Are new Avatar Improvements Coming?

I'd read last year that avatars were being significantly reworked, but it was still an "out there" issue.

Do you or anyone else have any words on the status of this project? I can't seem to find anything in the forums.

Thanks!

There are lots of long term plans for SL, new AV's is one thats been mentioned before.

TBH, LL are still in disaster recovery mode and almost all dev work is on a back burner. Also, they do have a habit of getting excited about a new idea only to find actual implementation causes a lot of other problems so has to be put on hold.

The only avatar improvement that has been formaly announced as in development are "Physical Avatars" and "Puppeteering". The tech was demoed at SIGGRAPH and SLCC earlier this year. What it means is that the avatar will be what's called a "ragdoll" that responds to physics, colideable objects and other avatars in a more realistic way and you can animate your AV in real time (and later via script) by dragging body parts around in SL. No word on when it will be officaly released. It should also make interaction between two avatars (handshakes, hugs, etc) much easier than it is now.

No word on when it's comming out though.

I think initially it will only serve to make simple gestures easy, with the lag can you imagine trying to shake someone elses hand!

Being able to script AV movements will be a big step forward, and long over due.

Due to popular demand, LL is supposed to be putting its emphasis on bug fixing, and delaying the development of new features for the foreseeable future.

Which I suppose is all to the good, but I was looking forward to further browser integration.

Scripted animation opens a lot of cool possibilities:

- Location damage for combat games with visual feedback. (Image swordfighting where you actually swing your sword arm around rather than just playing a generic attack animation, hitting their leg, giving them a Horace Pinker-style limp.
- AOs for large avvies that can work a bit less stiffly.