/no transfer.  Separately, earrings and necklaces are L$50 each, or get a necklace and matching earrings for L$80.  I shall figure some sort of bulk pricing for you if you are interested in full sets of colours.

Current colour selection: Metal choice of silver or copper, and element choice of blue, green, pink, red, or violet.  Custom colours available on request.

    
    

(It should perhaps be mentioned that my proclivities towards steampunk tend heavily towards taking the word literally. For instance, I regularly have my hair styled in a green mohawk when visiting Caledon and New Babbage, and my attire, while inspired by the trends, may not always fall within the general accepted rules. Thus, these fulfill my scientific curiousity as well as my occasional tendency to wear things that provide their own light source in dark venues- while I tend more towards the venues in which the majority of people are wearing black except for those who see neons and enormous tie-on hair as a way to buck the trend, these could be considered accessories for your steamraver, a truly horrifying thought.)


Devils Moon
2007-08-16T15:50:00.001-07:00
I saw a picture of Devils Moon in a random someone's flickr, (off of one of those sidebars of all sorts of people with SL flickr's) and was intrigued.

They have an absolutely marvelous street effect.  I love it.  It's magnificently clever, the street looks wet with rain, with great reflections of the city above.  Now, as you well know, I'm sure, real reflections haven't made the proper viewer yet, and when they do they're going to be murderous on people's systems.  Instead it's a partially transparent street with the city built upside down underneath.  It's a fantastic effect, and it only makes me cringe a little bit on the amount of prims they have to "waste."  They've made up for it with some really fantastic textures that make you think things are more high prim than they are, and while there are places where they haven't mirrored things exactly (generally a "prims don't cut that way" problem), it's mostly things that you wouldn't notice unless you were really paying attention.  It's also a brilliant (modern) Japanese influence cyberpunk city, which is always good- that is what lured me in in the first place, after all.

I'm smitten, and I need to bring Max when he has the time.

Apparently there's also some sort of combat game at one of the neighboring sims that run by the same people, and there are free ice and roller skates when you 'port in.  So far I'm just enjoying the scenery though.  Even though I don't really appreciate strip clubs, there's a perfectly seedy strip club with a hidden "cuddle" room up in one of the high rises.  I think it's by far the most realistic strip club I've seen in SL (but then, I don't frequent them- but still, even empty you can smell the sweat, desperation, and alcohol).


Murder in New Babbage
2007-08-14T18:10:00.000-07:00
There have been a couple of murders in New Babbage recently, how exciting.  The first I discovered in the newspaper, but today I found a second body.  He had a note on him suggesting that some of the urchins of New Babbage may be in danger as well, as well as a recorded cylinder of the disaster to do with the experiment.
New Babbage, sadly, makes me chug like crazy, and I've never been able to spend much time there.  Which is very disappointing, as it's an amazing place, and I'm looking forward to the new underwater sim (which, I hope, will include that lovely Relay for Life build!  I've been making a diving suit in preparation).

(Speaking of chugging, after a chat with someone I've met at my sandbox, I believe that voice chat is causing massive hangups on not just my system, but also the systems of many, even though I leave it turned off completely.  *sigh*  It isn't even a feature I would use- I dislike the sound of my own voice, tend to be quiet most of the time, often have music playing that would simply add noise to the background so no one would be able to understand a word I said, and don't have a mike anyway.)


Ring boxes
2007-08-14T12:30:00.000-07:00
My rings come with a lot of instructions, because while you can just wear them and everything works, you can also make them work better for you particularly by doing a few things of gradually increasing complexity. The getting your hands dirty instructions are included in the rings themselves, because that's where you need to be to do those things. But you can also make it fit better just by editing it the way you normally would, in a particular way. So for that, I figured I should add it on the same level as the ring itself so people who are daunted easily would find it, since it isn't hard. This meant I needed ring boxes!

