Thursday, March 20, 2014

News from Sugar

Hi !

I've kept pretty silent on the matter lately, but it has been wearing on me for sure... My friend and partner Ollalla Sugarbeet has been missing for months. Her last login in SL was on December the 23rd last year.

She's alright. Almost. I can't of course get into specifics, especially on a blog, but she would like to reassure people and her friends.

She has fallen very sick something like 6 months ago, rather suddenly, the causes are unknown. Probably a conjunction of factors, because her RL was quite rough at the time, so I suspect stress must have aggravated it. She's been sick to the point of being hospitalized... and she's still in the hospital today, 6 months later. She's slowly getting better over time, but it seems what she caught is something tough to battle against.

Anyway, she wants her friends to know that she misses them, she misses SL, and she is impatient to come back. She just doesn't know when she will be back. It could be weeks or months from now. She has a very limited access to the internet, and of course can't log on into SL from where she is.

If you have rented her a spot for an RR vendor, she knows it must be overdue. Please contact me directly so I can pay her rent for her, thank you.

Marine

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Small fixes to the Leather Body Harness

Hello there,

I've got a few reports about three silly bugs since the release of the Leather Body Harness...

Bug 1 : Two of the three parts are detachable even while locked and under a RLV : That bug is due to me going too fast when installing the Leash plugin (it was installed very late in the design, I initially didn't mean to even make the harness lockable in the first place, let alone leashable), the Leash_slave scripts were put in root prims... I should have known better because they tend to clear the RLV restrictions issued by the prims they are in. To fix that, you need to update at any of my updaters because the updated harness contains two additional invisible prims for those leashes.

Bug 2 : When you modify the color of the rings (not of the fasteners), it will also modify the color of the fasteners of the vertical strap between the breasts, and the one behind the back. This is due to a missing value in the Description field of these two straps and you can fix it yourself easily (see below for the procedure).

Bug 3 : The "Give Tools" button on the Leash plugin does nothing at all... Of course, because I have forgotten to add said "tools" to the harness, namely a leash handle and a leash pointer HUD.


The fix to the first one requires an update (if it really bothers you) but the other two do not.

Here is how to fix Bug nbr 2 :

- Edit your upper torso harness, select "Edit linked parts" and click on the front strap between your breasts :


- Look at the "Description" field on the "General" tab, it should show "harnesstex,verticals,F120" :

 

- Add a "3" after that text, making it "harnesstex,verticals,F1203". Don't change anything else :


- Click on the vertical upper back strap and repeat this procedure :


 - Once done, close the Edit window and it should work, without even needing a reset.


To fix Bug nbr 3, you need to be part of the RealRestraint Updates & Support group and read the notice about the bug and its fix, because it contains the two missing objects (a leash handle and a HUD).

- Locate those two items in your own inventory, they come from the notice to the group but they are identical in each RR product so you can as well take them from any of your other restraints by going to "Plugins", "Leash" then clicking on "Give Tools" :


- Edit the waist part of your harness, without clicking on "Edit linked parts" this time :



- Go to its "Content" tab, the tab that displays the contents of the waist harness, and drag-and-drop those two items inside :


- Once done, close the Edit window. No need to reset.


If you're uncomfortable with editing prims and description fields and inventories and all that, you can just go to one of the updaters and request an update at any of these locations :


My little shop : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pak/76/61/105

The Little Shop of Kink : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lineside/102/146/77

S&M Castle : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Free%20Bird/38/149/39


Once again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience !

Marine








Friday, March 14, 2014

New RealRestraint product : Leather Body Harness

Hi !

