2016-04-30

VT Spicy fiesta party

Yesterday's dance at VT, with Miss Eve as the DJ, was themed "Spicy Fiesta", aimed at being a warm-up for Cinco de Mayo. Mistress chose a seriously hot dress and also decided on something for me (as Toni) that.... well, didn't cover a whole lot!











As always, I let my camera float around the floor and grabbed pictures of those around us. You can see them all in an album over on imgur.

2016-04-28

VT Victorian music hall dance

Yesterday's dance at VT, with Purple as the DJ, was themed around the Victorian music hall era; the idea being to come dressed in something Victorian, or perhaps dressed as a possible act. Mistress and I decided to keep things pretty simple and roll out our "well-dressed Victorian couple" look.











As normally happens, I had my camera wander around the room and capture images of those dancing around us. You can see all of those photos in an album over on imgur.

2016-04-25

A little adventure in live-editing a mesh body glitch layer

The other weekend the Raven Park dance was prison-themed. It was decided that I should go as Toni and that it would be fun to find a Toni-appropriate prison uniform. That, of course, meant something fairly revealing because.... why the hell else would you buy a Maitreya Lara mesh body? ;)

Sadly though, after a lot of searching, including looking for a specific size of gacha item at various gacha resale markets, nothing could be found. So Mistress decided to custom-make a uniform for me. We ended up with a full-perm mesh template that said it was Maitreya compatible and Mistress made just the perfect texture for it. The final result looked like this:


The problem with it, however, was that it didn't really fit that well. Despite saying it was Maitreya compatible my body was clipping out of it all over the place; with all possible alpha cuts turned alpha it still wasn't right and no amount of shape-changing really solved the problem. We were still seeing the problem even with the "standard" Maitreya shapes. It was going to be no good for dancing.

So Mistress then suggested that she make a glitch applier for it. Normally if an item of mesh clothing doesn't fit I'll bin the demo and not bother; with this however it was a case of wanting to make the right look for a two hour dance so a compromise using a glitch layer made sense.

The plan seemed sound, but how could Mistress get it made without too much faff? To start with I quickly made an applier version (using the dev kit that Maitreya provide in their main store) of the famous "Robin (Sojourner) Wood UV Suit" and put that on so Mistress stood a chance of working out where to place textures.


That was a start, but it was still going to mean a bit of faff uploading textures and trying them out. What she really needed was to be able to live-edit the texture; but to make that happen she'd need to be able to use a local texture as an applied texture on the mesh body and there's no direct way to do that.

I did realise, however, that there was an indirect way.

So, first thing I did for her was write this simple script and pass it to her:

She then dropped that in a cube she rezzed in-world and then textured the cube with a local texture version of the glitch layer. After that she touched the cube and it gave her the UUID of the local texture.

So far so good.

Next I got her to rez another cube and drop the "Maitreya Applier Script - V2 0.10" script from the Maitreya dev kit inside it. This was now the applier prim.

Now for the final step. I had Mistress make a copy of the "Maitreya Texture Loader - Body Overlay V2" notecard and edit it to apply the UUID of the local texture to the top of the mesh body:

All she had to do then was drop the notecard inside the applier prim, let it read it, touch it, apply the texture to the relevant layer and.... done! At that point she had the local texture applied to her body and any change she made was reflected almost instantly on her Maitreya Lara body.

A bit of image editing later and Mistress had the glitch layer sorted; she passed me the texture, I made an applier for it and I was sorted:


At this point I could wear the dress and not worry (too much) about bits of my body clipping through because they were the same colour.

It is, of course, kind of amusing that we had to make glitch pants of old for a nice new mesh body and mesh dress, but it got the outfit sorted and worked a treat. Mistress had fun making a thing and I had fun cobbling together a method that let her live-edit an applier layer.

While nothing I came up with is especially clever or new -- I'm sure others have figured this out before -- I thought it might be handy writing it up here in case anyone else went looking for a way to do this.

2016-04-23

VT showtime party

Yesterday afternoon saw the new dance venue appear at VT; Miss Eve's build this time around is an old-style music hall. Unsurprisingly the theme for the first dance (with Miss Eve DJing) was "Showtime" -- the idea being to dress up as someone from a show or musical, etc.

Mistress decided we should do something a little "Phantom of the Opera".












As normal, I roamed my camera around the room and took photos of those around me. You can find them in an album over on imgur.

2016-04-21

VT dressed in black party

Yesterday afternoon Mistress and I went to the VT dance with Purple as the DJ, the theme being "Dressed in Black". DRESSED IN BLACK! This is my dance. This is MY theme! I was so excited. Plenty of options to choose from, almost too many to choose from. First choice was if I should go as Antony or Toni. Mistress decided I should go as Toni and then told me that she had already decided what I'd be wearing. *gulp*

She'd decided that I should wear something that she'd strongly hinted I should buy from the Black Fashion Fair a couple of days before. I protested. I requested something different. I might even have begged at one point. Nothing made a difference.

And then Mistress finally blew me away by gifting me something I've being wanting for a while now but just haven't got around to buying.... a pair of Bax Regency Boots! <3

Mistress dressed in something a little more modest; a lovely rubber-effect knee-length dress (which, unfortunately, managed to pick up and reflect some green-tinted light in the dance build so never quite looked black the whole dance).














As usual, while dancing, I allowed my camera to roam and catch images of those dancing around us. You can find those photos in an album over on imgur.

At some point during the dance Mistress appears to have decided that she liked this outfit she chose for me so much that she actually locked me out of being able to change clothing or add/remove attachments. Until I next see her, and more to the point until she decides to unlock clothing, I'm "stuck" like this.


I can think of worse states of dress to be in, I guess. And I imagine it'll make for a nice welcoming sight once Mistress wakes... ;)

2016-04-16

VT Mistress and servant dance

Yesterday's dance at VT, with Miss Eve as the DJ, took place in a newly-rezzed dungeon-themed dance set; the theme was "Mistress and servant" with the emphasis being on everyone dressing in fetish gear and the subs wearing what they were told.

I went along as Toni and I can honestly say I didn't pick my outfit. Not at all!












As usual I let my camera roam around the room and try and capture photos of everyone else there. You can see the photos over on imgur.