Gestures VS. Animations

I have been poking around for a while and creating animations that I use in my scripts and stuff, but I have never found a clear description of the difference between Gestures and Animations. How does one create a Gesture and how does one get it into the Gestures list so it is available - is there some big secret? (obviously Gestures are animations, but what is the SL distinction.

Any threads on this already? Anywhere to go for a good writup on this?

Valradica

Actually no, they aren't. A gesture can contain an animation, but it doesn't have to. Basically, a "gesture" (in sl parlance) is a short macro that you can run with a simple command. It can be any combination of animations, sounds, and chat.

Two big caveats. First off, to create a new gesture you have to have full-perms on all the sounds and animation used. So you can't make a gesture using a purchased animation. Very annoying.

Secondly, gestures are seriously bugged right now. You can't create any gestures, or even modify existing gestures. LL just added this to their Known Issues list.

and where do I get info on these "short macros" is there something in SL where gestures are put together or is it LSL based? - How do I put a Gesture into the active gestures list?

Gestures in SL are very under used. They are easy to make and easy to use, and fun, aside from the problem that right now they are broken.

There needs to be a guide or tutorial for Gestures, but I don't know of one. So, here's a mini-guide.

Open a Gesture in the gesture editor. You will see a list of animations, sounds, chat text, and timing events. Play around with it until you figure things out.

For a simple example, there is a Gesture that plays a short blow-kiss animation, and also plays a kiss sound. It is easy to change it to

a) play twice
b) add text to chat such as *Lee blows a kiss*
c) blows kiss, the waits 5 seconds, then turns around and presents buttocks. (Well, this one might not be so simple, but you get the idea.)

Best way to learn gestures is by doing BUT also grabbing the free ones and looking at them help also. You can usually find them in boxes seperated by animations (aka labelled like 500 gestures).

OK, so from what has been said, I am convinced that I can learn how to create gestures. Is there support for firing off gestures from inside LSL? there is the llStartAnimation and llStopAnimation, llGetAnimation ... Any llStartGesture or a clever work around.

Thanks for all the good feedback

Just go into your inventory. Then go to the 'create' menu. Choose 'new gesture'. It automatically creates a new gesture in your gesture folder. Right click it and choose 'open' to bring up the gesture edit window. You can also just open any other gesture you have rights to. No LSL required!

You could just use the F1 Key and bring up the help file on creating Gestures ))


But, Seriously, most of the learning is by making them.


"The Gesture Maker"
Kurt Ludd

Since gestures seem to be broken at the moment, you might want to hold off.

Then, yesterday, I came across HUDDLES EZ Animarot Deluxe 1.1.2, here on these very same Forums. This tool looks good, and it has a scripting mini-language for creating "emotes" which are a lot like the built in "gesture".

An example....

[name]Drop Anvil|Ooops![rez:3:0:8]Anvil|6|Sorry about that...

This is in a notecard, appears on a hud menu, and you can figure out what it does.

I love Huddles! Best thing about using a system like that vs a gesture is you can use purchased animations all you like and include some things that gestures cannot do, such as rezing objects or even interacting with targets.

The one thing I really hate however, is several animation creators who either don't easily have copy/no-transfer versions of thier animations for sale, or who don't respond to IMs/Notes when asked at all

For those who aren't aware, one of the big selling points of the deluxe version of the Huddles mod is that you can copy it, so you can place them in different avatars making it MUCH easier to equip when you swap. Sadly if you put a no-copy animation into any object including this HUD, it renders the HUD uncopyable.

So for all you new animators out there, big suggestion which WILL boost your sales... Offer TWO version of your animations whenever possible... "No-Copy/Transfer" and "Copy/No-Transfer", that way people who use huds will be more likely to purchase your version over the animator next door.

One thing I also don't like about gestures vs animations... Huds aside, with a pre-purchased gesture, you are stuck with it EXACTLY as is... if you however can buy sounds and animations seperately, you could make your own and mix and match(once LL changes the full per problem). Till then.. I suggest you use a Hud such as Huddles or other brand.

I can understand that animators who make animations for dances or furniture may not want to sell a Copy/No-Transfer animation, since that would let club owners just buy it once and put out a whole bunch of poseballs. I definitely second the motion that animations intended for personal use (AOs, Huddles, etc) be set Copy/No-Transfer, though, for exactly the reason Meraxes mentions.

-MM