Please Help Me Apply My A/O!

I finally got tired of watching my Av scurry around like a bow-legged field mouse, so last night I purchased a simple A/O, just a good confident walk for her. However, I can't seem to get it to run. Obviously I'm doing something wrong. The choices seem to be "run locally" or "run in world". Someone in world told me there should be a choice to "wear" it? But there isn't. I wrote the vendor for help but haven't heard back from her yet. I know someone here will be able to help me way before anyone else will

While the AO is still in your inventory, right click it, don't double click, which you may be doing. You should be able to Wear it that way. Who's AO is it?

Most AOs are pakcaged as wearable items. What AO are you using?

Hi Elora and welcome
For your run locally/in world dialogue you appear to be running an animation rather than an override. An override should be an object you wear. AO's works slightly differently to each other but its basically an object you wear and can toggle on and off. It contains a number of animations for taking over the default walk, fly, sit etc.
Have a look in your inventory. Mebbe you have a folder of animations and an override object you may need to rezz, open and insert your animation(s) into.
With your present dialogue, if you run locally you can see it work privately, in-world allows all to see but it is just the one animation.

I purchased it from the A/O Warehouse, it's made by Luth. I do believe it was listed as an "override", not just an animation.

It did wind up in my animations folder.

I was double clicking, but all it seemed to do was make me walk, but then I could not actually "walk", it just made me look like I was walking in place, I could not actually move forward.

Don't double click, Right Click and choose wear.

If you're getting "play locally" or "play in world" and it's in your animations folder, it's not an AO, just an animation.

Does it have a "walking man" icon or a "box" icon?

I'm in a slightly grey area here only recently getting to grips with AO myself.
If Eloras object is an animation (not override) would wear work?

I bought a walk replacer recently from Abranimations and had to put the animation into an object that was included in the package, then wear it to use the walk.

Probably not I didn't consider that. If it isn't a box icon it may not be wearable.

was it a walk (confident or normal walk) for 150L$? in that case you bought a single walk that has to be added to an ao in order to work...

Annika, I think you hit the nail on the head. Brenda too - it was not a "box".

I may have misunderstood what I purchased. Blah.

This is what I get for not spending good $L and just buying a whole set of an override like I intended. Guess I'll have to just go with that, which is what my original plan was. Good thing $150L is really only .50 in RL

Anyone have any good suggestions where I can go for a good "confident" set? A few coy poses included would be nice like a toss of the head, pushing back of the hair, etc. (a girl likes to flirt everyone now and then too). The walk is important tho, I want it to be kind of purposeful, not sexy, although I guess now I already own THAT

Hey everyone,

Can't she put the walk animation into an AO device like the ZHAO II (which is free), and then just wear the ZHAO II? Wouldn't that work?

Princess Ivory

Abranimations have a lovely 'flowing' AO, where you move naturally, rather than the Strike a Pose vogue type thingy!! It costs about L$1,000 I think, could have been a bit nore or less. It's the priciest one that they currently do, but not really a lot in RL terms!

Anyway, I love mine and thoroughly recommend it!

Elora,

See the forum thread on "best female AO". There are a lot of suggestions there.

Also, see the ANA Mations "Confident" AO, http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=275862

And The Motion Merchant's "Breeze" AO, http://slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=184978

The very latest trend seems to be AOs that let you change your "mood". One of these (from SynEmotion) comes loaded with 90 (!!) animations, sorted into three categories, "casual", "model", and "glamorous". The cost is $L2,000, very reasonable for so many animations.

If you actually have a large collection of animations already, you can load them into a blank AO. With AOs like the new ZHAO II from Ziggy Puff, you can even load multiple notecards, creating your own "variable moods" AO. It saves money over the pre-loaded products, but does take time and patience to set it up.

****************
What Is An Animation Override? (boring lecture follows)

An animation is one of the "basic building blocks" of Second Life. Other "building blocks", or specific file types, include your avatar's Shape, or a sound file, or a notecard. Each of these different "things" is represented by a little icon in your inventory...a speaker for the sound file, a little person for the shape, a note for the notecard, or a running man for an animation.

If you open up an animation from your inventory, it will have two buttons, "Play In World" and "Play Locally". One shows everyone the animation. The other plays it only for you, and others won't see your avatar moving. ("Poses" are animations, too...although they only position your avatar, not move it continuously).

Well, that's not all that useful, is it? What we need is some way to string these little animations together, and to be able to switch between them, either automatically or by choice. We also want to tell SL to use our own animations in place of the ugly default ones. That's what an animation override, or AO does.

An AO is really just an object, like a chair or a beachball. It generally appears in the form of a set of control buttons on your screen. The generic term for this kind of object is a Heads Up Display, or HUD. HUDs are worn, just like a prim skirt or a pair of shoes, with one difference...instead of being attached to a point on your avatar, they are attached to a "HUD attach point" on your screen.

