Animating for different avatar sizes

So, I have a question for you more experienced creators of poses/animations for resale. What avatar body size settings to you optimize for? I've been going with height and body size at 50% to try and split the difference but If I test with a very small size avatar or the sliders maxed out tall/large the placement of hands and feet is just a mess. I know there is nothing that can be done since the range of body size is so great, but I'm curious as to what the pro's use as an average size.

Anyone?

I tend to go with the taller end since most people make their avs tall. Around 75% for males and 66 for females. Obviously this is even worse for very small avs, but it's a choice between being messed at both extremes or only on the less common extreme. Besides, if both avs are small then a couples pose or whatever will still look fine other than them hovering in the air.

Ok, as near as I can figure, the avatar size works this way: The BVH format actually can accomocate specific avatar sizes, BUT, SL ignores all that when it is imported. The only information that comes into SL in the animation import is the angular displacement of body parts relative to one another. This gets applied to whatever avatar size the adopting avatar is. Really this all makes sense, because there are so many variables that SL allows for its avatars.

For standalone animations, like walks, flips, waves etc, this does not matter, except where body parts interact with one another such as clapping or wrapping one;s arms around your own knees. Then it is impossible to design anything that will work with all avatars cuz the arm length and leg lengths vary so much.

Even if you were to design for the perfect standard SL avatar form, the first avatar you try it on will not look right.

The best thing is to plan animations that do not require this kind of interaction if possible

I have a product with extensive couples animatations (Rendezvous Couples Animator) To create this I use a male avatar that is 110% taller than the female, since this is sort of normal, even in SL. but it is nearly impossible to get hands to hold, hugs to match, lips to meet when kissing etc. This whole problem is compounded by avatars wearing heals, or shoes of any kind ...

long and short: there is no good place to start - and no good way to match avatars to specific sized objects or other avatars - you just have to experiment. Good Luck

well if you really need to fit a pose to a specific avatar size you might want to look at U-poser.

*marketing note for all you animations folks* I actually opened this thread hoping to see that someone was trying to create a set of animations for short women. The number of SL female AVs that are 5'8" or so seems to me to have been growing steadily over the past year; LL has made height more obvious to check on OI and Help Island. Less than 5'7" and clothes don't fit. I had a friend who was working on a line of short women anims --- they were great but he left SL. Whoever does this will have a captive market, similar to the petite clothing market in RL. Personally, I would kill for a simple cuddle that looked right.

Nika, I have a smaller avatar as well, which was why I asked in the first place Although you do have a great idea in doing a custom line for small avatars.... The real problem would be with a two-avatar pose because the animation is dependent on BOTH avatars being a certain size. So, making something for a smaller female would be easy - but what then do you do with the male? Any change is his size is going to once again make the animation look funky.

I am having a horrible time with this, I am working on animating some furniture and I want cute animations, arms wrapped around legs, curled up etc... and they look adorable on me, and as soon as my guy friend sits on it, it looks a mess... I told him he wasn't allowed to sit on them anymore... lol but thats not a very good solution, I also tried setting my av to 75% like suggested and it didn't help...
Someone has to know a better solution!
O, and for the record I did try Uposer for this also but it's just too much work and still doesn't accomplish a unisex animation =/

Basically there are only two options. Creating several animations for different avatar sizes, or trying to find an 'avarage' that works for most to some degree.

I have been playing a bit with Poser, trying to fit the poser avatar to some average shaped SL avatar. I set the male figure to 110% which helps. However I noticed that 'avarage' SL male shapes tend to have broaden their shoulders for instance which effects the animations too.

So I think the question remains. How do you tweak your Poser/DAZ figure to match the 'average' avatar ?

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How do you set the male figure to 110%? Does that give you unisex animations or only better animations for males?

Sensual, I think (from my reading here anyway) is that one can't really do cool stuff like arms wrapped around the legs unless they are animations that will be used solely for your own needs - where you can create them specifically for a certain sized avatar.

I'm needing to go back and change some of my initial efforts after seeing them in use by a wide range of people and being disappointed.

From what I know thats correct.Very precise poses for couples have to be made for that specific couple,or a couple with the exact same sizes,that means ALL size adjustments must be the same.

Your avatar only "knows" where it's root joint is,that is usually the hip joint,all other posistion calculations are done off of that joint.The pose/animation files you upload are just lists of joint angles off of the root joint.That means any changes to the lengths of arms,legs the torso,etc will have big effects on where the hands or feet end up.

About 2 years ago LL was working on IK,or some variation of IK,this would solve most of the problems with poses for different sized avatars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_kinematics

I agree, I am in this forum as I write actually to look for ways to start with poser. I personally am usually 3'9 in SL and am sick of sinking into the ground everytime I use a sit pose.

I'm mostly hoping to build for just myself, but if there is enough positive response, I may sell.

What size would you suggest I use for 3'9? I have a lot planned already in my head, but will need to learn poser properly for them.

Furries are shorter than humans. My animations might look right on short people because I make them while wearing a furry. search for my store if you want.

Would there be some 'scientific' way to transfer the basic avatar shape numbers to poser scale %s, or is it just experience, trial and error etc.

There's no "scientific" way that I know of,you would need the lengths of each piece of the skeleton,as far as I know that information isn't exportable.

Didn't see it mentioned, but we do know that the "height" of the avatar inside SL is based on the Shin Length? This is why short people sink! ?I'll try to explain to the best of my knowledge,

Example, .5 cubed box, Say a Male avatar at 100 Height.
(in Poser sit the character, i go back and fourth till I get the right fit, butt on box, feet on ground)
Now, 3.9 avatar in this same pose, SHINS are much shorter, sit box, bout waist deep in it, feet, maybe in ground, or not even touching)

If you really want to see this at it's BEST/ :|P "SIT ON GROUND"!

I tried sit, sit ground, laying poses, and they only ever fit someone, ?I'd say with in 10-20% + or - the avatar size I used to make the initial pose.

Sorry peeps but your probably going to need to find a "TINY ANIMATOR" >P

ONGOING dilemma, unfortunately. Have yet to hear anything from Linden side, so we're on our own as usual?!

Just transerfering the inwould %s would be a little comlpex since some sliders affect more than one joint. I can get a pretty darn close with U-poser, which allows me to see the distance from joint to joint. I have not used Poser but only a couple times. Does it allow you to adjust the distance between the bone joints by distance? and not percent values.