Slow login, sort of

For a long time now I've generally been used to logging into SL in a morning and going about my business. Normally this involves a quick fly around the region to check that everything's okay, along with object list checks on the plots I own to be sure that nobody's lost anything and it needs returning. I'll then do a flying tour of most of the public toys and play spaces and tidy up anything that needs tidying (people seem to hate putting pose balls away).

This, of course, has got a little more tricky recently, what with the time in the bane suit and now the time (still ongoing) in the leather hood and catsuit.

Now it's got even more tricky. Miss Vila decided, the other day, that she was going to reinstall the cell that she used to call (and now still calls) my cell. So, there it is, in the living room, waiting for me. She also ordered me to add an arrest plugin to my RR cuffs and she's now set a curfew time for me. There are now times, that relate to my RL hours, where I have to be close to this cell or I get force teleported into it. This means I have to be logged out at a sensible hour or I'll be stuck for some time the following morning.

Or...

...as happened last night, she can decide to order me inside it before I log off. This means not only am I slowed down when I log in thanks to the restrictions of the cuffs and hood (especially the slow walking and the no-fly), I'm also locked in the cell for an hour before I'm allowed to even go anywhere.

Still, it gives me more time to contemplate the fact that Miss Vila is back.

A tale of two clocks (AKA Mesh Studio is neat)

Very early on this year I had a very quick dabble with mesh. Nothing serious. In fact both dabbles were complete rubbish; just ways to get to know the upload process. A little later on in the year I had another go (using Hexagon) and that didn't go too well. While I managed to make what I wanted to make I found the whole process rather painful and there were still lots of issues with the end result.

One of the big frustrations for me was getting to grips with the way things are built in other tools. I'm so used to the build process in Second Life itself that I really wished there was something that was exactly like SL, in building terms, but produced mesh as the end result.

Fast forward to the time in the run up to The Femdom Hunt III, while I was working hard on the new range of Z&A vehicles, and I discovered Mesh Studio. This was exactly what I needed, exactly what I was looking for. I used it to great effect when making some of the vehicles and it continues to be useful for all sorts of building projects.

I think a recent one I did is a nice illustration of how handy it can be with old builds.

Regular readers will recall that, earlier this year, I built a clock for the Raven Park Mansion. The finished product is 7 prims (and, as it stood at the time, had a land impact of 7). Three hands, the central hub, the face, the glass and the surround. I was (and still am) really pleased with it.

Last week I decided to see what'd happen if I turned it into mesh using Mesh Studio. The result was spot on. You can't tell the difference:

On the right is the original prim version with a land impact of 7. On the left is the meshed version. This is four prims (the main body of the clock -- now a single mesh object -- and the three hands) with a land impact of just 2. The land impact of the mesh version was 4 to start with (three hands and the body) but setting the physics shape of the whole thing to convex hull brought it down to just 2.

This means that I can have four copies of the clock out for the cost of just one extra prim over a single copy of the original prim build (in case you're curious: setting the original prim version to convex hull brings it down from 7 to 4). That's neat.

While I'm finding that Mesh Studio is a great tool for complex original builds it's also turning out to be very handy for revamping older builds too.

Best L$5,000 I've spent in a while. No question.

It's how you word it...

So, yesterday evening, I spent some time with Miss Vila and, in doing so, asked her if she'd be willing to let me out of the straps and helmet she's had me locked in since last Friday. There's some work I need to do over the next few days that'd be made almost impossible by the restrictions that that set of restraints put in place and, on top of that, well... let's just say that the lesson was learnt (yes, that outfit was locked on for a very specific set of reasons).

She agreed to remove the straps, suit and helmet!

Of course, this being Miss Vila, she stuck to the letter of my request rather than the spirit. So, as of now, this is me:

I'm back in my normal cuffs, which are locked with my hands cuffed behind my back and my legs tightly cuffed together. The leg cuffing means that I can only shuffle around (and sittp is denied again so I can only TP to landmarks I have or I have to shuffle there). On top of that I'm locked in the Z&A Leather Hood and Catsuit. The hood's set on a fairly loose gag, but still enough to garble public chat.

