Sitting animation

Hi there, sorry this is all a bit new to me, not to techo.

I have an automated/override set of animations, but my AV will not sit properly, she sits lower and behind the seat. I have tried sitting on numerous chairs and seats and find the problem is always the same. I have now disabled the sitting animations. Does anyone have any idea what causes this problem.

I paid 999L for the animations and the creator told me the problem is with cheap furniture, however I have tried all kinds of furniture and the problem remains the same.

Also where is the best place to attach the animations, I have it attached to the centre hud, have tried various positions but it makes no difference to the seating issues.

Thanks

SL is loaded with misaligned AO sits. It's OK for a sit going into furniture to need some adjustment, but something going into an AO should really be tweaked to be compatible with the SL default placements. Unfortunately you can't really tell that from the posing stand vendors.

(Adding: it doesn't matter where you attach, placement is determined by what you're sitting on.)

Try this experiment.

Just rez a simple box from the Build menu. With your AO on, sit on the box.

If the sit in the AO works when you sit on the freshly rezzed box, then you can be confident that the problem with the sitting is not due to any flaws in the AO you bought, but due to other reasons mentioned in this thread.

(Edit: Actually, thinking about it, what I should actually say is just that if the AO plays the sit properly when you sit on the freshly rezzed box, then the AO works as well as any AO I've seen.)

It may be that your avatar is unusual.

A problem with animations is they're made based on assumptions that the size and shape of the avatar is typical. Well, put better: people who make furniture, choose the animations, and set the sit targets (the location where your hip goes when you sit) test it with their own avatar. If they're smart, they use an avatar that's fairly typical. If they're particularly smart, they'll test with a few different shapes.

Unusual shapes can throw things off. If you have a very large or robust-bottomed avatar, it can sink further into the furniture quite a bit more than some little whisp of a thing avatar. There is no simple universal solution for this. (In particular, skirts tend to sink into furniture even for petites. Otherwise, avs in jeans would appear to float.)

If you don't use the AO, do you have the same problem? If you have the problem only with the AO, then the animations in the AO have offsets that are simply too low for you. Ask the maker if they have a solution or offer refunds. Be sure to check out the shop's policy and follow any posted instructions for contacting them, and keep in mind that the more polite and cheerful you are, the better your odds.

I have a poseball script that allows anyone on it to use page-up/down to adjust their position (vertically, based on the ball's local Z axis). But that would only solve this problem for you in your own furniture, not when you go elsewhere. If you want a copy of this poseball, you can find it at http://slexchange.com, look for "jPose Sit". It sells for L$1 and is full permissions.

Sometimes, it is something just as simple as shutting your AO off for particular poseballs. Yes, it is rather annoying at times to have to do that but beats disabling the sits in your AO and having to re-enable them.

Do we know everything that causes the incompatibility between sitting AOs and a lot of the furniture out there?

I have mixed experience using a sitting AO with most furniture. What I've noticed is that, in most cases, my Sitting AO does not line up when I'm sitting on furniture that has its own animation in it.

Occasionally, the sitting AO does line up perfectly when I sit on furniture, even if it has its own built-in animation.

I didn't create the sitting animation I use in my AO, so I don't know its priority for certain, but I think it's Priority 4. The animation itself always plays instead of the one placed in the furniture. The only problem I have is the one described in the original post, that I'm not placed on the seat, usually sunk into it.

The other occasional strange experience I have comes with how I turn off the AO animation. I use the ZHAO HUD. Normally, when I sit on furniture, and need to turn off the sit in the AO to use the sit in the furniture, I can click the option in the ZHAO that only turns off the sit. Occasionally, though, that doesn't work, and I have to turn off the AO entirely. Is there any explanation for that experience?

The sit target will have been chosen to get a good average alignment for the animation in the furniture's inventory, and that animation doesn't need to take default positions into account at all. So, AO sits will lose because they can only hope to do as well as the default sit in that case. Most poseball scripts don't bother killing other animations, they probably should just because so many people wear overriders.


In that case, either the animation built into the chair is one of the unusual examples that uses placement compatible with the defaults, or both that animation and the one in your AO happen to be off by same amount.


Is this old square button ZHAO HUD? That one used a handful of scripts and not all were rigged to work inside no-scripts areas. The on/off button scripts are in the same prim as the main AO script, and that takes controls, so everything in that prim keeps running. The rest of the buttons will go go sleep. (ZHAO-II has its button handling all in one prim so it skips that problem.)

That inspires one more question. If one were building furniture, perhaps with a default animation inside it, but also designed to allow an AO sit animation to work properly, what if anything would that person do with the furniture to allow the compatibility? Would it be an easy or a tough task?

You would want to set up the sit target first, without any custom animations inside. Fiddle with the target so that it looks good with just the default Linden sits running. Try it with a variety both male and female shapes, because the viewer has its own AO built in that special cases female shapes.

Once you're satisfied with that, leave the target alone. Use your animation software to move the model around until it coincides reasonably with where the default would sit you. the LL BVH files might be a help here as references, and the beta grid with its huge lumps of play money for test uploads will help even more =)

And now I have more questions.

But instead of asking them, I'd probably do better to learn at little bit more about scripting as it relates to animations.

I've been making animations without knowing the scripting, relying on free scripts to run things. But I'm starting to get the idea that if I understood the scripting a little, I might be able to crack some of the other mysteries I encounter when animations don't quite work the way I expect them to.

Thanks for the information.

This is less about scripting and more about animating for furniture, and knowing what height the sit target is set to.

The key is: what's the height of the animation, in the animation program?

If it's the same height as the default sit, the furniture built to use this anim will also work well with the default sit as well as AOs.

Does anyone know what the default sit height would be in Qavimator (and probably any program, but since I don't use the others, I don't know)?

I opened up the default sit in qavimator. There's one called default female and one called just default. They seem pretty much the same.

The y position for the hip is 23.5 which is the height.

The z position is -13.8 which is front to back.

My guess is that a lot of furniture use the same free sit animations and possibly those have the same hip position as a standing avatar. So a poseball set to make these animations work would make any correctly working AO sit to appear behind and lower.

Um I don’t have an unusually large bottom or an unusual AV shape, just a lil slip of a girl. I don’t have the problem when I take off the AO. I did write a nice cheerful note to the creator and asked if he had any solutions. The gist of his reply “you must be sitting on cheap furniture”, so not much joy from him.

I will try rezzing a box and see what happens, otherwise disabling the sit positions seems to be the only solution, although I still seem to have problems with some seats.

Best of all, I’m glad it’s not just me looking like a dork, trying to sit on a bar stool in a crowded club…….. thanks again everyone 

Thanks for that, I will check it out