Autoalpha scripts keep failing... is it just us?

[Rick Nightingale]

Asking this more for my wife who relies on such things more than I do, but since I usually help her with her outfits it bugs me too...

For at least a year, we've noticed that the autoalpha scripts in clothing and alternative body parts simply don't work reliably. I'm sure they used to be more reliable than this. Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe it's product specific (don't want to really mention the commonly used mesh female body in case it's nothing to do with it).

It's often an obvious race condition, when logging in or changing complete outfits and the clothing gets attached before the body, so I guess the body misses the message* (If I were to write it I would mitigate that easily). Other times though, it's as if only parts of the message are getting through. Some parts of the body will alpha while others don't. It's so unreliable that we've resorted to preconfiguring individual bodies, removing the scripts and saving the body with the outfit. That's very far from ideal though.

To save time... No, there's nothing wrong with my internet connection and my modem and router do not need resetting (I'm a CCNP among other things and have a high level, business class connection here.) The issue happens no matter the viewer and on different PCs. The only common factor is SL, the body and autoalpha scripts.

*I wonder... when a worn item sends an llRegionSayTo() (or whatever), and that is heard by another worn object... is that process internal to the SL server, or does the message get relayed through the viewer?

ETA: After talking with someone, there have been no reports of this in general so it looks like it's just us. The only other commonality then is the two regions we are usually in. Hmm - time to dig.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Rick Daylight

[Lucia Nightfire]

10 hours ago, Rick Daylight said:

Asking this more for my wife who relies on such things more than I do, but since I usually help her with her outfits it bugs me too...

For at least a year, we've noticed that the autoalpha scripts in clothing and alternative body parts simply don't work reliably. I'm sure they used to be more reliable than this. Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe it's product specific (don't want to really mention the commonly used mesh female body in case it's nothing to do with it).

It's often an obvious race condition, when logging in or changing complete outfits and the clothing gets attached before the body, so I guess the body misses the message* (If I were to write it I would mitigate that easily). Other times though, it's as if only parts of the message are getting through. Some parts of the body will alpha while others don't. It's so unreliable that we've resorted to preconfiguring individual bodies, removing the scripts and saving the body with the outfit. That's very far from ideal though.

To save time... No, there's nothing wrong with my internet connection and my modem and router do not need resetting (I'm a CCNP among other things and have a high level, business class connection here.) The issue happens no matter the viewer and on different PCs. The only common factor is SL, the body and autoalpha scripts.

*I wonder... when a worn item sends an llRegionSayTo() (or whatever), and that is heard by another worn object... is that process internal to the SL server, or does the message get relayed through the viewer?

ETA: After talking with someone, there have been no reports of this in general so it looks like it's just us. The only other commonality then is the two regions we are usually in. Hmm - time to dig.

There are some mesh bodies that are not correctly scripted to let clothing know when it is attached.

There is also the issue with chats not being heard when scripts are experiencing the 2 second delay bug.

So take your pick which it could be.

[Rick Nightingale]

I hadn't seen that 2 second delay bug report, but I've definitely experienced it (including the on_rez not even firing) when I was developing the new twisted protocubes (breedables) a while ago. It was driving me mad, the amount of time-out checking, handshaking and dealing with outright failed comms I had to do when a new one was created.

Edit: And yes, I'm fairly sure that the body does not effectively deal with it being attached second. Not exactly hard to do - my own things can do it.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Rick Daylight

[Qie Niangao]

22 hours ago, Rick Daylight said:

ETA: After talking with someone, there have been no reports of this in general so it looks like it's just us. 

This is the part that baffles me: Somebody has ever found autoalpha to work reliably? That's certainly not my experience, failing in every imaginable race condition on every mesh body I use. The best response I know is to disable autoalpha entirely (preferably using a pure BoM body such as Slink Redux or by deleting all scripts from the body as with the modifiable version of Belleza) and use proper alpha masks instead.

