It's 23:50 here locally...so technically its still July! As you probably saw, I just released the second LogicBricks StateMachine tutorial. That should get you covered on the advanced features of that plugin. I expect that I will need two similar tutorials for IdlePoser (Basics + Advanced) until I can really cover the details of how IdlePoser and StateMachine interact with each other in the DoubleTrouble scene.
However, as a side project, I was looking at PC components for upgrading my old machine. That made me browse through various forum threads on the Hub discussing FPS in VaM. Everyone is posting random FPS values, but barely anybody shares which exact settings and scene was used. But those differences can make huge difference, if they are not identical comparing performance is really pointless. But it would be really helpful when deciding whether you want to spend some extra 100€ on that faster RAM module, different CPU, etc.
So therefore, as intermediate project before continuing with more tutorials, I want to build a proper "official benchmark" scene. This scene would use a number of yet to write plugins to enforce that you use particular graphics & physics settings, ensure that your machine is properly warmed up before starting to make time measurements, as a warm system might throttle down power usage and be slower. Of course it should write the results, used resolution and so on to a nice text file so you can easily post the data in forums and other places. Essentially it should function in a similar way than build-in benchmarks of popular games, except its a scene you launch.
I don't have the capacity at the moment to build another high-end quality scene, while at the same time writing those needed plugins, so I'm looking at using an existing scene made somebody else. This could be paying a creator to "free" an existing paid scene or even be a commission. Depending on delivered quality and what needs to be done, something around 50-100$ via Patreon would be reasonable. That's not much, but I mean its mostly free advertising your content and lots of people will download this. Possibly we can convince MeshedVR to donate to the cause as well, but of course that's not for me to decide.
The requirements as I see them are the following:
- Generally well-build quality scene, representative of VaM.
- Two fully animated characters that touch each other. That means several controls being animated as well as several morphs, at least facial expressions and breathing. Intention is to get the physics engine to do some work.
- About 1-2 minute of animation with some camera movement including medium and close-up distances. Ideally in a way that it is watchable in VR without getting motion-sick, so slow and continuous movement. The scene will run multiple times during the benchmark, possibly going through different quality settings, etc.
- I guess sound, clothing, hair and nice environment / prop assets are expected as well.
- Content should be reasonably "mainstream". We want as many people as possible to run this. Maybe it does not even need to contain any nudity.
- Ideally the scene should not contain anything random, so exactly the opposite of what I'm usually doing in my scenes ;) The reason is that the scene of course needs to behave identical every time you run it...so you get the same reproducible performance results.
- The scene should only need a small number of dependencies. ALL of them need to be available for free as hub-hosted VAR package. The scene itself, after adding my benchmark plugins, will be uploaded to the Hub for free as well. We want as little hurdle to run this on your machine as possible.
- No warnings or error messages.
- No license violations, obviously.
If you have suggestions which scene would fit this description, want to suggest your own scene or negotiate commission conditions, please contact me. Discord or Hub preferred. Please do not waste my time by not having read/understood above requirements. If you think you can cobble something together in 2 hours, don't bother either, you can't.
Important: Do not start doing major work before contacting me first! Having 5 different people working on things without any coordination does not help anyone.
Cheers, MacGruber
2021-07-31 21:49:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
Here is the next LogicBricks StateMachine tutorial, this one covering the advanced settings. How to save the scene properly, switching states through trigger, syncing with animations, using cooldowns, disabling states and the multiple choice system. With a full 30 minutes it's by far the longest tutorial produced in this series so far.
LogicBricks: StateMachine - Advanced (30:13)
All my video tutorials are collected on a single Hub page here: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/macgrubers-video-tutorials.7313/
2021-07-31 19:25:39 +0000 UTC
View Post
Finally finished the first of the StateMachine tutorials and it has been added to the LogicBricks tutorial playlist. It's introducing you to the very powerful and flexible LogicBricks StateMachine. Control and coordinate your scene through States. This covers only the bare basics of what is possible with this plugin, more will follow in later tutorials.
Figuring out how to explain what a StateMachine is was not easy. I was tinkering around the with the PowerPoint slides for weeks. For people like me its a simple programming concept I have used on a regular basis for like the last 20 years of my life, so for a coder like me, just mentioning the term makes clear what it does and what you can do with it. Therefore I have to be careful when explaining this to VaM creators who might never have come into contact with something like this. I hope I am at least partially getting across how powerful and useful this tool is.
Just for you @Noise, this time I tried to pay a bit more attention to consistent audio levels. But I'm not a professional speaker and when there are hours or days between the recording of different parts of the tutorial, its hard to speak with the same tone and volume, etc. Anyway tried to smooth out the volume using normalization as well as compressor and limiter filters of DaVinci Resolve's Fairlight. Had to watch a couple of tutorials myself to figure out how to use these things and I think I still terrible at this :D Anyway, should be slightly better than previous videos.
LogicBricks: StateMachine - Basics (19:06)
All my video tutorials are collected on a single Hub page here: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/macgrubers-video-tutorials.7313/
2021-07-18 16:29:28 +0000 UTC
View Post
Your most essential MacGruber tools in a convenient single VAR package. Just a quick maintenance update for PowerHandles.
Changelog
- PowerHandles: Fixed handles not working when "Only Show Targets and Overlays When Menu Open" is disabled in VaM's UserPreferences and the UI is closed. Thx Carcosa for reporting it.
Download
2021-07-17 08:38:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
This month I was able to release 5 tutorials in total. Covering basics on the VaM triggers and two LogicBricks tutorials touching the bare basics. The two part tutorial on how to record video from VaM was kind of unplanned, I decided it was needed after having a long chat with Captain Varghoss about the correct settings that should be used.
The plan is still to spend more time on making video tutorials. The LogicBricks StateMachine and also IdlePoser desperately need multiple tutorials to get across all the cool stuff you can use them for. I'm not entirely set on the order I will do these, yet. It's kind of a chicken & egg problem...you can do really cool stuff with the StateMachine brick, if you know IdlePoser....and vice versa. Yet, IdlePoser is a StateMachine in itself...so I should do the StateMachine brick first. So, I'm still trying to think of a simple example for the StateMachine that does not use IdlePoser, Timeline or other advanced plugins...while still conforming to Youtube policy regarding adult content. Aaarghh! Obviously I could make up some random stuff with flashing spheres and buttons, but I think that does not get the message across to anyone who did not yet understand how powerful this plugin is. This needs some genuine example that makes sense.
