Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Good news about the latex appliers !

Hi !

While working on my current project, due for release very soon (this week if I'm lucky, but I won't say what it is, neener-neener !), I really wanted to make it compatible with Omega, to let other mesh bodies than just Maitreya use it.

Problem is, it uses materials, there are several appliers, and the Omega materials-enabled HUD cannot support several appliers in one object. In other words, if you want to make a product containing, say, 10 appliers for Maitreya in one HUD, you also have to make 20 more objects for Omega. 10 for the torso and 10 more for the legs. Totally impractical. You may recall that my Latex catsuits, Latex bodysuits and Latex socks & gloves are only compatible with Maitreya for this very reason. Not because I don't like other mesh bodies, but because with more than 30 appliers per product, I thought it would be more entertaining and less mind-numbing to have my nails torn off one by one instead.

I messaged the owner of Omega last year asking when she would improve her materials HUD so we could finally make multi-HUDs with materials, and got no useful answer. Then I messaged again two months ago and the answer was along the lines of "we are sorry, this is too much work so we won't do it". Grmblrmblbl.

Ok it might be too much work for them but I actually did it myself. Hah ! In a way that doesn't require hacking that system or anything like that. Basically the template HUD provided by Omega, that 99% of the clothing creators use, is comprised of two scripts : one proprietary applier script that you can't read, and the other called "config" that is open source and that you can modify. This script contains the UUIDs of your diffuse, normal and textures, as well as the scales, offsets, default glossiness etc. When you save that script, it sends its config to the main script and that's it. It's pretty static.

Then you press on an applier button (marked "Tattoo", "Underpants" or "Pants" for the legs applier, "Tattoo", "Bra" or "Top" for the torso applier and "Tattoo" or "Makeup" for the head applier) and those textures are applied.

What I did was simply ditch the "config" script and make my own, that custom script containing all the textures of all the appliers for this object. The HUD has several buttons (for example several colors and patterns for a catsuit), all you have to do is click on the color button then on the applier button (for example "Tattoo") and voila ! Well, you have to do it a second time for the other part of the body as well thanks to another HUD because each HUD can only apply to one part of the body and not both, but you get my point.

It was actually very easy to do and I'm ashamed I did not do this sooner. I was waiting for Omega to release an update... which never came.

All this to say that now that this roadblock is lifted, I will be able to work on extending my latex stuff to other mesh bodies than Maitreya. Better late than never, right ?

Please note that I did not say that I will necessarily succeed. But I confirmed it works for my current project, so I'm fairly confident for that update. I can also not give an ETA, I really need some time off and I will take some after releasing the project I am now completing. But this is no longer a no-go and this is the good news :)

Have fun !
Marine