Priority for AO

You could always upload several and have a script determine what the avatar is doing to determine which animation with which priority number to use.

heyas;

okay, after more experimentation. and a lot of stopping and starting :X


the pop-up occurs seemingly between animations. going from standing to walking, from walking to standing still, and from standing to turning. i dont know if there is a pass-through animation (though from what i've read, there shouldnt be), or if its just the ao taking its 1/4 of a second to switch, or what.
adjusting the speed of the ao didn't help with this. (ie down from .25 seconds to .1 seconds, .01 secons.)


if the walk/run and stand poses are priority 4, there is no pop-up. if the walk/run is p4 and the stand is p3, this works all right, except for a slight pop between standing and turning. turning, as i mentioned above, must be p4.



now these other theories about stacking 2 or more animations together to create different priorities for different parts, and using different priorities depending on what the avatar is doing.... they're all very good ideas, but i want the ao to be streamlined and low lag. fewer animations and fewer script hoops-to-jump-through, dontcha know. ;)

and bobby, id love to do everything at priority 3 so poseballs and scripts could work without turning the ao off, but it just aint happenin. :/


i'll check if the ao script(s) im using are cancelling unused animations or not. not sure it will work with the default anims (i can try to kill my stride every time i start walking, that ought to be funny, too.) but flushing out the anim list of repeats sounds like a good idea.


thanks guys! this has been very informative. and hopefully my new ao will be out soon. :)

I believe that's more the delay from overriding animations being sent to your viewer (or loaded from your viewer's cache) and will appear different for everyone seeing you. Once it's cached, it's then more the delay in telling the server how you are moving and it telling your viewer to show it (and everyone else's around you of course). Smaller/shorter animations seem to be affected less of course. (Which is one reason my AO stands don't delay before playing, I designed them to be as efficient as possible.)

The solution? More efficient/smaller animations, faster internet connecton and faster hard drive?

We see this all the time when dancing! (Or maybe just I do with my slower connection?)

I have seen other animations showing through (what you are calling pop-up), despite priority 4, when there is lag, with my Naga AV and AO. Of course, on myself, my walk (a higher priority) takes a moment to appear over the default walk of lower priority frequently.



Most poseball scripts cancel the default sit, but the typical AO's I've seen do not stop walks or things like that, which normally I would think is good? (In the time it takes for the overriding walk to show up, it would be odd to slide along in a standing pose instead of the default walk wouldn't it?)

But you can't get repeats of animations, playing a duplicate may replace the existing animation or may not depending on how it is played (from a different source or not).

I ran into this with a wedding bouquet. The bouquet unfortunately came with an AO including a walk with only one arm holding the bouquet, the other swinging, all at priority 4 (just to make fixing it as hard as possible apparently!)

So I made a priority 4 pose of just the bad arm, but then had to replay it over and over to be sure it would show as the bride moved around. It couldn't be perfect like it would have been if the bouquet walk had been priority 3 or lower, and it needed a script too keep playing it over that animation.

Anyways, the script gave me fits, as it wouldn't replay the playing animation, instead I had to stop it for a tenth of a second and start it again (without the delay, it didn't replay and showed the too high priority walk instead).

OTOH, if I wear my Naga avatar, and play the same animation that hides the legs from inventory while the script in the tail is also is doing it, if you click stop? It all goes away until the tail script timing comes around to play it anew.

(And the animation info readout never shows duplicates either...)

heyas;

good to know, crystal.


last night i was using a pre-release of my ao which doesnt have the initial lock pose applied, so i applied it from my inventory. occassionally, the animation would stop, and the stop/play in world button would change. i thought it came from standing up from a sit pose ball, but when i watched it, it didn't get removed when i stood up.

so now i dont know why THAT was happening.

I use combinations of 2, 3 and 4 for my AO's. Walks I tend to do as a 3 or 4 just to make sure they work properly.

Stands and sits I tend to do as 3's. I also sub-animate the arms for most poses and set them to 2. The main body and arm animations are then combined in the AO but when typing the arms are free to be overridden by the typing anim.

Also I can create new poses by combining different arm and standing anims. Animation chords as it were.