Vague plan so far:
- StateMachine Introduction: What is it, what does it do, some (to be determined) simple example that does not use anything advanced.
- StateMachine Branching Dialogs: Using the advanced StateMachine features for making branching dialogs like in the CyberNight scene.
- IdlePoser Introduction: Basic concept, simple example scene.
- IdlePoser Advanced: Anchors, TriggerSync, External Triggers, State Groups/Masks, Intermediate Points, ...
- StateMachine + IdlePoser: Advanced example where a StateMachine brick acts as a scene controller to coordinate multiple IdlePoser on multiple Characters, something like a simpler DoubleTrouble scene.
As usual, I can't give a time frame for when these will be released. Explaining complex topics to an audience not used to this kind of thing is not easy, it will eat a lot of time. But I think its needed.
2021-06-27 12:34:27 +0000 UTC
View Post
As already spoilered a few days ago, I have just added two new tutorials to my VaM Basics playlist on Youtube. The topic this time is how to capture smooth video from VaM and how to animate/move the camera.
VaM Basics: Video Capture - Part 1 (12:23)
VaM Basics: Video Capture - Part 2 (10:57)
All my video tutorials are collected on a single Hub page here: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/macgrubers-video-tutorials.7313/
2021-06-19 18:26:37 +0000 UTC
View Post
Your most essential MacGruber tools in a convenient single VAR package. Just a quick maintenance update for SuperShot and SuperVideo. The last few days I was working on a tutorial for how to properly make video captures of VaM, but I noticed some issues with SuperVideo that are now fixed :)
Changelog
- SuperVideo: Changes to address issues introduced by the VaM 1.20.77.2 update:
- Fixed aspect ratio (of your VaM window) not being applied to preview display and HUD preview.
- Fixed "Preview UI Scale" slider not being applied to preview display.
- Removed "Preview UI Left/Right" slider as it was obsolete, since VaM 1.20.77.2 you can just move the DisplayControl around.
- SuperShot / SuperVideo: Updating to MacGruber_Utils.cs 2021-05-15.
Download
2021-06-16 16:58:22 +0000 UTC
View Post
As said in my Monthly Report, I started producing video tutorials. The first 3 cover a bit of LogicBricks as well as a more generic introduction to VaM's trigger system, which is kind of a requirement to understand LogicBricks.
As you know, I like to experiment. Since three patrons commented on the Monthly Report that these tutorials should NOT be EarlyAccess and nobody objected...I'm trying something different. It's a "Pay after watching, IF you liked it!" concept now. I agree that these tutorials should be free to have as little hurdle as possible for the community to gain knowledge and produce better content. Still, producing quality video tutorials consumes a LOT of time. Just producing 10min of video takes about 6-8 hours on average from first concept to final cut. More for complex topics and this calculation does not include initial work done to setup a production pipeline. Let's see whether this concept of paying if it was useful works or is abused. Feel free to comment whether or not you like the concept, what could be improved, etc.
The plan is to gather the hopefully growing collection of tutorials on a single Hub page:
https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/macgrubers-video-tutorials.7313/
For your convenience, here is the first batch:
VaM Basics: Triggers (8:25)
LogicBricks: Introduction (13:35)
LogicBricks: Hands On (10:53)
2021-06-04 19:20:36 +0000 UTC
View Post
Another busy month. As detailed in last months report, this month was mostly focused on LogicBricks, with one major and two minor releases as well as a fancy demo scene named CyberNight. Then there was of course the SpeechRecognition package with its own little demo, and last but not least two minor guides focused on using VaM efficiently.
The long-term plan I mentioned last time was to focus on tutorials. My plugins are no good to anyone without knowing what to use them for and how. The important decision is of course what format such tutorials should use? There is a couple of options I considered:
- PDF Tutorials: This is what I did in the past. Relatively little effort do create. However, the obvious limitation is that you can't put video in them. Sometimes 10 seconds of video are just much better than a screenshot.
- Hub Resource: I could make tutorials that are just a Resource page on the Hub. There I can embed video and pictures, although the formatting is a bit limited. Main downside though is that I can't do EarlyAccess, which is the business model I promised you to use as my Patreons. Another major issue that I can't save the page before publishing. That works for small things like the two guides I put out this month, but not for anything major which takes several days or weeks of work.
- Video hosted on Youtube: A good video takes a lot of effort to make. I need to rehearse things at least a few times...any mistake means I have to redo a whole section. Obvious limitation is that I can't show anything adult related or Youtube might take down the video.
- Video hosted on Redgifs or similar site: I could include adult stuff, if needed, but these platforms either have terrible image quality or a way too short length limit. What tutorial of any value can you do in a one minute video? Also sites like this like to take down stuff at random after a few months, if its not getting enough views. So, not really an option.
Eventually I decided to go for Youtube video. I have to work around the adult stuff issue, but that should not be too big of a problem. Producing video is gonna take a lot of time, but I think it is worth it to spread knowledge and encourage more people to use my stuff.
The last few days I spend to figure out the parts of my production pipeline and testing some stuff. As usual I will use VaM with FrameRateControl plugin and OBS for capturing. Where needed, I will use good old PowerPoint for slides, either exported as PNG or captured as video with OBS. And of course DaVinci Resolve for video editing and combining it all.
Current plan is to start with some LogicBrick basics, followed by more advanced stuff like the StateMachine and eventually move on to a number of tutorials for IdlePoser. Can't tell yet how long it will take, though.
2021-05-30 19:15:57 +0000 UTC
View Post
For anyone interested, I just uploaded my profile setup for Acid Bubbles Keybindings plugin. This includes settings for IdlePoser. I think it will be helpful for creators who work mostly from Desktop mode. Obviously I use this in combination with my own PowerHandles plugin. I can't do productive work in VaM without these two plugins anymore.
https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/macgrubers-keybindings-profile.7072/
2021-05-24 16:19:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
Just a quick free guide how to use command line parameters when launching VaM to quickly switch resolution or window size. Maybe because you want to record video with a particular resolution or aspect ratio? How about making a side-by-side comparison video where you need to run VaM at weird 960x1080 resolution so you can combine two videos to 1920x1080?
