Program Recoomendations?

I was wondering what you guys recommended for two specific applications. So far, I have been looking at U-Poser and Puppeteer. I am looking to animate avatars, but also to animate pets or items to attach to avatars. Which do you recommend the most? Just Puppeteer, a mix of both, or completely different programs altogether?

I am seeking a user-friendly program that isn't TOO difficult, but still gives good results. What I am interested in with U-Poser is the fact that it apparently matches all avatar types. With Puppeteer, apparently you just "record" the animation off of your prims while in world.

Yes, I know there is a thread full of programs, but I really want to know what all of you prefer to use.

Thank you very much,

Valdyr

I think you are comparing two different types of programs. U-Poser is for creating avatar animations. It would be comparable with programs like Poser, Qavimator, Daz which create avatar animations outside of SL. Either way you end up with an animation file in your inventory.

Puppeteer is for prim animations. You can go to the puppeteer store and see a bunch of examples. I think there are other comparable prim animation products as well.

So it depends on what you need to do. If you need to do both prim and avatar anims then you might have to get both products.

Please reread my post I very well know that U-Poser is for avatars, and Puppeteer for prim object animations. I am asking how people like the two programs, not what each program does

I use Avimator and Qavimator for creating avatar animations. They're both free and fairly simple to learn. As for prim animations I've played with the free version of puppeteer and it seems rather straighforward to use as well. I've seen on slexchange that there are other lower priced prim animators on sale.

All depends on what type of stuff you want to do with Avatar animation/poses. If you are wanting to Complex dances or something that has lot of motion or many key frames I would not recommend U-poser. if you are looking to fit an AV in a car with hand on steering wheel and arm on ledge of window frame. then U-poser would be the best tool for you. Some people are using both U-poser and and Other animation tool in conjunction with each other to make reference frames and then adding in the more complex motion afterwords.

I thought there was some type of animation script out there that would work on some type of Hierarchy system. I made one but it was for another company but they now they have writes to it and I don't grrr :-/. I will just have to re-write it and make it better. It was based on a joint system only recording joint rotation information. Was pretty nice. but that will be another two month project to get up an running again. Will save that for MONO.

Hey, that sounds like something I would do.... oh wait, that was me. lol

Seriously though, if you want to do both of those things, you are going to need several tools including Poser, QAvimator, U-Poser, Puppeteer, and even scripts that you write yourself. I can't imagine doing those things without being able to write scripts. All the tools have their limits and their strengths. I use U-Poser and QAvimator almost every day. My copy of Poser collects dust quite nicely (only because I have never really learned it.) I investigated and took a class to learn to use Puppeteer, but it is not the sort of thing that I do.

You can try Puppeteer for free as long as you don't plan to sell your creations. QAvimator (and Avimator) are always free. U-Poser is reasonably priced. I recommend having all these tools in your toolbox.

I can tell you that I have bought a tonne of machines over the years. Both of those I use constantly, and they perform exactally as advertised. But Pupputeer is a prim animator, Uposer is an avatar animater. Either way, amazing products. As for the tonne I bought that never work, so trashed.