Frequently Asked Questions
and Thoughts from the Creator of DS products
Sections:
- Gift Cards
- Maturity Ratings on Furniture
- User and Gender/Dominance Keys
- Avatar Size and Furniture Fit
- Auto Attaching Rezzables (Cuffs, etc)
- About the sit system AvSitter
- Land Impact
- Price
- Add-ons
MATURITY RATINGS ON FURNITURE
In the past few years I have begun making more mainstream looking furniture and some of my customers prefer more "general audience" or "adult vanilla" in some or all of their pieces to allow them to mix and match.
I use PG rather than G because well, we are all adults and it seems to be more recognized by the internationals than G. Most of the PG stuff you could have in front of your Grandma and not feel too concerned.
The Adult Vanilla is the step between general audience PG stuff and any fetish or kink. You will find warm-ups and mainstream sex but no bondage or fetish kink.
Adult Kink encompasses the first two levels and adds on the extra-naughty stuff for when you want all the possibilities open!
DOMINANCE AND GENDER
I am careful in my mixed sets to give each of the four sets some of their own animations and not just the same exact things readjusted for everyone. Any of us who have been in SL a while know the old swap and adjust dance, I have created these separate menus so that all of the animations are adjusted as well as possible for the desired combo.
In Femdom (male or female sub versions) there are usually strap-on sex animations broken out into their own menu so that users can be sure who is doing what to whom. Strap-ons, unlike other auto rezzing items are not included as I have found that ladies prefer to use their own adjustable ones and it is simply too difficult to make an attachment of this sort to fit everyone automatically given all of the various mesh bodies out there. The strap-on menus will also work well for trans avatars as they are.
AVATAR SIZE AND FIT
All avatar placement happens from the hip location. This gives animators zero control over where your hands and feet will be since the only control is right at your center. Therefore if your avatar is too large or too small then furniture is simply not going to fit you well. If you are too big your feet will be in the floor and too short has you floating. It can be the difference between drinking your tea and lobotomizing yourself with the teacup because your height affects how long your arms are, for example.
The picture to the right illustrates the default size people come into SL and the actual height that most folks aim towards. At Dictatorshop I tend to adjust large because in my many years in SL I have found that men tend to stretch themselves as tall as they can. Gents, you aren't doing yourselves any favors! I also find that the ladies tend to be a bit more realistic and tend to go small, also, not doing yourself any favors. Ladies if you are 5'4 in real life, please don't make yourself 5'4 in sl because no furniture is going to work for you without serious adjustment.
Ideally for MOST male/female couples poses the male is ONLY one head taller than the female. If you and your partner are are wildly different sizes you are going to find that hes poking her eyes out rather than caressing her face and shes floating all over the place. The only poses that will always fit are those where your hips are grinding, lol, since that is the only control we have on your placement.
I use animations from a variety of quality animation creators and the default sizes I am using appear to be fairly standard across all of them. It IS possible to adjust your furniture to fit you better, but in the end, I would recommend trying a lot of furniture, not just mine, and see how you fit, if you find yourself all over the place consistently - you may find that it is simply easier to adjust YOURSELF a little bit than to go through all of your furniture adjusting every single pose. We do not live in a one-size-fits-all Second Life.
The picture to the right illustrates the default size people come into SL and the actual height that most folks aim towards. At Dictatorshop I tend to adjust large because in my many years in SL I have found that men tend to stretch themselves as tall as they can. Gents, you aren't doing yourselves any favors! I also find that the ladies tend to be a bit more realistic and tend to go small, also, not doing yourself any favors. Ladies if you are 5'4 in real life, please don't make yourself 5'4 in sl because no furniture is going to work for you without serious adjustment.
Ideally for MOST male/female couples poses the male is ONLY one head taller than the female. If you and your partner are are wildly different sizes you are going to find that hes poking her eyes out rather than caressing her face and shes floating all over the place. The only poses that will always fit are those where your hips are grinding, lol, since that is the only control we have on your placement.
I use animations from a variety of quality animation creators and the default sizes I am using appear to be fairly standard across all of them. It IS possible to adjust your furniture to fit you better, but in the end, I would recommend trying a lot of furniture, not just mine, and see how you fit, if you find yourself all over the place consistently - you may find that it is simply easier to adjust YOURSELF a little bit than to go through all of your furniture adjusting every single pose. We do not live in a one-size-fits-all Second Life.
AUTO ATTACHING REZZABLES (Cuffs, etc)
Some folks find the multiple popups for attaching to be off putting. This is easily fixed by enabling the AvSitter experience in your land.