Sounds useful?
Check here: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/vam-command-line-parameters.7067/
2021-05-24 11:52:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
LogicBricks and CyberNight reached the end of their two week EarlyAccess and are now free! I used the chance for some maintenance.
Changelog for LogicBricks v9
- StateMachine: Added UI toggle "Show Advanced Options". This hopefully makes this very versatile plugin less intimidating to use, if the more complex options are hidden by default. First I considered releasing a "SimpleMachine" variant of this brick, but a toggle takes less long-term maintenance effort and also you can switch easily at any time. The label turns red if you have some advanced options not at their default but you are hiding them.
- EventSceneLoad: Fixed issue with not triggering after scene load when LogicBricks had not yet been given permission to run.
Changelog for CyberNight v2
- Update to LogicBricks.9
- Fixed typo in dialogs
Credits for CyberNight v2
- AcidBubbles (Glance and SpawnPoint plugins)
- JoyBoy (Nat look)
- Hunting-Succubus and kemenate (indirect dependencies through Nat look)
- MeshedVR (various VaM native assets)
Download
2021-05-24 07:36:57 +0000 UTC
View Post
A few weeks back I promised to look into speech recognition, as it would be an obvious good addition for LogicBricks. This can recognize simple keyword lists as well as more complex grammar using Windows 10 and Unity's speech recognition features. When starting with this project the assumption was I can wrap the simple looking API in a plugin and build a simple demo scene in just a few hours. However, making a reasonable plugin UI, implementing error handling and necessary performance features as well as circumvent VaM quirks with file dependencies took a bit longer.
Features
- This is not "AI", it does only understand phrases you teach it to understand. It simply triggers whatever you hook up to it when a phrase is recognized.
- Keyword Phrase: Simple list of keyword variants. Works great for things like "Yes", "Yeah!", "Yep", ... or "No", "Nope", ...
- Grammar Phrase: Provide an XML file that defines a grammar structure, which helps system to make more sense of what you are saying, provide synonyms for individual words, etc. I recommend the Microsoft documentation here for more details what is possible.
- The plugin allows you to listen for multiple phrases simultaneously. Each have their own trigger actions. To provide context you can enable/disable phrases via triggers depending on what makes sense at the time in the scene.
- UI should be familiar if you used LogicBricks before.
Examples
Some sentences that should be recognized by the demo scene's grammar definitions:
- "launch the terminator robots"
- "deploy killer androids"
- "release the mutant penguins"
- "retrieve the sharks"
- "recall ninja sharks"
In this case I did stick to simple sentences structured as "action - fluff - object". Of course you could define variation not just in words but also in sentence structure.
Notes / FAQ
- This plugin is using your system default microphone, not your microphone setting in Oculus or SteamVR software! Make sure your mic is enabled and has a reasonable volume setting.
- WHY on earth does this use a ".json" file extension for ".xml" files??! Because....VaM. When creating a VAR package this allows dependencies to be handled automatically, making sure your scene does not break. As the list of extensions properly supported by VaM is fixed, ".json" is simply the least terrible choice.
- If you XML files refer to other XML files using the ruleref tag, you can/should add a dependency hint for each file needed, so VaM can find them. For each file add a comment line like this: <!-- "VaM Dependency Hint" : "common.json" -->
- Of course Windows 10 Speech Recognition does not know what a VAR package is and how to get files out of it. Therefore, when the plugin encounters XML files (".json") that are located inside a VAR package, all ".json" files in that package are extracted to "Custom\PluginData\SpeechRecognition" to make them accessible. Sadly that includes other files likes scenes that don't really need to be extracted. If you have lots of those, you might want to put your XML files into a separate VAR package to avoid extracting more than needed.
- The problem with speech recognition is that a creator will have a hard time to think of all the possible things a player could say and setup recognition and reactions for those. There is simply no way to implement everything. Usually you will have to give the user some kind of hint what types actions can be done.
Credits for EvilCorpHQ scene
- Speech synthesis for assistant voice by Google (via voicegenerator.io)
- LipSync by AdamAnt5
- Hair by NoStage3
Dependencies for EvilCorpHQ scene
- You obviously need LogicBricks.8 and SpeechRecognition.1 both attached below, but otherwise all the needed dependencies can be found for free on the Hub, just use VaM's handy "Scan Hub For Missing Packages" function.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-06-14. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Unusually long 4-week EarlyAccess phase because I expect this to have a rather small target user group. If you like content like this, you should probably subscribe.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-05-16 09:37:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Just a quick maintenance release.
Changelog
- StateMachine: Fixed SetStateDisabled trigger not resetting.
- EventSceneLoad: Added options to trigger only for VR/Desktop mode. Allows you to do different things depending on whether you are in VR or Desktop.
Known Issues
- EventSceneLoad: When have not yet given LogicBricks permission to run when loading a scene, the plugin will not trigger properly. Other plugins might have similar issues anyway. To make sure everything is working as intended, simply reload the scene again once all permissions are granted.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-05-24. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-05-16 09:36:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
LogicBricks is a collection of now 27 reusable logic plugins to quickly build simple logic without coding. These go from a simple Relay that just groups triggers via Counter and Blend to more complex bricks for RandomChoice and a very powerful StateMachine brick. There are three demo scenes with altogether 24 examples to spawn some ideas.
Additionally there is now a new more elaborate separate demo scene named CyberNight that shows how to build branching multiple-choice dialogs. Please excuse the poor dialog, I'm a coder, not a Hollywood writer. Anyway, you got a couple of branches (see diagram) that kind of make sense and in the end lead to "happy action"...which is a slightly improved version of the Life demo scene ported into this environment. The intention here was a not too complicated demo on how you could structure branching dialog scenes using LogicBricks, while still having a decent scene.
