[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition (Script for Designers)
(c) 2014 Auryn BeornSnowglobe Basic script in Marketplace.
Thank you for having considered this script to enhance the quality of your products. Please read the following instructions carefully, especially the ones explaining which permissions to apply to the scripts for the next owner. Failure to complete this task INVALIDATES the license governing your use of this set of scripts. Should you have problems, please fill the scripts assistance form, explaining what you did and what happened, and I'll get back to you.
IMPORTANT!
The script contains a check to prevent accidental give-aways. If you haven't set permissions correctly in your inventory, then the script will self delete when you try to use it. The best way to ensure you set permissions correctly is by doing it NOW in your inventory.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FEATURES
- Start/Stop at the same time:
Light, Spin Parts (keys, stars...), Particles Snow, Animated Texture - Start/Stop those effects independently when the global effect is ON
- Change the light color
- Change the animated texture type (slide/rotate) - Global setting
- Change the speed of the animated texture - Global setting
- Menu timeout to reduce lag - no open listeners after timeout (0.001 ms script time when idle)
- Final user can change access to owner only/everybody/group
- Menu can be integrated into tools such as MLPv2, AVsitter... (AVsitter version 2 works too!)
SET UP: WHAT SCRIPT TO USE?
There are two scripts contained in your folder:
[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH [Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH [MODULE]
We need to use ONLY ONE of them in a given product.
Which one? How to choose?
The [MODULE] version, as explained in the THE MAIN SCRIPT, AS A MODULE YOU CAN USE FROM ANOTHER SCRIPT section, will allow you to use this script integrated with other scripts that allow sending linked messages, such as the Multi Love Pose (MLP) or AVSitter for multiavatar, multianimation devices.
So, depending on what we need, we'll use the following script as main one:
Normal use - We want the menu to show when the object is clicked:
[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH
The menu should show up after clicking a button from another script, like MLP, AVSitter:
[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH [MODULE]
Once we've chosen the right main script, we have to set some descriptions in the primitives of the object, following the instructions below.
SETUP: CHANGE PERMISSIONS FOR NEXT OWNER
Check the following section on this page, knowing that each [Black Tulip] ASSET refers to the following scripts:
[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH
[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH [MODULE]
SETUP: EXAMINING THE SAMPLE OBJECT
With this script, you may control the following:
- Start/Stop at the same time:
Light, Spin Parts (keys, stars...), Particles Snow, Animated Texture - Start/Stop those effects independently when the global effect is ON
- Change the light color
- Change the animated texture type (slide/rotate) - Global setting
- Change the speed of the animated texture - Global setting
We'll understand better what this means by examining the [Black Tulip] Snowglobe - SCRIPTED SAMPLE object. Rez it, and let's follow this explanation.
Before anything, right click the object to edit, then click the "Content" tab. When we do this, we're inspecting the contents of the ROOT PRIM. You should see the "[Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH" script.
What does this mean?
That the script and texture for particle effects, if any, have to be dropped into the ROOT PRIM. This is the default when we simply right click an object, then select "Edit" from the menu. The sample object has no particle textures used (and so particles will show as a little dot), but you can drop your texture and set it up as indicated later.
Having this clear, now let's examine the sample object in detail. It consists of two linked prims: The snowglobe itself, and a winding key. Right click to edit, click "Edit linked", and now:
- Inspect the snowglobe prim. Check its description. It says:
animTexture;2#snow#light
- Inspect now the winding key's description. It says:
spinPrim;<1.0,0.0,0.0>;1.0;1.0
What do these descriptions mean? That's what we cover in the next section.
SETUP: FORMAT OF THE DESCRIPTIONS
With this script, we may have the following:
- One light point
- One animated texture point
- One particle snow emitter point (please check the "Important notes about the snow particles!" section for more)
- As many spinning parts as you could need
If you rez the sample [Black Tulip] Snowglobe - SCRIPTED SAMPLE object and click it to get the menu, you'll see, as soon as you select ON/OFF to start all the effects, that the winding key spins. But there it is only one prim that will be the snow emitter, only one prim that will be the light point, and only one prim that will have the texture animated.
To tell the script which these primitives are in our LINKED object, we have to write specific words (CASE SENSITIVE) in the DESCRIPTION of each primitive (DESCRIPTION - not the name, don't confuse them!)
- Expected description for a light point: light
- Expected description for a snow emitter: snow
- Expected description for an animated texture prim: animTexture;FACE_NUMBER (see here for how to get the face number if you don't know how; if you want all sides animated, type -1 as FACE_NUMBER)
- Expected description for a spinning part: see the following section, HOW TO SET UP THE SPINNING PARTS
We may want a primitive being, at the same time, animated texture AND snow emitter.
Is this possible?
Yes. The description we should write would be, in that case:
animTexture;2#snow
Does this mean, if we want to have light, snow AND animated texture in the same prim, we could write:
animTexture;2#snow#light
and it would work? YES
Does this mean, if we want a spinning part AND snow, we could write:
spinPrim;<0.0,0.0,1.0>;1.0;1.0#snow
and it would work? YES
Does it matter if we write first snow, light or any other? It matters not. Write them as you prefer. Only what specifies how the prim will spin has a very specific format to be respected, but that is explained following.
And that would be it.
Set the DESCRIPTIONS according to these simple rules, drop the main script in your linked object, and your snowglobe is ready to go!