SIT SYSTEM: About the sit system used - AVsitter
Now that the AVsitter system is open source I am including the adjuster which allow any owner to use the "Helper" prims to adjust the poses. Once you have everything how you like it, you may choose "Dump" from the menu and it will spill all of the settings into local chat, and at the end a web link. If you click that link you can copy all of the settings out of the webpage and save them back into your AVpos notecard in the furniture and then your settings are permanent, even if the scripts are reset your changes remain. I have not gone back to the older pieces yet but I am rebranding the store with new packaging, sales posters and upgrade script so eventually all will have new packaging and updated AVsitter scripts.
TO REMOVE MENUS YOU DO NOT WISH TO SEE
If you have one of the ADULT KINK items and you only want it to have Femdom OR Maledom but not both find the offending line (one similar to the ones below) which will appear under the Adult Kink menus at the top and middle (sitter 0 and sitter 1 sections). Simply remove the whole line of the one you do not want displayed on your furniture at the top and down in the middle. Save the notecard and the scripts will reset.
MENU AdultKinkTOMENU MaleDomTOMENU FemDom
RLV Settings in AvSitter items
Please note for RLV enabled items there is a section at the top that is not read out in the notecard and care must be taken not to remove that part. The items are copy so you always have the original to revert back to in case something goes wrong.
Anything about text like this "////////////////REMEMBER TO LEAVE RLV SETTINGS ABOVE////////////////" needs to be left in place for your RLV furniture to function. Below you will find out more about those settings above the note line so that you can also alter your personal preferences for things like how long the initial capture period is and so on.
It is possible to change the default settings in your AvSitter enabled Dictatorshop furniture (everything created after Jan 2015).
ALWAYS MAKE A COPY OF THE AVpos FILE BEFORE EDITING IT, JUST IN CASE SOMETHING GOES WRONG!
RLV OPTIONS IN THE TOP OF THE NOTECARD
You have control over many things with this toy. These controls are located in the Contents tab when you edit the item - in the AVpos notecard.
RLV 1 ---> RLV on or off - it is on by default (1 = on and 0 = off)
TIMELOCK 5 ---> Default number of minutes captured - default is 5 mins to give the dom a chance take the keys, etc.
RECAPTURE 1 ---> 1 means recapture after relog, 0 means do not recapture
ONSIT CAPTURE ---> SEE BELOW
ONRELEASE @unsit=n ---> automatically unsits when released. n would keep the sub on the toy after release.
ONTOUCH ASK ---> SEE BELOW
SUBCONTROL 1 ---> 1 means sub can see menu - 0 will prevent it
ONCAPTURE ---> SEE BELOW
HTEXT 0 ---> SEE BELOW
ONRELEASE @unsit=n --> AUTO SET to not stand the sub up automatically
*** ONSIT - what happens when someone sits voluntarily. Options are:
ASK - ask the avatar to choose between 'D' and 'S' roles. On choosing, the avatar will be moved to the first available sitter defined for that role by the ROLES setting, or unseated if no seats for that role are available. Choosing 'S' role will attempt to capture the avatar.
ASKONLY - same as ASK, but choosing the 'S' role will not attempt to capture. They can still be captured via the
menu.
CAPTURE - sitting will attempt to capture the avatar (if they are wearing an RLV relay). (default)
NONE - sitting voluntarily on the furniture will not attempt to capture the avatar.
*** ONTOUCH - what happens when furniture with no sitting avatars is touched. Options are:
ASK - search for RLV relays in range (20m) and ask who to capture. (default)
CAPTURE - attempt to capture the avatar who touched it (if they are wearing an RLV relay).
NONE - do nothing if touched when there are no sitting avatars.
*** ONCAPTURE - What happens when someone is captured - It defaults to @unsit=n|@fartouch=n|@acceptpermission=add which will not allow captured sub to stand or touch anything over 1.5 meters away. If adding additional restrictions add a pipe | between each item before the @ symbol.
@camunlock=n - keeps the camera within a short distance of the toy and does not allow the sub to cam out or around.
@chatshout=n - prevents shouting
ALWAYS MAKE A COPY OF THE AVpos FILE BEFORE EDITING IT, JUST IN CASE SOMETHING GOES WRONG!
RLV OPTIONS IN THE TOP OF THE NOTECARD
You have control over many things with this toy. These controls are located in the Contents tab when you edit the item - in the AVpos notecard.
RLV 1 ---> RLV on or off - it is on by default (1 = on and 0 = off)
TIMELOCK 5 ---> Default number of minutes captured - default is 5 mins to give the dom a chance take the keys, etc.
RECAPTURE 1 ---> 1 means recapture after relog, 0 means do not recapture
ONSIT CAPTURE ---> SEE BELOW
ONRELEASE @unsit=n ---> automatically unsits when released. n would keep the sub on the toy after release.
