FAQ
From Avimator
Mmm. Not many FAQ here, so here are a few people might be asking.
How to upload an animation/pose into the SL world?
See Beginner's Guide#Chapter 4: Getting our files into Second Life for details.
How do I use an animation in the SL world?
Find the animation in your SL inventory. Right click. A menu will appear, and you have the option to run the animation locally (only you will see it), or in world (everybody will see your avatar being animated).
How do I make an animation be touch activated?
You might have seen several "touch balls" across SL. They are objects that contain a script that can initiate an animation/pose on an avatar. You can find some scripts in the LSL wiki (sample LSL script, PoseBall script).
How can I use keyframes and tweening in a saved .BVH file?
.BVH files store position data in every frame, so keyframes and tweens become "flattened" into one frame-by-frame animation when saving in that format. The best solution is to save your files as .AVM format while working, and use .BVH as a final step to upload to SL.
If you're stuck with .BVH files and want to tweak it, you can clear the joint information on the intermediate frames using the [K] button. You can do this for individual body parts if you turn on the time-line in the Options menu. (Nuaj Paderborn for Valradica, 13 Jan 2007)
The latest version of QAvimator has a feature called "Optimize BVH" in the "Edit" menu. This function tries to clean up a BVH timeline and remove al lunnecessary keys from the animation. Usually this erases all static frames and keys along linear motions.
I've created an animation with a non-standing orientation and have problems.
Solutions to animations involving hip translation and rotation (i.e., full-body translation or rotation) seem to be related to protecting the first frame to contain the standard "T" pose, which SL does not display, but uses a reference to know where the ground is, which way up, down, left, and right are. Some users suggest moving every part that needs to be moved slightly in the first frame, but this may be a personal hack to ensure the model isn't dramatically repositioned in that frame. (ahebe for ahebe, Jan 12, 2007 / maximunjjkhde for Coldphoenix Jan 08, 2007)
Can I attach costumes to the avatar to see how my character will look?
It doesn't quite work like that. SL provides you with a humanoid avatar model (AV) which you can torture within limits using "appearance". QAvimator will allow you to create animations for this AV, so you could create an animation -- for example -- for walking on all fours which you could import into SL. You would then have to insert this animation into an AO (there are lots of free ones (ZHAO is widely used and is free).
To make a bear, for example, you would have to build attatchments using the standard prims, unless there is something available to buy already. (Suzi Sohmers for MalcolmSprye Dec 20, 2006)
Bucket of unanswered questions being asked in the forums
Temporary place to put forum questions until we can weave the answers into the FAQ or into the documentation. Keep sorted into topics if possible.
Mocap
What utilities are available to take motion capture data in CSM or TRC format and convert to a BVH format? MotionBuilder is a candidate.
Props
How do I import props into QAvimator? What kinds of props can I import? How are they created?
Saving and Loading
Terminology
What is an AV?
AV is short for 'Avatar', referring to your SL 'puppet'.
What is an AO?
AO stands for 'Animation Override' and it refers to replacement of the standard SL animations.
What is a keyframe?
Instead of modelling your characters' pose in each individual frame of an animation, only the 'key' frames - where the movement of your character is most pronounced - are modelled. The correct poses in the in-between frames can then be generated automagically by your software, a process called 'tweening'.