Oh, and she's made a small change to the settings in my Sub-Focus. From now on all outgoing IMs are denied when she's in range. It's not that I'll never be permitted to send IMs when she's near, it's just that I must now ask permission first.

Next time I'll have to be a little more careful how I word my request.

Still, at least I have fartouch back. This means I can actually edit and build again.

The power of RLV

For at least a year now I've been meaning to write an article about the power of RLV. Quite often, especially in Femdom circles, I'll see people pour scorn on the use of RLV. They'll talk like it's a waste of time, like it's all just "button pushing", that it's about your avatar being treated "like a puppet", that it isn't "real submission", or any number of other silly and easily-refuted vacuous nonsense. And every time I see this I get this urge to write an article in defence of, and in praise of, RLV.

This isn't that article.

However, that said, I did want to write something about the power of RLV and how it's not about RLV itself but about the interplay between two (or more) people.

As I wrote the other day, for the first time in a long time I find myself pretty heavily restricted by RLV. Now, sure, by some people's standards my restrictions aren't as heavy as they could be. There's so many more restrictions Miss Vila could have applied (and she's made it very clear that she'd wished she could) but a balance has to be found between that desire and the need to get on with my work for Z&A and to also be available to help our customers or the residents of Raven Park.

But I'm finding that the restrictions I do have applied have had a pretty profound effect. I'm locked in arm straps and leg straps. While the arm straps don't directly apply any obvious restrictions they work well as a visual component to the fact that I've had "fartouch" removed (in other words I can only touch, and edit, objects very close to me). The leg straps heavily restrict my movement. All I can do is slowly bounce along. Also, they're coded to get slower and slower the more I hold the arrow key so I have to stop for a moment and then go again. To go along with the straps I'm also denied "sittp" (I can't sit on anything that isn't right next to me) and I'm denied the ability to fly.

The upshot of all of this is that I have to get very close to anything I want to interact with and I can't just TP around the region (I can TP to landmarks, I just can't do things like sit on objects far away or do the old double-tap-TP thing in Firestorm).

On top of that the helmet I'm locked in imposes a windlight setting that's gloomy and set at the same time of day all the time. Because of this I've got very little awareness of the day/night cycle in-world (the lamps in the region that are coded to turn on at sunset being my only clue).

All of this has the effect of slowing me down, making me think carefully about what I want to do, where I want to do it and why I want to do it. It also makes me realise just how reliant, right now, I am on Miss Vila. It's a very strange mixture of frustrating and calming.

It's also helped me focus. The past few days I've spent a lot of my time very close to a box:

In this box is a growing body of code that, all being well, will turn into new Z&A products -- possibly some time early next year. Because of the way I'm restricted, because there's not a lot else I can be getting up to right now, because building on any reasonable scale is almost impossible at the moment (see the "fartouch" thing above), this box, and the code inside, has been a large part of my world. Without the distraction of complete freedom I've being enjoying concentrating on this code and this code alone.

And this, for me, in part, is the power of RLV. It's not the scripts in the items I'm wearing. It's not directly the restrictions those scripts have imposed. It's the feeling of being under someone's control and the feeling of being in bondage that I derive from those things. It's the drive to make the most of what abilities I do have in-world right now. It's the connection I have with Miss Vila when she's not around.

It's about people.

And it's powerful stuff.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I was last properly locked up with RLV. Not locked in a cell or something, just locked up in things that made life hard, but not impossible, for a busy builder. It's well over a year since that last happened. And, in fact, aside from a bit of testing, my restriction list has been free of long-term items since January this year.

And then this happened yesterday:

I say "yesterday"... I'm still like that right now. The restriction list is enough to make life very tricky (you try building with fartouch disabled):

And, right now, I have no idea when I'll be out of this again.

Can you tell Miss Vila is back on sim?