Now, I largely blame my RL friend E for this. She has a ring box collection, and the two of us ended up finding elephants and penguins and all sorts of adorable little velour boxes this one place (and she walked out with 10, I think it was). Secondly, I blame this great big peach room:
 that had been in my sandbox for a couple of days. The back of the peach slid around to close it the door as well. It's gone now, but it was there when I made my first ring box:

 which I still don't know what I'm going to use for, and I'm sure I'm going to change the texture (this was just a free thingie I had handy for a placeholder), but not only does it include my script and instructions, it also opens and closes on touch. Because, well, I had to.  It isn't particularly of the style of the two sets that I really needed boxes for (I have other rings, but I haven't gotten the full sets together yet, and besides, Helios needed to be sent off), so after some thought, I went with these for Helios and Astraios:

Yes, they do have the rings sitting in the boxes themselves as well.  Max made me stop when I started talking about making a pose to be able to hold them as well though, since really, that's the height of silliness.  Also, they'd never get done.



Sandbox etiquette
2007-08-09T13:30:00.000-07:00
Can anyone explain to me what the deal is with sandbox etiquette?  Or, more accurately, the lack thereof.  Some day old started up a conversation with me, by going to my level of the sandbox when others were perfectly open and free (I'm usually at ABC recently, it's nicely tiered with level, so there's a lot of space to not be in someone's way.  Also, there are chickens), and then started building next to me.  Ok, this is not particularly awful, I understand some people are all about the social aspect, blah blah.  But she quickly lost interest in talking to me, and started building massive structures.  I'm zoomed in on my shoe because it's got fiddly little bits I'm putting on, and I look up at one point to find out I've been shoved all the way over against the rail by her building.  Ok, whatever, not getting in the way of my building.  But then, she drops a frigging house on top of the shoe I'm working on.  What the hell?  What is wrong with you people?  Is common courtesy really so alien?

I understand the griefing jerks, they are intentionally trying to be bastards- one dropped an attachment with full mod so I could inpect the scripts before wearing, so I knew it was a push that would shove me across the sim, but then he whinged until I put it on (which I did just to get him to shut up, after getting to a decent stopping point and getting all of my things together)- didn't help that he barely spoke english, so it was just wear _item name_ over and over again spamming my chat channel, not even understanding when I was saying "you know, I know exactly what that's going to do, and I'm not in the mood, I'm in the middle of building right now."  At least it beat the other gems I've gotten now and again, that one left after I tried his toy- I've had people sit on my items so I couldn't link them, stupid hovers and proximity pushes, etc.  At least it isn't as if I can't take my toys and go somewhere else though, so while I will report them, I don't find them as obnoxious as the people who will just drop a house on me because they aren't paying attention.  Sort of funny, isn't it?


Ring scripts, supplemental
2007-08-07T16:15:00.000-07:00
For coding in the positions for each hand state, getting the position is easy.  Simply use the regular positioning editor to put your ring where it belongs, and copy over the coordinates.  However, things become a bit more difficult when it gets to rotation.  In the prim editor, rotation is dealt with with degrees.  Degrees make sense to you and me, it's what we were taught in school as children.  However, degrees are not infallible, in fact they can cancel each other out and cause all sorts of problems really.  So LSL keeps degrees in this bizarre format called quaternions.  It does all this sine of the cosine of the inverse of the opposite angle cubed minus 11 to tell where things ought to be.  That wikipedia page does make it out to be more confusing than it is, and it's a ridiculously confusing thing inherently (but wikipedia tends to not really help when it comes to technical things, as it doesn't explain anything so anyone who doesn't already know exactly what it is could understand).

However, LSL has a handy and easy way to bypass this.  Put this little few lines of code into a script in your ring, and then when you wear it move it into position and rotate to your heart's content.  Then, when you're copying over the position, touch the ring.  It will send you a message telling you what the rotation is in quaternions to copy over!  It's just that easy!



default
{

    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llOwnerSay((string)llGetLocalRot());
        // This will tell you, and only you, the owner of the object, what the rotation is when you touch it.  If the object is attached to you, it will be the rotating in relation to the attachment point, if in a child prim, its rotating in relation to the parent prim.  Drop it in a parent prim and drop it on the ground, and it will be its rotation relative to the world.  If for some reason you want to announce the rotation to everyone in the sandbox, replace the above line with llSay(0,(string)llGetLocalRot());
    }
}



Ring scripts, part 3 - the left hand
2007-08-07T16:14:00.001-07:00

// Hand mesh guesser, left hand v1.0 by Allegory Malaprop of Schadenfreude
// This version sized for women's hand 45.

