Monday 25 June 2012

nPosing


In the world, there are consumers and there are creators...

There are also people like me who exist in the middle ground, who like to "dabble" who like to create, who like to know how stuff work and aim to make stuff better.  If you're the type of person who loves poking around with opensource code, takes time to learn how stuff is made.  Heck, if you've built your own PC you know where I'm coming from...the satisfaction, the "yeah that's what I made" thing...that.

Well in Second Life, I do that to an Nth degree, I've created and consumed almost everything that I could in Second Life, from clothes, media, buildings, odd bits of LSL/Mono code, parts of community/sim builds.  I've done a heck of a lot in Second Life, I'm one of the "all rounders"...a jack of all trades...etc.

I used to put very very simple LSL sit scripts on benches and chairs that I'd made because well 2 reasons a) Simple sits are easy to make, b) I HATE POSEBALLS.  And I'm not the only one, I always thought the MLP stuff would be better without poseballs I always thought that poseballs were passé, even when I started in Second Life, more than 5 years ago.

So I used sit scripts and I bought some of the pose scripts from marketplace but nothing ever had what I wanted in it...until I stumbled across nPose.  nPose is..."an LSL script for use in Second Life® that allows one or more avatars to sit on (and otherwise control) objects and rez props, without poseballs."  nPose is...GREAT.

Sure it's a "work in progress" it's an opensource experimentation, but at it's core it does everything right, it works if you're creating a couch, a bed even as a single sit engine, it's awesome.

And that's not getting into the "other stuff" nPose can do, and it can do a lot, I've fiddled with bits of the code and turned off or on various things, I've had long (sometimes days long) conversations with some of the "main" script writers trying to work to a "better implementation method" or a less laggy colour change script.  Trust me Howard over there will roll his eyes if you mention my name and the words "mithering S.O.B." might not be far away from his mind or lips.

When I first used it, I used it simply for an animation, that was it...I just wanted a couple of animations in something and an easy way to switch through them.  And I learned that in the first hour or two, then...then I learned more.  Now I'm throwing in colour/texture change buttons, Rezzable accessories (props), RLV/RLVa controls and everytime I run into a wall there's a support group in the form of the nPose community, people who can answer the questions, who can help you work to make your creation better.

The only limit...is your imagination...that's really cheesy to write but in this case that's what I've come to the conclusion of...This one tool can do so much and the price makes it unbeatable...it's free.

You can find nPose in world at various places, this page has more details: Find nPose

and you can join the nPose community inworld just search nPose in group search.