Animation/Poses related question

Hello,

I have some questions on creating animation/poses. I looked through the FAQ for Animators, but the URL it list was a dead end for Basic Animation Tutorial. I am planning to create my animation and poses externally.

1. Can I use any figure model I have in my external software or I need to somehow bring in a copy of SL av to work on?
2. If I use a model that I have, how can I make sure it matches/synchronize with av in SL? If I were to bring av to my external software, how do I go about doing it?
3. What are the steps needed to make a poseball?

If these questions have been answered before, I apologize, but appreciate if some one could direct me to the appropriate thread.

Thank you all!

Use the SL figures for your animation program. I suppose it's theoretically possible to upload the .bvh from another figure, if the joints happen to match perfectly. But why go to the trouble of doing an animation only to risk it not coming out right, when importing in the SL figures is very simple? Import the figures.

As to making a poseball, I recommend going to a place like Freebie Dungeon and getting one of the free poseballs. Take that poseball, pull out any animation that might already be there (using Edit), and just put your animation in the poseball.

Edit: Here's a link to the figures: http://secondlife.com/community/avatar.php

Hi Bhati - welcome to the forum

The Sl avatar has the same skeleton as the Poser 2 figure, and you need to use a figure with the same skeleton. If you download QAvimator, the figure matches the SL avatar, and you can just use that. For other animation software packages you can download the SL avatar from the "Downloads" section of this web site and import it into your animation software.

A pose ball is just a prim - it doesn't even need to be spherical - in fact, I make mine hemispheres. You edit the pose ball prim and (on the contents tab) drag and drop in your animation file and a pose ball script - there are a number of open source free scripts - IM me if you can't find one and I will drop one into your inventory.

I hope that helps - good luck with your animation.

Natalia's poseball tutorial was helpful for me:
http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2007/07/day-300-second-life-poseball-tutorial.html

I didn't see this answered in the other helpful responses...

We can use the standard model, but our AVs are customized! So the animation will be applied, but different leg length, arm length, torso sizes, etc will change the affects. So please don't be surprised when you preview your animation (and you can zoom and rotate in that little preview window) it doesn't exactly match, and when you play it on your AV things might not reach exactly where you expected them to.

With experience we learn how to make animations that accommodate variations!

You guys are awesome!! One day pretty soon I will know enough to play it forward

Thank you soooo much for all the advice and suggestions. I do have QAvimator so that’s going to work out fine.

Deira, if I can’t find any free scripts I’ll IM you, thanks for the offer.

Catch youall soon!

I have had this issue as my avi is larger than ruth...

In POSER I adjuested the size of the sl avatar to more accomadate my inworld av. I set the sl poser model to "heroic height" and then adjusted size of each limb til he was more like my own avi.

This works great for me but now opposite will be true IE smaller av's will now be off when animated. Is there any advise from the seasoned animators as to how they get around this size issue?

It's a compromise:

Some animators make more than one version of their animations - e.g., a version for average height and a version for tall avatars.

Alternatively, you can work with an average size human avatar and avoid any movements that have to be very precise.

You can supply your animations in pose balls or avatar attachments that can be adjusted to fit to different heights and shapes.

You can customise for a specific size.