// Instructions:
// The easy way to make this work is to skip down to the hand states (fist_state is the first one), and input where you want your ring to be in each state.  Even easier way is to just drop this in your ring and let it run.  It assumes the link parent is dead center of a ring on the ring finger, a small invisible sphere if there isn't a nice handy one piece band, and goes from there.  You can't move it or rotate it or anything, the script will override any of that sort of thing- so if you want it moved or rotated, you have to set that in the hand states.  It also assumes a female hand size of 45, because I found 50 was veering a little towards manhands, at least on my shape.  There will be attachment wander with other sizes if you don't code other options, but then, that's typical, isn't it?

// Documentation:
// I have a tendency to not document, a lot, and then I wander off and am distracted by shiny things and forget how to use the language and have no idea what I did.  So instead, I'm over documenting so when my brain has leaked out of my ear I can still, maybe, figure out just what it is I was doing.  Also, I can be really really wordy in my epistles to the invisible people, even though when it comes to actual conversation I usually don't know what to say.  Go figure.

// Distribution:
// This script had a bad experience, locked up in a closet as a child.  As such, it wants to be free as the pretty birdies in the sky.  So give it to anyone who might be interested in "finger attachments," bundle it up in freebie script give aways, share it with a loved one over a romantic candlelight dinner.  Feel free to sell objects that contain this script for whatever your little heart (or wallet) desires, but please do not charge for the script itself, not even a single Linden.  This is for many reasons, but the biggest is that this script works best if people believe in it.  It's like Tinkerbell in that way.  Animation Overrides are very prone to breaking it, and maybe if people use it and like it, they will make AOs that leave the default hand states alone whenever they can.  It's not a perfect solution by any means, but unfortunately this script can't actually do anything about knowing the actual hand position beyond its best guess due to limitations in the language currently.  See section: Where this breaks.  Feel free to modify this script in any way and distribute your modifications, because you may have made it better, which I'm sure can be done in a great many ways.

// What this does:
// This script makes educated guesses about what position an avatar's hand will be in, and allows you to set things for each position.  So rings can move with your hand, and it can be adapted for claws and fingernails that will actually move with your fingers.  Not perfectly, no, and you may be able to improve upon the code to make it work better, but this should do the heavy lifting of figuring out what the hand position is most likely to be out of the box, and provide ways to do things with it, as well as providing a jumping off point for improvement.

// How it works:
// Well, my little darlings, I figured out the necessary functions by disecting the Franimation Overrider (available for your animation overriding needs at YadNi's Junkyard), in that the important bits are detecting in what animations the avatar is currently running.  Now, it is designed to assume that you are using the default hand states, which isn't always true, as they can be overridden, but it is the most likely, and as there is no way to actually detect actual hand positions of which I am aware, this will have to do.  Once it makes the guess about what the hand should be, it directs it to a function that tells the object where it should be located, and how it should be rotated (or whatever else you want to add in the functions).

// Where this breaks:
// This makes a lot of assumptions about hand positions, because it cannot actually detect them.  Any Animation Overrides that have different hand states included will break this script- your ring will go one way, your hand will go the other.  Poseballs are also likely to break it, as they also often override hands, in fact, any animation that overrides default hand state, broken.  Drinks and other such hand attachments that have poses attached won't really break it, since they are generally hand attachments- therefore they will simply take the place of the object that has this script in it.  Also, cases are added for most built in animations, it's just that custom ones are something we can't know, and the possibility also exists that I missed some of the built in ones.  The one advantage to the bug wherein hand states are not being recognized properly, is that default hand states are more likely to be used so we avoid the hand issue a bit more.  The disadvantage is that some built in states aren't being handled properly either, so if we actually do what we ought to, it can break.  I think it's a bad priority thing, but watch the peace sign or holding a handgun- the hand style breaks when you change to any stands but the base one, I think.  It's all sort of a mess, and I mostly just ignored it because it might be temporary.  Whatever it is, I treat it as not intentional and did not code ways around it.  Also, since these things are in motion, most people probably won't notice the majority of it anyway.


