Archive for the ‘pet projects’ Category

I had to take a little break again for health reasons (no not the coronavirus). This me trying to catch up 😛

Loads of new pipe pieces all finished up (pretty much everything uses custom LOD models).

The new flanges are pretty much final (there is a couple low-lod models I don’t like but it’s probably just me).

That’s pretty much all the ‘pipe’ parts I wanted, manifolds don’t really need custom parts: Slap two pieces of tube together and you can make pretty much any junction you want already.

What remains: Valves, valve accessories, mounting brackets, supports, and… maybe a few open and/or broken parts?

I’ve tried to write a check-list (feel free to comment and make suggestions!) of all the different parts I want to make… and it is pretty big.

Big and incomplete too. I can’t decide on what valve and elements to add to the set and which designs, especially for the 10cm and 30cm pipes.

At least I got more bends done I suppose? These, with the short turn ones I’ve already done for the large pipes SHOULD be everything you realistically need, as far as bent pipes go.

I also don’t know If I want to have flanges on the valves. Not having any means that you can re-use some of the valve parts across pipe sizes, just add the proper flange set to it. But it is less practical, and might end up bloating the LI.

All 3 sizes are done reference-wise and I’ve re-uploaded some test versions of the 1 meter flanges to try a different texture & face layout for the models.

So far, so good!

I really need to pick up the pace on this project, it has dragged on for long enough already.

There hasn’t been a lot of updates lately, sorry about that. A lot of things have happened in the past 3 weeks that had me bounce between stress, anxiety, and some very mild illness.

I don’t know what it is, but it is very much non life threatening. Probably a hay fever/cold, anxiety/hypochondria cocktail, so don’t send me any funeral wreaths 🙂

That being said, sorry to disappoint, but it’s “return of the pipe kit” 😛

It took me an entire day to gather all my references again (for some reason I did not save any?) and to remember which ones I was using.

I decided to do some work on the two other planned pipe sizes and settled for 30cm and 10cm diameter.

The idea is that they are just small enough to fit behind each-others within the gap left by a 90° turns.

I’m also adding a raised “plate” on flange faces. It almost looks too busy, but it double as a pipe end cap, and makes sense given the bolt placement on each flange.

So I’ve finished the cuff’s “hazard” stripes for the Meat Market cuffs (If you have been living under a rock lately, it’s a little ‘extra’ I have on my Patreon page)

I still have to do something for the shock tape version, the issue I’m faced with is that, with the side hoops there is hardly any space for the shock tape…

So I think I’ll either make it so the tape is only visible if you hide the rings, or I’ll just run the tape under the rings… and whatever is visible will be visible?

Crazy I know! I guess this project isn’t dead yet.

I’m done with most of the code I had to write, including the extra options for the coloring HUD.

I’ve tried several versions of the hoop section on the HUD and eventually settled on this one.

(yes, right is on the left, but that’s because the HUD assumes that you will be camming your avatar from the front)

Unless I encounter a really nasty bug, I should be able to release the cuffs in the coming days.

The final textures are complete (~70 total from 256×128 to 512×256, 8 colors, 3 styles), cut and uploaded, they have the same “theme” as the collar obviously: unpainted, clean and worn-out.

I also uploaded the final version of the cuff models ( with proper LODs this time ).

I’ve also almost finished the new “combined HUD” too.

As you can see from the first picture, there was some lighting consistency issues in my textures and it didn’t look right at all. I had to re-arrange my rendering setup to get things to look closer to the collar.

The shape works well for the wrists and ankles, so that’s one less thing to worry about.

The last picture is with and without the hoops. (The version with the hoops is darker because of the corrosion buildup around the edges of the part)

I’m amazed by the number of people who voted, I didn’t expect that many… there is so much support for both options that I think I’ll end up making both.

Now onto the UVmaps, everything is straight and clean, But since the cuff diameter is a lot smaller, some of the UV islands are shorter. I would have re-used the collar textures if I could, but there is a bunch of things that aren’t “quite” the same shape, or at the same place, so I don’t think it would look right.

The ring, and locking shackle are on a separate texture and are identical to the collar’s, so I will just reuse them (that’s a good thing).

I haven’t figured out how to pack the cuffs into (if possible) smaller maps than the collar. I mean… It would make sense, right? Smaller object, smaller textures.