Animateing programs

Someone said I needed another program to make custom animations, where can I get these animation programs, and do I really need them?

Second question first, yes you need them.

The "industry standard" is Poser. It will cost you several hundred dollars.

There are, thankfully, several free options available.

(in no particular order)

Avimator . . . see www.avimator.com. Great barebones animator, designed specifically for SL.

SLAT . . . see http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-bvh-editor. Also custom designed for SL.

DAZ Studio . . . see http://www.daz3d.com/program/studio/1_0index.php. Free version of 3d program. Exports .bvh (the filetype which SL uses for animations).

These are the options most frequently used or discussed in Second Life forums.

Hope this helps
Baron H.

Baron's answer is great, but I wanted to make one addition. Poser need not cost several hundred dollars. Poser Artist, which works plenty well enough for SL purposes is only $109 US. It's only if you want the more full featured versions that you'd need to pay more (Poser 6 is regularly $249, and the collector's edition, which comes with a few more bells & whistles is $279 for a limited time), but they do way more than you'd need if your only concern is SL. Poser Artist's price is certainly not as good a price as the free alternatives, but it's also not exactly expensive. Just thought I'd point it out for the sake of thoroughness.

Personally, I'd recommend using DAZ Studio. It's still a fairly young program, and it's still got some bugs to be worked out, but it's coming along very nicely for what it is, and you can't argue with the price. DAZ is a cool company anyway.