What am I working on again ?

Happy New Year 2008 everyone ! No holidays for me after all... and on top of being at RL work while others were resting, I kept myself pretty busy working in SL as well. So let's see...

Update 1.12 is done, and a few bugs have been spotted. Firstly, I had chosen to lighten the displays in order to get away from the dreaded stack-heap collision (Lockable is always about to explode, it's so big), and have changed the way the timers are shown. By doing so, I have introduced a bug that resets the timers every 24 hours. It's only a display bug, the timers are not actually reset (hence Long Timer, Autolock et al still work) but it's annoying. Secondly, the Give Keys plugin still crashes when there are more than 9 people in 30 m, which happens quite often in Pak. This is a bug I thought to have fixed long ago, and an easy one, but it's still there. Go figure. I'd also like to iron out the RL compatibility scripts and to make them shut up when you're not using the custom viewer. It is easy to do but not reliable because of the random time the avatar takes to rez when first logging on. And there are other features I'd like to add later. So 1.13 (or 1.14 for the superstitious) will be in order.

The Banishment Project (Program ?) is my number one priority. I don't talk about it much these days but I'm working hard on several technical aspects of it. Firstly, the Bane helmet, which took me some time to perfect, is now done and looks... umm... weird. It's a sculpty, black and slightly shining, designed to roughly look like a head with a nose... and that's it. It does look good but so out of this world. I know the one in the novel is just a featureless ovoid shape but I like this shape better (ovoid was looking too dull). It looks like an unfinished statue head, lacking eyes, mouth and hair. If I can I will post a pic or two later. Secondly, the Custodian script is under works and is starting to get big... I can't give too many details but what it will do is both monitor the wearer, punish her by progressively reducing some of her abilities (hear, see, move, touch) according to what she does, where she goes and what the Operator says, and link to the Spy plugin so the they can use it remotely. Oh and just so you know, I am making it as hard and mean as possible. This thing is programmed to make your life miserable, you'll know what I mean when your hearing becomes gradually harder along the time you spend near civilians. Or when your Custodian becomes jumpy and picky because you're scoring too many Violations. And these are but examples. I'm not a sadist, but I get an evil grin every time I code on that thing. It's going to be quite a challenge for every Bane, trust me.

The viewer has been added new features for 1.05 (not released yet but soon). It can now prevent the user from adding and/or removing pieces of clothing, either all of them at the same time or only some specific parts (you can lock shoes, or a corset, or whatever you like). This feature will be great when the Banesuit is sealed, there will be no way to remove it. It can also prevent the user from reading notecards (a popular request from isolation fans), they can be sent and received but neither opened nor previewed, at all. That too will be a good thing for Banishment. And it can prevent the user from opening the inventory windows, and closes them when the restriction takes effect. Nasty and very extreme. Use with caution. I have a couple more features to add before releasing (maybe a way to prevent the user from sending chat messages over any channel but some specific ones) but that shouldn't be too hard. I don't think I'll do the "no-stand" one now though, as it requires me to find a way to force the user to sit somewhere, and I'm not even sure I can do that. I'd also like to base it on Windlight so it looks better.

Finally, I'm not only working. As many of you know already, I've been owned by Miss Candy Delacroix for the last month, and am enjoying it greatly. She is amazing, and can make it hard and enjoyable at the same time. I spend most of my time isolated from everyone but Her, but not enough to cripple friendships or business. As She's not online at all times, I take the occasion to work on my things, hence me being rather productive lately. We're both learning a lot from this experience and She understands me easily, as She's like me a true switch and a bondage fan. I remember Coventina used to say "true Mistresses are true slaves"... it takes a sub to Dom the right way, if you see what I mean. Oh and before you even think about bothering my Miss, don't ask, She is not a professional and is not going to take anybody as a slave. This is between us only.

Marine