////////////////////////////////// HAND STATES ////////////////////////////////////
// Yes, this is where you have to work if you want to have it be anywhere by the default position.  It's actually not that bad.  Attach your object on your hand, get it in the place you want for each state, and make a note of the rotation and the position for each.  The position is easy, just plug it right in.  The rotation is a bit more difficult, as it involves translating the rotation into quaternions, but if you use the Rotation Getter, which may be included in this package, that's pretty easy to just get the numbers and copy paste too.  Drop a notecard to Allegory Malaprop if you can't find the Rotation Getter, and I'll drop you a copy when I'm around (sometimes I'm AFK, so don't panic if I don't respond right away.  Also, sometimes I crash, so IMs may not be reliable, but you can try that as well).
// If you want to move objects in more than way (claws, fingernails, multiple rings, etc.), you're on your own.  This is the framework you need, but you'll have to get the rest of the way yourself because I haven't sat down to figure it out yet.
// Good gestures to check states: Relaxed I just did standing around; Impatient for fists; Wink (Hollywood) is good for pointing; Surprise or waiting around for the stand with the right hand in a fist and the left spread, for spread.  You may have to define custom gestures for all of them, I'm not sure any are in the common gestures library.

// What do we do if we think the hand is relaxed?
relaxedState() {
        llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_POSITION, <-0.014, 0.044, 0.026>, PRIM_ROTATION, <0.52439, -0.49190, -0.44772, 0.53160>]);
    // Set position relative to avatar attachment point, in this case -0.014x, -0.044y, 0.026z, and set rotation the same way.  This is 106.15 degrees x, 277 degrees y, 19.1 degrees z, translated into quaternion.      
}

// What do we do if we think they have a fist?
fistState() {
    llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_POSITION, <-0.013, 0.038, 0.007>, PRIM_ROTATION,  <0.21548, -0.64547, -0.16706, 0.71346>]);   
    // Rotation: 51.2x, 276.75y, 19.75z    
}

// What do we do if we think the hand is spread out?
spreadState() {
    llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_POSITION, <-0.020, 0.045, 0.016>, PRIM_ROTATION,  <0.54979, -0.44383, -0.38158, 0.59595>]);
    // Rotation: 89.75x, 288.45y, 6z       
}

// What do we do if the hand is pointing?
pointingState() {
    llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_POSITION, <-0.013, 0.038, 0.007>, PRIM_ROTATION,  <0.21548, -0.64547, -0.16706, 0.71346>]);   
    // Rotation: 51.2x, 276.75y, 19.75z    
}

// What do we do if the hand is typing?  Really, this ought to be animated, but you wouldn't have any way to sync up the animation.  I'm just referring it to relaxed, because that's close enough for me.  You can decide if it's close enough for you.
typeState() {
    relaxedState(); // Treat as relaxed
}


////////////// EVIL CONFUSING CODE STARTS HERE.  FEEL FREE TO WANDER OFF AND IGNORE. /////////////////////


// More functions for each hand state.  This is entirely to keep the above code less confusing for the end user, so the only line of code they mess with is the thing they might want to change.  Only relaxed and fist are included, because they are the only ones called multiple times, so the others are unnecessary.  I'm warning you here about the inconsistency so you know what's going on.
relaxed() { // Relaxed case, calls the state above.
    if (lastAnim == "relaxed") { // if that's what we just were doing, do nothing.
    } else { // Otherwise, we want the relaxed state.
        relaxedState();    
        lastAnim = "relaxed"; // reset lastAnim state so we know what to look for to skip it next time.
    }
}

fist() { // Fist case, calls the state above.
    if (lastAnim == "fist") { // if that's what we just were doing, do nothing.
    } else { // Otherwise, we want the fist state.
        fistState();    
        lastAnim = "fist"; // reset lastAnim state so we know what to look for to skip it next time.
    }
}


string  lastAnim = ""; // The last state in which we decided we were.
// How often are we going to check on the animation state?  More often = more lag.  So while you can check 0.001, that's hammering the server pretty hard.  0.25 only checks 4 times a second, which, really, is still often enough for what people are going to see, especially with lag and all.
float timerChecking = 0.25;

// Meaty mcMeatFingers, the script that goes through all our possibles and tells us which if the above states to use.
detectHand() {
    list curAnims = llGetAnimationList(llGetOwner()); // A list of all the animations currently playing.  They're going to be in UUID format, so, well, it's going to be great fun to deal with it all.

