facial animations

Hi,

I'm tring to get some facial expressions on my avatar as I run one of my animations. I am playing my own custom animations at the same time (i.e. in the same script) as built in ones like express_anger. The script and animation are on a poseball.

I'm exporting my BVH files with no keyframes set for the head, and setting the animations to priority 4 whenI upload. In the script, I am using a timer to stop and restart the facial animation every two seconds or so.

Sometimes it seems to work, and my avatar pulls a face when doing my animation, other times I just get a blank expression on my avatar's face. Does anyone know how to make the facial anims work reliably when playing at the same time as a custom anim?

- SM

hmmm, I don't know much about this, but I do know that there is animation overriding. That doesn't explain why it works sometimes and not other though. What about making a gesture combining these animations? I don't know if this will work, and I would test it if I could get ingame.

Sorry for the lack of help.

I thought (could be wrong) that the only way to do facial animations was through when you import the anim, you can select the face expression. But! i'm not an animations expert. You should probably take this to the animation forum.

Whoops - misread. I believe this has something to do with the priority of the animation(s). Try playing with the priority numbers a bit and see what happens.

I agree with Jeffrey. I don't belive that "express_anger" is just a facial animation. So the points except head collide against your custom animation's several points. You may have to set the priority of your coustom animation less than 2.

Jeffrey is correct, it does have something to do with priorities. A common trick to this is the same as a 2-part animation where you would like your avatar to sit on something, but still have the abiltiy to move your head around and type (whilst keeping your legs locked). If you set the priority on the upper body animations peaked (lvl 4), then you're avatar will go into a semi-locked pose. This seems silly as it is the highest priority you can set, however SOME sl default animations will still pass through (ie, you want hands fisted / yet they're not always fisted) which is why SOMETIMES expressions will pass through.

Set the priority of the 'upper half' part of the avatar lower then 4 (and make sure in poser/blender/milkshape not to touch certain parts of the body - as that can cause unexpected locks to happen on an avatar). For any other parts of the body that you'd like complete high priority, upload a 2nd animation to play with the first (without conflicting body parts in both animations) at 4th priority - which is usualy the 'lower half' of the avatar. This will let you achieve some interesting things, and should also aid in the facial expressions ultimately.

Hope this helps,
--Water

Sorry, i forgot to add that while you are testing your original expressions - you should set the interval for the expression to play a tad higher (like 10 seconds). It may also be that you're trying to play the animation again while it's already in it's loop (which results in nothing playing).

--Water

wow, lots of replies so quickly! I guess that's because so few of us can get in game!

Thanks for the pointers - I'll have another play with priorities, and I think you may be onto something there with the loop time Walter...

thx again

- SM

It's entirely possible that it's just the timer that needs adjusting..

Facial expressions are morphs, not real animations. You really can't override the morphs unless you play another.

Try playing your animation and running that angry gesture and see if it works. If it does you just need to work on the timing.. Oh and with the lag as of late, you may not see it even if it is playing so have a friend help you if possible.