Changelog
- StateMachine: Concept of multiple transition sets. By default a state waits for its timer to run out and it would select a random transition, this is now called the "Default Timeout" choice. In addition there are now choices A,B,C,D,E and F which each got their own transition sets. The State will for example select randomly among the A transition set, if it receives a SetChoiceA trigger signal. There is also a SetChoiceA_and_Wait variant, which still lets the state duration run out before switching. Obviously this is what makes branching scenes with multiple-choice dialogs possible, the input could come from buttons, but also collision triggers or whatever you can think of. (This was originally teased under the name DialogMachine before, but I decided to integrate it directly into StateMachine to reduce maintenance efforts in the long-term. StateMachine is a super complex plugin by now, I can't afford to maintain two of those. However, I'm thinking about adding a switch that hides the more complex UI options to avoid it being too overwhelming, but that will be a later update.)
- StateMachine: Concept of enabled/diabled states. This prevents the StateMachine from choosing a transition to this state, it's mostly intended to disable branches of your scene during development while you focus working on a particular part. However, this can be accessed via triggers as well, so it can be used for other purposes. Use triggers SetStateEnabled/SetStateDisabled with the name of the state or alternatively SetStateEnabledAll/SetStateDisabledAll to switch them all at once. Disabled states appear with red font color in the various UI drop-downs.
- StateMachine: Restoring the current state while saving the scene instead of switching to a specially marked initial state. OnEnter actions are no longer called on load. This bring UX closer to IdlePoser which does the same and also makes it easier to store your scene in a save state.
- StateMachine: Added Duplicate button to clone a state including all data, transitions and triggers.
- StateMachine: Added SkipState button to jump to the end of the timer. Helpful when debugging scenes and you want to skip ahead to a particular part.
- StateMachine: Improved error messages when trying to switch to an non-existing state.
- StateMachine: Minor performance improvement by not updating the UI, if the UI is not actually visible.
- RandomChoice: Added Duplicate button to clone a choice including all data and triggers.
- SelectChoice: New brick similar to the RandomChoice, except that the choice is not random, but based on a drop-down parameter you can set via trigger. Basically its a "switch" statement you might know from many programming languages.
- SelectChoice: Added Example11 to the included demo scenes to demo the SelectChoice brick.
- ValueThreshold: This brick was already hidden in the DoubleTrouble release and was now officially added to LogicBricks. It allows you to fire a trigger when a float value crosses a particular threshold, the DoubleTrouble scene uses it for lube audio effects of the handjobs.
- RandomSound and RandomSoundFromAB: Choose between the various audio play modes VaM offers like "PlayNowClearQueue", "PlayIfClear", "QueueClip", etc.
- RandomSoundFromAB: Added "AddAll" button to make it easier to add an entire AudioBundle at once.
- RandomSound and RandomSoundFromAB: Using twin buttons for more efficient use of UI space.
- Updated MacGruber_Utils.cs to the most recent version to have all the fixed here as well.
Dependencies for CyberNight
- You need LogicBricks.7 attached below obviously, but otherwise all the needed dependencies can be found for free on the Hub, just use VaM's handy "Scan Hub For Missing Packages" function.
Credits for CyberNight
- AcidBubbles (Glance and SpawnPoint plugins)
- JoyBoy (Nat look)
- Hunting-Succubus and kemenate (indirect dependencies through Nat look)
- MeshedVR (various VaM native assets)
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-05-24. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-05-10 17:47:51 +0000 UTC
View Post
This time of the month again, time for another monthly report!
The DoubleTrouble scene I had been working on continuously since December has now finally been released two weeks ago. This brought various improvements and fixes for LogicBricks and IdlePoser, but also with the PowerHandles release back in January it would not have been possible to build this scene. PowerHandles just says SO MUCH time and allows you to work almost entirely in Desktop mode, which is less exhausting than wearing a VR headset for hours upon hours. Anyway, it's always good to actually try to build something and see for yourself where the problems are rather than just making stuff based on "oh, this could be useful for someone, maybe".
So, what's next?
LogicBricks
Current plan for next month(s) is to make a number of additions to LogicBricks. Based on requests and questions of various people I have a couple of ideas what could be useful. Probably not all of the following will make it into the next release:
- SelectChoice: Similar to the RandomChoice, except that the choice is not random, but based on a drop-down parameter you can set via trigger. Basically its a "switch" statement you might know from many programming languages.
- DialogMachine: Variant of the StateMachine brick that is more suited to multiple-choice dialogs. Essentially instead of choosing a random transition, there would be a number of trigger slots like A, B, C, each having a different transition assigned. So you could hook those up to buttons, speech recognition, collision (touching body parts), etc.
- SpeechRecognition: Apparently its rather easy for VaM plugins to use Unity's build in speech recognition, which seems to be simply using Windows 10 features (Cortana). However, I have not actually tried this yet, there may be complications I'm not aware of. But the plan is to at least check out, if I can make a reusable LogicBrick out of this.
- Filter: In the DoubleTrouble scene I used a lot of TriggerSync signals to sync the various animations. Usually you are waiting for a particular animation to finish, but other animations might also be issuing TriggerSyncs, which would cause chaos. So in that scene I used a number of Relay bricks that allow me to block signals and only listen for the one I'm actually interested in. I have some ideas for a specialized brick for this. That way you would not need several Relay bricks and it could also be an option to wait for multiple animations to finish before continuing. However, there is still the problem with TriggerSync signals not being sent when the animation happens to be already in the desired state, as no OnEnter is executed. So I need to figure out a solution for that.
- ValueThreshold: This brick was already hidden in the DoubleTrouble release and will of course be officially added to LogicBricks. It allows you to fire a trigger when a float value crosses a particular threshold, the scene uses it for lube audio effects of the handjobs.
Tutorials
As a more long-term plan I think it would be useful to update the IdlePoser tutorial to the current state. While it still covers the basics, a LOT of features have been added since that was made.
Some have asked for a tutorial regarding the DoubleTrouble scene, to help understanding what is happening under the hood there. However, a lot of the things there are intertwined, which will make it confusing to follow. Rather than one huge tutorial I'm thinking it makes more sense to do a series of smaller tutorial articles. Each would focus on one particular interesting aspect of the scene. Where it makes sense I could include a demo scene that only shows that one aspect, instead of everything at once.
