MLP that supports 3somes, 4somes?

OK, almost ready to release MLPV2, but I'll be away for a week and it would be bad form to release and vanish.

Here are the changes from MLP V1.2:

- Now supports Solo, 3some, and 4some menus.

- Memory optimized: now holds over 70 couples poses.

- Expressions supported (20 expressions).

- Extended menus. (Automatic "More-->" button for menus with more than 12 buttons.)

- Menu buttons now appear in menus in the same order as in the configuration
(but only if the new MENUORDER config item appears -- otherwise order is same as before, for backwards compatibility).

- Modular configuration: reads all *.MENUITEMS* and *.POSITIONS* files, in sort order (same as in object contents).
MENU config lines with no corresponding TOMENU lines get added to the main menu (replacing a blank "TOMENU -" line).
This allows makers to easily provide add-on packs, each being folder containing .MENUITEMS*, .POSITIONS*, and animations files.
Customer simply drops the folder in and resets.

- Backwards-compatible with MLP V1.2 configurations.

- Ball timeouts have been disabled. This should make MLPV2 a little more efficient.
However, if you move a bed with balls rezzed, you'll need to delete the balls manually.

- Set poseball's floating text and pie menu sit text by changing its description.
Also, if the ball's description begins with an asterisk ("*", the poseball is phantom.
After changing ball's description, STOP to delete any balls and then select any pose.

- New LM button type, to pass LMs to other scripts/prims.
This allows adding features to furniture, with buttons in the MLP menus, without changing any MLP scripts.

- Warning for duplicate entries in .POSITIONS* files.

- Configuration consistency checker: try "ConfigCheck" in Shutdown menu
NOTE: this will reload .POSITIONS.* files, so backup any saved positions first!
It will find buttons with no positions and vice versa.

- AutoZhao support: when using an AutoZhao AO, it turns off automatically when you jump on a poseball, and turns back on when you jump off. (Personally, I rarely turn my AO's "sit" on anyway, but ...

- Restart menu reorganized:
Use "Pos Reset" button after changing *.POSITIONS* files.
Use "Menu Reset" button after changing *.MENUITEMS* files.
Use "Restart" button to restart all. This used to do only a menu reset.

- MLP bug fix: if you rez a copy, it uses the same channel as the original, and on MLP V1.2 you'd get crosstalk.
The menu script is now reset on rez. This does not reset positions; saved positions are not lost.

- MLP bug fix: Avoid reanimating a non-sitting avatar! This happened in these cases that I'm aware of:
A) Avatar is posed and STOP button is hit and then a new pose is selected. The avatar (no longer sitting) would get animated.
B) Same as above, but instead of STOP button, avatar teleports or relogs

Wow, you've been motoring on this! You should change your name to Lear *Jet* ! LOL :}

Hey Lear,

I just wanted to personally say THANK YOU!!! You've done an amazing job and have also been incredibly helpful to my partner, Cheewha in addressing the ways we would like to use it. So, many thanks for all your hard work as well as your cheerful approach to working with other content creators.

Cheers!

- Desi

Lear, I just wanted to first say thanks for this fantastic product. I'm working on putting the animations from my store into MLPV2 now, with plans to sell beds with this as the menu engine. Your take on the classic MLP is very nice, easier to use, and I'm very happy that it supports facial expressions.

As soon as I can scrape together the time (I am remarkably disorganized), I'd love to provide you with a few freebie animations to help on your project of putting out a promotional MLPV2 package.

One suggestion: Please consider making it so users can control the timing of facial-expression repeats. Right now MLPV2 is set up with a default 0.5 second repeat on facial expressions, but in a lot of my own animation sets I often vary repeat frequency between partners, and among animations, anywhere from 0.5 seconds up to 5.0 seconds, depending on the mood and feel I'm trying to create. I was wondering if you might consider adding this functionality. For now, on my sets I've just gone in and changed the 0.5 to a compromise value of like 3.5.

I know enough about scripting to realize that it's easy to make the repeat timing a named variable, which you'd send to the event timer for the facial expression loop, but I don't know enough to DIY the code to allow users to set the timing variable for each POSE, for example by adding another flag after the expression (i.e. ::1) flag. If I can manage to suss out how to have the poser scripts read a second unique flag (i.e. &&1) for timing in the .MENUITEMS.xxx cards, I think that's all it would take. I'll continue to pry at this, but frankly I'm not much of a scripter. Perhaps if someone else would like a crack at this.... <hint><hint> lol

Anyway, thanks again, I love what you've done here!