    // Gestures get checked out first, because they will override everything else.  They are cool and like to throw their weight around, pushing to the head of the line, and stealing lunch money from the standing and walking animations.
    // We're using funky operands here, the ~.  But it saves bytecode, because we love the server and want to keep it happy, and is faster than doing != -1, since if we come up with -1, it doesn't exist.  Also because the programming wiki tells us to.


// Typing doesn't appear to actually trigger correctly for some reason.
    if (llGetAgentInfo(llGetOwner()) & AGENT_TYPING) { // Are we TYPING?  Cause we do that sometimes.
    if (lastAnim = "typing") { // if that's what we just were doing, do nothing.
    } else { // Otherwise, we want the typing state.
        typeState();
        lastAnim = "typing"; // reset lastAnim state so we know what to look for to skip it next time.
    }
    
    // Now let's check for the fist state.  I'd be using ||seven more if LSL used them properly, but for some reason it still feels the need to check everything in the list, so they are less useful.  Sad really.  I'm still lots just because it saves a little space, and out of the hope they'll realize that this way actually is much nicer on the server at some point and change it.  Also, I'd run out of ifs otherwise.           
    } else if (~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"eae8905b-271a-99e2-4c0e-31106afd100c"]) // I'm not standing here for you to take SNAPSHOTS.   
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"5ea3991f-c293-392e-6860-91dfa01278a3"]) // IMPATIENT already?  We've only just started.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"709ea28e-1573-c023-8bf8-520c8bc637fa"]) // It's a bit early to be JUMPING FOR JOY.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"315c3a41-a5f3-0ba4-27da-f893f769e69b"])  // I remain unimpressed by the flexing of your sexy MUSCLES.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"ef62d355-c815-4816-2474-b1acc21094a6"]) // Your invisble BAZOOKA you're HOLDing doesn't scare me!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"8b102617-bcba-037b-86c1-b76219f90c88"]) // Invisble BOW HOLDing, no more scary.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"46bb4359-de38-4ed8-6a22-f1f52fe8f506"]) // Nor invisble BOW AIMing.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"eefc79be-daae-a239-8c04-890f5d23654a"]) // Your ONE-TWO PUNCH doesn't scare me either!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"f3300ad9-3462-1d07-2044-0fef80062da0"]) // Hey!  No beating me up with your LEFT PUNCH!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"c8e42d32-7310-6906-c903-cab5d4a34656"]) // Nor the RIGHT PUNCH either!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"49aea43b-5ac3-8a44-b595-96100af0beda"]) // Ok, that's it.  I'm not putting up with the abuse of your ROUNDHOUSE KICK.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"11000694-3f41-adc2-606b-eee1d66f3724"])) // *sigh*  Don't throw a TANTRUM.  I know you only hurts me cause you loves me baby.)
    {
        fist(); // Call fist(), which covers the "are we there now?" and "what do we do again?"

    // Only one pointing left hand:
    }  else if (~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"c0c4030f-c02b-49de-24ba-2331f43fe41c"])) // Your HOLLYWOOD WINK gets me every time, and you know it.  Cheater.
    {
        if (lastAnim == "point") { // if that's what we just were doing, do nothing.
        } else { // Otherwise, we want the pointing state.
            pointingState();
            lastAnim = "point"; // reset
        }    
    // More batch checking, this time for relaxed hands
    } else if (~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"18b3a4b5-b463-bd48-e4b6-71eaac76c515"]) // Don't you laugh that deep BELLY LAUGH at me!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"b906c4ba-703b-1940-32a3-0c7f7d791510"]) // And now you are BORED by my antics.  Well then, who needs you!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"92624d3e-1068-f1aa-a5ec-8244585193ed"]) // Aw, don't CRY.  I didn't really mean it.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"42ecd00b-9947-a97c-400a-bbc9174c7aeb"])) // You aren't really going to prove to me you're a higher spiritual being with your FLOATING YOGA.
    {
        relaxed(); // Call relaxed(), which covers the "are we there now?" and "what do we do again?"

