boo

Boo to everyone who downloads BVH/anim files FREE from websites and try to sell them in game.
thats my rant.

agreed. I have pretty much all of the ones you can download. Whenever I've seen someone selling freebies, I make a point of trying to counteract it by giving them away instead.

Oh. And I set my priorities correctly too.

Yes, I find this very frustrating too. The money should be going to those who actually make their own animations.

I've been searching online for as many freely distributable BVH files as possible and have nearly 150 of them. I'll be uploading soon and giving away for free.

Good on ya, Damien

Did you pick up the three part free 'Private Dancer' set that seems to be selling particularly well in world to would-be lapdancers?

i did!
anyone who wants the priv. dances free just IM me in game

http://www.combat-bunny.com/Downloads.html
yeah and thats where i got it

After mucking about with Poser a bit and finding how difficult it is to make a really good pose/animation, I whole-heartedly agree with Mistress. If you didn't put some effort into creating something, don't sell it.

As someone who is unlikely to ever design interesting animations, I don't really have a pony in this race. I don't think I even know anyone (well, know well) in world who is designing animations. And I would agree with the sentiments of profiting on a freely distributable work (even more so for one that is not) that the SL person did not create.

Just a question, relating to seeing some of the earleir threads prior to the forum shenanigans. Would it be justifiable to charge a very low price to get the standard freely distributable animations into SL, given that there are probably a lot of them and it takes L$ to upload? Granted, there is no audit trail per se and one could quickly move into true profiting. But is there ethical room to recoup the actual hard costs to get this library if you will in world for everyone ASAP. Again, only applies to freely distributable works, animations created by others with restricted licenses are a much more clear cut issue, namely no.

Sorry, again no vested interest here, just potentially a more interesting discussion (well, less dramatic) than the main forum topic du jour.

I agree totally. I've released for free a pack of animations and and a pack of 134 poses to prevent just such profiteering.

I spent a long time getting my Trinity animations to look exactly like the original and a good animation does take quite a lot of time.

You can pick up the free packs at Ulrikas Werkstatt.


On a related note, who would be interested in joining a Creative Commons vigilante group that keeps an eye out for those repackaging and selling free animations and poses? As a large group the threat of a collective negative-rating spree could prove as a useful deterrent.

~Ulrika~

If this thread is pointing in my direction, just to clear my end of one of my packages i have for sale lol

when 1.4 opened up i purchaced a life dance motions pack from renorosity i paid real money for these dances and yes i sold them.. and i gave some away as well..I don't think i am wrong for doing this

In a conversation with one of the creators (not naming names to avoid putting words in someone's mouth), his quote was "Maybe these things are worth more in SL. That is, maybe they are more fun here." By importing bvh files in to poser ($130), correcting any bone mismatches (time value), adding the footsteps and what-not for getting from SL starting point to the mocap starting point and from the capture endpoint back to SL starting point (time value), and paying the L$10, 20, 30, 100 for uploading and reuploading animations until they look right in game (L$), you've invested a fair amount of real USD, time, and Lindens in to this "free" endeavor. Just the fact that you own a copy of Poser alone and some people don't gives you a competitive advantage worthy of markup. Now if someone wants to release the same animation for free, more power to them and the competetive market. And none of this changes the copyright issues which are still completely valid. If you want to argue copyright, argue copyright, but don't act like bvh importers have found an amazing loophole in the system that is taking advantage of everyone.

When 1.4 first came out I released several bvh files for sale, and was rewarded for being the first to market. Since then more free animations have came out, and in return I release even higher quality versions of the same animations, for free.

Since it's become apparent that reselling properly licensed (copyrighted) mocap data imported in to SL can be profitable, maybe a more fitting title for the topic would be "Stop using animations without permission!".

There are a whole bunch of freely downloadable .BVH's at :

http://www.centralsource.com/blender/bvh/files.htm

enjoy...

- Ace

Wow very cool page .. Thanks ace

Aces, when I made my post I did not have anyone in mind, so please take no offense. Rather I was stating a personal philosophy, which often holds the benefit of society above the profits of the individual.


I must say you make an excellent point. When we add value to something should we not be compensated? If you spend $400 on software and a couple of hours hunting down animations, should you not be compensated for your time and expenses?

