I Make HUDDLES™

I have redone the hugger script in the EZ Animator Deluxe. I’m excited about the changes to how hugs work. They might seem like small changes, but I think they will be big news for a few power users out there. These changes will be included in the next version (due out in June).

The first big improvement is that now you can set the distance between the avatars for a hug. The closest my avatars seem to get to each other is about 0.4 meters, so that will be the new minimum distance. But you can set it to be 0.5 meter, 1 meter, even 50 meters (the maximum). This should help people adjust their hugs to best fit the size of their avatar and the particulars of the animations they are using. Also, the 50 meter setting could be fun to use, making your avatar run away from the person who just accepted a hug from you. I might include a sample macro to demonstrate this.

(more…)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on a new version of the EZ Animator Deluxe. There are a few known bugs, mostly from the last update which need to get fixed. I also have a number of new features I want to add. Most of the new features will be small tweaks rather than huge new features.

(more…)

There is a new version of the EZ Animator Deluxe. It started out as a small update to add the ZHAO II script, but as I went along it got bigger and bigger. I’ve added some big improvements to the core functions (the AO and dancing), made a lot of bug fixes and added several new macro commands for the power user.

New AO Script

I’ve finally upgraded from the original ZHAO script to the ZHAO II. What’s so great about the ZHAO II?

• You can add as many stands to the ZHAO II as you like. That’s right, you aren’t limited to 5 stands or 12 stands, but as many stands as the ZHAO II script can hold in it’s memory. In practice that might be 30 or 40 stands max.
• You can add up to 12 sits, walks and ground sits.
• Also, the notecard is much easier to setup then the older AO scripts out there.
• You can switch between random and sequential mode for the order that stands play

I have a page to help people upgrade their AO from older versions of the EZAD. Also note that I’ve made a lot of small optimizations to the script to squeeze more memory out. Where as the default ZHAO script only has 11% of it’s memory available for animations, the EZAD version has 21% available for animations.

Dance Improvements

The big news here is that I’ve changed the scripts to make it possible for you to have more than 10 dancers. You could actually sync up 50 dancers now on one HUD. It takes some hacking, but I’ve provided instructions here.

New Macro Commands

I’ve added several new commands and made adjustments to one.

• [OWNER_SAY] Text that follows this command will be displayed to the owner only using the llOwnerSay() function.
• [REGION_SAY:XX] Used to broadcast text throughout a region on any channel besides 0.
• [EMAIL] Send emails to objects within SL or any email account outside of SL.
• [RADIO] Used to change the radio stream on a parcel that you own. Also includes a group radio object to change the stream on a group owned parcel.
• [GIVE] Used to send copies of items inside the EZAD to other avatars.
• [IM] Used to send instant messages to other avatars.
• [HUG] Made a change to add another parameter to hug macros.

Other new features

I added a tools button which currently has 4 tools:

• Create a SLURL link based on the current location
• Create text for [MAP] macro based on the current location
• Sensor to find out who is nearby and who is within chat range
• List current dancers

Future versions of the EZAD will likely include more tools under this menu.

Also, I’ve added a new chat command to set a target. If you say /99target followed by the full name of the avatar you wish to target, the HUD will target them. In order for it to work, their key must be included in the Moopf Murray name2key database. This feature would be especially helpful when using the [GIVE] and [IM] commands.

All help is being moved to the web. Instead of updating the help notecard, all help will be on the web. Notecards within SL are a poor way to handle anything but the simplest and shortest help documentation. Now that it’s been moved to the web, I can more easily add to and clarify the help information. Others can add to the help documentation though comments and questions. And the help documents can be translated dynamically into other languages on the web. (more…)

I’m going to add a command for sending instant messages with the llInstantMessage() function. It will probably have the tag [IM]. This will pair up nicely with the [GIVE] command now that you can set the target to any avatar, no matter where they are, logged in or not. That should be a relatively easy addition. I almost added it earlier but until I included the /99target function, it didn’t seem useful.

Also, I’m going to tweak the email functions, now that I’ve had a chance to test them a bit more.

Because of my schedule, it looks like I wouldn’t be able to make these changes until Friday, so expect the release over the weekend. That gives you beta testers a few more days to find some bugs for me to fix!

Update 2/15: I have all the updates done now. I’m doing some internal testing and should have it ready to send out some time over the weekend.

I sent out the beta version of the HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe (1.2.0). I guess this is technically a release candidate.

