Thursday, June 28, 2012

WIP - New 2.5 Update

The new update has proven to be a lot harder than what I expected. As I told before on the group this is going to be a very big update where most of the scripts are rewritten but not with a lot of new features on the client side. Most of the updates will be cosmetic, by this I mean that the shape of the baby will change while it grows on the different stages, but believe only this is enough work.

Right now the shape of the baby is correct for a newborn but the proportions of the body parts should change when it’s reaching a toddler size. Personally I never liked the shape of other know baby builder because the proportions where of an adult human being and not of a baby, but when I made these babies grow I committed the same mistake by keeping the proportions.

I will still be using the same sculpts so all skins and clothes will still be compatible, only the proportion of the baby will change, but this means all the animations have to be rewritten from scratch.

The good news is that with the update I will make available a total of 10 stages to reach so babies can continue developing and I promise some surprises.

This is just a work in progress and for now there isn´t a release date, I´m leaving you a photo with the new shape that will be used on the high level stages. As you can notice the baby itself has a thinner and smaller head. But still the head, hands and feet are bigger than an adult shape, making it closer to what you can expect from a one year old toddler.

Update

As you can see I have been making changes on the webpage to reflect the new baby´s manual that will work with the tutorial mode I´m including on the baby. On the good news the update its coming as planed and probably tomorrow I will make available some beta testers versions for some users to debug. This also means that if everything goes ok it will be available near the 12 of July.

Its going to be a free update but if you appreciate all the work I have put on them you can show me some love and donate some lindens. Also as most of the scripts have been rewritten, and to avoid problems during the update process, the only way to update will be to recover the baby.

2.5 English FAQ - Howto

Welcome to the new Baby Tatu 2.5. Have in mind that 2.x is and upgrade of the 1.x series and even if it maintains some of the user experience and a lot of its features, is a full new baby.  

The very important things to keep in mind: 

On your first rez you will get the product registration key, don´t store the baby till you get it and save the key on a notecard so you can remember it. In the hard case that you lose the baby or it gets broken, you can recover the baby at the clinic with that key. Ask a nurse or clerk for help and they will walk you trought.

Add your partner, friends, etc. on the family list before you transfer the baby to them. If you fail to do so the baby will think it has been stolen and you will have to use the recovery key to get him back.
Only the avatar who registered the baby can reclaim it, so adoptions or baby resells aren’t anymore possible. Or at least we can´t support them if SL decides to chew them and spit them in a million prims.

Howto´s:   

Baby´s Name 

To name your baby Rez your baby on the ground, go to edit, new name and give him a new name. Its important to this on this way so the object itself will be renamed preventing some cache issues on the SL servers that can sometimes think that all objects with the same name are the same object. Your baby is unique, so give him an unique name

Your babys needs  Baby needs are represented by particle symbols on top of his head and baby noises which are pretty self explanatory.

A feeding bottle means your baby is hungry
A spiral when he is unclean and needs a bath or diaper change
An unhappy smile shows he is bored. Playing with him and toys will keep him happy and healthy
Zzz when he is sleeping
Hearts will show when he is feeling fun and loved or on level ups
A red cross appears when your baby's health is more than half down. Check his status to see what could be affecting him.
A thermometer represents a sickness. Flu and other virus will populate SL, the number of virus is short and if the babies get them, it will affect the health and fun for some days till they develop antibodies (it´s not fun to be sick). Flu virus are a random event that won't affect stage 0 babies and that can pass from one baby to another. The transmission is random and will affect more big children with low constitution as they don´t get the necessary antibodies from the mother. If you don't want to roleplay the illness a medic kit will give him the necessary antibodies for that virus.
A red cross with a little skull when your baby's health bar reaches cero and becomes sick beyond normal care. At this point the only way to recover his health back is with the use of a medic kit.

This particles as the rest of your baby can be very sensible to server lag and can even don’t show up by a particle sim limit listen to your baby or changing his speed to a lower one or check the status directly on the alife menu or by using the HUD.

The Menu 

Touch the baby and a menu will pop up

Actions Menu 

In this menu you can find all kind of interactions with your baby.

Put diaper / Take diaper – You’ll need to take your baby’s diaper first if you want to clean him. Its also useful if you want to try different clothes combinations with or without an on top diaper.

Wakeup – Morning call for your baby if he is asleep

Sleep – Make your baby go to sleep regardless his tiredness

Breastfeed – Just one of the ways you can feed your baby, but the most natural one. This option will disappear when your baby is old enough

Burp – Just some patting on baby’s back to make him feel better after a big meal

Play – Have fun with your baby and your baby will have fun with you

Hold – Holding your baby next to your warm heart feels comforting

Rock – Rocking your baby rocks!

