Diy Ao

Is it possible to buy an empty Anim Override and fill it with anims of your choice?

If so where do I get it and where is a good place for anims? I think I see that Sine Wave are branching out into anims.

And any instruction on HOW to add the things in?


Any help appreciated!


VD

Vienne, I am playing with a ZHAO II AO right now to do exactly what you are talking about. The instructions comes with it.

As for animations, I collected all the freebies that I had in one place and sorted through them to find out what I had and what was missing. Another thing to do is to pick up the pre-loaded AOs and take the animations out of those and sort through those too.

Still don't have it finished yet - too much else to do in SL

You bet

One of the most popular (and free/open source!) AOs is Ziggy Puff's ZHAO2. Check Ziggy's profile for a current location to pick one up, it comes with instructions for loading your own animations.

If it's not clear what to do next, post back here or ask in-world to see if you have any friends that use it - please don't IM Ziggy, he's a super-nice guy and he gets flooded with questions since he was nice enough to design and provide for free such a popular item.


edit: oops Kalderi beat me to the punch

Just another vote for ZHAO2. There are a number of variants--I use the "MB" (more buttons) version--that are available at Ziggy's place whence all things ZHAO 2 originate. A couple of things of possible interest: if you've got stand animations in particular, the built-in stands are also quite nice IMHO, so if you want those in the rotation, you can just specify "stand_1" through "stand_4" in the list you specify in the configuration notecard. (I think it fusses a little when you load the notecard using built-in anims, but they work fine and can sometimes help in the transitions between other, purchased stands.) You can have multiple lines with the same tag, too, so if for example the standing list gets too long to parse, you just add more standing lines and it gets appended. You can also have multiple animations specified to play at the same time, so if you want to smile each time you change animations, you just specify that emote together with the other anim. (Not sure if this worked way back in the original Franimation overrider, but ZHAO 2 was the first time I used it myself.)

Which anims to put in is very much a matter of taste. Mine come from all over, but probably my favorites are from AV Puli. (And thanks for the reminder: I'll have to check out Sine Wave's standard anims; I've yet to find a male walk that doesn't look goofier than the built-in robot-geek walk.)

I was rarely as thrilled as when I discovered you could do this with ZHAOII. The AO's you purchase have some great stands and sits often combined with others that are just plain embarrassing. You can add to them, but the instructions just aren't as plain as the ZHAO. Once I figured out the notecard thing I can be so much more like myself, or at least the self I'd like to be.

Raising one more hand for the ZHAO-II. I use the vanilla version (w/only two buttons) because I like my desktop uncluttered. It's very easy to fill and customise with individual animations.

Another trick is to not include a sit pose in your AO, that way it will work with inworld poseballs without needing HUD clutter or having to ever turn it off or even think about it! That's the way I package and sell my AO/poses actually.

I've never needed to turn my AO off in over a year, or think about it, much less see it on my screen...

The ZHAOII is right up there with MystiTool as "must have" SL items imho. I LOVE being able to mix and match animations from different places.

Another cool thing is you can make separate notecards - ie. I have one notecard that has all the animations that came with my original AO but over time, some of the stands no longer "worked" with the evolution of my SL. So that card remains intact but I have a second notecard that has the animations from the original AO I still like ~plus~ animations from other places I've found. With the ZHAOII, I can load either notecard "on the fly" very easily. I'm currently thinking of making another card to put my Japanese animations in.

Hi Vienne! Here's something to be aware of it you've never made your own AO:

AO's have to be rezzed in order for you to add anims and notecards to them. They are very small, and usually white/bright in color. If you put nocopy anims in one, you REALLY don't want to lose it! So be a little careful where - and when! - you rez it. I never work on mine when SL, or my sim, is having problems.

I usually rez my AO on a dark surface that has some sort of marks already on it, so that if I crash or otherwise lose track of it I will know where to look. I also try to remember to have an Edit window up (ctrl-3) when I rez it ... that way it will be automatically selected for edit.

Qie: I didn't know that about the standard anims and ZHAOII! You don't have to fetch standard anims out of your library and store them in the AO? I love some of them too, and what a great idea to use one to transition between different makers' stands! I suppose any of the standard ones will work, then? Here's the list, note priorities are listed here too:

http://www.lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=animation
.

One more ZHAO II user here.... I really like being able to choose which stand to use if I need to, it comes in handy for photos. The anims I'm currently using are a mix, from Reverie, Reel Motion, 5ifth Order and Outrider Animations. ZHAO is amazing, it's great to be able to switch it on and off without voice commands. I agree, definitely a must-have for me.

Another vote for ZHAO II - I use the one with hugs and kisses for girls.
I have 6 different notecards in mine. So I can change depending on my mood, and/or if I am in one of the RP sims.