The earliest I will release it would be late Thursday night. That would give me all weekend to handle support issues.

If you would like an advance copy to beta test, please IM me in world and I’ll be happy to send you one, (if you have already bought an EZAD previously).

UPDATE 2/12 11pm: So far I have 28 testers and 0 reported bugs. I have identified a couple of minor changes I want to make to the email scripts, but that should be quite easy and quick. I’ve also been informed that one of the Example Macros doesn’t work, but that just needs to be updated.

I think that all the coding is done for version 1.2.0 of the EZ Animator Deluxe. I know many people will be excited by the last feature I added. It’s a way for you to hack the EZAD to add more than 10 dancers. In theory you could have up to 50 dancers, however in practice, because of lag, I wouldn’t recommend more than 20.

Now all I have to do is finish the new documentation. As you might know, I’m shifting all the help information to this website. There are several reasons for this. The most important reason is that I can update help more easily here on the web. Also, I can incorporate pictures and better text formatting to make the help easier to understand. And if you don’t understand something about a feature, you can add a question or comment. Finally, since it’s a webpage you can use tools like google translate to translate it into other languages. For instance, take a look at this page in German. To have a peek at what the new documentation will look like, click the link in the column to the right.

I’ve made a lot of progress on these help pages. I need to make a little more headway before I send out the new version to my beta testers. I hope to do that before the end of the weekend. If you would like to be a beta tester, IM me. I’d be happy to send you an advance copy as long as you are a current user.

Still trying to get all the code shiny and perfect for release. Thanks to a suggestion by Autumn Heyse, I have a free group radio addon for those of you who want to change the radio on group land. Also, I’m trying to figure out if I can add a change to how targeting works to make the new [GIVE] macro more useful. Also, there are a couple of more bugs I want to quash.

The last big item will be to get a lot more of the help documents online. Online, I can add more images and make the docs easier to read and understand. I want to give people the option of looking at the help notecard in world, or jumping to the website for help. Making great help documents is not the most fun part of my job. However, I know that the better the help documents, the more likely that people can find solutions to their issues themselves. That makes everyone happy, so I need to make sure I spend the time to do it right.

I’m working hard on gettting out the next version of the EZ Animator Deluxe. Here is a list of the changes:

Feature additions:

1. Incorporate the ZHAO II script. Major changes:
   - A much simpler and streamlined AO notecard setup.
   - Up to 12 stands, 12 walks, 12 sits &12 ground sits
   - Play stands in a random order
2. New Macros Commands
   - [RADIO] – Change the music URL on parcels you own.
   - [REGION_SAY] – Say commands throughout a region using llRegionSay
   - [GIVE] – Gives object to [TARGET]
   - [EMAIL] – Sends email to an address. These emails can be replied during the same session if you do not detach the HUD
   - [OWNER_SAY] – Says something in chat that only the owner can see using llOwnerSay, good for adding reminder text to a macro
3. Only play warning message and tips once per instance of the HUD, rather than every time you rez it.
4. Added a parameter for Hugs to change the text when you offer a hug
5. HUD can be minimized/restored while sitting on the ground
6. Added Tools menu with the following tools to start:
   - SLURL – Say an SLURL for the current location.
   - Location for Macros – Say the current location in the HUDDLES macro format, so it can be easily copied and pasted into a notecard.
   - Who is nearby? – Displays avatars within sensor range and within chat range.

Bug Fixs:

1. Fixed bug when resetting a minimized HUD. HUD should no longer get stuck minimized.
2. Eliminated dialog for dance invites
3. Eliminated misleading message when wearing the Dance Ball

How can you help?

It’s going to take me sometime to update all the documentation and to test the new version. In the mean time you can help by:

1. If you have any ideas for bug fixes or feature additions that I might still be able to slip in, post them here or send me an IM.
2. Also, if you have any radio stations that you would like to get on the default Radio Station notecard, please send them to me. But please, only send me your top three stations. Do not send me a long list of URLs. I don’t have time to check them all.

It’s update time again. I’ve been working on this update off and on for a few months. There were some bug fixes that got things rolling, but as time went on I added some new features as well.

First things first, new features!

Function Keys! F2-F12

I added some gestures that you can activate which bind the function keys on your keyboard to the EZAD. In other words, when you press F2 on your keyboard, it’s like touching the first animation on the list of text buttons. F2-F11 correspond to buttons 1-10. F12 is the stop button.
(more…)