Archive for the ‘pet projects’ Category

Not as much progress as I would have liked, I decided to finish all the strap ends with a rounded tip, with the exception of buckle straps which will end in a point.

I also tackled the VERY time-consuming task of making a version with all the strap ends folded from the inside to the outside rather than the other way around. It is kind of pretty, but it makes the contrast color a bit overwhelming…

I ended up redoing the back buckle a couple of times, the keeper is currently a D-ring but I might change it to a simple metal keeper since I do not intend on having a leash point there.

Riveting progress… I should really be careful with terrible puns like these…

So what has changed?

• Spaced the back Y straps even further, moved the fork much higher and re-adjusted everything.
• Separated the neck strap into 3 parts and re-adjusted everything.
• Started detailing the back buckle.
• Riveted (almost) everything.
• Did some quick material tweaks (backing).

As for the last picture… I don’t really like those square strap ends, so I made two variants. I’m also tempted to reverse those loop ends (I might try for the next blog update) to expose the accent color a bit more.

If I still want to add a nose hook, there isn’t much space left for one sadly >_<.

None of this is final, this strapwork is a bit of a puzzle between what I want, and what gives me good mesh break-points (for adjustment). I should have posted yesterday, but I didn’t have enough progress to show.

I’ve brought down the Y strap much closer to the nose. I’m almost tempted to bring it even lower, but that might cause problems on some avatars.

I might have planned too many “cuts” on the head, or so I’m told, so maybe I should try to simplify it a little.

I really would like to break the neck strap into 3 pieces, but I can’t think of a good way short of inserting a pair of rings and having the overhead stuff connect to them, which complicates fitting even further.

So many questions! But other than that I think it’s looking very promising at this point!

A new Monday, a new ballgag 😛

And already I’m over-engineering it. I want the ball to be swappable between various styles, so I came up with a convoluted system to show or hide the holes based on alpha masking. As if the shape itself wasn’t tricky to get right as it is 😛

There are a few advantages to this method: Only one mesh “face”, and one texture can use multiple alpha values to allow for different hole configurations in the same texture.

The 3 last pictures have a quick test texture and demonstrate the concept.

The main hurdle with this method is that I have to tweak the normal orientation of a lot of vertices to “hide” the holes when their covers are visible. You can still see them it if you look hard enough.

Texture baking also appears to be a little funky on the inside, not like it will matter too much. After all, the inside is only there to give the object depth, but it is barely visible.

Since I’m revisiting the fingerprint locks, I figured that I would do a little lock beauty pass at the same time. Specifically, the texture had a few glitchy spots that I’ve fixed. I also reduced the texture resolution horizontally and decided it was time to give the fingerprint reader a redo (on both lock types). It just wasn’t good.

If it doesn’t look better, it has at least the benefit of “reading” a lot better than the original. I’m also making a couple of colored variants for it.

Still working on the revised product pictures to go with it.

I have been a bit quiet lately, there were a lot of things I had to do IRL.

I visited my family for a few days on easter and it took a day to “recover” from it, it was a good time but very exhausting.

I’ve been trying to bring back my kanji lessons schedule under control (spaced repetition can get pretty wild if you stop following it for a few days) and that means that I’ve spent a lot of days essentially studying most of the day.

And after that there was a lot of long long overdue spring cleaning, trying to make my tiny apartment a liveable space again. To be honest, this is something I should not have allowed to accumulate, but you never really pay attention to it until after the facts. At least I did not wait until summer for this.

With my place now in a somewhat liveable state, I’ve been experimenting with VR a little. Room-scale is certainly a challenge when you live in a place that isn’t much bigger than some people’s walk-in closet. I’m not leaving SL don’t worry, this is mostly an opportunity to spend less time in a chair and be a little more “active”.

I did put down some work for KDC still. Since the change to the keyless padlock, I wanted to rewrite the fingerprint padlock, to essentially provide the same features it does currently, but better and clearer. Those that hang out in the KDC Mailing List Group probably saw me talk about it.

The real actual “change” is the addition of a built-in way to erase a fingerprint padlock without having to reset the script. People already would reset them all the time, why not spare them the trouble. Everything else is more focused on trying to make the way they lock and unlock as transparent as possible.

The other thing I want to do with it is fixing some of the problems the original texture had. I was under time constraints back then and did not take the time to really finish it up the way I should have.

And maybe make a couple more colors, so long as it remains visually different from the keyless model.

Since I am preparing the “official” release of the keyless padlock (okay it IS already available, I know, but not as a standalone), I figured it would be a good time to introduce a little bit of variation in the standard lock roster.

It is still a sculpted prim with quirky UVs, so there are limits to what I can realistically do with it. But I think it looks good?

There will also be a special version for my Patreon supporters too, it has been a while since I’ve thanked you all ^_^.

I’m pretty much done with the cell furniture scripts & animations! Large picture set today!

The furnitures have their own configuration system that allows you to adjust the most important aspects, which can help if you want to use your own poses.

Now, what is going on with these “config.use” cards? It’s really simple! It allows to define which sides of the furniture will allow sitting (the furnitures REQUIRE the “KDC Experiment” experience, sorry!) You still have to be fairly close.

I also included pictures of all the poses I’ve made for the bed and the toilet unit. Feedback welcome!

Slowly, but surely, I’m getting to the bottom of the prison cell project 🙂

• ✔ Config for the inside/outside lamp behavior: always on/off and toggled by the switch.
• ✔ (Optional) automatic unlocking after X minutes.
• ✔ (Experimental) “secure locking”, a padlock ID whitelist for roleplay areas that want some level of key control.
• ✔ RLV feature toggle (restrictions and/or force teleport).
• ✔ Experience feature toggle (teleport on/off).
• ✔ I got pretty much all the sounds I needed to be done: door, hatch, shutter, etc…
• ✔ Color, intensity & other light properties are now saved by the script when you edit them.
• ✔ A variant of the main cell body without the window.
• ✔ A standalone anchor bar with advanced reach checks.
• ✔ A standalone version of the light ramp.

I started working on the furniture script. I came up with a cool configurable, directional range check. You can decide in which directions the furniture will allow an avatar to sit, including top & bottom (useful to allow sitting on a top bunk, but only from “below”, or to prevent sitting through a wall).

That’s all for today!

Brief late night update!

• I added an (optiona) automatic prisoner number generator, it is unique and fixed for all avatars, (I’ll share the code if others want to use it).
• All major interactions have a small built in delay (1 second or less), specifically those that produce messages or sounds.
• Touch areas check not only for range, but also evaluate whether you can realistically reach the object you are clicking from your location (example: from inside the cell, door closed, you can only pull the door handle if the hatch is open)
• RLV restrictions via relay is in, I still need to do some testing to implement (optional) vision spheres.
• Experience Force-teleport is in.
• RLV Force-Teleport is in.
• Some of the sounds are in and are inventory-based to help with modding, it is also fault tolerant (missing sounds won’t play at all).
• All standard TouchBound locks and Heavy-Duty locks are implemented.
• Mod-friendly animation system, resizing & moving parts ‘should’ be handled gracefully (no hard-coded positions & scales on anything).
• Very satisfying light switch & neon light?