New at this please help

Ok, I'v skimed the bored, Did a search and trying to find out some things here
1: What program one uses to do this
2: Tips on how to do this
I found some things on basic info on what to do once geting going but cant find any clue on programs to use..Not sure if its done inside SL or not or if its a program then the file is uploaded God i feel like a newbie...

It's ok. We all gotta start someplace.


My personal preference for program to use is Poser 4. Since it's considered Obselete you can get it pretty cheap, but it works just fine for making animations.

Once you've gotten it, cruise on over to the Downloads section of the SL site and get the AL avatar poser files.

Lots of tutorials abound for making animations in Poser. Check out Ulrika Zugzwang's site for some gotchas though. They'll drive you batty if you don't know about them.

Once you've made animations that you like, export them to a BVH file and upload to SL.

That's it.

FAQ for New Animators (Draft 1):

1. OK, I'm a newbie. How do I create an animation?

See Basic Animation Tutorial Online at /52/58/17018/1.html.


2. Why isn't this body part moving in SL the way it does in Poser?!?!

See Animation Tip - Working with Frame 1 at /52/e4/27721/1.html.

And, Head Moving at /52/9a/19965/1.html

And also, Please Explain Priority at /52/5b/18121/1.html.


3. How do I make a pose stick/freeze or an animation repeat/loop?

See Making a Pose Stick at /52/f0/19841/1.html.

And, Looping Animations at /52/d5/16444/1.html.


4. OMG, my animation/pose looks great in Poser, but in SL, my av is floating/hovering above the ground, sinks into the ground, or is not flipped/rotated!

See When You Make a Laying or Sitting Pose at /52/f8/19023/1.html.

And, Floating Poses at /52/f6/16297/1.html.

And also, Animation Not Rotated Correctly at /52/e7/22803/1.html.


5. How can I make facial expressions or animate hands?

See Animating Facial Expression at /52/05/29129/1.html.

And, Hand Animations at /52/25/30328/1.html.


6. I just bought Poser 6, but when I try to upload my animation in Second Life, I get an error message that says, "Unable to read animation file can't get rotation values"!

See Poser Question at /52/06/79269/1.html, especially Seagel Neville's response

Saw this post did not help me that much if i dont know the program to use

1. OK, I'm a newbie. How do I create an animation?

See Basic Animation Tutorial Online at /52/58/17018/1.html.

If you click on the link you read this:

Basic Animation Tutorial Online
Whew! Thanks to much help from computer-savvy friends I've been able to get a web page up.

It's rather basic still but it contains an online Poser 5 tutorial for beginners. Hopefully, it will head off a lot of questions that new users have as well as provide those, who are missing Poser 2 models, with what they need.

The tutorial is at Ulrikasheim.

~Ulrika~

If you follow this link Ulrikasheim it will take you to a basic Poser animation tutorial. As poser is the name of the program you need to make animations in SL.