Please note : If you are experiencing issues after clicking on "Stop Animating Me" in the "Me" menu of your viewer and your gag stops animating you, you have to reset it (click on it when unlocked, Tools, Reset) and/or update it at Dark Wishes. See this blog post for details.
I have been pretty quiet lately because aside from RL work I was busy working on the next update of the RealRestraint products. This is a big update that has several focuses, so big I am actually splitting it in several parts otherwise I would never get anything out.
This post here is about the first part, the update to the RR gags (basic ball gag, basic ring gag, basic tape gag, Isolation Hood, Pretty Mummy gag and Deluxe gag) to make them compatible with Bento mesh heads, because before this update, when you wore a mesh head those gags could not automatically open its mouth when locked, you had to do it manually or through a third party plugin (either they would play an open mouth animation of their own, or they would make the mesh heads call a built-in one, depending on the plugin).
A little reminder of what Bento is, if you're not using a mesh head and are considering buying one. Bento is a change to the SL avatar's skeleton, adding many "bones" to it such as a tail, wings, hind legs, fingers and more importantly in our case here, facial bones to make facial animations. This is a big step forward for SL and allows us to finally animate the face without being limited to the handful of system animations that look kind of goofy and cartoonish. There are limitations though, such as we can't squeeze the lips inwards (well, we can but then the skeleton is deformed), but still this is a very big improvement, enough to entice a lot of people to switch to mesh heads.
It is important to know that although the SL avatar has an enhanced skeleton, the new bones do not animate the SL avatar mesh (the body you have when you are not wearing a mesh body) to avoid breaking existing content. In our case, this means we can't use Bento animations to animate the SL system head.
Before I go ahead and explain what changes with these gags, let me briefly expose the objectives of this update, for there are many.
Firstly, the gags will still work with system heads like they always did, i.e. they still use the "express_open_mouth" face expression we all know. This update does not change that, however since this is the only open mouth animation you can play on system heads, if you do not have a mesh head you will only partially benefit from this update.
Secondly, the old "OpenMouth" script common to all RR gags now becomes a plugin. The reason for this is that it was way too limited, all it was doing was open the mouth of the system head as soon as the gag was locked, regardless of its lock and style. It was one of the oldest and simplest scripts in the RR suite, and needed a complete overhaul to handle both the system "express_open_mouth" animation and custom Bento animations. The plugin has its own tutorial/manual page here : &&& plugin page. If you do not want to read that page yet, here is the short version : the OpenMouth plugin lets you choose which facial animation to use according to the lock of your gag, depending on which one you prefer and how it looks on your own Bento mesh head. Attention, it does not work with non-Bento mesh heads.
Thirdly, the basic RR gags, in particular the ball gag and ring gag, were being overshadowed by the RR Deluxe gag. This is a case of me competing against myself, and I don't want those two gags to become obsolete because there is a better one in the very same brand. For this reason, this update completely overhauls them, turning them into mesh gags (with the same design and textures as the Deluxe gag), and what's more, contain one more lock called "Big". I will talk about it more below. Please note that although the "Big" lock is not available for the Deluxe gag because of the lack of room on the menu and protocol, the "Big" and "VeryBig" animation variants are still contained in it, because why not. More customization for you.
Fourthly, you will notice that the gags are updated to v1.30, and there is more to v1.30 than just gag stuff. Let me write the highlights here that are relevant to the gags only, but those highlights will be repeated in the release notes of the update itself once it is out :
* Basic ball gag and ring gag
- Turned into mesh, using the same mesh and textures as the Deluxe gag, including the neck pieces
- The neck pieces are never RLV-locked so you can always detach them if you need attachment slots
- Turned the old OpenMouth script into a plugin to help you manage Bento animations
- Added a chin strap to both
- Added a rubber cock to the ball gag
- Added a rubber bit to the ring gag
- Handle the visibility of the ball/cock and ring/bit + chin strap through the Style plugin
- Added a lock called "Big" that opens the mouth wider (Bento mesh heads only) and display different parts of the gags, as well as garbling even more heavily (equivalent to the old "Harness ball" and "Harness ring" garblings of the Deluxe gag)
- Made the "Total" lock (which suppresses all speech) look like "Big"
- Added a second ball + second cock + second chin strap to the ball gag to handle the visibility of the "Big" and "Total" locks. If you want to suck on a huge dildo, here's your chance !
