Animation is Undervalued by LL

Objects and space create the structure and visuals of the virtual world, but animation makes it fun. As I muddle thru SL, its quite obvious that there is a lack of animation in all aspect of all or most of the builds in SL. Not a lack of animators. IMHO, every build should be an animation party. Most of the time, if not for my ao, I'm just an avatar moving thru a space, no matter how good it looks. I'm not talking about sitballs with 1 animation in them. There are some really awesome multi-animation controllers out there. Each animation placed around a build gives it unmeasurable fun value, depending on the anim, lol. Would love for Machinima makers to also put more emphasis on animation.

Now to the real reason I'm writing this. LL is part of the problem. Animation is not highlighted anywhere. Its totally blank from the Showcase. Oh yeah, Fashion is front and center, but the 1 thing that makes virtual life fun is completely absent. Even when it comes to issues in the Jira, it seems that animations bugs are hardly given any attention despite those bugs getting worse with each new viewer.

I sincerely hope that these groups of builders that LL is putting together understand the importance of creating an engaging, interactive environment. Please LL, put more emphasis on displaying and maintaining the animation system.

We need better scripted control of animations. We need inverse kinematics. We need scripted animation filters. Eg:

sensor(integer n)
{
  if(llVecDist(llGetPos(), llDetectedPos(0)) > 1.0) return; // too far away
  llStartAnimation(llGetOwner(), "shake_hand");
  llMessageLinked(LINK_THIS, 1337, "shake_hand", llDetectedKey(0));
  // some business with sleep or timer here to let the other avatar start playing shake_hand too
  llRestrictJoint(RIGHT_HAND, llDetectedKey(0), RIGHT_HAND); // make my right hand follow his right hand
}

Or alternatively:

// One handed piano man!
llStartAnimationFiltered("play_piano",RIGHT_LOWER_ARM|RIGHT_UPPER_ARM|RIGHT_HAND);

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp7G18nQxvU

(^_^)y

We need priority to be a scripted parameter, not hard coded into the animation.

I couldn't agree with you more. I should say that excellent animation for SL appears to be a good deal more hard work than building, texturing and even scripting put together. I'm happy to note that the longstanding glitch where internal animations would not replay with expressions has been fixed but there are far too many 'issues' with successfully uploading animations to SL that prohibit the widespread creativity in evidence with texturing and scripting.

It would be good to see a dedicated portal for animation such as the LSL Wiki, which would not have to be nearly as detailed, addressing the basic technical issues that do not appear to vary whatever application is used. Otherwise it would seem that an undue amount of time, error and lindens is required in order for animators to pay their dues and achieve a satisfactory realisation of their ideas.

In my opinion, residents should be able to download QAvimator and, allowing for some time coming to terms with the menu, upload the good, bad or indifferent results to their personal AO with a minimum of fuss.

And of course we have great systems like MLP, MLPv2 and XPOSE that allow us to buy animations off the shelf and compose our own 'performances'. Nevertheless, the assembly of an animated device with a believable 'story' in its menu is a building project in itself or at least it is when it is done properly. I think this is why we don't see many 'homemade' or personalised systems around SL, despite the best efforts of Messrs Fluffy and Cale to popularise their use.

The majority of residents seem to prefer entirely off-the-shelf products - even when they are figuratively banging a round peg into a square hole - and I have to suppose that commissioning a builder to include convincing animated features is just far too costly and time-consuming in general.

Another factor to consider is that swimming, dancing, hugging, combat, sitting and even the previously much overlooked groundsit are all aspects of animation that are much better controlled these days from a good AO rather than SL's built-in point-and-click system. I can groundsit anywhere I'm standing now without that tiresome turn, walk, sit process that usually results in just looking dumb because I'm pointing in the wrong direction or my av is half buried in a hummock of land.

In this respect, I prefer builds to be empty of preset poses for basic actions. If there is a chair, I want to sit in the pose I have chosen and, more importantly, see my av sitting on the chair as opposed to floating over it or sinking into the thing because it was developed by someone with a very differently sized av.

Yes yes yes yes yes.

Would be awesome.

Yes! Please! All of the above - and thank you for bringing this up.