lslscripts/Skirt Builder/manual.txt

0. Before you IM me.

I think it is important to mention it again in the very beginning - if you think this tool is useful, I 
would be interested to see how much, 
and indeed the tips are much more appreciated than random IMs :-) I also do live music - and 
similar to live music, it is not *required* to tip the performer/author. However, your desire to share 
some of your cash does express the extent of your satisfaction with the product, so I am making 
this experiment to see if this works.

Once again - this tool is and has to be free as in beer and free as in speech. If someone charged 
you for getting it, they violated the GPL - please file an AR and get the 
free copy from my location. Where - it is mentioned in the http://daltonic.blogspot.com/ in the 
entries with the tag "primskirtbuilder".

IMPORTANT: REQUESTS FOR HELP.  

I do not have much time at all, and I prefer not to spend it on answering questions. if you have 
something specific to ask - drop me an email at dalienta@gmail.com - if the question/bug report 
is valid, it will be acted upon and answered on my blog - http://daltonic.blogspot.com, in an entry 
with the tag "primskirtbuilder". For those impatient that require the help "right now" - I probably 
can help, take a look at the last section of the manual for my consulting fees before IMing me to 
ensure that we are in full understanding. If you want an alternative form of licensing or want 
unrelated consulting help - drop me an email with the description of what you want, and I will 
reply as my time permits. Please do not consider it as any form of hostility - it is just to ensure my 
personal time is spent in the most efficient manner. Thanks for your understanding :-)

1. The contents of the package

The builder, which looks like a posing stand, contains:

- EULA
- GNU License (GPL) - read this before making any mods
- Introduction - first time read for the new owners
- pose stand script
- prim (used to create the skirts and control elements)
- Vint's prim skirt builder manual - the manual you are reading
- waist - the texture for the geometry control prim

Pay attention, that all the skirts it creates, have the same creator as the creator of the "prim" - that 
is, me, 
Dalien Talbot (or the previous owner, if you grabbed a copy from someone). It may be ok if you 
build the clothes for yourself, but if you want to resell your creations,
you might want to change the creator to be you. How this is done is described in the section 
"Changing the creator".

At first feel free to practice, so you are familiar with how the tool works.


2. Getting started

Rez the stand onto the ground, and either click it or stand on it. If you stand on it, you will get into 
the "edit appearance" pose, which can be convenient if you want to see how the skirt looks on 
yourself. If you do not want that, clicking is exactly the same.

You will get a dialog, which will say how many prims will the skirt have, and three buttons: "More", 
"Less", and "Rez...".

The "More" and "Less" will increase or decrease the number of prims, and "Rez..." will create the 
skirt and control elements. You can go up to 60 prims in the skirt, but this is not very sim-friendly - 
some of the calculations are rather intensive, and it may make the things slow. (Also, wearing 
such a monster will create a lag for the others - so think twice before creating it).

Once you have hit "Rez...", wait until the rezzing finishes, it takes some time.

In the end, you will see the prims in the skirt shape above the platform, a green ball in the center 
of it, and two control prims - one on the left, which looks the same as the the prims making up the 
skirt - "appearance control" prim, and one on the right, with the circle and the "Waist size" written 
on it - "geometry control" prim.

IMPORTANT: never change the skirt prims directly! All the manipulations are to be done via the 
left and right control prims.

Also, be sure to not do the changes too fast - and especially do not touch anything while the skirt 
is being linked - this may have unpredictable effects!

Both of the control prims have a quick reference in the text above them, but below is a more 
verbose description.

3. Changing the appearance of the skirt prims (using the appearance control prim)

Simply edit the appearance control prim on the left, and most of the changes will be automatically 
replicated to all the skirt prims at once. The changes get replicated in 1-2 seconds - to speed up 
the editing, only the last state of the object is transferred.

"Most of the changes" includes:

- prim type (box/circle/cylinder/etc. - sculpted prims would NOT work.)
- prim scale (X/Y/Z size)
- flex characteristics - note that e.g. sphere can not be "flex" 
- textures/colors/transparency on each of the sides or all of them - same as for "normal" editing.

One note about the flex objects and size replication - I have noticed that for the flex objects, 
changing the sizes on axis other than Z results in no visible effect - it may be a bug in the script, 
or, more probably the bug in SL (since when you click those prims subsequently, they get the 
correct sizes).

Another thing is that the flex parameters do not seem to take effect immediately if you change 
them - you might want to flip the "flex" setting off, wait for it to replicate, and then turn it on again. 
It may be a bug in SL or in the script - maybe I take a look at this later on.

Note, that also changing the position for the appearance control prim affects the position of the 
skirt - by moving it, you will move the whole set of the prims for the to-be skirt at the same 
distance. I tried to be smart about changing the size of the prim - since when you change it in the 
GUI, the center of the prim also drifts - these changes should not normally cause any movements 
of the skirt.

NOTE: the textures that you use, have to have the "copy" permission set!

4. Changing the waist size / flare / bend (using the geometry control prim)

The shape of the circle (or ellipse, in most cases :) with the text "waist size"  is exactly the same 
as the shape of the imaginary ellipse on the waist line, from which the prims are hanging. The 
sizes are proportional - except the geometry control prim is a few times bigger for your 
convenience.
So, editing the Y-size or Z-size will allow you to change the shape of the ellipse along which the 
prims are positioned.

