Thursday 25 June 2015

Omega Upgrades & Repairs to Fusion, Scalez, Wideloads, Tartarus Hooves & Style Heels



Earlier this year, we released a massive 6 month upgrade project to our Fusion Mesh bodies range encompassing hundreds of individual parts and since then we have been slowly releasing new add on elements or new product lines to the range.
A project on this scale though is going to have cock ups. Sadly as much as we can beta test, check, reworking and look over things, eyes will eventually glaze over, and things will slip through the net.

Since these massive upgrade took place, we have been gathering feedback over what went right, and obviously what went wrong. In some cases, we issued emergency repairs, however for the lesser issues we looked at storing this for later repair.

About a six weeks back however while I was working through my initial beta work on Materials for my skins, clothes etc, we found a massive bug in Fusion. The bug meant the whole materials system was broken. As such this was considered to be a “show stopper” bug and required immediate repair, and a top to tail rebuild of every single Fusion & Scalez parts to repair the damage.
Opps.

I know however customers don’t like to get negatives through when it comes to updates, and with a list of other minor repair work, planned upgrades that never made it to Fusion last release, and a hand full of customer ideas, this presented the perfect opportunity to move Fusion to its Stable Release.

Important bit first.
Affected Product Lines: vString Revolutions, Wideloads, Fusion Mesh Bodies and Pick n Mix, Realz Fusion Breasts, Scalez and Scalez Demon, Tartarus Fusion Demon Hooves and Style Heels.
You will have already seen that the Revolutions were updated a few weeks back and if you have bought items, check the version numbers - if you have 1.2, then you need to update. If you have 1.5, then you have the current version.

If you have any of these products please, update them - it is free.

I know... you just got everything set up... why should I upgrade?
Well, as I said. This upgrade is far more than just a bug fixing session.

OMEGA Integration
One thing that has been on my plate right from the start of the Fusion project has been the Omega Applier issue and the stream of customers begging for us to integrate this.
Sadly while it seemed we were doing nothing, in fact we have been working with omega to get this solved, and Fusion 1.5 now has Omega Preinstalled.... Kind of.
The problem with Fusion is, unlike many other mesh bodies out there, its modular, covering a massive number of products. Sadly due to this, Omegas Business model and ours simply were not compatible. However they did come up with a new option over the last few months that makes our business models compatible.
On the Daily HUD for Fusion, Scalez, Wideloads, Demon hooves etc, you will find there is a new button with an Omega Symbol on it. Out of the Box, you will see it is Red.
By going to Omega on the market place or in World, you can buy their Omega Activator. What this does is quite simple. It will turn the Red Omega Button to Green.
Once that button is green... that’s all you need to do. You can now wear any Omega Advanced applier (yes, its Omega Materials Enabled), and Fusion will accept the clothing textures or materials.
Because this is stored in the daily hud, it means you can wear any combo of parts you want, and not have to do anything. Nice, simple and easy.

 vString Revolutions 4.6
This was covered in the previous update . See the Revolution 4.6 release however the Revolution Fusion chests with this are at 1.5 

Realz minor weight painting bugs
The Realz were designed to be really “unaffected” breasts – they are supposed to be small. To that end I did most of my testing on them with the shape sliders set at 50 for breast size.
However this limited vision did mean I didn’t see some minor weight painting issues that were causing issues when the sliders were pushed up.
All errors on the Realz have now been fixed.

That Shoe Issue
I have since Fusions release been bombarded with customers asking me if Shoes designed for other brands would work with Fusion. The answer then was no.
With Fusion 1.5, you now get a “Feet for Shoes” option. 
All I will say is this. Try these out and you may find they work quite well with certain shoes.

The Repair Work
Well... I have to cover this. Fusion and all related products have been through an upgrade process script wise and have been thoroughly tested. The major error here was Materials support which has now been fixed in All Fusion, Scalez, Wideloads, etc. Materials appliers previously built are unaffected. Chest modules also have had an upgrade script wise to deal with a minor issue that cropped up.

