Animation Imports

Hi,
I was searching and couldnt find the info I wanted concerning importing animations. Im curious about the limitations involved with importing motion captures animations. As far as the length of the clip and the max number of frames. Also I know the files must be a bvh but is there a certain type because I've read about a few that doesnt seem to open in SL but you can use something like bvhacker to fix that.


Any help would be awesome...


Thanks

Hi Rufio,

The first thing to say is keep them as small as possible! This helps speed up the time it takes other avis to 'see' (i.e. download) them, and generally helps SL run more efficiently.

I have found the limits to be around 350 frames, and below 30 seconds in length. The number of frames is only a guide though as, for example, if you have a lot of zeroed out joints, you can use more.

You can only upload bvh files to SL where the skeleton matches the SL one in terms of number of bones. bvhacker can be used to convert many bvh files to be SL compatible, but the more different the skeleton, the less likely you are to get good results! As a guide, look for bvh files with 24 joints, and X-axis aligned arms. If you open a file in bvhacker, these details are clearly displayed in the 'File Properties' section in the lower left hand side. If you have any further questions regarding bvhacker, please post them in the bvhacker thread ( /52/41/152115/1.html )

hope this helps!

; - Dave

Thanks Dave... Ya all that info is helpful. I might have a few more questions if you dont mind sometime soon. Im actually not pulling the files from bvhfiles.com or whatever, but instead im using a mocap system, thats actually what im looking to import. Im a grad student at a university and Im working with the dramatic arts program to help them look at doing productions in SL. In doing so they want to import and use motion capture sequences.


So thanks again for the help.