Gesture Creation & Editing?

I think it would be entirely possible to create a simple gesture editing tool with the current object editing interface, and I think this would open up a LOT of potential for things that are currently not possible (mainly posing for in game games and vehicles etc)


The way I see it working is that when you go into 'Gesture Edit' Mode, your avatar animations freeze, just like when you edit your appearance, but you are given an interface exactly like the object editor. But instead of moving objects, you simply select and move/rotate your various limbs into a position you want, then hit the 'save gesture' button and give it a name. It would perhaps appear in your inventory just like clothing.


... Which brings me to another idea. I would like to be able to set up a 'gesture set' for a given Av. I wear different Avs a lot, and I'd like to show different 'personalities' for each. To be able to use the Ctrl + G gesture setup thingy to make an explicit set that you could save in the clothing folder with your Av would, for me at least, be perfection on a stick.

It would also mean that, for instance, when you drag on your Jetball outfit that you instantly have a new reportoire of moves. Just think: you could learn Karate immediately by wearing a karate suit. Imagine if the gestures could be carried as content to an object? Imagine learning Karate moves stage by stage as you move up the belts from white, yellow, green etc...

Sounds good to me Kris. I love the idea of having an "item" that works just like a body shape or hair style item, but for gestures. I'd also like to be able to set maybe 3 or 4 different "points" in each animation that are smoothly interpolated between in the final gesture.

I knew I was missing something from my original post! lol

Yes, I meant to put that too!

I have a feeling that, if we ARE going to get custom animation controls, it will come with version 2.0 and the upgrade to Havok 2.2 with its ragdoll character physics.

That said, I'd like to see (even now) more control over the playback of animations. For instance, how about:

llSetAnimation( string animation_name, float start_time, float end_time, float speed )

So to that a line like this...

llSetAnimation( "dance1", -1, -1, 0.5 );

...would play the dance1 animation from start (-1) to finish (-1) at half speed. Or...

llSetAnimation( "yoga_float", 1.0, 3.0, 1.0 );

...would start the yoga_float animation one second into it (already floating) and play the next two seconds ONLY in a loop at normal speed. Or...

llSetAnimation( "tantrum", -1, 1.8, 1.0 );
llSleep( 0.8 );
llSetAnimation( "tantrum", 1.8, -1, 0.0 );
llSleep( 10.0 );
llSetAnimation( "tantrum", 1.8, -1, 1.0 );

Which would play the first 1.8 seconds of the tantrum animation, freeze for 10 seconds, then play the rest of it.

Hmmm... On second thought, turning this into a particle or vehicle type of function call with a list of parameters might be even better. Then we could make a long list of name, start, stop, and speed parameters to play in sequence. Fire and forget. Toss in the ability to say something on a particular channel in there, and then even attachments can be scripted in time with the animation.

It's not custom gestures, but it IS more control than we have now.