2021-04-25 17:10:57 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! I have just enabled tiers for my Patreon site. Note that there is absolutely no difference between the 3 tiers or between choosing a tier-less custom pledge.
My reasoning is that currently about 2/3 of my Patreons pledge 1€ or less. The assumption here is that this is not mainly a lack of perceived value of my content, but rather simply the fact that Patreon sets "1" of whatever your local currency as the default. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm absolutely fine with you pledging 1€, it's still worth 100x more than a "Like" or just downloading without any comment at all. However, I want that to be your conscious choice, you should pledge what my content is worth to you, not just because its the default or simply not knowing that you can enter any amount.
Another point to consider is pledge efficiency. Currently AU$1 (or 0.65€) is the smallest possible pledge amount. An issue with these small pledges is that for European creators there is a flat 0.15€ plus 5% payment fee on every transaction below 3€. Plus 2.5% for currency conversion to Euro. Which means of those 0.65€ there are 0,20€ (or 30%) just going straight to PayPal or whatever payment provider you use. For a AU$2 (or 1,30€) pledge, it would be only 0,24€ (or 19%) payment fee, so you see that slightly larger pledges are way more efficient. Of course on top there is the fee for Patreon itself as well as income tax, but those are percentages that are independent of your personal pledge amount.
Again, there is no difference between the tiers, just pick what you think it is worth to you. That is surely different for everyone. If you are already one of my Patreon's there is nothing you need to do to continue having access to content.
Cheers, MacGruber
2021-04-19 19:08:18 +0000 UTC
View Post
The power of random combinations...not knowing what will happen next. This is the main idea behind using multiple animation layers acting independently at random. If each layer has a number of variations, the number of possible combinations basically explode. Linear animation is what you see in most scenes these days, because it's easy to do. While looking nice when done properly, it is more like a video. It will be boring after playing the scene once or twice, because you know what will happen next. However, not knowing exactly what will happen brings a scene to to life, because that's how it would be with real people. Especially true in a POV bondage scene like this one. Teaser trailer video, watch it with sound!
Features
- 41 LogicBricks, 10 IdlePosers
- 262 states and control points
- 384 layered animations
- 713 trigger connections
- 6 main poses, countless possible random variations
- Custom scene setup UI for quick&easy setup of possession through ImprovedPoV/Passenger plugins. Also exposes separate volume sliders for breathing, effects and music.
- Works in Desktop mode, but intended for VR with possession of the male character.
Dependencies
- All the needed dependencies can be found for free on the Hub, just use VaM's handy "Scan Hub For Missing Packages" function.
Credits
Scene
- AcidBubbles (Glance, ImprovedPoV and Passenger plugins)
- B3liar (Flashfuck asset)
- JoyBoy (Nat look)
- Vamtastic (Grip morphs)
- VL_13 (Bodysuit_A clothing)
- NoStage3 and Roac (Hair)
- Hunting-Succubus and kemenate (indirect dependencies through Nat look)
- Soundtrack by Darren-Curtis (CC-BY)
Tools (not referenced)
- AcidBubbles (Keybindings plugin)
- vamtaco (AutoCock plugin)
Changelog (since Beta release)
- Fixed numerous animation/logic glitches.
- Added additional variation in some places.
- Glance/Gaze system integration, a lot more looking around now.
- Lube sounds for handjobs and fleshlight.
- Adjusting breathing settings at random intervals for additional variation.
- Switched to different hairstyle for better eye contact. It's really hard to find good hair that doesn't block 50% of the field of view and works with a character bend forward.
- Added glorious soundtrack.
- Added separate volume sliders for breathing/effects/music in the SceneSetup UI. Getting volume right in VaM is a nightmare, so this allows you to easily tune volume yourself so it matches your setup, not mine.
- New screenshots and fancy video.
Can I exchange the looks?
- The scene was intentionally build with almost default woman characters to make it as compatible as possible. When you change too much animations will no longer align properly.
- Careful to keep the physics/collision settings of the characters themselves as well as the control nodes. Animations might no longer align.
- Advanced Colliders and Soft Body Physics are turned off for all 3 characters, so the scene has a chance of running smoothly on "normal CPUs".
- Skin, face and breast of the woman can be changed, within reason.
- Clothing can be changed (or removed) as well, as long as the clothing is similarly tight. You can try clothing sim, but it might cause artifacts due to morph animation (e.g. chest).
- Hair can be changed, but keep in mind that characters lean forward in various poses. Most hairstyles can't handle that nicely.
- Changing anything on the male character besides face/hair will likely break things.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-04-19. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-04-11 12:55:28 +0000 UTC
View Post
This update helps with making the Gaze plugin more compatible with AcidBubbles Glance plugin. I have also added a demo scene that shows how Glance and Gaze can be used together to make characters look around randomly. See video above. Obviously the goal here is to use this kind of plugin setup in my DoubleTrouble scene.
Thanks to AcidBubbles for his fabulous Glance plugin and his patience with me demanding various bugfixes and changes :)
Changelog
- Gaze: Option to freely set any control or bone as LookAt and/or Reference target. The only exception is that the head/headControl on the character that runs the Gaze plugin can't be used. This is obviously because it's controlled by Gaze itself.
- Gaze: Implemented damping for various offsets: Eye Angle Vertical, Eye Angle Horizontal, Eye Position and LookAt Position
- Demo: Added a third demo scene, showing how to combine Glance with Gaze, with the help of IdlePoser as coordinator.
Dependencies
- For the demo scene package you need Life.13, IdlePoser.9, LogicBricks.6 and Glance.13. All these can be found on the Hub, meaning VaM can auto-download them for you.
Download
2021-04-07 06:13:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
IdlePoser is a state-based idle animation solution. States are essentially poses, but they can be anchored to body parts or even other characters. This makes it possible for different instances of IdlePoser to interact with each other, creating kind of procedural animation. Version 9 is a maintenance release with some tweaks and bug-fixes. It's directly released as free since it is needed by the demo scene shipped with the free Life.13 release.
