Friday, September 22, 2017

Update to the latex catsuits, bodysuits and socks : Omega support !

Hi there,

I am proud to announce that the Latex Catsuits, the Latex Bodysuits and the Latex socks & gloves are finally compatible with Omega !

Now the same HUD is able to apply latex textures to your mesh body whether it is Maitreya or Omega compatible. And yes it was not supposed to be possible, but I found a way to do it anyway.

Attention, by "Omega compatible" I mean "natively compatible with Omega", that is, the mesh body is compatible with Omega out of the box or you have to install a kit that you buy on the Omega Marketplace store. It is not guaranteed to work with an Omega relay because some Omega relays do not transmit material information from the applier to the mesh body, they are not advanced enough for that. Some relays do, others don't, it depends on the mesh body (at the time of this writing). This is why using an Omega relay with Maitreya used to only apply the base texture and not the shine. So I repeat, if your mesh body needs a relay to work with Omega, and it is not Maitreya, then this update might not be useful for you. You can find out by trying out the demo.

To do this, I have added a new part to each HUD, it looks like this :



Most of these buttons are related to Omega but the two on the left, with the pink "L" in the background, are for Lolas. Unlike before, the HUDs no longer apply to Lolas automatically, you have to do this manually. This leaves you more choice this way, especially since Omega and Lolas protocols conflict with each other (they share the same channel and they are both very similar, but not identical). For example, you might want to apply your catsuit to the "inner" layer of your body, and the Lolas to the outer layer of your Lolas breasts, making your catsuit look loose between the breasts.


If you are a Maitreya user

Nothing changes compared to older versions, simply click on a color button, choose the layer to apply to with the menu that shows and that's it. If you are wearing a neck piece and/or boots, those accessories are immediately painted as well.


If you wear a mesh body and/or breasts compatible with Omega

After clicking on a color button (not before), wait until the HUD says "selected" and what is selected. For example :

MdlM Opaque Latex Socks & Gloves (top left): Selected for torso: "Gloves Black 13 13 13". If you use Omega or Lolas, click one of the layer buttons to apply.

There may be one or two such messages, one for the torso and/or one for the legs, depending on the HUD you use and what you clicked on. For example, clicking on a catsuit button gives you two messages because it prepares the top and bottom textures for Omega and Lolas to use, while clicking on a gloves button or a nipple pasties button only prepares the top textures so you get only one "selected" message.

Once you see that message or those messages in your chat window, the HUD is ready to apply to your Omega-compatible mesh body. Simply press the "Outer", "Inner" or "Tattoo" button to apply to the corresponding layer on your mesh body.

"Outer" means "top" and "pants" at the same time, "Inner" means "bra" and "underwear", and "Tattoo" means "top tattoo" and "bottom tattoo". This is not a problem even for gloves and socks, as the color buttons (that double as Maitryea appliers) are there to load the data into the Omega appliers but nothing happens until you actually click on one of the Omega buttons. So you can click on one color of gloves then on another color of socks, it will work just fine and will apply both at the same time once you click on the layer button to validate.

You can tweak the Glossiness and Environment values afterwards to make your latex shine more or less brightly, and look more or less metallic by clicking on the "Glossy" and "Enviro" sliders respectively (they are not buttons, the higher you click on these areas the higher the values). My scripts also detect the change so they retain the new value for later. In clear, this means that once you change the values, applying another latex color will use these new values and not revert to default. The default values are Glossiness 200 (that's roughly what you get by clicking on the top of the "G" of "Glossy" on that slider) and Environment 0 (which is all the way down to the lower limit of the "Enviro" slider). Omega requires to show the hovertext over the HUD but in the case of these HUDs, it is displayed out of the screen because the root prim is against the top edge. If you wish to see the hovertext (which displays the glossiness and environment values), you can move the HUD down.

There are a couple known issues with Omega that I will discuss below. They are not game-breaking.


If you wear breasts compatible with Lolas

It works the same way as Omega, you wait for the "selected" message(s), then instead of clicking on an Omega button, you click on a Lolas button (the two buttons with the pink "L" on the left).



Bonus

There's also a little bonus : deep black opaque catsuits, bodysuits and socks & gloves. Deep black as in RGB 0 0 0, totally black. It has been a rather popular request as the regular black is a very dark grey, not totally black (so we can see features even when not in the light), and some people wanted their black black.


I didn't feel like completely redoing the HUDs so I simply added buttons touching the "black" appliers. I know it does not look very pretty on the screen but until I find a better idea, that's where the "deep black" colors will be. I also only did that for the opaque latex appliers and not the transparent ones because the difference with the regular black ones wasn't obvious enough.


Oh, and lastly, I've added a copy of the spinning lights contained in the box of the Cloak of the Initiate. That way you can test the shine of your latex with pretty colored lights. But you don't need those because if you're reading this post, you've already bought the latex appliers and hopefully managed to make your body shine without my help, right ? *snicker*


Known issues

* The "Tex" and "Mat" Omega buttons do not do anything, apparently, yet they are named correctly. I don't know why they don't work work, I know they work in my When You're Hot HUDs. It is not really under my control though, they are handled by the Omega scripts. If I find the reason for this bug and manage to fix it, I'll issue an update later.

* Sometimes when you apply to Omega, the legs don't change. It is completely random and apparently only happens on the catsuits and the bodysuits, never on the socks. When it happens, simply click on the same layer button and it will work. Or double-click on the layer button in the first place whether the bug occurs or not. I have no clue what causes this, but clicking the layer button again without clicking the color button first shows that the leg Omega applier already has the correct information in its memory, so I guess this is a timing issue with Omega. I don't have access to its source code and protocol, so I can't exactly debug that.


How to update

To update your latex product(s), simply rez the updater object on the ground near you and wait. The update will be sent to you automatically and the updater will de-rez itself after a few seconds.


Have fun !

Marine


PS : Please do not ask me how I managed to make a multi-HUD with materials working with Omega, because it is normally not doable. It would be tedious to explain and requires quite a lot of scripting. I did this by using a few tricks but nothing shady, I did not have to hack anything or break any ToS.