I have Animations from all over stuffed into mine. I am not inworld right now, but if you IM me tonight (after 3pm SL time) I will send you some LM's to some nice places.. Or just do a search for "Animation Overrides". Most of the vendors sell full sets and individual animations..

I have a set of flying, swiming, running, etc. animations that are common to all of the setups, and just change the standing and sitting animations between them to get the look I want.

I would highly recommend getting animated standing poses as opposed to static poses..

Also pay attention to the order in which you list them in the notecard, this is the order they will sequence in, and will let you have smoother transitions between poses.

A custom AO is a MUST have in my book.. It lets you customize your "look" to suit you.. And it is kinda like showing up at a party wearing the same dress as someone else.. You don't want you animation set to look like everyone elses, at least I like to be an individual.

Lizzy

Right. Well, in fact, my Library doesn't have anything in the Animations folder so I couldn't copy any in from there, but it's not necessary because llStartAnimation() can always use the name of any of the standard anims, which is why it works fine using those in the ZHAO2 notecards (or, one supposes, any configurable AO).

And yes, any of them should work; some are looped and some aren't, but usually just the way you'd want it. E.g., the emotes are momentary--I think all the "express_*" things are--but the stands are looped. (The bvh files for all but the emotes are available somewhere, too, so it's possible to upload them with different priorities, fade-ins/-outs, "loopedness", hand suggestions, etc.)

Awww... you're so sweet



It prints a warning message, just so you can catch it if you accidentally mis-spelled an animation name. I guess I could have added a list of built-in anims and checked against that, but since that script has so much memory to spare...

Allowing the built-in anims was a suggestion from Keiki (the HUDDLES goddess), and I think it was a great idea.

And thanks for the nice comments everyone. That more than makes up for the "Your animations suck I want my money back" IMs

ZIGGY PUFF ROCKS!!!!

I think he deserves a party. How about the next one at the Place Which Must Not Be Named, we invite Ziggy as the Guest of Honor? Ann can present the pie.

I've even got a party game. We stuff a gift giver with a bunch of preloaded ZHAO IIs. Most of 'em loaded with goofy anims. Everybody who gets one has to wear it for the entire party.

We need a T-shirt, too. How about "Ziggy Puff Moves Me", or "Powered by Puff"?

What flavor(s)?

I am a relatively new ZHAO II user and I like it very much. I've been shopping for interesting animations to add to it as all I have now is a walk, but I haven't found anything yet that i feel I must have.

A dumb question about using the built-in stand poses with ZHAO II - are the built-in stands the ones that your avatar cycles through by itself whether you have an AO on or not? If so, how does adding them to ZHAO II change anything?

Not a dumb question at all! There are lots of built in animations, more than stands, listed at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Internal_Animations. You could use the AO to run the built-in ones in different situations than the system would, or fire off more than one animation at once. For instance, some people like to combine custom animations with the built-in facial expressions, and zhao-ii lets you do that.

Hi Madhu! When you're using an AO, ONLY the stands in the AO will be used ... you will never see the built-in stands unless you specify an animation which is "missing", in which case you get the random stand cycling that you get if you have no AO.

Being able to specify a built-in stand in an AO allows you to choose which of the 4 built-in stands you want to use, and when you want to use it. As Qui suggests, you could use one to transition between stands from different manufacturers, that might start from very different positions.
.

Keyframe Lime Pie, of course.

I think I'm going to take a scripting class for illiterates. This is one language I know nothing about. I know an AO makes it simple, just drop anims in, but I like to know the Whys and Whats of things.

I have an AO (not ZHAO's) but just added a basic walk, and a stand - which is so basic I can't even tell what the difference is with the built-in one. I deactivated most of the built-in gestures as I don't think I'll ever use them, ex. 'Wow!' or 'Looking Good'. The few anims I did buy I just stick on my screen and press 'Play Inworld'.

I know, total newb..

If you're simply not into animations, that's fine. But if you haven't looked into them...go visit Animation Island. There are over a dozen major vendors with space there, hundreds and hundreds of animations, poses, gestures, and AOs. Go spend an hour pose-stand hopping and trying them out.

Hi Nika! *waves*




Okay. I understood the idea of using built-in stands to transition between other custom stands, but not the point of just putting the built-in stands by themselves. But suppose I hate one of the built-in stands but don't mind the others - I guess could put just the ones I like in the AO and then I'll only cycle among those. That makes sense.

Viktoria, thanks also for your suggestion of combining animations, I never would have thought of that.

/me wants to play with her AO more ...

I actually did go to one big place and had fun trying all the different anims. I'll check out Animation Island, ty. Then I'll go see the lesser known ones Nika (I think it was Nika) grouped together for us. I'm pretty sure this will take more than an hour!

Oh dear. What have I got myself into...

ZHAO here too, have not tried the ZAHO2 what is the difference?

(and yes put mix and matched animations in mine, get lots of compliments)