Thanks lear
Youve done a great job on the MLP2 and youve taught me a few new things about scripting too durin the bug testing proccess.

thank you .

Eazel

YW all, and thanks for the support and the testing that you've all done.

I'd really appreciate any anims I can distribute freely for the product example. While I know of a lot of "apparently free" animations, I'm sure a lot of them were released without permission from the creators, and I don't want to distribute anything that's not intentionally free and clear. I will figure out a way to acknowledge anyone who contributes, like a notecard with credits and LMs to the animators' shops. (Feel free to make suggestions.)

I've made a couple of my own and plan to make a few more. Meanwhile I'll be in search of anims that I can feel confident are intentional freebies. I'd like the base set to have enough poses to actually show a few features, like expressions, continuation menus, and menus in menus (which MLP always supported but wasn't used other than for options, as far as I've seen).

Synthia, I've given your idea some thought and I think it would be an almost trivial change to the poser* script, with no changes elsewhere. If it doesn't already, the code that parses the anim name to get the expression could use llParseString2List, using "::" as the delimiter. For the resulting list, item 0 is the anim name, item 1 (if any) is the expression, and item 3 (if any) would be the interval -- and I believe llSetTimerEvent() could be called right there with the time, with the default of whatever it is now. No need for a global variable (if I remember the script; I haven't had a chance to look at it ingame.) Anyway, something to try yourself, or perhaps someone else in the testing group can give it a shot. If it turns out to be simple and trouble-free, maybe I can include it in the first release.

I'll be on vacation this week; see y'all in April!

BTW, animators who are geeky enough to use Python and the command line (Windows or Linux prompt) might find my little tool to smooth animations helpful. See more here:

/52/3b/246598/1.html

This program takes a .bvh file as input, along with a couple command-line parameters, and (optionally) adds a bit of noise randomly to joints, and then filters each joint in the time domain using a simple FIR low-pass filter. It saves the result in a new file (adding "-filt" before the ".bvh" suffix).

Er, that is, it adds a bit of jitter, and then smoothes it all out.

You can skip the part adding jitter, and just smooth out your anim. The idea is to make simple anims look less robotic. Also, it can take a static anim and add a little random motion to it so it looks a bit more natural.

No plans to make a GUI for it, unless someone volunteers to be the GUI coder. I don't do GUIs, though I'd love to learn. That is, I haven't done it since the late 80's, so my experience is horribly outdated.

Where can I find this? I joined the group but there's no attachments or anything. And nothing on SLExchange. T.T

Imago, it's my understanding that Lear is holding off doing the final, official release until he's back from holiday, in April.

Once you join the group, you can look at past notices. The previous MLPV releases are in those.

Sorry, the notices timed out -- I didn't realize that happens. I'll post again, with a release candidate.

BTW, Synthia, your feature turned out to be very simple to code, and I just added it. Great suggestion, thanks! It's also nice to get a request that's so low-impact.

Omg, thanks, Lear! I've got the newest version now, and am working on setting up my anim sets. Thank you so much for all your hard work on this!

You are SO getting a complimentary copy of my amazingly amazing new sex bed, once it's done, lol.

YW, Synthia!

ANIMATORS: If you have any anims that you'd like to donate for use in the example MLPV2 bed for distribution, please drop them on me with copy/xfer permissions, in a folder with a LM for your shop if you like. Please use a prefix in the anim name giving us a clue what your business name is; this will make it easier to do a little advertising for your shop.

I'll greatly appreciate any donations.

I will include a notecard in the distribution with all the LMs for donated animations. If you'd like some text as well (a one liner or very short paragraph), just include that in a notecard in the folder.

Thanks!

Lear, I love your MLP 2.0. I started a simular project a while back, but you are much father along than I am.. And we took nearly identical paths..

I did find a "bug".. When you transfer an object with the MLP 2.0 in it, the ownership does not change.. So the new owner cannot access the options menu, and it will throw errors or just not work properly. The only fix is to reset manually, not good for the non-technical folks in our midst.