SETUP: HOW TO SET UP THE SPINNING PARTS
As you can check in the sample [Black Tulip] Snowglobe - SCRIPTED SAMPLE object, this script allows you to ALSO rotate, by spinning, all the child prims you wish to rotate (until you hit the script's memory limit - don't worry, this won't happen with five/ten spinning prims). You could also make the root prim to rotate. Perhaps this is not what you would like anyway, but feel free to make a copy of your object and try this if you're curious about :-) (basically, it will make the whole object to spin around the root)
We have to begin by rezzing our object.
Set the rotation of the ROOT PRIM to:
X = 0.00 Y = 0.00 Z = 0.00
Don't worry if your object doesn't look like you have designed it. You will be able of rotating it again as you wish ONCE you have gathered the values for the spin vectors.
Rez the [Black Tulip] Snowglobe - SCRIPTED SAMPLE sample object to follow this explanation. The captures are taken with a different object, but the principle is the same: pay special attention to the sections of the diagram that are highlighted.
Set its root rotation as said above:
X = 0.00 Y = 0.00 Z = 0.00
Now go into Edit linked parts. Click the winding key.
Check its description field. It says:
spinPrim;<0.0,0.0,1.0>;1.0;1.0
What does this mean?
The first that we have to know is that the script will read the semicolons (;) and take all the values between them.
So in the case above:
spinPrim;<0.0,0.0,1.0>;1.0;1.0
we see that there are FOUR pieces of information:
spinPrim <0.0,0.0,1.0> 1.0 1.0
It is VERY IMPORTANT the order these values appear! If they don't appear in this exact order, the script won't be able to read the values of the prim we want to spin.
What each of those values mean?
First one:
spinPrim
means that the script has to consider this prim as a spinning one. The word has to be written exactly as said above. It IS case sensitive!
The second one:
<0.0,0.0,1.0>
is the spin vector. Don't worry, it is explained after this how to obtain it correctly.
The third one:
1.0
is the spin rate value. It is a number with decimals that, to make it easy to understand, we can think of as the velocity, so the smaller the value we type in, the slower the piece will spin and the reverse.
and the last one:
1.0
might be complicated to understand and, anyway, it doesn't make sense if our prims are not physical. Since this last one can be very technical, we will leave it always as 1.0. If you have the knowledge to follow the explanations from the wiki, then you can learn more about it in this wiki page: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlTargetOmega
This last value corresponds to the gain parameter the wiki mentions there.
And how the spin vector has been obtained?
With the object having the root rotation set to <0.00 ,0.00, 0.00> (as stated above), and being in WORLD COORDINATES mode, we choose the axis we want the object rotating around.
- If the axis is X, the RED one, we write the spin vector as: <1.0, 0.0, 0.0>
- If the axis is Y, the GREEN one, we write the spin vector as: <0.0, 1.0, 0.0>
- If the axis is Z, the BLUE one, we write the spin vector as: <0.0, 0.0, 1.0>
IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE SNOW PARTICLES
You would expect that the SIZE of your snowglobe affected somehow to the snow emitted, and in fact, this happens by using this tool. If your SNOW EMITTER PRIM is smaller, the particles effect covers less volume. If bigger, it covers more. It attempts to always fill the snowglobe, INSIDE.
To be able to achieve this, the script, internally, takes the smallest dimension of the prim where you say the snow will emit, and it will adapt the effect to that smallest dimension.
Example: if the size of the primitive you decide to be the snow emitter is X = 1.0, Y = 0.5, Z = 2.0, then the script will take 0.5 to decide how far the particles will get.
From this, a DESIGN TIP is that you set the SPHERE that snowglobes use to have as the primitive emitting snow (you can see that in fact in the sample object included). The sphere of the snowglobe will have the same size for X, Y, Z, or at least, very similar sizes among them, so the snow effect will adapt nicely to the size of your snowglobe.
If you see that your particles barely show up, check if you're using a different primitive as emitter as well as the sizes (as it could be the ground cylinder in the provided sample: Z is quite smaller than X and Y, and that value would be the one taken for the snow effect.)
Please read the following notes about WHERE to drop the particle texture if you use any, and setting permissions: IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE PARTICLES
SETUP: THE MAIN SCRIPT, AS A MODULE YOU CAN USE FROM ANOTHER SCRIPT
Check the following section on this page, knowing that:[Black Tulip] ***Script Name*** [MODULE] refers to [Black Tulip] Snowglobe - Basic Edition MESH [MODULE]
CODE_NUMBER is -18640887
NAME_ON_MENU is Snowglobe
AVSitter line looks like: BUTTON Snowglobe|-18640887
MLP line looks like: LINKMSG Snowglobe | 1,-4,-18640887,fromMLP
You have example AVpos and .MENUITEMS notecards with your purchase. Remember that this works too with AVSitter 2.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Q: I click the animated texture/light/particle options on the menu, but no visible outcome shows. What's going wrong?
A: Most likely, there's not a light source/particles source/animated texture source defined in the object. Double-check the DESCRIPTION of the prim you expect to be a SL light source/particles source/animated texture source.
For any other problem not described here, please give a complete description of your issue in the following online form.
I'll get back to you after I have read your report and replicated your issue inworld, according to your description of it. Please, be detailed.
-- Auryn Beorn
