Multi AV animations or poses

is there a way to create poses or animations with more then one person easier? at the moment i use maya and i create one pose then upload that make sure that looks ok then try to model the next pose and upload that... im wondering if any of you guys use a secific program that allows you to have more then one model on screen so u can shape them at the same time?

Poser allows you to have two figures loaded at the same time. You may then select each individually and save separate BVH files.

qavimator does also have this feature.

http://qavimator.org/

from this thread


To animate multiple avies is easy yet tricky to figure out the first time. If you have poser (dunno about the other programs) you can add as many figures as you want into the scene and animate them however you want to. Open the libarary, click a maniquin, and use the double check mark to add an aditional one.

They will all end up standing in the same spot so you have to click on the figure you want to move. Animate them all (making sure the one you want to work with is selected), then when finished select each one and export a bvh for each figure one at a time.

Next you will need a pose ball for each avie and change the script settings to place the avies in the correct spot in relation to the others. If its an animation, you will need a synch script so they all start at the same time. I have a free one of these if you need.

Are there instructions somewhere on how to do this? I figured out how to get two av's in the editor at once, but not sure how to switch back and forth. And when I save, only one gets saved. *confused*

Multi-Avatar animations are still very experimental in qavimator, so the interface is not as obvious as it should be. You can save each animation to a separate file by switching over to the animation to save (click on the avatar) and then select "Save As..." from the menu. Then select the next animation and choose "Save As..." again.

I hope this helps.

Very helpful, thanks! Next dumb question: what's the difference between bvh and avm? SL uses bvh, right?

The .avm format was invented to be able to preserve the key frames you set while editing your animation. .bvh doesn't know about keyframes and simply saves every frame as a full keyframe.

This means: always save your animations as .avm files and only export them to .bvh when you want to upload them to SL.

Thank you for your explanation! I am new to Second Life, but I am an experienced animator and am figuring out how to do couples animations. Could you send me your script?