New free animation tool

Hi Amaranthim,

Thanks for the screen shot. It looks like a graphics card problem. Unfortunately we don't have a good solution for that right now...sorry. We're working on it. If you send me info about your graphics card, I can add it to the list we're compiling to help us figure out what's going on.

What does ETA mean?

- Sparkle

ETA- in this case, editd to add.

Re the grafix card- why if it worked before? But i wil try it again at home and see what happens. Thanks.

I have to say this looks really exciting. I've worked with Poser for years, and have finally about given up using it for animations.

Unfortunately, I'm getting "not supported on this system"

I have Mac, but it's not an Intel based so I'm guessing that's the problem? I have Tiger OS.

I'm going to download the Windows version and try it on VPC, but I know SL won't run on that.

Any chance you might upgrade this to run on non-Intel Macs?

Des

p.s. Whoever designed the website and video tutorials needs a big fat raise. That's one of the nicest, cleanest and easiest to use websites I've seen in ages. Well done! The program looks fantastic....I just need it to work on my Mac!

Okay, installed it on Virtual PC (Mac), running XP (but don't remember which version). It wouldn't start up. Got the "had to shut down" message when starting up.

I'm not surprised by that; VPC runs some things fine, but anything involving certain graphics cards won't run because VPC won't recognize my card. It's a VPC thing and I don't think there's a way around that. I'm guessing that's the issue.

Now that I've gone through the tutorials, I'm really, really wanting this app!!! LOL.

Des

Hi Des,

Thanks for your comments! You totally made my day. In the coming week or two, we'll try to get a universal binary build working for the Mac. We're not sure if it will work, but we'll give it a try and keep you posted.

- Sparkle

Hi Sparkle,

Great work! I have a suggestion for you - you may already know about this, but just in case...

I see that you are developing a feature whereby an SL character's size and shape parameters are imported into your app. I was looking into doing something similar a while ago, and found that you can export your avatar's appearance from SL in XML format. Go to Menu Advanced->Character->Character Test->Appearance to XML.

You will then find a file called 'new archetype.xml' in C:\Program Files\SecondLife\character that gives all your character's parameters - height, hip width, shoulder width etc etc.

I hope this helps!

ave

Hi Dave,

That's so cool! I had been looking for something like that for the longest time... Thanks, I really appreciate the helpful tip. I think it would be great for Animeeple to be able to read those XML files.

By the way, I'm a big fan of bvhacker! I use it all the time to view BVH files. It's such a handy tool.

- Sparkle

Well- I tried t reinstall in the comp at home- where i know it had not crashed before- the new version crashed there too- Do you have the old one available still somewhere? Maybe this new one just won't work with either of my machines...

Hi Amaranthim,

For some reason, part of the installer does not install the Visual Studio runtime library. I suspect this is what's happened in your case.

To fix: In the downloaded zip file there's a folder called 'vcredist_x86'. Open this and run the setup program (vcredist_x86.exe).

bvhacker should then work. Failing that please give me some more details on what happens and I'll look into it for you.

There is an older version of bvhacker (1.4) available on the downloads page.

ave

Hi Amaranthim,

Are you talking about issues installing Animeeple or bvhacker?

If you're talking about Animeeple, I think what's going on is that since some of our earlier builds, we've added new features which demand more of the graphics card. That's probably what's crashing. Sorry about the trouble! An older build would probably not be very functional because Animeeple has changed quite a bit, and the server expects to interact with a recent version.

We're looking into using a different graphics engine that will hopefully be compatible with more graphics cards.

- Sparkle

Oh well I am sure it would have been fun to play with- good luck with your endeavor.

I answered Sparkle before reading this- I do not know what is causing the problem- if it is the installer or what- I guess I will give it another shot at some point then. Thanks.