I believe that adding value to an existing animation by taking time to convert it, upload it, package it, and distribute it should be worth something. For example the company SuSE, who makes a popular Linux distribution, adds value to open-source code by creating an installer and providing technical support. Provided you give credit for the original work, the argument that your fee is for the distribution of the animation and not its creation would be a sound one. The only time this argument breaks down is, if the author of the work does not allow free distribution.


I think the solution to this discussion can be summed up as this:

1) Easy to convert public-domain animations can be converted and given away or sold provided credit is given. Those who are selling them are justified in charging a distribution fee. (The conflict between giving and selling is a philosophical one which has no answer. I believe this is where Aces and I differ slightly, although I did recoup my upload expenses before I made mine free.)

2) Work that is not free to distribute either due to copyright, creative commons licenses, or preference should not be distributed.

3) Free animations and poses should never be repackaged and resold.

~Ulrika~

No offence taken.. i just wanted to clarify that my box of 4 animations that i put out i did indeed buy off the web.. and i also buy some of my poses off the web as well i am sure everyone has so in the future i am not buying animations..i did make a few of my own animations and dances.. you can find these at my shop i would like to encourage everyone to do the same.. i am not very good at this forum stuff.. i just didn't want anyone mistaken me to be a rip off artist...Hugs

um you forgot this part:

PLEASE NOTE: These .bvh files are NOT to be used for COMMERCIAL purposes! These .bvh files were gathered from several different animation companies and have been converted to use in Blender only for PERSONAL USE!

since L$ can be converted into RL$ I think SL is a commercial entity but thatis a seperate old arguement. Again I would go on the side of caution and not sell any freely distributed .bvh files, period.

This disclaimer above entitles no one to compensation for anything. Its very clear about that.

Cath

yeah aces, thats the only thing i have a problem with
not for COMMERCIAL use i cant even make something simple in poser, i cant imagine what work the others must have gone through, and others are profitting from it, ...

I agree making money off of others work is detestable.

However, there are some of us that are making animations/poses without the aid of other animation files.

All my .bvh were created by me & not copied.

For fixed poses I take pictures from magazines and through using the controls in poser I get the poses I need or want.
I then save them on pose dots

Then through the animation sequence of poser set them up in key frames and allow poser to animate the frames in between.

Typicaly I give a 10-15 frame offset between key frames.

Sometimes this is not pretty but others it works the way its supposed to.

If its not pretty I go back in frame by frame and adjust it as to how its suppose to look versus what poser ends up creating.

Yes its a lot of work, but once you get familure with the hiarchy of the skeleton and the limitations of inverse kinetics then creating appropriate animations gets to be fun.

I have seen many down loadable .bvh files but you can see glitches in them and places where the program trunicated the number of key frame movements.

So in essence its more fun to make poses and animations on your own because the end result is so much more rewarding on a personal level than any money can ever compensate.

Just my .02L$

Shadow

I could not have said it better myself... it literally takes me hours to get just a pose to look right and I won't even begin to explain the difficulty of making them animate...
Gaudeon and I have stayed in Leda for hours doing this.. and trying to make things look right in SL...
Still poses are much easier.. but when you try to make 2 poses interact with each other it is hell! I think it took me about 3 hours to get the "in his arms" poses to look right, with thanks to Rick Millhouse and his patience for modeling it for me while I tweak it little by little... and even those poses are not perfected...

Simple Rule of Thumb to follow on Animations.


#1 ask if a pose can be tweaked or readjusted in the sequence of events if it would not totaly muck up the flow.

#2 as if the pose can be adjusted to an idividuals avatar as I am learning that these can be tweaked for a specific avatar based on size and gender.


If the "Creator" answers no to either of these then look at it as a potential problem.

Why?

because #1 a good creator will save the .pz2 files in poser or the Blend files in Blender. Which is the animation and poses are in and can go back and remanipulate them to a new set or sequence even if it does look goofy they can do it.

#2 if they dont know how to manipulate the size adjustment on an avatar in poser or blender then they will never be able to tweak it.

.bvh is nothing more than a file that represents data for movement without understanding Poser or Blender being able to manipulate that data is impossible unless you have another motion program that reads and writes .bvh format.

I won't lie I am in relearning phase right now but look out in a few days I will have my first full fledged Animation up and running as I am tweaking it now.

SIncerely, Shadow