Couples, QAvimator and MLPV2

So, I've started trying QAvimator using two animations in the same editing window, making a couples pose for an MLPV2 system, and straight away I'm struck by a fundamental problem:

If the two animations are lined up perfectly in both QAvimator and in-world, the two MLPV2 poseballs will surely be in exactly the same place, since the reference point for them both in QAvimator is identical? If so, it's going to be mighty hard to click on the right ball.

As anyone come across this and found a neat solution? Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Maybe I did npt understand you right, but can't you solve this by setting up the poseballs with a distance to each other and manipulate the "sit"-position in the scripts?

With normal poseballs yes, this would be what I'd do. But I'm using the MLPV2 menu system, and as far as I know there's no way of setting an additional distance between the balls for a specific pose.

As it happens, so far it's not proved to be too bad a problem, since I'm only making poses specifically for myself and my partner, and normal adjustments for size variations mean that the balls are in slightly different places. It's not ideal, though - the balls end up very close to one another, making it harder than ideal to click on the right one.

The standard answer to this would probably be to start with another pose in which the avatars are unconnected, such as a pair of stand poses, and always get on that first and select the pose you want, but I'm unwilling to force ourselves (or any user) to adapt their habits for a convenience of setup. We do enough of that in SL as it is!

Barrington,

This is why there can be great benefit to helping customers understand that they can hop on the poseballs in the "Stand" position and then switch to whatever animation/pose they want via the menu. In MLP/MLPV2 systems it is not uncommon for poseballs to be burried in furniture or to be close together because of the differences in how animators create their poses. Usually a notecard to customers helps explain the use of "Stand".

Hope this helps.

~ Desi

There's an easy solution that can be helpful in other situations too.

As I'm sure you learned in the process of figuring out SL animations, frame 1 of an animation is typically left with everything at zero and is discarded on upload. What many people don't realize is that the final hip position (which ultimately determines the avatar's overall position in the animation) isn't based on the absolute numbers in frame 2-thru-whatever; rather, it's an offset based on the differences in hip position between frames 1 and 2. So what you do is slide the hips of one or both of your models off to the side (or front to back if that makes more sense for your scene) in frame 1, and when you upload it the actual animation will be offset in a complementary manner.

That can be kind of hard to visualize (and I might not be explaining it well), so to put it a simpler way: put the hips in frame 1 where you want the poseball to be, and from frame 2 on where you want the avatar to be. When you sit, you won't sit "on" the poseball but off to the side where the real animation happens.

This is also great for making sits or other animations designed for a piece of furniture, often troubled by that pesky problem where you stand up and end up standing on top of the chair, or stuck in a swing set, or some such thing. What you do there (using a sit as an example) is offset frame 1 a bit forward of the actual animation starting in frame 2, which causes the animation to occur a bit back of the sit target. You adjust the sit target to make it look right in your chair, then when you stand up your built-in offset goes away and you end up standing in front of the chair where the sit target is (and where simulator thought you were all along).

I hope some of that makes sense and is helpful

Yes it did. Thanks for your insightful explanation.

Desiree, as I said, I'm trying to avoid having to do precisely that business of having to load a dummy animation simply to be able to click on the poseballs before then switching to the animation you wanted in the first place. Forcing users (or indeed one's partner) to do things a certain way because it's easier for me to configure goes against the grain. In the heat of the moment, it's hard enough having to remember to switch out of the menu and click on 'yes' to animate your avatar - and that's unavoidable.

However, if that's the only way to do it, I guess we'll have to put up with it. The only other way I can think of would be to write a plugin for MLPV2 to allow poseballs to be positioned offset to the animations, essentially by manipulating the sit target. I don't have the time to do that at the moment.

Anti, changing the position of one of the animations within QAvimator moves the mannequin in QAvimator, so you'd lose all the advantages of seeing the two avatars together during editing as they would be in use. But yes, it's very useful for shiting both poseballs to keep them out of furniture.

Thanks to both of you for your help.

