• You will be able to give your avatar a boost when hugging someone else. By first saying /99boost X, where X is a number between 0 and 10. For instance, saying /99boost 2, will mean that when you hug someone else, your avatar will be lifted off the ground by 0.2 meters for the hug. That boost value will be remembered. You can turn the boost on and off and change the height whenever you want. Here are the commands to use the hug boost:
  • /99boost X – changes the boost height. X must be a number between 0 and 10. The boost height will be equal to X/10, so /99boost 5, will give your avatar a boost of 0.5 meters when you hug someone else. This command also turns on the hug boost.
  • /99boost off – turns hug boost off
  • /99boost on – turns hug boost on
• The EZAD remembers the last person you hugged. If you attempt to hug them again, it will not ask permission from that avatar again. The hug will just start. The person being hugged can stop a hug by saying /99stop. If the person says /99stop during or after a hug, permission to hug them is relinquished. The EZAD only remembers the last person, so if you hug someone new, the previous avatar’s permission is relinquished.

Again these changes will be in the next version coming out soon.

For instance, if the name of the macro is “Wave”, you will be able to simply say: /99n wave and the Wave macro will play. Please note that these commands are not sensitive to capitalization. Remember it’s /99n and then the name. That ‘n’ is important.

I’ve also doing a lot of little optimization fixes. I’ve thought of something I can do which should speed up it’s operation. It will likely be something that most people won’t notice, but for those people who use it in laggy clubs, it should help.

Things are really winding down on the new features front for this release. I’ll be mostly working on the new update system this week.

Many people have asked for the ability to change the name used for emotes, so that instead the EZAD saying “Keiki Lemieux waves” it can say “Keiki waves” or “Ms. Lemieux waves” or “The Keikster waves”. It will be really simple to change your name for emotes and chat messages. I think it will also change your name for emails that you send as well. Here is the command:

• /99set name Your New Name – for example:
  • /99set name Keiki
  • /99set name Ms. Lemieux
  • /99set name The Keikster
  • /99set name Keiki the Great

Again, this is a feature that will be available in the NEXT version of the EZ Animator, which should be out soon, since I’m running out of bugs to fix and features to add.

• /99flight on
• /99flight off
• /99flight (toggles it on or off)

Both of these features are found under the Tools Menu (below):

To get to the tools menu, you click on the button in the lower right corner. If you then click “Get Avatar Keys”, all nearby avatars will be listed in your chat. Don’t worry only you will see these names and keys, so you can use it in a crowded area without bothering anyone else. The output looks like this:

If you want to get the key for an avatar which is not nearby, you can instead use the targeting system. First target the avatar by typing, /99target and the avatar’s full name (this is a feature that is currently broken but will be fixed in version 1.2.1), like this:

Then you go to the tools menu and choose “Target Info.” This is the output you’ll see:

Next, I’ll be working on the update scripts. My goal is to make sure that the update process to version 1.2.1 is as automatic as possible.

Here is a progress report on the next version of the EZ Animator Deluxe. Things that I’ve added so far:

1. [NO_DANCE] – This tag anywhere in a macro will make the EZAD not play that macro while in dance mode. This will allow people to combine all their dance and non-dance macros into one notecard.
2. [TARGET_FIRST] & [TARGET_LAST] -These work just like the [TARGET] tag so you can insert your current target’s first or last name into an emote. Also, you will be able to use multiple [TARGET] tags in one emote
3. Now when you click the Load Notecard you also see AO notecards and vice versa. However, depending on which button you press, the AO notecards are either shown first or last.
4. Additions to the Tools menu: List all animations, sounds, landmarks or objects. This will list out all of a particular type of object in open chat so you can more easily copy and paste things into notecards.
5. Groundsit button puts you in ‘Ground Sit Mode’, meaning you play your current groundsit animation without having to actually sit on the ground. You can also use the /99ground command.
6. Most chat commands work if an object of yours says the command now, not just if you say it. For instance, you can configure certain collars to turn your AO on and off and the EZAD will now respond to those commands appropriately.
7. See hug improvements here.
8. BUG: Fixed various targeting problems. /99target avatar name now works again.
9. BUG: Spaces before or after an animation name now are trimmed and will not cause an error.
10. BUG: Memory leak on consolidated script fixed.
11. BUG: When leaving dance mode, the animation will stop again.
12. BUG: [REPEAT] tag no longer spams in Dance mode.
13. BUG: HUDDLES Customer Service Group invite link fixed.