I think this came as part of your bug fix:

- MLP bug fix: if you rez a copy, it uses the same channel as the original, and on MLP V1.2 you'd get crosstalk.
The menu script is now reset on rez. This does not reset positions; saved positions are not lost.


In ~menu in the on_rez function......

it was in MLP 1.2
on_rez(integer r) {
if (owner != llGetOwner()) llResetScript();
}

In MLP 2.0 it is
on_rez(integer r) {

if (ReloadOnRez){
llResetScript();
}
}

I changed it too
on_rez(integer r) {

if ( (ReloadOnRez) || (owner != llGetOwner() )) {
llResetScript();
}
}

So now it resets the first time in, or when a "drag copy" is made, and resets if the owner changes.

If there was someplace else that should reset on an owner change I could not find it, nor does it work. So I put in a fix here, and testing so far shows it works fine.

I also have some code I worked up and added to the MLP 1.2 to have 4 colors of the balls, 2 shades of blue and 2 shades of pink.. Though it could be any 4 colors.
I have not tried yet, but I think it would merge into your code very easily.

I might suggest that you start a new thread about this on the Scripting Library forum.. You seem like you are continuing the open source idea of the original MLP, and not trying to sell your own pose engine.. So it has become more of a Library item now.. And that would give a place for people to present suggestions and code bits, in a more easily findable thread..

I have joined your group, and feel free to IM me anytime.. I love what you have done!!! Really great work.

Lizz

Thanks Lizz. I'll look into that, and good analysis.

Actually, for a new owner, it should always reset completely and say "click to start". I'll find out why that's not happening.

Please send me your code for 4 colors. I'd been thinking of doing that, as it shouldn't be hard. Hopefully it doesn't require much extra memory.

I agree, I think it should really be in the ~run script, as that is where the master reset is, but I have just not had time to experiment to test my little theory. I mostly do all my building on the weekends when I have enough time to devote to it.. I am just wrapping up a big build (a 32 room hotel) so this weekend I should have time to work out the 4 color patch..

I'm trying to make a multi-anim bed, so I'd love to have a look at MLPv2. Is it available somewhere, even if in beta form?

Lizz, I put a change-owner handler in ~run. I didn't bother fixing the other logic, which isn't quite ideal but probably isn't a bug any more.

Also, I seem to remember getting a folder from you, but now I can't find it anywhere! If you do have the changes for multi-colored balls, please drop them on me again. Thanks!

OK, folks, it's released, on SLX. Here's the forum post:



Thanks to all who helped, finding bugs, encouraging, and some very generous tips as well.

No doubt there are still some bugs to find and iron out. After the dust has settled, it will be fine for folks to stock this in all their favorite freebie warehouses.

BTW, I planted a page for MLP/MLPV2 stuff on the SL Wiki. It's just a start; more to come later. Please review and feel free to add info. If anyone knows of other MLP tutorials (I'm *sure* I saw some), please post them!

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Using_MLP_or_MLPV2

Perhaps we should have a page for feature suggestions.

So.... everybody having fun with the missing scripts?

Lucky I have not made anything for sale... but the thought of redoing all the positions makes Johnnie sad.

Hey Johnnie, I'm not clear yet from chatting with people inworld if the scripts are actually missing, or just not apparent in the latest round of a Linden database glitch.

All mine survived, except the ones that were in prims made by LearJeff Innis, I think it is.

Well i have 2 MLP2 things that i was working on inworld that have had all scripts in them go poof. and one MLP2 that i finished that went poof. (I'm so not looking forward to recreating the menus and positions over again... i must of spent a week getting it set up the way i wanted.)

the scripts are still in my inventory, but that does not help with redoing the positions and other setup stuff.

An ongoing issue. You might want to vote for http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1278 which is a "what the hell is going on?" JIRA.

It appears that this is part of a move to remove pirated content, or work distributed under the name Eva Capalini.

/327/c9/264963/1.html

By the way, this may be a good time to review the content you are using in your MLP creations.

If you are using a 62 anim set that is commonly distributed for free or next to nothing, you need to know that it is pirated, and products created with it may one day compleletely be removed by Linden Labs, as well:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/62_Animation_MLP_Set