Let me introduce you to the new RealRestraint Leather Body Harness. This mesh harness is the most classic leather body harness you can think of : one strap above the breasts, one strap below and one around the waist, as well as vertical straps that go from the back to the front, between the legs and up to the shoulders where they form a "V". We've all seen that design before :







Before you go further, please be advised that there are requirements for enjoying this harness to the fullest, both for you and for those looking at you wearing it :

It uses materials. Nowadays every viewer supports materials but not every video card does. Plus you must have Advanced Lighting Model turned on in order to see materials (even if you don't need to turn the dynamic shadows on), which tends to be heavier on your computer. If you don't see materials, the leather harness will look flat to you and you will wonder why it doesn't shine like on the pictures. But if you do, you will see some realistic-looking leather and metal here :



It uses Fitted Mesh, the latest project from Linden Lab to allow for deformable rigged mesh (i.e. rigged mesh that adapts to your shape). So you need a viewer that supports Fitted Mesh as well in order to see the two lower straps correctly. Normally every viewer is now supposed to support it, and you have nothing to activate.



In fact, only the crotch and the vertical stomach straps are rigged mesh (and as stated above, Fitted Mesh), hence they are not resizable since they are supposed to resize to your shape automatically. All the other straps are classic, non-rigged mesh so you can resize them at will. This is interesting because despite the fact that Fitted Mesh attachments are supposed to follow the shape of your avatar, in practice they often require wearing alpha layers to hide some parts of your body, because the fitting is never perfect and straight parts will clip through your skin when you bend the wrong way. This is not the case with this harness, because the amount of rigged mesh is minimal and you have full control over the rest. This allows, for example, for big mesh breasts, given a little tweaking with the upper straps.


The harness comes as 5 attachments :
- 1 crotch + stomach part to go between the legs (this part is Fitted Mesh)
- 1 waist part for just the waist (this part is classic unrigged mesh)
- 1 upper part for the whole chest (this part is classic unrigged mesh)
- 2 bonus vibrators

To resize your harness (either the waist part or the upper part), simply right-click on it and choose "Edit" :


Then tick the "Edit Linked Parts" checkbox on the edit window to allow you to select one strap at a time :


And finally click on the strap you want to resize and resize it.


Don't hesitate to rotate the vertical strap between the breasts, in case your mesh breasts are too big and clip through the upper strap, forcing you to stretch it while the lower chest strap needs not be stretched as much. Each strap is one prim only so you don't have to bother about positioning the fasteners, buckles and rings yourself, making it easy to deform your upper harness, which is the reason why it was chosen not to make that part rigged.

Every horizontal strap is symmetrical so you don't have to resize the left side and the right side independently. A good technique is to select "stretch both sides" when stretching sideways and up-down (if needed), but to deselect it when stretching forward and backward. That way you are guaranteed that the strap stays in the middle and stretch correctly.

This harness has been modeled on the standard Ruth shape so it should fit you with minimal effort. Keep in mind that you cannot resize rigged mesh, so you can't resize the two lower vertical straps (the stomach and crotch straps), but you shouldn't have to anyway. The only known possible issue is that the "Torso Muscles" slider of your shape should be at least 40 (that slider has always been bugged for the female shape under 40 anyway).


To operate the harness, simply click on any of its straps, or around the front ring on the waist strap, which is the root item of the product (the one containing all the main scripts and textures). This brings the classic RR menu because the harness itself is like a restraint, it can be locked and leashed.

To customize the harness, click on it, go to "Plugins", then "HarnessTex" :



The menu itself is rather simple. On the left side you have the parts of the harness you want to select and the textures and colors you want to apply to them, and on the right side you can choose to hide and show the sections you have selected, or choose a preset that will change the colors and patterns automatically.

The first to buttons you need to use are "Sections" and "Surfaces".

The "Sections" button allows you to select sections of the harness individually (a section is a strap, the rings and other metal parts associated to it), or groups of sections such as only the upper body, or only the lower body, or only the vertical straps or only the horizontal straps, or even the harness entirely :

 

The "Surfaces" button allows you to select some parts of the sections you've chosen, such as either the front of the straps, or the trim (the side of the strap), or the fasteners or the rings, or even a group of those surfaces, such as the whole strap, or all the metal stuff, or even the whole section (you don't usually want to select the whole section but only either the whole strap or the whole metal, but why not) :




After having selected some sections and some surfaces, you can act on them.