Changelog
- Fixed issue with morph reference into a VAR packages with ".latest" or ".minX" version. MorphCaptures are now stored slightly more efficiently in the scene, reducing file size and improving load times for large scenes.
- Fixed issue with current state transitioning into itself when there is no valid transition available.
- Fixed issue with StateMask change not being instantly applied when the state duration already expired.
- Fixed issue with StateMask change not being applied when StateMask was cleared.
- Separated changelog from code into additional TXT file. Since that has grown to around 5K in size, I don't want to bother the compiler with that every time you load a scene. Should again improve scene load times slightly.
Dependencies
- All the dependencies for the demo scene can be found on the Hub, meaning VaM can auto-download them for you.
Download
2021-04-07 06:11:38 +0000 UTC
View Post
Monthly Report is a bit late this month as all available VaM time in the last few weeks went into finishing the DoubleTrouble scene.
DoubleTrouble
Current plan is to spend a bit more time on polishing the scene as well as producing some video. I guess I need to explain better what this is actually is and why its not "just another scene". Might of course be because it was released late on a Monday, shortly before the end of the month and there is currently nice sunshine weather in Europe, but literally zero votes on Reddit might indicate people simply did not understand what this is about and that literally multiple hundreds of hours went into making it possible, if you include the SecretRoom environment, as well as Life, PowerHandles, IdlePoser and LogicBricks plugins.
Another reason might also be that there is actually something broken with the release? I got a report that the scene did not start. I had hoped the red panel and button (see screenshot above) would be obvious? It works for me on Oculus obviously, but maybe it's broken when using OpenVR/SteamVR or something?
When you click the button, it should select a particular Empty atom (named "SceneSetup" directly below the panel) and open its PluginUI. There you follow the steps. Essentially press the "Start Possess" button, use the sliders to adjust rotation (i.e. if you are not facing "front" of your VR setup you can rotate accordingly) and then press the "Start Scene" button. If you don't want to possess, just skip steps 1 and 2 and directly press the "Start Scene" button. After starting the scene, animations should start within 1-2 seconds, a handjob from either one of the girls or the fleshlight thing. After that everything can happen at random, including tilting the chair into down position.
A few animation glitches are to be expected, but if a few people could please comment whether the scene and setup system is actually working, that would be very helpful :)
Other plans
There is also another minor IdlePoser update coming that will fix the morph reference issue that's causing trouble when you try to export a scene as VAR while referencing a morph in another VAR. For the DoubleTrouble release I had to manually fix the JSON files in the package.
Beyond that there is no concrete plan what I will be doing. Lots of cool ideas as usual and too little time to do them all. I don't want to commit to anything particular at this point.
Cheers & stay safe,
MacGruber
2021-03-31 09:13:32 +0000 UTC
View Post
This is a beta release of my DoubleTrouble scene, that means there are likely still various animation glitches waiting to be found. However, I wanted to release the current state already for my loyal Patreons who waited patiently this long....originally this was supposed to be release end of December, maybe January after all. Well, time estimates are hard when half the plugin tech has to be invented first.
The scene is intended as a major tech-demo for IdlePoser and LogicBricks. Currently there are 6 main action poses: 4 different handjobs, fleshlight and riding crop. Each of those comes with lots of variations and seamless transitions between each other. Altogether there are now 304 animations defined by 227 IdlePoser states and control points. There are 10 IdlePoser (5 per girl) and one central StateMachine coordinating it all, which needs another 35 states. Of course, various other LogicBricks are also in use.
The plan is to make an updated release in a few weeks, which will then also come with proper video and so on.
Dependencies
- All the needed dependencies can be found for free on the Hub, just use VaM's handy "Scan Hub For Missing Packages" function.
- The only exception is IdlePoser.8, which is attached below for convenience.
Credits
- AcidBubbles (ImprovedPoV, Passenger and Keybindings plugins)
- B3liar (Flashfuck asset)
- JoyBoy (Nat look)
- vamtaco (AutoCock plugin)
- Vamtastic (Grip morphs)
- VL_13 (Bodysuit_A clothing)
Can I exchange the looks?
- The scene was intentionally build with almost default woman characters to make it as compatible as possible. When you change too much animations will no longer align properly.
- Careful to keep the physics/collision settings of the characters themselves as well as the control nodes. Animations might no longer align
- Advanced Colliders and Soft Body Physics are turned off for all 3 character scene has a chance of running smoothly on "normal CPUs".
- Skin, face and breast of the woman can be changed, within reason.
- Clothing can be changed (or removed) as well, as long as the clothing is similarly tight.
- Hair can be changed, but keep in mind that characters lean forward in various poses. Some hairstyles can't handle that nicely.
- Changing the man character will likely break things.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-04-19. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-03-29 21:52:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
IdlePoser is a state-based idle animation solution. States are essentially poses, but they can be anchored to body parts or even other characters. This makes it possible for different instances of IdlePoser to interact with each other, creating kind of procedural animation. Version 8 adds support for AcidBubbles Keybindings plugin, an extremely useful Duplicate button as well some minor tweaks and bug-fixes.
Changelog
- Exposing bindings for AcidBubbles Keybindings plugin.
- Added button to duplicate selected state. Duplicates all settings like transitions, triggers, anchors, etc. while capturing from the current pose. This is VERY helpful to quickly multiply variations of animations/poses with little effort.
- WaitDurationMin/Max sliders now talk to each other, so you can't set a max that is lower than your minimum anymore. Default wait time is now 2-4 instead of 3-3.
- Button to dump some stats to VaM's log, like number of states and paths. 'Draw Paths' needs to be enabled for the button to appear in the Options tab.
- Tried to fix issue with morphs reference not automatically tracked by VaM's PackageBuilder when a morph was located in a VAR package. While that works now, it turned out that PackageBuilder still replaces the package version with ".latest" instead of the actual version, which confuses IdlePoser. If you export your scene as VAR, you will have to unpack it and edit your scene JSON and meta.json to search&replace "MORPHPACKAGENAME.latest" with the actual version you are using in your scene. So not 100% fixed, yet, but there was no time anymore today to figure out how to fix this. I had to push this out now as it was needed for the other package release today.
- Fixed a button layout issue.
