Feature requests for new animation editor

Not sure how much I'll be able to contribute (since my 'coding braincells' are generally worn out by the time I log into SL by RL workstuffs ), but I might be able to give it a try, at least in local sandbox (once I'm home from vacation, the 17th or so)... I've never worked with Qt (back in the day their licensing wasn't something I could work with, as I was making commercial software), but a widgetset is a widgetset, yes ? I'm assuming you don't want something that requres MingW/etc., but native Win32 (MVC/Visual Studio)? With project file(s) for same? ('makefile' equivalents, for that environment).

Assuming success occurs at some point, would an installer also be desired? If so, the assumption is something also publically available, like Nullsoft/NSIS (or some other)?

-- Tengu

Ah, I'm just catching up with this thread.. is my previous offer redundant? (not that that would hurt my feelings ). Or, have we forked/fragmented? Or something else? Regardless, if deemed useful, upon my return from vacation I'll check this thread again and see if there's anything I can do to contribute .

-- Tengu

I think we are temporarily forked until we can reorganize the code to allow for multiple frontends. If you can make the Qt port happen, then qavimator may become the head branch.

Hey Tengu! *snugs*

The problem is, Qt3 is not freely available. There is, however, a Qt3-free port from the cygwin team that works with mingw, Visual Studio and Borland compiler, so MVC would probably be the way to go. In the end it would be great to have a running .exe (static link probably) and optionally an installer, but I don't really see the need. We can provide project files for those who want to compile on their own, but this also is optional.

Thanks for your offer, I will contact you about this when you're back in SL again

After kicking MinGW into shape and fiddling with the Qt/free source I got it to compile on a windows machine. If you are brave, you can try out my very first build. It's available on the bottom of qavimator homepage:

http://qavimator.sourceforge.net/

Let me hear if there are any big problems with the archive.

(didn't read the whole thread, sorry if this has already been said)

Make it possible for us to select an alternate area of the body besides the hips as the 'root' of the body. It's all well and good for the hips to stay in the exact same spot. But, if I want the FEET to stay in the exact same location, and I'm making an animation where the knees bend and the hips have to rotate and such, it takes quite a bit of tinkering with the hip position for me to get the illusion that the feet are staying on the ground. And even then, the feet in the animation still come out a bit jiggly.

Also....make it possible for us to 'lock' certain body parts in certain places. Let's say I needed to make an animation where the body moved, but the hands and feet need to stay exactly where they were, with the same rotations and everything. I'd have to arrange the rest of the body to where it looks normal with these parts locked. It would be a lot easier than playing with the roations and positions of the hips.

I would love to have this functionality, too, but it's not that easy to accomplish. In QAvimator I have built in "props" which you can use to "memorize" the position of the limbs to correct them over the animation time, but it's still a lot of work. The hip is the standard root point of the avatar, so avimator uses it as reference.

The "lock" mechanism can be simulated by double-clicking on the limb and carefully moving the body, using the inverse kinematic logic in avimator. Not too flexible but mybe enough for your needs.

Just wanted to say thanks to anyone/everyone who worked on this lil program! Top notch stuff...I've used poser for animations in SL and I honesty think this is a much simpler interface, the quality of animations I've made with Avimator is much better than those I'd done with poser! Keep up the good work!

I also have to say, this is an excellent program. Thanks Vince, well done.

*is confuzzled*

im trying to make a simple animation which you hide underground when you walk, run or stand still. But two problems. When i tryed to upload I wouldnt stay underground when i walked or sit.

Why is this?

this is probuly a dead post now bacily but

i keep geting a fail ti inalize(or something) motion every time i try to upload my animation i made

I'm guessing the bvh file is not being read correctly. What program are you creating your animations with and are you saving as bvh? It could be that the program is not saving correctly or that particular file you saved is broken.

I saw in your other question on the forum that you are asking about using 3ds Max. If that's what you are using then I am really not sure if it's compatible or if you need to fiddle around with the settings. I haven't read about anyone using 3ds max to create animations though.

nope im using avimation for this problem, every animation i try to do seams to get that error, and you can only save it as a .bvh, i tryed reinstalling it and get the same thing

Avimator? Make sure you don't touch frame1 of the animation, start at frame2. How many frames is your animation? I can make SL give me the same error if I set the animation to 900 frames. Try making an animation with the default frames and fps. Make it really simple and see if it uploads. Other than that you might want to try qavimator.