Version 2.4 Release Notes

I DID tell everyone I was working on horses, and not just making Bitstrips :P

The 2.4 update should be automatically delivered if you rez your older horse. I have been beta testing it for about two weeks now, and honestly believe I've got all the various weird things that SL throws at one taken care of. The old "lock up" glitch would would sometimes happen if SL crashed has been eliminated, as have some of the transient "permission not granted" error messages you would get if you detached and reattached the horse quickly (basically, SL didn't always immediately recognize that it had granted permission--I ended up "asking" it three times before animating the horse).

I hope you like the changes I've made (if you don't, let me know!). I really want to thank you all for your your patronage and suggestions, many of which made it into this upgrade. Those of you who wrote to tell me how much you liked the horses REALLY make my day--I have loved being able to create these and share them with you.

Well, with no further ado, here are the changes--

Leg Animations--I doubled the frame rate, and hopefully things should be MUCH smoother. Without getting into technicalities, the sim impact is actually less now, even though I sped the animation up

Jump Animation--smoother, and is now the full jump depicted in the Muybridge animal motion studies. The horse also now prepares to land by tucking his rear legs and extending his forelegs (the prelanding anim is only for the ground, I'm afraid as sensing when a prim was approaching created too much lag).

Gallop Boost--In Gallop mode, there is a little extra boost making the gallop faster than the trot. You can toggle this off and on if you like by going to gait>boost

Prance Mode--In this mode (reached through pose mode), the horse will move its legs continuously using the gait of your choice, even when standing still. It might be useful if you feel like simulating dressage :) It's also an easy way to watch your horse's leg animations.

Key capture reliability--I eliminated the horse's most of the horse's dependence on Linden Lab animations, meaning that the horse now responds faster to key inputs.

Global Reset--"Reset Script" now resets all scripts in the horse (such as the leg scripts and the ear twitch scripts), not just the main scripts.

Hard Crash protection--hard crashes in which the horse needed to be manually reset should be greatly reduced (I'd say eliminated, but SL never fails to surprise me).

Various glitches--The spurious script error when rezzing a horse on the ground to work on it has been eliminated. If you crash in pose or saddled mode, the horse reverts to regular mode when you start SL again.

Dual Rider improvement--The Dual Rider should no longer tilt (unless you are going up an embankment, for example). The Rider with the sidesaddle horses now defaults to the sidesaddle posture (you can still select English if you like).

Sidesaddle Pommel- is now a sculpt (I had to make it slightly lower than actual ones, as otherwise it stuck through the skirt mesh) BIG thanks to Miss CoyoteAngel Dimsum who created that for me.

That's it for now! Next projects include a sculpted centaur avatar and a Shire Horse (BIG pony :)). I'm working with the Armour Store for barding for said Shire (that's horse armour) for those medieval sorts out there.

Happy Trails!

Miss Virrginia Tombola
Equestrienne and Proprietress
La Bicyclette