Next on the to do list: a couple of enhancements to the Tools menu:

1. Get keys of nearby avatars.
2. OwnerSay the name and key of current target. This combined with the /99target avatar name command will allow you to find anyone’s key who is in the major name2key databases.

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.

The next change is that now you can stop an hug, once it has begun. So if you hug someone and realize that the hug is a little long and uncomfortable, you can end it early by hitting the stop button. Also, you can make a hug be really long, even an hour or more and end when you want. This means that you could set up a couples dance with the HUD, set it for 10 minutes or an hour and then just let the animations run until you decide to hit the stop button. It will often be better to use a set of poseballs for couples dances, but this might make a nice compromise when none are available.

Oh! Another change that I’m sure people will love is that in addition to using someone’s full name in a hug emote (by putting [TARGET] in the emote), you can now use just their first name or just their last name. Your name remains your full name for now, although I’m thinking of ways to change that. Also, the [TARGET] command in general is now fixed. I messed it up with the last update.

Best of all, it should work fine with all your existing EZAD hug macros. If there is anyone out there who uses hugs a lot with their EZAD and want to test it early, please send me an instant message. I’d be happy to give you an early release to test it.

Here are a list of the knowns bugs:

1. May be a problem with the button to remove a dancer from the HUD.
2. HUGs are working differently since the changes to the physics engine. Script may need to be tweaked.
3. /99target not working, incorporate another name2key database if possible
4. Targeting for hugs and other things is not working properly.
5. Consolidated script bloated and often runs out of memory.
6. Link for new users to join group needs to be changed.
7. Use trim spaces so that extra spaces before or after an animation name doesn’t cause a failure.
8. [repeat] is broken in dance mode, it emotes something like [EMOTE]|[repeat]

I am considering a number of new features and changes to existing features. I’ll list some of the more likely candidates for inclusion here:

1. If a macro has been given a name using the [NAME] tag, then allow user to call a macro by name. For instance if you named a macro “hug”, then /99hug would run that macro, provided that notecard is the one currently loaded.
2. [no_dance] tag which makes a macro not work during dance mode
3. [target_first] like [target] but only the first name
4. [target_last] like [target] but only the last name
5. I’m considering eliminating one of the load notecard buttons and just having one. When you click the Load Notecard button you would see all notecards, regular and AO mixed. You choose which notecard you want to use and the appropriate script loads it. I’m having trouble deciding if that would be easier or cause more confusion.
6. Tools Menu > List all animations, sounds, landmarks, objects, notecards, etc.
7. Tools Menu > Get Nearby avatar key
8. Tools Menu > Say Current target name and key
9. Groundsit button. This would fill the gap that so many people seem to want. It would be a button that allowed people to use their currently loaded groudsit anywhere.
10. I’m creating an updater that will be almost fully automatic. Future update scripts will be completely automatic. No moving animations or scripts. Just place your HUD and updater on the ground in the same sim and the updater will take care of all the updating for you.
11. Set distance for HUGs.
12. Check all stations on the radio notecard.
13. /99ao on and /99 ao off should work from owner’s objects too.
    

I’m not certain that all of these features will make it into the next version. Also, I have a few more ideas that may make it in, but I don’t want to publish them and get people’s hopes up.

This is your chance to lobby for other new features and to point out other bugs that may not be on the list. I may not be able to get another revision out until the end of the summer, so speak up now!