- Updated demo scene with the new plugin versions.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-04-12. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-03-29 20:55:39 +0000 UTC
View Post
Still working almost every day on my upcoming scene. Currently there are 5 main action poses: 3 different handjobs, fleshlight and riding crop. Each of those comes with lots of variations and seamless transitions between each other. Altogether I'm currently at 247 animations, many of which are parented/anchored to other animations/poses. There are 10 IdlePoser (5 per girl) and one central StateMachine coordinating it all, with help of various LogicBricks, of course.
Still lots of work to do! I want to add at least one more main action, not sure what it will be, yet. Then I still need to tweak timings of the state durations, right now everything is rather fast for better testing the transitions. And of course light setup, packaging and various other things will also take time. But yeah, uncounted hours of work on the scene itself, the chair asset and needed plugin tech, all over a period of 4 months, are slowly coming together :)
2021-03-24 21:11:37 +0000 UTC
View Post
Connect is a plugin that allows you to control audio-driven E-Stim devices. The package also includes VirtualLock, a plugin for virtual self-bondage in VR. In combination that means, if you do not behave, your dominatrix will punish you...in real life!
More details how it works and what hardware is needed on the Hub post. Scene works of course also without the E-Stim stuff. Made a quick video as well.
Changelog
- Making the Connect plugin working again under the new VaM security restrictions. Thanks @ brycerer for reporting the issue, as I only tested it after the big 1.20.77.6 update, but ironically it broke after Meshed did another minor update after that. Anyway, works with 1.20.77.9 now.
- Updated demo scene with the new technical possibilities of IdlePoser 7. Much more animation variety now and idle stuff going on now.
- Used the opportunity to try out doing spank animation with IdlePoser, which is now possible thanks to one-way transitions and tweakable easing-curves.
- Trying to use IdlePoser as a point of interest system for the EyeTargetControl and experimenting with MicroIdle-Anchors via AnimationPatterns.
- New Look so it will be entirely hub-hosted now after leaving EarlyAccess.
Credits
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-03-15. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-03-01 20:40:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
IdlePoser is a state-based idle animation solution. States are essentially poses, but they can be anchored to body parts or even other characters. This makes it possible for different instances of IdlePoser to interact with each other, creating kind of procedural animation. Version 7 brings new features for better control of transitions, as well as various tweaks and bug-fixes. These changes, together with the updates of my LogicBricks and Essentials plugins are what made this video possible. That particular scene is still very much work in progress and will be released at some point in the future.
Changelog
- Control ease in/out duration of a state from the Transition tab. Now using a 3-piece smoothing curve consisting of a linear part in the middle and the integral of SmoothStep at both ends. The resulting combined curve has the benefit of allowing you to tweak ease in/out duration while also providing smooth velocity and continuous acceleration/deceleration. (This was the "Math stuff" posted at the beginning of the month, although I ended up using more complex curves. CaseEP correctly pointed out that the acceleration (second derivative) was not continuous, I thought you would not see a difference, but you do. Way more natural!)
- TransitionDuration moved to Transition tab.
- Option for one-way transitions from the Transition tab.
- Option for states to allow in-group transitions. All states along the transition need to have this enabled, giving your precise control.
- Option to default to using a world anchor (instead of person root control)
- Debug rendering of paths and transitions can be limited to the selected state.
- Increased amount of state groups from 8 to 12.
- Listing hidden atoms in the Anchor popups and providing a filter.
- Handling renaming of anchor atoms.
- New PartialStateMask action to allow only change the explicitly mentioned groups in the mask.
- Default to world anchor for non-person atoms to prevent self-reference.
- Default to 'control' capture on non-person atoms.
- Fixed issue with Anchors not being updated/applied correctly.
- Fixed issue with SetStateMask that could not be cleared, you can set it to "Clear" now.
- Fixed SetStateMask interrupting ongoing transitions.
- Fixed issue with debug info not being updated.
- Fixed issue with UI alignment in the state menu.
- Fixed debug rendering render order and reduced performance overhead.
- Fixed issue that could happen when IdlePoser tried to change it's own state through triggers.
- Changed default directory for Pose saves to 'Saves/PluginData/IdlePoser' to comply with VaM's new plugin guideline and avoid the security warning. Note that you may have to manually move your saves poses, if you have any. Folder is now created when missing.
- Updated MacGruber_Utils.cs
- Updated demo scene with the new plugin versions.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-03-15. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-02-27 17:30:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
LogicBricks is a collection of now 25 reusable logic plugins to quickly build simple logic without coding. These go from a simple Relay that just groups triggers via Counter and Blend to more complex bricks for RandomChoice and a very powerful StateMachine brick. There are now three demo scenes with altogether 23 examples to spawn some ideas.
Changelog
- New ValueUpDown brick: This provides a value that ping-pongs between 0 and 1. You can smoothly adjust the speed and through triggers you can have it smoothly stop at exactly 0 or 1, causing a trigger signal you can connect to. This is obviously useful handjobs and similar animations where you want them to stop at a precise point to you can transition to some other animation. You see this in action in the video.
- New LinearAnimation brick: This brick allows you to interpolate the position of an atom between two positions. Essentially this is an AnimationPattern with just two steps, except it's all in a single atom and its actually linear. In the video you see this in action as well, it's utilized to animate Empty atoms used as anchor for IdlePoser states. This keeps your scene organized when you need like 10 different of those anchor atoms in a very tight space where it would be impossible to tell the AnimSteps apart.
- StateMachine: New option for having a "cooldown" on states, preventing them from being selected again, unless there is no other choice. This can also be set via trigger.
- StateMachine: Now using VaM's filter popups so you can keep your sanity while handling way more states.
- StateMachine: States can now transition to themselves (this was a request)
- Various bricks now have an AcceptTrigger option, allowing you to turn on/off their reaction to incoming triggers. This mean you can now essentially disconnect/reconnect trigger connections via trigger. It's been added to Relay, RelayOnce, Delay, RandomDelay, Blend, RandomBlend, Loop, RandomLoop, RandomChoice, RandomSound and RandomSoundFromAB.
