Making animal parts move

I have been making some very detailed high prim animals. I would like to make them move more realistically then I currently know how to do and am wondering what direction to work towards. The high prim count may make this difficult (example: head 32 prims).

I have seen some simple prim animals where the multi prim head or neck moves around and the other attached prims move with it. How is that accomplished? Do you make one prim move and somehow script the other prims to follow it, maintaining the same relative position?

Is that done with llSetPrimitiveParams? I have used that to change the shape of individual prims.

I know how to make parts like wings and tails appear to move, by making duplicate parts in different positions and switching them to visible/invisible on a timer.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

it seems like overkill but you could look into multi-move (forum search)... I think there is also a bit of scripting called prim animator, which would be simpler (I think)... anyone else?

heyas;

there's.... two and a half ways to do prim animations, i believe.

1: 'blink' animation. that's my name for it, where you have different versions of each piece that 'blink' on and off in succession.

pros: easy to set up and script (relatively). object can be resized, rotated, worn or not, and animations still work the same.

cons: you need twice or three times (or more) as many prims to make it. the more parts you have, the more you get pieces lagging, and different chunks blinking on and off at different rates.


2: prim movement....

2a: llsetprimitiveparameters. this moves your prim from one place to another.

pros: uses fewer prims. looks a little smoother than blinking from one spot to another, as there is a small bit of pass-through from position to position.

cons: doesnt work if you resize the object after figuring out all the parameters. 0.2 second built-in delay caps the 'frame rate' at 5 fps.


2b: physical movement. okay, i haven't played with this, but i have seen an animation system where the pieces are moved via those impulse and torque things.

pros: very, VERY smooth. pieces move at a continuous rate into place.

cons: object has to be physical. (i could be wrong, i get a bit confused with being physical and just not being phantom.)



i use 1 and 2a. if 2a is going to be more complex than two positions or an eyelid opening and closing, i use puppeteer by todd borst. (for the former, i have a quickie script that spits out a pos/rot line on touch.)



arch, if your head is 32 prims.... animation can get ugly, i hate to say. yes, even uglier than it already is. with your head moving and eyes following behind or something. this is one reason everyone is moving towards sculpty pieces. fewer bits to make the same shape. another interesting item of note for sculpties... if you model your sculpty so the end is where the middle of the sphere was, you'll get a limb that will rotate from its visual endpoint. and thus, you'll only need to set prim rotation and not position.

Thank you Void and Bloodsong, I'm going to study the recommendations you have made here. llsetprimitiveparameters looks the most promising at the moment. I just looked at llSetPos and rotations on the wiki and my eyes are crossing already. LOL But I'm sure it will soak in eventually with enough repetitions.

look at Jesrad Seraph's Kuy3 it uses the "follow it" you are thinking of
she has tons of cool Animals!
~LW

I can sympathize Arch. I've been making wolves and banging my head against the wall. However, I have come up with some preliminary (ie sorta works) stuff based on Jesrad's early critters. IM me in-world if you want to compare notes and perhaps exchange critters.

I'll warn you though, I've been working with rideable critters, which means they're essentially vehicles and thus subject to the 30-prim limit.

For more prims, you're probably looking at Priminator (which works well but the scripts aren't mine so I have no clue what they're actually doing).

There is also a tool called Pupeteer that can be used to animated your prims. Not sure how well it would work with high prim objects but it works very well on the smaller objects that I have animated. There is a free version and a 'vendor' version that allows you the Transfer the animated object.

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=163930

Snow, Thanks, I will contact you in SL.

Vlad, wow, Puppeteer looks really promising. I was just watching his video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bjRYrQqdxA

I made this prim animator. The video can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqGxmYwPGNU

It allows you to define the prims hierarchicly which can be useful for animals. You still will need a seperate script to implement the 'follow' function.

heyas;

is prim animator the one that uses physical movement? who makes it and/or where can i find it in-world?

There might be several prim animators.... Mine is not based on physic, just on a simple way to store the different relative position of prims with respect to eachother.

A free Merry Christmas gift for all.

This armadillo is animated to walk around in a circle where ever placed.
Touch to turn animations on or off. I used the puppeteer scripts to animate its legs, head, ears, tail and to waddle from side to side.

It is attached to an invisible rotating disk to make it move in a circle.

Chat commands turn off floating text "Merry Christmas from ArchTx Edo" above the armadillo.
/1 on
/1 off

Photo


You can get a copy at my store in Shona or here.