Shoulder – Take the baby for a walk over your shoulder. All these actions affect your baby’s behavior in some way, there is no manual for these and is up to you as fathers to figure it out.

Clothes 

Is in this menu where you can dress or undress your baby Also you can find a neko ear and tail, neko ears can be use with the hat or by acquiring a different texture, as a full neko baby. Different clothes of different baby outfits can be combined to create your own baby style.

A-Life 

The heart and brain of your baby, where all the magic happens.

Heal – For healing your baby you will need to rez a medic kit near him and use this function. Med kits restore the health of the baby to a 100% and cure any sickness or flu. Each Med Kit´s color has a differnt property and some of them can bring side effects. Babies which arent a 100% sick can still be healed with only good care and some roleplay.

Speed – If you feel your baby too demanding, you are in a lagged server or you will leave him rez on his bed for hours, using an internal cycles lower speed could be the best solution. If you by the other hand wants a more challenging baby with the chance of making faster XP, ”Psico Mom!” is your best choice. And of course, normal will return the cycles to their normal speed. This works as the dificulty switch.

Have in mind that baby cycles aren’t regular, so it will be impossible to guess when the next one will be.

Personality – Your baby’s self stats, these are your baby’s personality. To have high some is better than others and will be only modified when you get enough’s XP. Stats go from 0 to 100, but no baby can be born with too high or too low stats. It’s your long work what will determine this.

Status – Here is the most direct way to check what is wrong with your baby showing values of its current status. Especially useful on lagged sims.

XP – Experience point can be worn on every cycle and this function will show you how much points are missing for a power up of that particular stat.
Every next power up will be difficult and more XP needed.
Powering lower stats is way easy than the higher ones and only with a lot of dedicated motherhood you can reach the maximum 120 stats.
Depositions and Hunger are inverse variables and you would normally won´t desire high values on those.

Since 2 .0 your baby´s growth doesn’t depend anymore on the baby´s stats but on the growth stage. Stats now can go up and down but your baby´s size will always depend on his growth.

Help File

Will bring you to this webpage

Edit Menu 

Update – Once you get your update disc, rez it near the baby and use this function to update its features. Scripts will be updated if needed and new features added when available.

Texture - New Clothes / New Skin / Reset – If you bought new baby’s clothes or skin first touch this button and your baby will be ready for accepting the new clothes. Some old clothes can be incompatible with the new ones, but its always possible to reset the, if they are not shown properly.

Umbilical cord – By default your baby will show an umbilical cord the first week of life then it will fall off and a little black button will appear in his belly which will disappear by the 2nd week of his birth. If by any reason you find this too disgusting or want to put it back, you can override it from here.

Male / Female – Choose your baby’s sex. This will change baby’s umbilical cord clip and pacifier color, show baby’s genitalia and ear piercing.

Name – Push this button and write your baby’s name on open channel. Baby’s name will appear on top of his head.If you do this while the baby is on the ground the objects name will also be changed.

AO – An animation override has been added. It adds some walk, and stand animations. You can choose between 2 different walk animations (Tired and female walk) or be completely shutdown.

Breath - Controls the breath animation. If you see a ball instead of the chest, you are having a display problem on your viewer. Turning off the breath animation is a quick way to avoid this problem.

The feeding bottle 

Just wear it and your baby will be feed. Watch out, he can eat more that he can take.

Diaper changing 

Rez the diaper box, take the old dirty diaper, then touch the diaper box. Is that simple

Bathing

Bathing cleans also the baby but by stages and only to a certain point. Bathing does not cause negative points by the fact that you can´t clean your baby a 100%. This is to reflect that even after a bath you need to dry him and apply a clean diaper.

Your baby’s health 

Always take a good look to your baby’s status and messages. High values on the stats will heal the baby and lower ones could hurt him in unknown ways. Don’t leave the baby alone unattended as it will eventually get sick, if you want to leave him rez on a cradle get one with hibernation mode. Your baby is a virtual living being and if you forget him for days without giving him any attention could result in his sickness. Take him once every 5 days so he doesn’t get sick of loneliness. Leaving the baby with a babysitter or a family friend could be a good precaution if you are planning to leave Second Life for a week or more.

