Best program for couple animations/poses?

So far I've been using the Qavimator for my poses and i am quite content with the results. But now i would like to make couple poses, or poses with more people that would need a finer arrangement of arms and legs, etc. With the Qavimator i can only guess.
But I was told that there is a program that will allow you to make matching animations with 2 avis, like for dances, but I couldn't find out which one that is in the list on top of this forum...

Poser, I guess. But it's very very hard to get the two poses aligned well. I've worked almost two months (!) in Poser and on the betagrid to make only six couples cuddle poses, before they were absolutely perfect and smooth. I'm very proud of them, but oh boy...

Most dances these days are made with some motion capture software. It will be real hard to make them better, just using Poser.

Oh my! OK, I'll have a look at poser. I adore the dances that are available, but I would be already content if I could make a carry in arms pose or things like that without uploading 20 different Qavimator poses until arm position etc matches. That's why I hoped that there will be an easier way to do it

I use QAvimator for most of my solo poses, but I use U-Poser for my couples poses. It is very easy to get legs and arms in precise positions using U-Poser. You can also set the sizes of the mannequins to match your avatars. At 8000 Lindens, it is not inexpensive, but mine has paid for itself in only a few months.

Plus, it cannot be beat for fitting an avatar into vehicles and such since you can actually place the mannequin into the spot where the avatar will eventually sit.

I thought you could use 2 figures in QAvimator????

As Paulo has pointed out - it will take time whatever you use. There is no short cut to making a good animation no matter what technique or combination of techniques you use - mocap does not necessarily make it easier.

You are a life-saver.

I wasn't aware of this, and I've made about 15 or so couples poses using QAvimator, editing each avatar separately, uploading, testing with an alt, tweaking, uploading, testing, etc again many, many hundreds of times (and 10L a pop at that), but after reading this and actually, y'know, having a look ...

Load animation A. Go to "File -> Add ...", select animation B, they're both there in the same window and both editable. I really wish I'd known this a few months ago, but have only myself to blame.

Many thanks, Deira.

You're all life-savers, lol!
I wasn't looking for an easy way to make poses, as i think Qavimator is already very easy, but i had the same problem like Barrington and was looking for a way to make that easier, lol!
Thank you all so much

I've been able to get the two avatars (posed) in Qavimator, but how do you separate the two to place them into position? When I load my male into Qavimator after already loading the female, it loads on top of the first. I'd like to move at least one of them so that I can get posed in sync.

Full motion capture.

I don't understand the question.

To move either avatar, just select the animation name at the top right, and then select joints and move them the usual way.

Be sure to use two different anim names for the two avatars. Perhaps that's your problem.

Thank you Lear I think you've answered this perfectly. Yes, what I meant was that when I loaded my second pose, it loaded on top of the first. I've never selected joints and moved anything in Qavimator, in fact I'm quite the animation newb. And for all the tut reading I've done, I had no idea that you could move an avatar from it's base position at all.

/me crosses fingers. I'll know when I get home from work. TY

Nope...what I"m trying to do is move the entire avatar over so that I can align the next avatar next to it. When I bring the second in, it loads over the top of the first.

When you add a new figure, it will always load into the default start position - you can move the first figure temporarilly to the side before adding in the second one, if this helps you.

You need to select the HIP joint to move the whole figure.

When using multiple figures in an animation, it does help to name them distictively - things can rapidly get confusing if you don't!

I recommend you work on solo animations for a while, before trying couples animations. Working with two anims in Qavimator can be very confusing, so it's best to get used to the program and it's quirks in solo mode first.

Special warning that "save as" seems to goof up in couples mode. It does save what you want as what you want, but doesn't change the current anim name in every place it needs to, so it's inconsistent. After "save as", be sure to select the other animation and then back to the original, and see if the name in the title bar changes to the new name. I don't remember the details, but there is a good workaround for this -- but if you're not careful about it, you can end up saving over a file you'd intended to use as a read-only starting point.

Thank you so much Deira and Lear. Both of your suggestions are very helpful. This was exactly what I was looking for.

My animations (static poses actually) are currently both individual poses saved separately. I wanted a male and female created separately so I could connect the poseballs in game. They won't actually be a couple's pose yet, just adjusted to be. I've still got so much more practice to do, but I'm very pleased with myself at this point...except for the hands that appear to sink into the lap in game but not in Qavimator.

Thanks to Deira for figuring out the real issue.

Even for couples, you'll need to save the animations individually. And while it's gotten better, Qavimator isn't always right about whether you have unsaved changes.

The great thing about it is how easy it is to learn. I'm a big fan!