October 2023 Updates

Hello Patrons!

I just want to give an update on everything I've been working on, and also address feedback I've received from some of you (Thank You!).

It sometimes feels like I'm juggling a lot at once. I've got sooo many ideas for Ayva, and then I have my full time job as a Team Lead in the corporate world to contend with.

Ahhh! But I love it. I'll basically never run out of things to do.

Anyways, here's the run down of everything currently in flight (and some landed!).

OSR Emulator Upgrades

I received feedback that the preview of movements really makes my apps stand out. This inspired me to give the emulator a bit of an overhaul. If you've been in any of the apps this week you might have noticed that things look much more realistic. When I first created the emulator a couple of years ago I didn't know anything at all about lighting or forward kinematics. I did the best I could, but then just moved on to other things. I'm proud of what I created—because it got the job done—but in a lot of ways it was sloppy. All the arms were "detached" from the base. The pitch arm didn't even move at all. There were no shadows. The kinematics were "wrong" (inverse) and not true to real life, and if you look closely you can see the left arm is actually on backwards 🙃.

Needless to say, it felt really, really good to revisit and clean it up. Here's everything I did:

• Added lighting and shadows.
• Updated the material to be more realistic and reflective.
• Updated the arms to the rod end bearing versions.
• Implemented actual forward kinematics so the arms move like they do in real life and stay attached.

Here's the new version:

😊

I feel pretty happy with the final result! One other reason I got inspired to do this is that I want to create an SR6 Emulator as well. I'm going to be adding some new modes to Ayva Remote for the additional axes available on the SR6, and there needs to be a way to visualize those movements. Which leads me to the next item on my list...

9 Strokes to Rule Them All (Ayva Remote Enhancements)

I received the feedback that Ayva Remote could use some more stroke modes with combined motions instead of just Twist, Roll, and Pitch. It's always been my intention to keep add other forms of control, and now it feels time for the next wave!

I intend to expand the current 3 modes to a total of 9 modes. Here they are (Note: Up/Down movement will always control the Stroke axis in any mode):

• Twist (existing): Left/Right controls Twist (2 axes).
• Roll (existing): Left/Right controls Roll (2 axes).
• Pitch (existing): Left/Right controls Pitch (2 axes).
• (NEW) SwayRoll: Left/Right controls both Sway and Roll (3 axes)
• (NEW) SurgePitch: - Left/Right controls both Surge and Pitch (3 axes)
• (NEW) Roll w/Twist: Same as Roll but with Twist added to Left/Right control. (3 axes)
• (NEW) Pitch w/Twist: Same as Pitch but with Twist added to Left/Right control. (3 axes)
• (NEW) SwayRoll w/Twist: Same as SwayRoll but with Twist added to Left/Right control. (4 axes)
• (NEW) SurgePitch w/Twist: Same as SurgePitch but with Twist added to Left/Right control. (4 axes)

The ones with Sway or Surge will only be available on an SR6 (hence the reason why I'm spending time working on emulator enhancements).

Why these particular combinations? They're just the ones that felt "natural" to me when I thought about how someone gives pleasure. I also think they avoid combinations that feel mildly "dangerous" (such as just Stroke and Sway only).

Why not give users the options to make their own mappings? This might happen in the future as an advanced feature, but one rule I made for myself with this app was to keep it simple. I want people to be able to get started very quickly. It has to be the kind of app that a cam girl or partner thats never seen it before can start using it pretty immediately in the heat of the moment.

A small number of intuitive modes that the user can cycle through quickly accomplishes that better than the user having to figure out what works best out of the dozens of different ways six axes can be mapped.

So I'll likely keep it at these nine for now. I'm hoping to release these sometime within the next few weeks.

Virt-a-mate Integration (Ayva WebSocket Hub)

This has been sitting in limbo for a looooong time, and honestly I'm a bit embarrassed at how long it's taken for me to release it. The biggest hold up has been licensing. I didn't want to release software that required the user to override security settings on their machines to install, so I took the time to form a company (Ayva Software), and purchase certificates in that company's name that I can use to digitally sign the software. This was a loong process with a lot of logistical hurdles, and then I spontaneously took a trip around the country over the summer so didn't have access to a Windows machine for a few months. I also spent a ton of time working on Ayva Remote.