Growth

How does the baby learn to crawl and advance in growth stages? This is done when your baby meets certain stat growths each week. No one on the staff can tell you what those numbers are, as we have no idea either. All we can say is be a great parent. Meet your baby's needs needs and as the scores grow so will your baby. If that week your baby does not meet those numbers don't get discouraged just keep up the good work and you will advance in time. But watch out you don't spoil him as it can backfire with some negative points as being a good mother is all about finding the perfect balance between needs and care.

On stage 3 the baby will be able to sit by itself On stage 4 it will learn to crawl On Stage 7 he will learn to walk. On Stage 8 it will learn to stand.

Right now from 2.5 version there are 10 different stages to reach and the shape and size of the baby will gradually change from a newborn to a toddler.

Crawling and Walking

Once you reach crawling stage, every time you need to pick up your baby from the ground first open the baby´s menu and touch the "Save" button. Nothing bad can happen if you fail to do so, but some prims can be shown on an incorrect size if you wear him or the baby can fall through the ground when you rez him on the ground.

The baby uses an invisible object named "Tatu Guide" to track the shape of the ground and mark the way for the baby. Its possible to pick that object by by mistake when trying to store the baby on the inventory. Depending on the baby´s curiosity it will seek the owner or other people, it also responds to writen commands to force him to follow you or go away.

Nerby Babies

Other Tatu Babies around your child as crowded places can affect your baby´s happiness in multiple ways. Low charisma babies won´t like the company of others and can even be mean to other babies at some times while charismatic ones will enjoy it more than other ones, and even try to be the center of attention.

Making sure what you baby has fun around other people or babies is the easiest way to level up his charisma.

Negative Points

Taking good care of your baby its all about equilibrium and it´s not just about keeping Heath, Hygiene and Humour up and appettite low. Don´t get me wrong, you need them on that way to make points, but you could be crossing over and spoiling your baby.

Feeding your baby when he is not hungry will make your baby fatter and unhealthy.

Playing with your baby all the time will make him tired of the same toys and games.

Keeping your baby always clean can cause a drop on his natural deffenses against sickness.

Etc.

All these negative points accumulate and will eventually lower some stats. It's still possible to obtain personalities over 100, but it will be harder to maintain it on that way. Some parents can have a really rapid drop on the personality till they reach the balance between what the baby needs and what they give to them. Personalities over 100 are much easier to lose levels than lower ones. Plus on each negative personality change a negative growth point will be added.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Design Studio - Transfer Boxes PRO

A new Transfer Box is available and this time we go PRO.

Some designers have complain that the need of dealing with each unit at a time of a given product was a big cumber stone while handling a lot of clothes and that it made it impossible to sell them on the marketplace.

The solution was to make a transferbox with copy and transfer permissions but that would mean that the price should be so high that it will turn away most designers and that it would take a lot of time for the designers with high sales to have the inversion returned.

As I always preferred a micro payments system, so designers can pay exactly for what they want to use, I will be using a similar approach for enabling this copy/transfer boxes.

This way the script itself it’s going to be free but once you pack it and make it available for sale, you need to pay L$500 for getting a copy/transfer version of that dress.

It might seem a lot of lindens as it cost as 10 transfer boxes right now. But I think designers will agree it’s a good deal. It means for example that if your dress is sold by L$250 you will get all your investment back on two sales.

It also means you can mix both systems and just invest on copy permissions for you on dresses you know you will have no problem selling and keeping the investments even lower by just using it where you know you will get the lindens back.

It will also be possible for you to sell your outfits at lower prices like just L$50 or giving them for free as a way to attract clients with freebies.

You will be able to sell them on the marketplace or use any vendor software you want and even have a sale stand not only on your shop but on other clinics by using catalogue vendors.



Remember: You need the Design Studio to use this

How To Use it 


The use itself is very similar the regular transfer boxes and you should read the Transfer Boxes walkthrought for the general instructions.

Unpack the box and place the script inside a box you created

The script will ask you for debit permissions to work which you need to accept.

If the box you created is copy / transfer the script will warn you so you don’t lose control of your product. This is just a suggestion but the script but it’s possible to create copy/transfer freebies if you wish to.

Once you click Finish it will ask you to pay a certain number to the box to finish the process and make it ready for sale. If you try to transfer it without this, the information on the script with your outfit will be lost.

If you wish to copy your outfit while rezed, remember that shift drag will reset the scripts of the copied version so your outfit will be lost. Take it to the inventory and rez as many copies as you need.

You can still use it with the no copy vendor scripts I made available if you need to, or just make the item itself sellable.