What I'm talking about, though, is changing the hip position ONLY in frame 1 (which is probably just displaying a T-pose anyway) and leaving it where you need it to do the rest of the animation.

[edit] I probably should have said before, I use Poser, so I suppose it's possible that QAvimator behaves differently in some way such that moving the hips in frame 1 spoils the layout of the rest of the frames, but that seems odd to me.

Thanks, Anti - I misunderstood you. I'll have a look at QAvimator and see if that's possible (I don't know offhand because I've only done static poses and hence not really got involved with frames beyond the basics).

EDIT: Oh, and apologies for the typo up there. I meant to say *shifting* the poseballs.

Haha, good luck with that!

OK, long answer: I considered implementing a feature like this: offsets for animations, but realized that it would play hell with adjustments. Better to make the anims with reasonable offsets in the first place, since it's simple to do as outlined by Anti above (thanks for that).

That's not such a good solution for most folks, who bought animations and have to live with how they are. But, animators making animations for use in MLP, MLPV2, and all the other menu-furniture products should be aware of this issue by now (along with a host of other issues, like forgetting to change the hip joint at all, causing the pose to look right only after a pose with a similar orientation, and forgetting to move arm or head joints, causing typing animation or head looking around).

There's a learning curve! It would be good to put these pointers on the MLPV2 wiki, but I'm busy testing 2 additional avs at the moment.

head moving is a good thing for sit poses, as is typing anis. i HATE these things being overridden by the ani.

Thanks for the reply, Lear. I'd not considered the question of adjustments - I tend to adjust by editing, but I'd guess a lot of people don't. The problem remains - specifically, that QAvimator's two-at-at-time editing feature is rendered almost useless unless the two poseballs can have different sit target offsets.

In itself, that's not such a major setback for me personally, since any extra accuracy you can get by viewing the two mannequins together is countered by any differences between the mannequins' dimensions and the users' - particularly if, like me, you're doing the anims very precisely and with two specific individual avatars in mind. In the end, it has to come down to the old "right hand down a bit, head a little to the left" style of upload, trial and error.

Anti: I've checked, and it doesn't seem possible to change anything in frame 1 using QAvimator. When that frame's selected, the scene goes red and none of the editing controls are available. A shame - that could have been a very useful method.

Nina: Agreed absolutely! Unless there's a reason not to, I prefer to leave as many bits free as one can get away with. Long live typing animations, and long live plain old looking at people when they're talking to you! This applies especially to anims used in AOs - some people can appear very cold, aloof and unfriendly simply because their AOs lock their heads into fixed poses, not to mention the awkwardness of a conversation with someone who appears to be idle until suddenly a stream of text pours out of nowhere.

Don't check! Uncheck in menu Options -> Protect First Frame
This is activated after startup.
A shame you did not find it yourself

Aha! Many thanks for correcting my idiocy - I'd not even thought to look for an option like that. This could be very useful indeed.

I almost always leave the head free for sits. The typing anim looks silly with some sits, good with others; but I always override it for simplicity. Sorry! Frankly, there should be a better indication that someone's about to say something, but I sure can't think of it!

I disagree 100%. I *love* the couples feature. However, I find that ingame I always need to move the balls apart slightly to account for av differences anyway, so the 1-position ball isn't a problem. The couples feature speeds up couples animating dramatically for me. As you say, we still need to tweak ingame, using actual av dimensions. (One of these days I'll be looking into adjusting Qavimator's dimensions, so males are bigger than females, etc.)

Simple workaround: edit the .bvh or .avm file using a text editor. The T frame is the first line after the end of the header. The hip joint is the first joint, as well. Look at the header to help figure out which number to adjust. Not as easy as doing it in Qavimator, but .... (and there might be an option to "protect frame 1".

One thing that has worked well for me doing couples poses is to create the animations and then before exporting to BVH (I use Poser) is to move teh hips on frame 1. This will make the base positions different on the uploaded poses yet lets you make the couples poses as you like. When loaded in to MLP(V2) just adjust the balls as needed.


Oops, missed that someone had made a simialr suggestion already.