Built-In Animation Replacements

Second Life needs user-definable, built-in animation replacements.

Ever since 1.2.6, when some of the default animations were replaced with animations that were a little too gender-biased and characterized, people have been requesting this feature.

In addition, if you have a heavily modified avatar, the default animations don't even sync properly sometimes (hands inside skirts, etc.).

You're probably thinking: There are excellent animation override scripts out there Arito.

There is, yes, and this is not meant to put down the creators at all (heck, I have one that I created and give out for free).

The problems with animation overrides are:

1. They create more network lag.
   This has been debated, but the simple fact of the matter is this:
   
   The server will send a message to all clients saying that you are moving forward and to play the default walk animation. Milliseconds later, the server will send another message with the custom override animation to play (from the override script).
   
   When you stop walking, the server will again, send a message indicating this. Problem is, your override animation is still playing. Milliseconds later, the server sends out another message (from the override script again) telling clients to stop the override animation.
   
   This probably doesn't amount to a lot of lag by itself, but as is the case with everything in SL, little things add up.
   
   Compare this with a built in animation replacement feature: One message to start your walk and custom animation, one message when you're done walking.
   
   
   
2. They are glitchy.
   Animation override scripts often exhibit pauses, stutters or just plain weird (moonwalking, etc.) side effects.
   
   
   
3. They do not work in no script areas.
   Welcome Area, etc.
   
   
   
4. They break vehicles.
   A lot of times, animation override scripts can hiccup vehicles updates when your avatar updates. They can also (depending on the sit script the vehicle uses) cause you to stand up while still driving or just glitch the animation stack overall.
   
   
   
5. They require extra processing by the server.
   Most animation override scripts require a fair amount of code. Even if it's programmed to be lightly intensive, it's still code and comes with a cost.
   

Prop. 25: Improve Avatar default animations
Description: Make a better default run/walk (more natural gait)

Why have LL spend time making new animations (that we may or may not like) instead of just letting us choose our own?

Everyone voting for that should pile their votes into:

Prop. 67: User-Definable, Replaceable Default Animations. (Stand/Sit/Walk/Fly/Run etc)
Description: Allow residents to define and replace their own stand, run, sit, walk, and fly animations with uploaded ones. Integrate this into the UI, similar to the old Gesture pulldown. Example, a UI page with assignment slots for STAND: Stand.bvh. WALK: NewWalk.bvh., etc. Also, release existing animations as .BVH files.

This is an excellent suggestion.

Please take the time to vote for Prop. 67 and make your voice heard. Less lag, smoother transitions between walking and standing animations, and a clean solution to an old problem.

this's been somethin so manyof us have wanted for so long... just the ability to choose how each of our avatars moves, and idles, and relaxes etc.. its been kind a abig barrier to the suspension of disbelief that without a real in game interface to this, basically 99% of people jus are stuck at defaults, and the few who do over-ride are presented with all the above problems, (and more if they are not themselves a scriptor)

I'd like to add:

6. AOs can't vary animation playback rate

The built-in walking animation has a varied playback rate based on the speed that you move. If you're walking slow, the animation slows down, if you speed up, the animation speeds up.

This way, your leg animations tend to keep pace with your avatar movement, so that at least there is a rough illusion of your feet actually moving in correspondence with the ground.

An AO script cannot simulate this behavior.

In fact, the AO walks almost always look like someone is walking on ice. This, combined with delay at state changes mentioned in #1 in Arito's post, makes walk animation overriding look bad enough that I've chose to stick with the default built-in walk animation.

My reasoning is simple: Let LL "improve" the animations "for us", and we'll get a lot of stuff that we don't want.

Give us the option to replace our own, we will have more control over this in the future.

Currently, the proposition to allow us to replace our own sit/run/stand/fly/walk animations is losing, to a proposition that implores the Lindens to 'improve' our sit/run/stand/fly/walk animations.

I say, don't put this in one person's hands. Evidenced by LL's past, we will get something like "every male walk will be beefy and strutting, and every female walk will be mincing and demure".

Do you want your male alien av to walk with a John Wayne swagger?
Do you want your female assassin av to sachet like a princess?

If not, vote for prop 67 vs prop 25.

Hey, I read that historical New World Notes article!

One big benefit of this is it would cut down on a lot of guesswork for people who are new to SL and confused AND WANT TO WALK SEXY!!! -- I must admit that as easy as Francis Chung's Franimation Overrider is to use for me, in hindsight, I really had to ask her so many questions about how to get it started. The framework it lies on is not the most elegant and she's done a remarkable job packaging it neatly and having such nice documentation and help by Gwyn, Kex, Ulrika, and Water to go along with it. I echo Ari's sentiments in streamlining and making things simpler.

SO YOU CAN WALK SEXY! (OR SILLY.)

So uhhhhhh if we had like a preferences tab with these settings configurable within, that'd be schweet.

RUR RUR RUR!

Prop 67 appeals to me. Customizability is a cornerstone of SL, and the fact we have hundreds of sliders for avatar shape but not more "out-of-the-box" settings for avatars in MOTION is something that befuddles me more than cheese on asparagus.

Prop 67, user picks the animation. We like that!

I wouldn't bust your chops over this suggestion Arito - no way - no how.. I think its a great idea..

In fact shortly after I wrote my first anim overrider script for myself I thought 'Jeez it's a good thing I can script' and promptly made the self same suggestion.. and the first reply I got was 'well you can easily write a script to to that....'

I agree - I'm all for giving people more options to customize their Av's personality - without the need to script it..

Siggy.

Definitely. This will cut down on the amount of lag grid wide by loads and loads.

I'd like to see two things:

Better default animations AND user-modifiable default animations.

In our group test on system lag effects we discovered AO (Animation Override) devices to be one of the most serious lag causers on SL. We would see visible sim slowdown when just one of these devices was turned on, and one time when we had 5 such devices running on a sim, it almost crashed the sim.

I know some folks market these items, and hey, sorry, but ya should have programmed them better. Lag-infested AO devices need to disappear from SL and be replaced with prorammable default animations. I'm all for this proposal.

I too have repeatedly observed a noticeable drop in sim performance with even one AO activated; my group tested this. Though we all wish it were otherwise, polling for your current animation and doing some crunching with that data, as quickly as LSL can allow, causes lag. I'd love to use custom animations for myself, and I could easily write my own AO script to do so, but I don't because of the effect these scripts have. Replacing these animations in a lag-free, "official" manner is a great idea and should've gone in the development queue as a natural followup as soon as uploading anims was made possible.