How can you tell what priority (1, 2, 3, 4) an animation is? Can you change it on an animation you bought to be a 4?

I talked to someone who needs avatar to stand absolutely still in the pose for modeling photography (that is what I am looking for) without moving or stepping out of it. She said use animations that are set at priority 4 - that 4s are used for modeling poses. You can use a 2 or 3 if you want to use it as an active animation where the avatar moves (changes siits, etc from you ZHAO for example). And the higher numbers DO override the lower numbers.

It's just hard at a store to know for sure if it is a 4 or not; they don't usually say so on the ad.

Any input folks?

Princess Ivory

you can't with out expiremtenting and guessing.

nope, they are locked in when they are uploaded (that's when you set priority)

modeling poses need to be at least 3 to override the default SL stands (IIRC those are 2). 4 is prefered becuase it'll override the head nod and typing anims, so the model can still chat back w/o moving


a few places do, and I include a tag on all my persoanl ones that say p# so I know the priority... most people aren't shopping for modeling poses so that's probably why they don't mention them alot (just creates user confusion for the average user)

you can try IMing the seller, let them know it's for modeling so you need to know priorities on the anims, if they don't keep track of the priorities it's simple simple just to try typing... if your head nods when you hit enter in chat, it's not 4 (or the head isn't locked, either way, probably not good for your purposes)

Actually you can , by viewing Animation Information (in the debug menus) while playing the anim. (You'll want to be alone when you do this.) The last number after the dash is the priority (except for the default walk, which is a combination of priorities 0 and 3).



Actually the default stands are 0 . The typing is only a 2. So a priority of 3 overrides both completely. That would also allow for combining and layering other poses into a unique position, or holding props or bags easily.

Priority 4 won't allow for any of that unfortunately...

For a list of priorities see:

So what's the consensus, then? Walk: priority 3 or 4? Stand: priority 3?

Or is it best to sell two different priority versions of an AO?

I don't think there is any consensus. If we had to have one though I would propose that walks be priority 3 to allow for carrying/holding things and stands should either be 2 to allow typing or 3 to not allow typing. I think that should be a choice for the animator.

And I would really like it if the advertistement indicated if the pose was a priority 4 or not. I am buying poses for modeling, as well as for my regular AO. I need the head to stay still for modeling photographs, and I need a priority 4 to do that.

Princess Ivory

My stands/poses are 2 (otherwise you break the typing anim, and dances that are priority 3 or lower)

(You don't need to make priority 3 poses to stop the typing animation, users can easily stop it temporarily themselves, or turn it of for themselves too, regardless of animation when they don't want others to have a cue that they are in the midst of saying something.. )

Dances and walks priority 3, that way a dance will show without an AO interfering (I've never had to turn my AO off), and you can hold/carry things while walking or dancing.

Also, if you walk across a dance floor, it will show instead of that crazy sliding while feet are planted "dancing" thing that happens with a certain popular dance makers bad priority 4 dances.

If I make something priority 4, it's because of a very unique circumstance, and then I only animate the body parts that absolutely need it (only arms if handcuffed or holding an object for instance, more of the body and half the limbs for a tiny AO).

If you can demo the pose, maybe turn on Animation Info in the Client -> Character menu to see the priority before you buy it?

However a modelling pose that stops the head won't stop the eyes anyway, you'll still need to alt-click on something to direct the eyes where you want, which will, of course, freeze the head looking that way too (instead of a pose freezing the head looking at nothing and the eyes still wandering).

None of those frozen statue "modeling" poses can I use in photography, since with them the head is stuck not looking at the subject or the camera or what is needed!

Of course, if you are using a model instead of yourself, and need to chat, simply precede their chat with / or /0 just like at a live music event, then their head won't bob (nor the typing anim show of course). After using the /0 once, then // will work and is more convenient, which sends your chat to the last used channel.

OK, I've made a parallel set of Priority 2 and Priority 3 stands for my first AO. I made the walks priority 3 or 4, I forget which.

I'm also putting the priority level and duration in the 'description' field of each animation. And I'll advertise at least the priority level on my vendor.

I have been selling dozens of still model poses, all priority 4, for a long time. I suppose I should mark those as priority 4 just so people know what they're getting.