Scripted Gloves

What is the best way to create gloves that have scripts?

The problem is that an avatar's hands change positions, thus you can't just wear an object that looks like gloves, because the glove object would have to be very large to cover all the possible hand positions.

Any help is appreciated.

What do you want them to do? Maybe the scripted part could just be a prim wristband or something that you wear with a glove, or even a small invisible prim.

It depends on how you want the gloves to look. You could have a clothing layer glove purely for appearance, with a small, invisible attachment holding the script. Or, if you want a prim glove attachment, you could script that, and use an invisiprim (not the same as an invisible prim) to hide the avatar hand.

Invisible prim = prim with 100% alpha texture
Invisiprim = prim that uses special texture & script trickery to hide the avatar mesh

Because the avatar hands flap about a bit, and we can't really control their positions, I'd suggest a prim attached to the lower arm, at the wrist...an ideal spot for a prim cuff/buckle to complete a textured glove made on a clothing layer, depending on how you want the glove to be styled. This could hold your script.

Thanks for the ideas, but I don't think the cuff idea will work in my situation, since I want the glove to be one unit. In that if someone wears it, they don't have to click "wear" on the glove part, and "wear" on the cuff part. Thus, I think the invisiprim idea would work best, I guess I'll look into this, but if someone has any links, please post them.

Just to clarify, what I am trying to do is to have a script that checks if your gloves are "attached" or not, but clothing types seem to have no scripts or can't be sensed (by sensors) in SL.

Practically all clothing articles are split between bunches of layers and (sculpted) prims these days, so I wouldn't fear doing that if I were you.
Remember that you can just rightclick the folder it's in, and select wear, and all items will be worn and attached.

Thanks for the ideas, but I don't think the cuff idea will work in my situation, since I want the glove to be one unit. In that if someone wears it, they don't have to click "wear" on the glove part, and "wear" on the cuff part. Thus, I think the invisiprim idea would work best, I guess I'll look into this, but if someone has any links, please post them.

Just to clarify, what I am trying to do is to have a script that checks if your gloves are "attached" or not, but clothing types seem to have no scripts or can't be sensed (by sensors) in SL.

Clothing layers are not objects, they are just textures applies to the avatar.

What you need to do is put the glove and two "cuff"s in one folder, and sell it as a folder (or a box that will be copied into inventory as a folder when the buyer opens it), then they can "wear" the whole folder and get all the parts at the same time.

That's correct. In the standard viewer, scripts can't detect if clothing (the avatar layer clothing) is worn. A viewer like RLV could tell you which clothing items are worn, but not specifically what they are, i.e. it could tell you are wearing a glove layer, but not what specific gloves they are.

A scripted object in the shape of a glove would be able to detect if it was attached, and which point it was attached to. Another scripted object would be able to query the 'glove', and get information in return.

For invisiprims, check out the a freebie location like Yadni's Junkyard, or hunt around on XStreet. They should be readily available for free.

I am fairly new to Second Life, but from what I hear I assume then that it is fairly commonplace to put on objects from the inventory by "wearing"/"taking off" folders, rather than clicking on the item on the avatar and choosing "wear"/"detach". So I guess I'll go with the cuffs and clothing-style gloves. Thanks for all your replies.

All the time!
Many sort entire outfits into folders to take them on and off quickly, or have various "base building blocks" kept together that way, like, say, a certain shape, skin and hair going together. (In particular if you're non-human, and need to attach ears and tail and all).

It's unfortunate how inconsistent Second Life is with wearable items, in that "clothing" lacks scripts and can only be accessed from the inventory.

Think of clothing as textures in the 3D modelling sense. That is essentially what it is, only it allows you to composite said texture from various images layered over each other.

I am not very clear on what you want a scripted glove to do, but I will tell you this:
- Gloves are normally clothing, not prims, and as for now clothes cant have scripts (as many have pointed out)
- A scupted prim shaped like a glove might be an option, but for this to work you would have to be really good at making scuplted prims (better than any i have seen so far in SL) or make it for you and noone else. Since we all have different bodyshapes, what will look good on you wont look good on me (and you still would have to be a more than decent maker of sculpties). For this option you would also need invisprims (which is easy and free).