The AO object contains three things: a script, one or more notecards, and one or more animations. You don't have to worry about the script. It's the program that replaces your default walk, sit, and fly animations with newer and better ones. But you do need to worry about the notecard and the animations.

Many AOs come pre-loaded with animations and the proper notecard. Just buy it and wear it. But you can also get a free "empty" AO and load it with your own animations, or custiomize an AO by adding new animations and deleting ones you don't like.

The general procedure is to rez the AO *ON THE GROUND*, like any other object. Then Edit it, and open its Content tab. The notecard in the Content is what the AO's script will consult to pick animations for walking, sitting, etc. It must be written in the exactly correct spelling and syntax, or the program won't be able to read it correctly. Most AOs will come with instructions on how to set up or edit the notecard.

Next, the animations themselves are dragged into the Content folder of the AO. This should be done one at a time, especially if the animation is set to No Copy.

Once you've edited the AO's notecard and loaded your animations, you can Take the AO back into your inventory, and then Wear it. Depending on the AO, there will be some buttons to push, or a menu can be called up. First thing, you must Load the notecard you want the AO to use. (You only do that once, unless you have more than one notecard and want to switch from one to the other). Then there will be other buttons, to change between different walks and sits, or to turn off the Sit animation to keep from conflicting with the Sit pose in a chair or couch.

Some of the most popular AOs are the ZHAO, ZHAO II, and HUDDLES. All are good, but for simplicity and reliability, the ZHAO II is hard to beat.

Elora, check out Natalia Zelmanov's very user-friendly write-up on AO's here...

http://slnatalia.blogspot.com/2007/07/day-307-animation-override-ao-tutorial.html

If you read the whole thing, you'll note that she has free animations at her store, as well as what I believe is a free script for the Franimation Overrider FLIP MOD, that you can place in a prim and make your own AO.

**A note about loading AOs...if you are trying to place an animation that you have bought into an AO that you are wearing, and it won't go, do the following.
-Detach the AO back into your inventory
-Then rez it on the ground
-Go into Edit for the AO and go to the Content tab.
-Drag your animation into the AO Content now, while it is rezzed in-world and it should go in.
If it still won't go, IM the seller and ask for help and resolution. As you'll see many times on the forum, if they don't answer right away, keep your cool and contact them again. Stuff happens.

It takes time and just doing it to get comfortable using an AO, but once you do, SL's a whole lot more fun and you'll wonder how you ever put up with scurrying around like a bow-legged field mouse!

p.s. Natalia's site is the place to go for many tutorials as well as a whole list of places to see in SL. Have fun!
Oh, and check out Craig Altman's Bits and Bobs for some excellent animations, single and couples, PG and Mature.
Alrighty.
- Dag

and, yeah, what Lindal said

Simply because of that sentence alone, I'll offer all the help I can give you!

Shoot me an IM in-world and I'll get you sorted... if y'want.

Just putting in my vote for creating your own AO using Zhao-II or some similar program and dropping in animations you like. The packages, especially the ones from Abranimations are very nice, and if you like all of the animations in each package, that's fine, but I've been having fun picking up and animation here and there whenever I see one I like and just dropping it into my AO. Once you figure out how to do that, it's as easy as...well...pie, and it gives you a set of animations that you handpicked and really like.

The downside is that it takes a lot more time. I'm still looking for the perfect run, so my run is that truly awful default run. It probably costs a little more in the long run because there's a discount built into a full set AO. But in RL terms, you are talking about pocket change.

Anyway, I think my way is more fun, but your mileage may vary.

Lindal & Dagmar, thanks for the detailed info (sidenote to Lindal, was not boring!)

I will have to take some time later when I'm home and can concentrate to absorb all you wrote, but I want to. This is very important stuff I need to know, and somewhat confusing to me without having SL opened to look at and play with as I read it (I'm at work).

Give yourself a break. Doing your first AO is often a somewhat confusing exercise in counter-intuitiveness. But once you've set one up once or twice, you'll be a pro.

I've setting up a Zhao II the past week or so. I find it tedious, as most computer work is for me, but not difficult. I 'm good for about 20 minutes or so before my head explodes.but it is better than settling for every animation in a preload, which I had been using.

Really, Bren?

I've always found AOs, especialy the ZHAO II, which I've fallen in love with, to be relatively easy.

AO Lesson from Mickey

1) Chuck all the animations in the AO
2) Open the notecard and copy/paste the name (using "rename" without renaming) into the appropriate spot
3) hit reset.

*grin*

and, as my friend would say, "Wallah!"

(Yes, nitpickers, I know it's really "Voila" [with an accent], I just found "Wallah!" to be hilarious)

If y'need any help, drop me a line, amiga.

/me nods

I agree. The ZHAO II is a great platform, though, probably the best one to work with now I think (I use a modified one).

Yes, it IS easy. That's why I am able to fiddle with it for more than 5 minutes before saying "F-This"