poses made easy... ?

I would like to be able to buy a maniquin I could " set " into a position, ( adjust joint angles )
and which could be put on an avitar's scripted sit position by a pose ball.

I would then like to hit a "save " button to save the maniquins position as a pose or gesture file for my Avatar.

I don't want to have to spend £ 200 on a RL program like pose which I would then have to learn how to use.

At the moment I am working on a flier that needs the pilot to be in a position like a formula one car driver, with legs and hands streched out, With my manikin I could easily make this happen, and possibly even a turning pose with head lent over and hands at an angle for steering round bends....

I would think having available a manequin like this would be a huge plus, as it would realy alow pose development as an SL activity.

I would not mind paying a fair price for the ability to make my own poses that having a maniquin that worked like this would give.

RegardsJonathan.

Apparently it's possible to add a plugin to the Maya PLE (personal learning edition) that will allow it to export BVH files that work with SL (so many acronyms. @.@). Maya PLE is free to use, but I've had problems getting it to run.

There's also a freeware animation/pose program listed somewhere in the animation forum you could download and use to make just a pose. It'll do poses well, animations I'm not so sure about.

Or you could post in products wanted and see if someone who is already animating with the programs that can do it for you. There are many floating around here.