Whew.

But now everything is in place and its looking like I will be able to finally get this out.

To recap, Ayva WebSocket Hub is a desktop application that will run on Mac or Windows and allow forwarding data from Web Applications to multiple outputs at once; be it a Network Connection (Wifi / TCP / UDP) or Serial. When paired with a Virt-a-mate plugin created by Yoooi called BusDriver, users will be able to pipe the motion from any Ayva web app into VAM. This means all the power of Ayva Stroker Lite can be used to control VAM scenes, and users can remotely control your device along with VAM scene using Ayva Remote...!

If all goes well, I will finally sign and release this software within a week; along with a tutorial for how to use it. 😊

Feedback

I sent out feedback forms to users of Ayva Remote and got some thoughtful responses, so I want to acknowledge and respond to some of the points and/or feature requests here:

Add ability to ban or unban certain IP addresses from the Lobby.

I thought about adding this feature some time back. I understand why someone might want it. However, Ayva Remote rooms are intended to be very transient. They expire after one hour. So there's currently a very easy workaround to not being able to kick or ban someone from your room: simply leave the room and create a new one 😊. Rooms can only be active when the owner is present. When the owner leaves the room, any user in the room will be kicked out, and an "owner not present" message will be displayed:

So a kick/ban feature is currently very low on my priorities given this workaround.

Maybe combine motions instead of only having 3 individual stroke modes.

YES! This is going to be addressed by the 9 Strokes to Rule Them All I talked about earlier in this Newsletter. Also, TempestMAx is working on a multi-axis joystick that I will certainly make compatible with Ayva Remote. I will eventually add generic Gamepad support as well.  Lots more forms of control are on the way! 😃

It'd be nice if the page could go to full screen.

I ran into this issue myself. When you're actively stroking on a smartphone, if you get overzealous its very easy to accidentally go out of bounds and interact with the page (such as accidentally refreshing by swiping down). It's somewhat of a pain. I do plan to address it eventually. The main issue is that full screen browser support on mobile is a little spotty and I haven't quite gotten it to work yet. I think one day I will bite the bullet and create a mobile app for Ayva Remote, but I'm trying to avoid dealing with having to install anything on someone's device (or deal with Google Play or Apple Store). One nice thing about a Progressive Web App is how cross platform it is without having to install anything. Also, the app is always up to date and I only have to maintain one version of it.

In any case, Fullscreen support on the web app version is something I'm looking at. Though its lower priority than other things.

Add a programmable option to Ayva Remote to save and replay motion.

I am hesitant to make Ayva Remote "play back" anything. A vow I made when I started that app was No Automation. This is maybe just a preference, but my intention with Ayva Remote was to create real digital intimacy. I want it to be to sex what the telephone was to conversation. The ability to transfer someone's actual sexual motions over the internet.

That's its primary function. Adding any sort of automation or preprogrammed patterns to it detracts from that intimacy in my opinion.

This is something that I dislike about many remote control apps for other toys. You just press buttons to change automated patterns. I want to keep Ayva Remote as the app that you go to when you want to translate actual human motion in real time.

Other apps can handle the automated side of things (such as Ayva Stroker Lite or the myriad of Funscript based apps).

That's my position on this topic for the time being, so Ayva Remote is unlikely to get any sort of automation any time soon. The closest thing to this might simply be the ability to record a session to Funscript; to be played back in some other app.

What Else?

I have a number of other projects and/or ideas on my backlog that aren't being as actively worked. I'll just list them out here in no particular order:

• Kickstarting the OSR Wiki
• T-Joy support in Ayva Remote (multiaxis controller being worked on by TempestMAx)
• Two-way control in Ayva Remote (support a device on both ends of the connection—if someone one party has the vac-u-lock mod for the OSR2/SR6 they could be penetrated while the other is stroked)
• Gamepad support in Ayva Remote
• Session designer in Ayva Stroker
• Record Funscript in Ayva Remote
• Ayva Dance (advanced music synchronization)

I'll try to be more active in sharing about what I'm working on in the future.

As always, I really appreciate your support in all this.

Happy Stroking!

💜💜💜

~

Sorites Paradox