[Chic Aeon]

While I have definitely had issues with this in the past year (Lara) body) where I had to manually hide things EACH time with various outfits (not the same maker) ---- I currently have no issues at all, even with the SAME outfits or garments (issues both ways).  So just throwing that into the mix. I have been on the same sim (private and mine) for over a year.   So it seems to me to be a server related problem?

 

 

[Rick Nightingale]

Yes, it's Lara that she uses. Yesterday I watched as she had to remove and re-add some jeans five times, before all the right parts on the body vanished. She has some demon legs that nearly always end up with the same two alpha panels still visible, until removed/re-added a few times.

Autoalpha is practically unsuable for her. She was told in the group, when we started asking questions, that she should just use one body (instead of saving a preconfigured body with each outfit) and then the autoalpha will work. Well... it doesn't which is the main reason we started doing that. That might help with the race condition (which I'm sure I could do a better job of dealing with) but not in the examples I started with.

@Qie NiangaoI completely forgot about using alpha masks with BOM. That's a way forward! I did notice someone selling a BOM alpha mask kit on the MP the other day too... but far too expensive when I can make our own, perfectly fitted ones.

I've even gone to the extent of writing her a tool that uses RLV to add her clothes on an outfit change. The tool is saved in the outfit and configured with what to attach, delayed a little, including an autoalpha prim made from the devkit with all the alpha setup in too. The tool adds and removes that as well, a couple of times, to make sure that the body alpha actually gets set properly. It's ridiculous how much I've done to try and circumvent this for her. (I'm trying to keep it easy for her... she finds it hard to do things due to poor health so a mostly one-click outfit change is what she needs).

 

[Qie Niangao]

21 minutes ago, Rick Daylight said:

I completely forgot about using alpha masks with BOM. That's a way forward! I did notice someone selling a BOM alpha mask kit on the MP the other day too... but far too expensive when I can make our own, perfectly fitted ones.

It's always best to make one's own, but for "quick and dirty" Slink has a free batch of them, alpha masks and their corresponding full perm textures. There are several distribution objects scattered around the Slink mainstore; one is at the in-world link: secondlife:///app/objectim/7a4f7c48-8cba-b62b-0b0d-18cb32c720c6?name=Slink%20Extra%20Alphas%20%2D%20Bakes%20on%20Mesh%2FBOM%20Layers&owner=51be2a29-4089-4d15-a9ab-0aea55fe4d42&slurl=Slink/59.582900/115.436200/26.544750 

[Rick Nightingale]

Heading there now... thank you

 

[Mollymews]

i had a quick look at this, as I have a Maitreya body

not sure if this is contributing to your friend's issue, but what I noticed (which I never noticed before) is that when we are also wearing the BOM Add-On Parts then we have to use the BOM Add-On Parts HUD to toggle the alpha for the parts. Seems the main maitreya HUD alpha toggle doesn't know about the Add-On Parts

 

 

[Rick Nightingale]

Thanks, but it's nothing to do with the add-ons. It's just a failure of the autoalpha system itself.

I'm working on making a load of alpha textures for all her main outfits

[Mollymews]

2 minutes ago, Rick Daylight said:

I'm working on making a load of alpha textures for all her main outfits

for one-click outfit changes this is the best solution for sure. You are a good friend to your friend to do this for them

[Rick Nightingale]

She's my wife (in RL and SL )

Edited February 24, 2022 by Rick Daylight

[Rick Nightingale]

In case anyone finds this thread because of similar issues... I've just rediscovered (had completely forgotten since I last played with all of this) that the Maitreya Lara autoalpha script in the clothing can be removed* even if the clothing is no-mod. That means I can leave the scripts in the body (so still be able to change other things about it without having to change bodies for each little change). Problem solved... bye-bye autoalpha

Just type in chat: /95 [item name] delete

You can also say menu instead of delete.. for a menu I guess.

Edit: Needs to be version 5 or later though... so I bet she has a lot of clothes that it won't work on.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Rick Daylight

[Jennifer Boyle]

FWIW, I use Maitreya autohiders extensively, and they almost always work. I have attributed the few failures to the autohider attaching before the body did.