Fusion 1.5 Stable
The aim of this update is simply to take all the work done on the last version, clean it up and stabilise it. To be honest if I do say it, outside of the massive materials cockup, there were very few heavy bugs in the last version, however now, we have Fusion to a point where we believe no more repair work will be needed.
The second part of this really was to do tweeks to the system to make it not only the most advanced mesh body system on the grid, but also to make it the most compatible too.
Omega Integration now opens Fusion up to the mass market with thousands of clothing and skins available for customers quickly and easily. The new Feet for Shoes Option, adding to the Corset and Bootleg options, also means you can now use Fusion in a far more flexible way when it comes to mesh add ons.
Fusion itself is going to be developed more over time, however right now, this should be the last major upgrade for some time, with only new elements and parts being added to the range.

Thanks for reading


Tuesday 16 June 2015

vString Revolutions 4.6 Update

It is fair to say that you can't get everything spot on first time.
When it came to the Fusion Phase 2 project, and considering the unreal scope and scale of the project, there were going to be a few thing that slipped through the cracks.

We have over the last 3 months, been looking at Fusion, Wideload and Revolutions, listening to customer feedback and getting bugs, errors, and oddities sorted out slowly, however about a month ago, we came across a show stopper bug on Fusion that needed fixing so we started to collate all of the information on these things we gathered and started to work through them.

The First part of this release is the 4.6 Revolution update.



The Revolutions have been breathed on with this upgrade going up a notch in the process.
Firstly there were a number of bugs in the stand alone Revolutions. These ranged from minor top issues, nipple poke throughs etc, to menu errors. These have all been repaired.

Secondly as you will have seen on the Essentials, we integrated in Second Life Materials support. The Revolutions now have Materials support too with the Materials appliers.

Another customer request following the release of the new X-Loon vString Specials, was over the Mega Nipple. I have resisted this for a long time, as I like more realistic nipples, however... you win.
Saline, Silicone, Helium and Stars now have a new Mega Nipple Option.

Revolution / Fusion Advanced Piercings
This is a minor upgrade but still a rather cool one that came from a customer request.
On the Advanced Piercing, you got to choose from 44 options that affected both piercings.
On this upgrade you still get the 44 choices, but you now have independent left and right sides, allowing you to fit one style of piercing to the left, and another to the right. In addition you can now preset a hide on the left or right too meaning you can wear just one piercing if you fancy.

 Fusion Revolutions 1.5
As part of this project we have been working through all Fusion parts. It does make logicial sense that we have included the Fusion Revolutions updates with this box. You now get the 1.5 Stable Release of the Fusion Revolutions breasts with that, along with the nipple and smart piercing upgrades.
This update is semi optional but it is recommended, especially if you are going to be using Materials support.

As always, this upgrade is free. Simply wear your updater, or pop in to the vString main store and get your updates from the Redelivery Terminals.

More news on the Fusion 1.5 update will be coming over the next week or two as we finalise some exciting new features.

Tuesday 2 June 2015

vString X-Loon Balloon Girl Breasts now available

After 4 years of development, the first part of the Balloon Girl system is now available in the Form of the vString X-Loons.

As this is a PG blog, I can really tell you that much though, but full details and pictures are available on the adult Blog - Simply click here.

Monday 1 June 2015

vString Essentials Version 4.5 Update (X_X, XL and XXL)

Two years ago, I was very proud to release our Version 3 vString X_X, XL and XXL models.
It is fair to say these models rewrote the rule book at the time over Implant design in Second Life.

Since then we have been looking at the products, listening to customers and slowly but surely working towards the release of our Version 4 models, and that day, is today.

The specifications list for this revision is huge really, but they are simply hundreds of small improvements that come together to make a massive differences.
Highlights include: XL & XXL ground up redevelopment (total rebuild and refinement from scratch), Improved Smart Nipples and options, Advanced Piercing system (with 44 options), Dynamic Milk system (self scaling milk particle sizes depending on breast size) and texture, colour and glow control for milk, Improved scripting system, MCI applier compatibility, Evo Classic breasts (original vString design (not evo) with Evo texture mapping), Reduced mesh costs, SL Materials (Specular and Normals Mapping) Appliers and compatibility, Lite or Full models (cutting out heavier mesh items on the lite for a more streamline experience) and... well, the list goes on.

As always - you bought them, you get the updates for free - simply wear your updater, or pop in store and grab the updates from our redelivery terminal.

Enjoy!
Picture are available on the Adult Blog