Generally I still think option 2 would look odd, even with exceptional skills.

It would help if you said what part of the glove you wanted to change with a script.

That said (points up) ever since I started SL I have wanted scripted clothes, so I can completely understand where you are coming from. I have learned a few workarounds, but there are few things that fits as good as the clothing layers.

Except the skirt layer on guys. It doesn't fit without a prim belt or an insanely loose shirt no matter how you try and arrange things.

To answer Eva's question.

I am working for a University, designing an EMT training scenario, in which a student would enter a scene and have to put on gloves prior to treating the victim. If the student forgets to wear the gloves, the student is penalized. Thus, it would be nice to have a script inside the gloves that would tell a server that the gloves have been worn or not.

I am able to do this for objects such as goggles, since they can have scripts, but the same is not true for gloves.

Thus, Second Life is extremely limited in this regard.

Thanks again for all the replies.

To answer Eva's question.

I am designing a paramedic training scenario, in which a student would enter a scene and have to put on gloves prior to treating the victim. If the student forgets to wear the gloves, the student loses points. Thus, it would be nice to have a script inside the gloves that would tell a server that the gloves have been worn or not.

I am able to do this for objects such as goggles, since they can have scripts, but the same is not true for gloves.

Thus, Second Life is extremely limited in this regard. I have also looked into other virtual worlds, but most are even worse than SL.

By the way, how is Second Life with making changes to their design when given suggestions? because scripts in gloves and other clothing would be great.

Point is, there *is* no glove object to put the script into. Clothing layers such as gloves are bitmap images which are composited ("baked" into a texture for your avatar mesh model *by your client*, and then uploaded to the servers for others to see.
It seems a little harsh to call it "extremely limited" that you cannot script the color blue into an intelligent shade

That said, *any* way for scripts to interact with the clothes layers is a long-standing wish, but there are no indications that anything is upcoming. -There are some principal/philosophical reasons for not doing it, I guess, since it would be scripts forcing *your client* to do something, not scripts causing the server objects to do something, which is a fairly fundamental, and perhaps not desirable, change.

As for suggesting changes in general, it can be done. The primary method is feature requests on http://jira.secondlife.com/ , and then likely lobbying for some votes to gather a bit of attention in the first place. Whether it is then acted upon... is pretty much up in the air. It's a combination of how good the idea is, how easy it is to do, how many want it, and whether it fits with LL's ideas in general (or at least not run counter).

I think it would be OK for the scripts to *query* the server to see what clothes you're wearing. That wouldn't involve the client.

You could make a folder for the gloves, with gloves on the clothing layer and a small prim part with a script that would send the approtriate message to the "scorekeeper". This part could be invisble (not to confuse with invisprims). Then the student would have to put on a folder instead of the gloves only. The upside here is that you wouldnt have to worry about sizes. Gloves fits all.

The other option is to make prim gloves, but these wouldnt look very good and you would need one for left hand and one for right hand, so probably you would still need a folder. The problem with this solution is that in addition to probably not look great, avatars comes in many different shapes and sizes. Whats fits a male that take all the sliders to max (which many seem to do, but thats another tread), would look very odd a petite woman.

If a script could make a query to look for what clothing layers are used, like Argent suggested, that would probably be the best option for you. I dont enough scripting to pull that of, but if its possible I am sure someone in the scripting tips forums would help you out. Esp if you explain why you need this. Your project sounds like a great way to use SL.

Good luck!

It's not possible currently. Argent merely commented that such a function would be "safe" if it could only read, as opposed to being able to send commands to the viewer.

Ok as I thought then. Would be a nice feature though ...

Then the OP only have the other two options I mentioned left I think. Although there might be a brilliant idea I never thought of.

I'd love to know why you chose SL rather than something like the opensim where you'd have more control over pretty well everything - including putting it behind your corporate firewall and being able to decide user names etc etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSimulator

We are actually working with OpenSim, however, most of the work so far has been with Second Life, since it has many of the 3D models we need readily available, free or at a low cost (via XStreetSL).

From my knowledge, OpenSim is nearly identical to Second Life in regards to functionality, so we decided to start with Second Life and possibly import objects to OpenSim later on.