Animation shops selling same animations!!??!!?!?!

Okay!

First of all im not naming names! LOL

But anywayz,

I went to like 3 different popular animation stores, and i saw that they had at LEAST 2 of the same animations that other animators had!!!!!?

I was like WTF

They just changed the name of the animations, and the price!

What do you think about this?? Is this fair?

Some animation vendors are selling bought animations from a third party that sells them. When you see the exact same animation's at different places this is often just a case of them all buying the same ones. Nothing wrong with that per say...

Yes.
As long as the animations aren't stolen from the original creator. What difference does it make?

I go to McDonalds and have a Coke, I go to Burger King and have a Pepsi.
Same thing, different name.

Yes, but some of them are complete crap. I can think if 3 Salsa dances, all from the same original source. The 3 versions in game are different, because the 3 people chopped them different, one person is an expert, the other is close but doesnt give a damn, and the last one is a complete freaking hack. If you look closely at all most everything that is the "same" there is a big difference in the quality.


Everyone sells the same hoe/slut/stripper trashy black outfit, but no one complains...

<joking>

You sure it's not 3 slightly different versions of "missionary"?

</joking>

There is a large Poser community out there which markets animation files for each other. The basic Poser even comes with the very same "Sexy Walk" some vendors sell in SL for $50-100L. It's free.

With Poses, I know many look alike because there are only so many natural looking poses positions the body is capable of. This is why animated poses are getting more and more popular.

As far as dances, like someone already said, they are probably buying them from the internet and selling them. I don't sell many dances at my shop so I can only give an educated opinion. For dances I recommend Cristiano myself, he seems to have a good variety and all seem to be original.

I second this recommendation!! Cristiano does amazing work with animations!

No it's not the same thing, Coke is better!

Thirded. Cristiano is amazingly talented.

Wuvme,

The reason you will often see similar animations from animations vendors in SL is that the highest quality animations come from motion captured sources. As motion capture setups are extremely expensive generally, there is an third party market that sells motion captures for use. They vary in price from quite reasonable to hundreds of dollars for an indiviudal motion capture. Some are relatively easy to bring into Poser, but many are not and that is where you start to see the differences.

Depending on the source, they can often be quite difficult to bring into SL (some are nearly impossible to bring into SL). Motion captures are rarely looped (as humans don't dance in a perfect loop), and are often in a format that is incompatible with Poser. There are also differences many times in the skeletons used for the motion capture vs. the SL avatar's body (which does not have as many joints), so a motion capture in will look horrible in SL (leaning, weird bent joints, floating or sinking, etc..)

Working with them, especially to get the highest quality from a motion capture requires knowing the ins and outs of Poser really well, as well as other, sometimes very expensive intermediate programs (I often use Alias MotionBuilder to retarget a skeleton of a motion capture. I sat by hand one day for several hours creating the SL avatar skeleton for it). To aid in looping, I wrote myself a program that processes the frames from a Poser file and reverses a section - something that cannot be done directly in Poser.

So, while you may see motion captured animations, the quality of the end result is different in many cases, as is the price. I have seen people pricing them as high as $500L each. As long as there is a demand for high quality dance animations, you will continue to see motion capture used.

Okies! well explained! LOL ty

They can be found on the web...for free or bought

Three free sources for anims:

(1) Poser itself
(2) bvhfiles.com
(3) renderosity.com

I've seen people selling FREEBIES... that are free for non-commercial use... from all three. Ugh.

I stick with Ferran, Beau and Cristiano's work, because I know its THEIR work, and I know the quality is excellent.

Regards,

-Flip

Along with about 20 others that are also FREE.

<sarcasm>Oh but hey ppl gotta make a buck right </sarcasm>

bad example. I can drink Coke once in a while. Pespi makes me ill. LOL

Not to defend anyone for selling free stuff and not saying they are justified. But there is a cost of uploading. Then there's time spent in packaging. Also some overhead for land and tier. Also not all of the animation will sell so the price is spread to the whole package.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, most animation vendors do let you try before you buy. So at least you can know if it's good or not.

Let's hold off a bit on the torches and pitchfork, some people are just trying to make a little bit to play. I thought some people thought it was okay if they are making money to cover the cost of the game?


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