The Y-angle represents the flare - how much do the skirt prims ... umm... well... how much do 
they "flare" :) the angle is relative the vertical - i.e. "0" would mean they are vertical, "90" degrees 
would mean they "grow out" horizontally. Turning off the flex will make the things look more vivid.
When you rotate the geometry control prim using the "green" circle, you can go only up to angle 
of 90 degrees. If you manually stick in the bigger values into the editor box, you can get the skirts 
looking *upwards* :-) (Not sure why anyone would want to do that, but still thought I'd let you 
know.)

NOTE: the original LoopRez had both the coordinates and the radius and the rotation relative the 
center of the prims. I found it inconvenient, so in my scenario all of these are done relative to the 
waist line. 

The X-size of the geometry control prim represents the "bend coefficient" - it changes the Z-
position of the prims depending on their place on the virtual ellipse. Allosw for a fancier-looking 
skirts, I suppose :-)

5. Changing the number of prims

Midway through your work, you might realize that you have taken too few or too many prims - no 
problem! click on the stand or the skirt itself, and the menu will popup.
Use the already familiar "More" and "Less" buttons to set the number of prims you need, and then 
click "Rez..." - the current skirt will get wiped, and the one with the new number of prims will re-
rez. Again, give it some time, do not hurry !

6. Finalizing your work

Once you are happy with how your skirt looks like, you will want to link it. While it can be done 
manually, I do think it is a boring exercise. So, I made the script such that it links it for you!

Click on the stand (or on the skirt itself) to get the menu. In the menu, click "Link...". You will see 
a popup asking you for a permission to link the objects - answer "Yes" (otherwise it would not 
work), and wait. When the linking process is finished, the resulting skirt will be moved to the left 
and front from the posing stand by 1 meter,
feel free to rename it as you like, take into the inventory and try wearing! :-)

The only thing you might want to adjust then is its position on your body - you can do it while 
hitting "edit" on the skirt itself while wearing it, and moving it up/down.
Since the green ball is the root prim of the linked set, besides the vertical adjustment, normally 
there should be no other quirks needed.

7. Cleaning up

You can delete all the rezzed prims by clicking the stand, and hitting the "Wipe all..." button. this 
will leave only the posing stand, which you can take back into the inventory.

Also, if you take away the posing stand, and leave the control prims hanging in the air - they will 
self-destruct in approximately 1 hour.

Have fun and enjoy your skirts!! :-)



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Advanced/Commercial: Changing the creator for the skirt prims
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Okay, this may be a difficult operation for some... read very very very carefully, and then follow 
step by step - PRECISELY. 
If it does not work - then repeat it again. If it still does not work - you are probably doing 
something wrong. Reread and retry again. 

DISCLAIMER (read carefully before IMing me for help with this part): You can hire me for help if I 
am online (no guarantees I will do it though - depends on my availability) - but since this is a 
boring activity (and since you will probably be making the money after it), be prepared that I will 
charge for this consulting.
 L$1500 is the disturbance compensation which includes also 15 minutes of consulting time (it 
should not take more than that), all the time spent on top of that that it is L$900 for every other full 
15 minutes spent. (Yeah, I am not cheap, but still it is way cheaper than I would cost IRL :) You 
can indeed also ask for the help of your friendly scripter - this operation is not complex at all for 
someone who has done it, I just want to avoid spending all the time in SL moving the scripts 
between the objects :-)

So, now that you have read the above scary passage, and are determined to save some money 
by doing it yourself, here is how to do it:

1) rez the posing stand from your inventory (since it is full-mod, you now have 2 objects - one in 
the inventory which will be the "backup copy", and one rezzed - which will be your working copy). 
If you have only one copy - means someone has reset the permissions on the objects - hence 
violating the GPL. Go and complain back to them! :)

2) Right-click on the stand and choose "Edit..." from the pie menu. 

3) in the dialog with "General | Object | Features | Texture | Content" tabs, click on the tab named 
"Content"

4) drag the prim object named "prim" onto the ground.

5) you will see the dialog change, and in the "Content" tab there will be now the content of this 
prim - a single script called "positioning/control"

6) drag this script into your inventory

7) create a new prim, which would have the desired characteristics as a starting prim for the skirt 
(flex/textures/etc). 
NOTE: any textures that you use in this prim HAVE to be copyable, as anyone who will grab a 
copy of the tool from you will be using them as a starting point for building.
Also - this prim has to have the full permissions!!!

8) right-click this prim, select "Edit...", then "Content" tab, and drop the script "positioning/control" 
from your inventory into the contents area of the new "prim" prim.

9) click on the "General" tab, and ensure that your prim is named "prim"

10) right-click your prim and select "Take" from the pie menu - this will take this new prim into 
your inventory

11) right-click the posing stand, choose "Edit...", then "Contents" tab to display the contents of the 
package again

12) select the "prim" object within the posing stand contents, and hit the "delete" key once (or 
right-click that piece, and choose the "Delete" menu item). The prim should disappear from the 
posing stand's contents.

13) find back the new "prim" prim that you have just created and taken into the inventory, drag it 
into the contents area of the posing stand, and drop there.

14) You are done! Close the edit box and test that everything is working.