Archive for 2012

This little break was much-needed, ( I forgot to say in my earlier post that is was only going for ONE WEEK! ) sadly i didn’t enjoy it as much as i wanted, because i had to reformat my computer (backups, format, fuckups and reinstalling everything) which took about 3 days.

Since monday my time was spent on two things:

• Some changes on ethernia.net, let’s face it, this website is slow (EDIT: MUCH FASTER NOW!).
• More work on TouchBound.

On this second point i started the quite ambitious task of converting the TouchBound base code so an object can draw more than one chain, this is a very “hairy” task because 90% of the code only assume that you have the lock on one side and the chain point on the other.

Those changes would allow items like the chastity belt to exist ( I made a very nice sculpted one and simply shelved it when i realised how complex the script was going to be.

The initial goal hasn’t changed, I’m still working on reducing the differences between all the TouchBound items script wise, and relying more on lists and not if/else stacks.

It’s a pretty daunting task because I will most likely have to rewrite every single TouchBound objects in the end.

I want to thank everyone for their patience while I take care of this… and fail to release the new pony bridle…

Due to several events, my birthday, the french president elections, various trip to my closest relatives and some boring RL things I am obligated to do, I think I’m gonna take a little break.

Of course it doesn’t matter if I suddenly have an irrepressible urge to code.

I need to do some house cleaning in the TouchBound code and then propagate it to all the accessories before i get on with writing the bridle code, here is a sneak peek in no specific order:

1. DONE Move back from the satellite scripts all the code concerning setting prim appearances, there really is no reason anymore to have this in secondary scripts since llSetLinkPrimitiveParamsFast().
2. DONE Uncap the maximum number of allowed visible locks.
3. DONE Trash the old “Find link number by name” code and replace it by a plain list.
4. TODO Finish LockMeister V2 and implement it.
5. TODO Get rid of at least one satellite script.
6. TODO Propagate all the mentioned changes to all the TouchBound products.

All the textures are more or less assembled, I also made a lighter metal for the buckles and a few LODs, a big thank you as usual to Linden Labs for not supporting custom bump maps, specular maps or anything else that would let me use textures more efficiently.

Anyway, here is the result, and unlike SOME shoes designers, this is IN second life, not a pretty raytraced render in DAZ3D 🙂

I probably rendered … maybe 4 or 5 failed texture batches between Monday and Tuesday, between having the resolution set too low, various errors in the UV padding and several tests. I’m rendering the (hopefully) final version as I’m typing this post. I kept the eyelets painted on, it turns out they look fine as they are, added a little metal KDC logo on the neck strap for branding. Now I’m waiting for those renders to finish so I can complete the composing in photoshop and make the LODs for SL.

After that, it’s either i start modeling one or more bits or script the bridle first. (They are independent objects)

I also added a couple of scripts in my “Free Stuff” category if anyone is interested.

On a side note I am also slowly replacing the current delivery boxes for KDC products for a model that isn’t as easy to break.

Oh! I also have a Flickr page too.

Stitches, and some texturing done, tested it in SL, even with this amount of detail it’s still about 35 prims.

I’m probably going to do the eyelets in 3D rather than paint them on.

And here is yet another episode of our regular show 🙂

Uvwmapping is done as far as I am concerned, all the UVs are packed in 3 maps, the mesh is merged, I added locking tabs and rollers to the buckles and corrected a few minor issues.

Mesh wise, I need to add eyelets to the straps  where the holes should be (unless I change my mind and draw them into the texture).

Texture wise, I need to start stitching everything.

Enjoy a few material testing and a look at the final UVs.

I think an update every 2-3 days is the right rate… everyday would be a little spamming and i generally do not have enough things done in one day.

I’ve added stitches to the entire bridle, it looked nice and then I deleted it all because if I keep adding details while the model isn’t a little more complete, it’s going to come back to bite me later. Now the goal is to complete the bending/mirroring of all the parts so we have a mesh that is complete and ready for detailing, and before this I need all the texture UVs to be in a reasonable state, simply because as long as everything is flat, it’s easy to make good-looking UVs.

I apologise for today’s pictures, but it’s the same bridle so i see no reason to post more fancy pictures until i get to the point where i will work on the textures.

So that’s what I’ve done most of the day, getting all the little parts UVWmapped, I will .. most likely pack all these on 3 distinct maps: base, accent, and metallic parts.

A friend of mine suggested that I add a support to add a personal logo on the bridle, the outside of the blinkers is a nice, mostly flat surface that would be perfect for that, so that’s probably what I will add once I’m done unwrapping the straps.

I still haven’t made any kind of bit, but considering it will work as an independent part, and that it’s a fairly easy shape, i will keep it for later.

A little update for those who are still following. Straps are more or less done, I added the edge details on them and the face contour of the bridle, smoothed the edge of the leather pieces so it’s more rounded. I also added a plume socket to the forehead strap.

I’m not sure if I’m going to keep all those “inner face” rivet heads as polygons or if I will use the texture for that, they kinda eat a lot of polygons for detail stuffs. The outer ones however will stay as they are.

On the second set of pictures you can see how it looks with the material IDs set (in black and red, my favorite :D) So the inner face + edges will be independent of the outer face, maybe the metal bits too… I’m not sure yet.

Still a lot of work to do:

• Unwrapping everything.
• Adding the buckle prongs.
• Adding eyelets (textures or polygons?)
• Making stitches.
• Figure out where the KDC logo would add an elegant touch without going all “advertisement” like.
• Removing all the hidden surfaces.
• Making LODs.
• Rendering textures.
• Scripting.

As usual, I’m open for suggestions 🙂

A friend bugged me about this for a while so I finally gave in and ported the standard edition of the RevoSuit for “petite” female avatars ( They are custom rigged mesh avatars that are pixie sized ), it’s NOT in the KDC main shop, only at the following locations for now.

Secondlife Marketplace

The Petites Shopping Village

…Back to work on the bridle now.