ONTOUCH ASK ---> SEE BELOW
SUBCONTROL 1 ---> 1 means sub can see menu - 0 will prevent it
ONCAPTURE ---> SEE BELOW
HTEXT 0 ---> SEE BELOW
ONRELEASE @unsit=n --> AUTO SET to not stand the sub up automatically
*** ONSIT - what happens when someone sits voluntarily. Options are:
ASK - ask the avatar to choose between 'D' and 'S' roles. On choosing, the avatar will be moved to the first available sitter defined for that role by the ROLES setting, or unseated if no seats for that role are available. Choosing 'S' role will attempt to capture the avatar.
ASKONLY - same as ASK, but choosing the 'S' role will not attempt to capture. They can still be captured via the
menu.
CAPTURE - sitting will attempt to capture the avatar (if they are wearing an RLV relay). (default)
NONE - sitting voluntarily on the furniture will not attempt to capture the avatar.
*** ONTOUCH - what happens when furniture with no sitting avatars is touched. Options are:
ASK - search for RLV relays in range (20m) and ask who to capture. (default)
CAPTURE - attempt to capture the avatar who touched it (if they are wearing an RLV relay).
NONE - do nothing if touched when there are no sitting avatars.
*** ONCAPTURE - What happens when someone is captured - It defaults to @unsit=n|@fartouch=n|@acceptpermission=add which will not allow captured sub to stand or touch anything over 1.5 meters away. If adding additional restrictions add a pipe | between each item before the @ symbol.
@camunlock=n - keeps the camera within a short distance of the toy and does not allow the sub to cam out or around.
@chatshout=n - prevents shouting
This covers a lot, if you would like to increase the restrictions you can see a whole list of what is available in RLV here:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Protocol/RestrainedLoveAPI
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Protocol/RestrainedLoveAPI
Land Impact
Many creators of those really low land impact items you see around “recommend LOD 4 setting” in your viewer to best see their objects... This is part of how they are able to get their prim counts lower than you will find at the Dictatorshop because they are able to cut corners. I design all of my furniture to look as good as it possibly can be for everyone. This is true of my textures as well, everything is textures with materials enabled - but will still look great even with advanced lighting turned off. You can look at my items at LOD 2 (the default setting btw) and cam out quite a distance before anything deforms significantly. You can set your graphics to the very lowest settings, in fact, and you are still going to see the shadows and everything is going to look nearly as good as it does at ultra. This ensures that when you see any of the latest Dictatorshop furniture it is going to look the same for everyone and not just turn into a texture-less mangled triangle to your visitors on low end PCs and laptops. Here is some additional information about LOD and why it is best to use the default setting.
PRICE
You get what you pay for. Ever noticed the menus on most of those “really cheap” furniture pieces? Sit1, Sit2, Sit3 and often one adult menu where everything is scrambled together and you cannot tell a muff dive from a blow job until you click the button. Menu surprise is a pet peeve of mine and I work very hard on making the menus logical and flowing from one section to the next. Have a good long look at any menu in a Dictatorshop item and you will find a rich carefully divided menu set which indicates to you what you will find there even if you do not know the exact name of the animation you want.
Inside every Dictatorshop piece is a small fortune in quality animations from many of the best animation creators in SL. I am exceedingly picky about the animations and spend countless hours adjusting every engine to best fit the widest variety of avis who might use them and the furniture the inhabit. Starting in early 2017 I even began trying to create each new bondage engine with OMNI, M/f, F/m, F/f and M/m where each menu set is carefully arranged for the gender/dominance mix using it. This way users do not have to do the “old fashioned swap and adjust until it looks right” furniture dance. The menus are set up specific to the specified combination with additional items added for some where they fit. Femdom menus, for example generally have an extra “Strap-on” menu so that there are no surprises about who is doing what to whom!
In addition to the animations, most all of my pieces come with either a texture menu (find the DS logo and click) or else color changing inside them with either a HUD. This allows you to change and even add additional packs later to change up your furniture without having to replace it and relearn new menus.
Every piece is carefully designed to go the distance with you, and it is my hope that you will have many many hours of enjoyment from your Dictatorshop toys now and for years to come. It is my sincere hope that you will rez one of my pieces years down the road and like it just as much as you do right now, quality is timeless.
ADD-ONS
Does your stuff have my cock/pussy/tits/drippy liquid reaction integrated? No, it doesn't. We believe that our products outlast whichever the current brand is or was, and the impact of that integration is *huge* because it adds scripts and therefore lag to *every* interaction you have on the piece of furniture. Remember Excite? Exactly! We know that you are more than capable of managing your appendages for yourself when you believe it's important, that's not our business. We make furniture for *everyone*, not just those with a 'brand name bit'.
Have a question that is not covered? Contact Dictatorshop Resident in-world.