Still trying to read if there was anymore information on working with tinies, but a search on tinies didn't yield more than the one question and answer. There is a T-Pose animation that we use in other animation programs that puts the avatar into the needed "folded" pose. You put in the animation and move to frame 2 and animate from there. The thing I saw when I brought in my tiny avvie from SL to Animeeple is that it seemed to have everything but the folded pose. So this might be what we need...it obviously can't bring anything that is prim in nature, but so long as I can see the body, it should be animatable.

So would that be all I need to do, apply the animation and add animation at frame 2 in Animeeple?

Thanks,
Ele

Hi Ele,

Here are some ideas for how you could use Animeeple for tinies. If you need more detail, please let me know.

To create poses, you could import your folded pose, then put that on the bottom track in the timeline. Then you could use an edit block in the second track (on top of the pose) to pose your tiny.

Animations will probably be more work, but again I think you could use an edit block. You could put an edit block on the second track, then fold the limbs. Then you could put other animations on the first (bottom most) track. As long as the edit block extended over the length of the animation, it would take care of folding the limbs.

Once you've got your edit block the way you want it, you probably want to save your workspace since it may take some effort to make. Unfortunately there's no way I can think of to make use of the folded pose you already have to make animations.

- Sparkle

Revisiting this - OK so new version of Animeeple - but same thing- so i do not have a zip file and also not sure what is bvhacker in relation to all this... did find i could down load it if needed but...

ETA - installed the bvhack file and still no joy- done. Thanks though.

Hi Amaranthim,

Sorry for the confusion! I think what happened was that Dave thought you were talking about having trouble installing an animation tool he wrote called bvhacker. bvhacker is another animation tool, separate from Animeeple. Animeeple came out with a new release, but we still haven't figured out the graphics card issue you're running into. I'll keep you posted.

- Sparkle

I will check back then sometime- no idea what the problem could be.

Is this problem with your laptop or your desktop? I haven't tried to download it yet but when I get some spare time I will try with both computers. The old one is similar graphics wise to yours.

I tired it on the laptop and here at work- neither worked though before they both had. It was when they upgraded it that it stopped working for me. Havent tried it on the PC- as you know I am having that Trend Micro issue there! Argh - sometimes comps are out to get me!

You might consider releasing the source code and allowing people to compile their own copies, that way it would be fairly simple to check where this information is being sent.

Anyone slightly more "techy" could simply check where the software is connecting when they log in.

Also implementing support for .anim files(SL's proprietary format) would be a great addition to your software.

Hi PattehPh0x,

Thanks for your suggestions. Could you please send me more info on the .anim file format? We'd like to handle lots of different formats.

Releasing the source code is an option we considered, but is not really feasible for us because of the marketplace. If the source code was released, someone could re-program the client to grab content that they hadn't purchased.

Instead, Animeeple offers generic SL avatars which don't require a login. You can get to this option by going to File -> Import -> Second Life -> Generic. A dialog will ask you for height, gender, body thickness, and body fat parameters. Thanks to Dave Bellman's suggestion, we are also going to look at importing the XML files SL exports with avatar shape parameters.

- Sparkle

Security through obscurity? Red flag. However, weak security may be sufficient as long as the content isn't valuable enough to draw a serious attack.

Hi Lear,

Sorry for not being more clear. We encrypt the content in the marketplace, as well as employ other best practice security measures. In order for the content to be drawn on the screen though, at some point it needs to be decrypted. That is the part that's problematic to open up.

- Sparkle

OK, my bad

BTW, funny how we all use these words wrong, from the academic standpoint. (Especially we Americans.) "Encypher" and "decypher" mean to encode and decode using the key. "Decrypt" means to decode cyphertext without knowing the key -- i.e., to "crack" it. "Encrypt" would be to encode cleartext into cyphertext without knowing the key, which doesn't seem to make much sense.

Unfortunately, due to massive misuse in the programmer community, these words have lost their previously useful distinctions, so "decrypt" is taken as a synonym for "decypher".

Another amusing note: ISO docs won't allow the term "decrypt" since in certain languages the translation would yield "disinter". o.O

Off-topically yours,
Lear