Firstly, you can hide and show the sections you have selected (the "HIDE" and "SHOW" buttons do not care about surfaces). For example, if your harness is entirely selected in the "Sections" menu and you click on "HIDE" on the main menu of the plugin, the whole harness disappears. Then if you select the upper body sections and click on "SHOW", only the upper straps will show :


This is very useful for choosing the style of your harness. For example, you could want only the vertical straps to show and not the horizontal ones, just by hiding the horizontal sections (page 2 on the "Sections" sub-menu) :


Or you could decide to remove just the strap above the breasts, if your breasts are decidedly too proud to let themselves be harnessed.


Or you could just show the lower part to make it act as a chastity belt.


You can do what you want. And you will notice that if you are leashed with the Leash plugin contained inside this harness, the chain of the leash actually moves to a ring that is visible (either the one above the breasts or the one on the waist).


Aside from simply showing and hiding parts of the harness, you can customize its look entirely. You can choose one of the built-in presets (all black, black with a red trim, white and gold, rustic...) :

 






Or tint the harness yourself through the Tint menu :






And if you can't find the color that you want, you may just specify it yourself with the "CUSTOM" button. Simply write the color in RGB format (either from 0.0 to 1.0 for all three colors, or from 0 to 255 like in the SL color editor), then click on "Submit". For example, if you want a teal tint on the upper straps :









Moreover, you can choose any of the available patterns in the "Patterns" menu, or even make your own and distribute it.



For example :

Moo.


Urban camo. Because you never know, a girl must be prepared for war.


Studs, for that medieval look.


Skulls, for that even more hardcore medieval-gothic-punk look.


Little hearts. Not so medieval or gothic, but a lot cuter.


Who said leather harnesses are for subs only ?


Some of these patterns come in two versions : white on black (written "W&B") and black on white (written "B&W"). Be aware, though, that tinting the straps will tint the patterns as well, in other words it will add some color to the whole texture. It does not cause any issue with black (tinting black will still give you black) nor with white (tinting white will give you your tint exactly), but tinting a different color is problematic because they mix : if you tint a red texture with a blue tint, you end up with some violet.

That's why most of the provided patterns are either black, white, or both, and you can't have two colors on any face unless one of them is black. If you want more than black plus a tint, you need to make the texture yourself and tint it white.


If you have some basic knowledge on how to make and import textures into SL, and if you are interested in making your own patterns, read on. Otherwise, jump to the last paragraph of this post.

The textures contained inside the harness (the waist part, which is the root item of the product) are full-perms so they can serve as examples for your own, but you are also provided two base leather textures (black and white) and the UV map of the straps :


This texture is a sort of template that indicates how the whole image is "wrapped" around the strap.

As you can see, the UV map is simple... just write or draw what you want in the middle of the texture, between the two horizontal lines. The two strips above and below it represent the trim.

There is a thing to know, though. You might have noticed that the horizontal and vertical straps may or may not share the same pattern (that depends on the pattern). For example, the pattern "I command W&B" will display "I COMMAND" on the horizontal straps and "YOU OBEY" on the vertical ones :




This is because the pattern "I command W&B" is in fact composed of two textures : "I command W&B" and "I command W&B V".

 

Notice the letters are rotated 90° to the right on the second texture. This is what you will have to do too if you want your textures to be different when the straps are horizontal or vertical : simply name them exactly the same, but add a space and a capital "V" at the end of the vertical one. Also make sure the name does not go beyond 23 characters, which is the limit for a button on the menu.

Once your textures are done, drop them inside the waist harness. No need to reset, it will reset itself and rebuild its lists right away. Be advised that the textures need to be full-perms as well, or they won't be used by the plugin.


Lastly, the box contains a little bonus... two dildos ! They are an evolution from the ones contained in the Siren ropes box. They vibrate, change color, make sound and get locked along with the harness, but they're also much bigger, they have bubs and they...

... hmm...

... well, I can't tell you. It would not be, you know, proper.

(images deleted due to Blogger's new content policy)


You can find the RR Leather Body Harness in any of the RealRestraint vendors, it is Modify, No-copy and Transfer, and costs L$450 :



Have fun !

Marine

PS : The collar, mesh breasts, weapon, nipple and pussy pasties are not included.