    // More batch processing for spread
    } else if (~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"313b9881-4302-73c0-c7d0-0e7a36b6c224"]) // Ha!  I knew I could SURPRISE you!
    // Left hand only:
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"ea633413-8006-180a-c3ba-96dd1d756720"]) // Eek!  Don't AIM that RIFLE at me!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"35db4f7e-28c2-6679-cea9-3ee108f7fc7f"]) // Moving on to COUNTing for a game of Rock Paper Scissors?  You're very competative tonight.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"42dd95d5-0bc6-6392-f650-777304946c0f"]) // Ha!  Take that!  My scissors shatter your ROCK.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"0836b67f-7f7b-f37b-c00a-460dc1521f5a"]) // Rock Paper Scissors, again?  My PAPER wraps around your paper!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"16803a9f-5140-e042-4d7b-d28ba247c325"]) // And again I beat you!  My paper wraps your SCISSORS!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"42b46214-4b44-79ae-deb8-0df61424ff4b"]) // STAND 3 has one hand one hand spread out- the right hand is in a fist instead.
    // Both hands:
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"62c5de58-cb33-5743-3d07-9e4cd4352864"])) // Fly away!  HOVER UP is both hands spread.  Put at the bottom here because it is a lesser priority than the gestures.
    {
        if (lastAnim == "spread") { // if that's what we just were doing, do nothing.
        } else { // Otherwise, we want the spread state.
            spreadState();
            lastAnim = "spread"; // reset
        }
    // A few of the standing states involve balling hands into fists, as does the run state.  So, if we don't get overridden by any of the above, we direct the state now.
    } else if (~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"370f3a20-6ca6-9971-848c-9a01bc42ae3c"]) // STAND 2 is hands on hips in fists default.
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"05ddbff8-aaa9-92a1-2b74-8fe77a29b445"]) // RUN away!
    || ~llListFindList(curAnims, [(key)"20f063ea-8306-2562-0b07-5c853b37b31e"])) // Dive!  Dive!  HOVER DOWN!
    {
        fist(); // Call fist(), which covers the "are we there now?" and "what do we do again?"
            
    // Catch all for all other states is relaxed hands.  We may have missed something up there, but I did try to be exhaustive.
    } else {
        relaxed(); // Call relaxed(), which covers the "are we there now?" and "what do we do again?"
    }
}

// Initialize timer, and reset a variable so we don't carry forward the last state erronerously.
initialize() {
    llSetTimerEvent(timerChecking);
    lastAnim = "";
}


// The stuff that actually starts doing things.  Because all the above is just waiting impatiently to be chosen by one of the default states, otherwise it just sits there in its corner and rots.
default {
    attach(key attached) { // Start the script when it is attached.  Otherwise you have to run after this tiny prim object all over a sim as it flees from you.  Trust me, it isn't fun.
        if (attached != NULL_KEY) {// We are attached!  So let's run!
            detectHand(); // Run Meaty McMeatFingers!
            initialize(); // Set the timer and blank out lastAnim so we don't get into trouble from the last wearing.
            llResetTime();
        } else {// No, really.  We aren't attached.  Stop the timer.
            llSetTimerEvent(0);
        }
    }

    timer() { // Our timer, so we keep checking states, instead of checking once and them being done with it.  Because that would defeat the whole purpose of keeping track where our hands were.
        detectHand(); // Run Meaty McMeatFingers at regular intervals!
    }
    
}

// aim_r_rifle and stand_3 have different hand states for left/right- fists right, spread left for both.  All the rock/paper/scissors also have different hand states- left is always spread.