- Added a second ring + second bit + second chin strap to the ring gag to handle the visibility of the "Big" and "Total" locks
* Deluxe Gag
- Split the straps that show only in the "Panel wad" style, and remodeled them to make them easier to adjust
- Split the ball gag front straps in two to make them easier to adjust
- Turned the old OpenMouth script into a plugin to help you manage Bento animations
- Added the "Big" and "VeryBig" animations also contained in the ball gag and ring gags, for more customization, but there is no "Big" garbling like in the other gags, because lack of room
- Modified the shape of the panel to make it easier to resize over mesh lips
- There were two HeadHarnessTex_slave scripts in the panel prim for some reason, I removed one of them
* Tape gag
- Turned the old OpenMouth script into a plugin to help you manage Bento animations
- There is no animation specifically for tape gags because you can't squeeze the lips, only rotate them (well you can translate them and it does work, but then the skeleton is deformed afterwards and that's bad), so instead I included all the ring and ball animations into it so you can choose the ones you prefer.
* Pretty mummy gag
- Turned the old OpenMouth script into a plugin to help you manage Bento animations
- Like for the tape gag, there is no animation specific for tape gags so you get all the ball and ring gag animations instead and you can choose the ones you prefer.
* Isolation hood
- Turned the old OpenMouth script into a plugin to help you manage Bento animations
- Re-adjusted the invisiprims to hide the lips and ears of mesh heads under the hood (since alpha layers do nothing to mesh heads, and not all mesh heads have alpha cuts to hide specific parts of the mesh). I know not all viewers render invisiprims, some people call them a "ugly hack" and hate them with a passion, but there are cases like this where there is simply no other option.
- Like for the tape gag, there is no animation specific for tape gags so you get all the ball and ring gag animations instead and you can choose the ones you prefer.
* All restraints (this is the "non-gag" part of the upcoming v1.30 update that impacts the gags too)
- When "/77" is off and the wearer does not have full access, accessing the restraint by touching it or by calling it with "/77 restraint_name" will lead to the plugins browser instead of being ignored, this way the wearer can still customize their restraint even if they cannot struggle. Likewise, clicking on "Main..." on any plugin (including third-party ones) will lead back to the plugins browser instead of the main page.
- We can now do suspension with the leash without bouncing ! This has been a popular request for years and I have always postponed it but this time it's done.
- When the leash holder is too far (beyond 96 m or beyond length*2, whichever is closer), the sub will not be yanked to them anymore, to avoid being flung in the air when TPing from one place to another in the same sim. This effectively makes leashes longer than 100 m useless but hey, 100 m is no leash, this is a tractor beam.
"Normal" ball gag
"Big" ball gag
"Normal" ring gag
"Big" ring gag
"Normal" ball with chin strap
Ball gag in "Simple cock" style
Same gag, same style, but this time in the "Big" lock
Ring gag in the "Chin bit" style
Same gag, same style, but this time in the "Big" lock
Unlocked ring gag, hanging around the neck
The big highlights here, aside from the whole OpenMouth plugin and its Bento animations, is the fact that you now have more content added to the basic gags, for the same price, such as two different shapes for the ball and ring, and a rubber cock and a rubber bit plus a chin strap on top of it, for a more fetish look. That and you can now use the same textures as the Deluxe gag (or make your own), while you were limited to only a black leather prim strap before.
One word about the chin straps : unlike the Deluxe Gag which shows when locked, the ball and ring gags do not, they're invisible on "Lock". Moreover, there are two chin straps per gag, one shows in "Loose", "Normal" and "Tight", the other shows in "Big" and "Total". This means that unlike the Deluxe gag, there is no script that saves the size of the chin strap according to the mouth state, it is simply two different straps, only one showing at a time at most.
To update your gags, simply go to one of these locations :
My Little Shop
Chorazin's Shop
Roper's Dark Playground
Dark Wishes
Then click on the updater there, rez the update orb, start an update on your gag and request a replacement (choose "REPLACE" on the menu instead of "UPDATE"). The old gag will be deactivated, i.e. emptied from its contents, and you will be given a new box. Do NOT decline it as it would destroy it instead of sending it to your Trash folder and you would have lost everything. And I wouldn't redeliver since it is no-copy/trans. So please go easy on that "decline" button.
Actually the Isolation Hood does not really need a replacement (all the other gags do, since their structure and/or contents have changed). If you do not want to replace the hood, you can resize the two small invisiprim spheres contained inside the head, I never removed those so have at it.
I hope you will enjoy this update to the gags while I keep working on the rest of the v1.30 update !
Marine
PS : A big thank you to Danna, as well as Angie and her friends for helping me test the new version of the gags with different mesh heads and shapes !
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