- Added a number of new examples as well as updated some existing ones for the new bricks and features. Examples are split into 3 scenes now.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-03-15. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-02-27 17:30:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
Your most essential MacGruber tools in a convenient single VAR package. Version 8 adds a toggle to the ParentHoldLink plugin to change its behavior, making it possible for characters to pick up and put down objects, like in this video.
Changelog
- ParentHoldLink: Added option to prevent the plugin from resetting it's relative position/rotation when it is deactivated and then reactivated. This makes the atom snap into position when turned on, but it prevents unintentional drift/misalignment when doing crazy things like picking up a toy, playing with it and putting it back afterwards. You can just turn on/off the atom (or the plugin) at the right time in your animation and get what you expect.
Download
- This is an EarlyAccess release! Download will be available for free under CC BY-SA license after 2021-03-15. You are allowed to reference this package in your own VAR packages, even if they are paid or use a different license. Links to my Patreon are always appreciated.
- Beware of some browsers mistakenly renaming .var files to .zip when downloading from Patreon. More details on how to install VaM content and missing dependencies here.
2021-02-27 17:29:58 +0000 UTC
View Post
Another busy month! I'm still working on that scene! However, I think now finally have most of the tech needed for this project together. This required a long list of improvements for IdlePoser and LogicBricks as well as some tweaks to ParentHoldLink, which is part of Essentials. Check out this preview video of seamlessly swapping between two handjob modes and using a fleshlight toy by B3liar. What you are seeing are 5 IdlePoser plugins coordinated through a central StateMachine and various helper LogicBricks. The other girl will also use another 5 IdlePoser plugins, coordinated through the same StateMachine. You remember the walking girl I posted in last months report? This will all be in one big seamless scene!
I still won't commit to any particular release date or feature set for this, it will be done when it is done! Still LOTS of work to be done! However, I'm trying to push out new versions of IdlePoser, LogicBricks and Essentials in the "next few days". Aiming for this weekend, but as always no guarantees! I still need to package those up, make sure everything works including the demo scenes.
IdlePoser v7 - Changelog
- Control ease in/out duration of a state from the Transition tab. Now using a 3-piece smoothing curve consisting of a linear part in the middle and the integral of SmoothStep at both ends. The resulting combined curve has the benefit of allowing you to tweak ease in/out duration while also providing smooth velocity and continuous acceleration/deceleration. (This was the "Math stuff" posted at the beginning of the month, although I ended up using more complex curves. CaseEP correctly pointed out that the acceleration (second derivative) was not continuous, I thought you would not see a difference, but you do. Way more natural!)
- TransitionDuration moved to Transition tab.
- Option for one-way transitions from the Transition tab.
- Option for states to allow in-group transitions. All states along the transition need to have this enabled, giving your precise control.
- Option to default to using a world anchor (instead of person root control)
- Debug rendering of paths and transitions can be limited to the selected state.
- Increased amount of state groups from 8 to 12.
- Listing hidden atoms in the Anchor popups and providing a filter.
- Handling renaming of anchor atoms.
- New PartialStateMask action to allow only change the explicitly mentioned groups in the mask.
- Default to world anchor for non-person atoms to prevent self-reference.
- Default to 'control' capture on non-person atoms.
- Fixed issue with Anchors not being updated/applied correctly.
- Fixed issue with SetStateMask that could not be cleared, you can set it to "Clear" now.
- Fixed issue with debug info not being updated.
- Fixed issue with UI alignment in the state menu.
- Fixed debug rendering render order and reduced performance overhead.
- Fixed issue that could happen when IdlePoser tried to change it's own state through triggers.
- Changed default directory for Pose saves to 'Saves/PluginData/IdlePoser' to comply with VaM's new plugin guideline and avoid the security warning. Note that you may have to manually move your saves poses, if you have any. Folder is now created when missing.
LogicBricks v6 - Changelog
- New ValueUpDown brick: This provides a value that ping-pongs between 0 and 1. You can smoothly adjust the speed and through triggers you can have it smoothly stop at exactly 0 or 1, causing a trigger signal you can connect to. This is obviously useful handjobs and similar animations where you want them to stop at a precise point to you can transition to some other animation. You see this in action in the video.
- New LinearAnimation brick: This brick allows you to interpolate the position of an atom between two positions. Essentially this is an AnimationPattern with just two steps, except it's all in a single atom and its actually linear. In the video you see this in action as well, it's utilized to animate Empty atoms used as anchor for IdlePoser states. This keeps your scene organized when you need like 10 different of those anchor atoms in a very tight space where it would be impossible to tell the AnimSteps apart.
- StateMachine: New option for having a "cooldown" on states, preventing them from being selected again, unless there is no other choice. This can also be set via trigger.
- StateMachine: Now using VaM's filter popups so you can keep your sanity while handling way more states.
- Various bricks now have an AcceptTrigger option, allowing you to turn on/off their reaction to incoming triggers. This mean you can now essentially disconnect/reconnect trigger connections via trigger. It's been added to Relay, RelayOnce, Delay, RandomDelay, Blend, RandomBlend, Loop, RandomLoop, RandomChoice, RandomSound and RandomSoundFromAB.
Essentials v8 - Changelog
- ParentHoldLink: Added option to prevent the plugin from resetting it's relative position/rotation when it is deactivated and then reactivated. This makes the atom snap into position when turned on, but it prevents unintentional drift/misalignment when doing crazy things like picking up a toy, playing with it and putting it back afterwards. You can just turn on/off the atom (or the plugin) at the right time in your animation and get what you expect.
Cheers, MacGruber
2021-02-25 21:41:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
Working on IdlePoser, figuring out how to better smooth the transition between states. Instead of the fixed Smoothstep curve I want to use quadratic ease in/out curves with a linear part in the middle. Parameters a and b are the ease in/out times in seconds, while d is the overall duration of the transition, also in seconds. The tricky part is to calculate the curves in a way that the derivative of the combined curve, which corresponds to the movement speed of the animation, is continuous and has the desired linear acceleration/deceleration at both ends. I think I figured it out now :)
But why? You remember the trouble with the walking animation? This should hopefully help with that...and that is why you learn math in school, kids.
2021-02-02 19:11:46 +0000 UTC
View Post
