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A few beginner questions


LovelyKalani
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I has Poser (9 I believe) and am going to try my hand at animating very soon. Was wondering which would be the better animation software, poser, Daz or Qanimatior?

Secondly, I know the SL avatars have clothing files, is it important to use clothes when making animations? I imagine the whole clothing thing wouldn't really matter, since my avatar has clothes already in SL. Wouldn't that just slow down things in creating the animations? Again, I'm new so hopefully not too ridiculous of a question.

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Qavi is outdated, by far. Its a good program no doubt, but its just too buggy. If you know poser, use it. It is a powerful animation program and I believe Sl animations were originally designed to be made in that. While Daz is also good, it is not optimized to make animations for OTHER programs. It is a bit hard to get animations to function correctly, and saving them can sometimes -I find- bug out. 

No you have no need to use clothes when animating. Its not your duty to make the clothes work with the animations, only to make good animations. If both the animations and the clothes are well made, then everything will look amazing.

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Given that I have a different opinion than Frawmusl, I'll state them.

No, clothing really doesn't make a difference, unless you want to make animations that fit a certain clothing.

Qavimator is a basic animation program using Keyframing. It's ok, and it can be easier to learn on than others. I don't use Qavi much, but it is handy for optimizing animations, and for mirroring animations. Plus, because it was made for SL, you can use it to check that the animation will work.

Poser is not my favorite animation program. It can be handy to do some things, but I personally hate the whole set up in Poser.

I love Daz. Great program with an awesomely customizable UI. There are a couple of things to know about it when using it for SL, but overall, my favourite animation program. I have a tutorial on Youtube for it.

Blender is free. Avastar, which is a plugin you must pay for, is a really good program for SL animations.

SLat is the program that I like to use the most, especially for cleaning up motion capture. You edit everything in the graph editor so you can see slight movements or jitters easily. Plus, it is handy to add/subtract frames, blend frames, loop animations perfectly, and a few other things that I love. I have a few tutorials for this program on Youtube. 

There should be a link to download the version I use in the latest video, done a few weeks ago.

Basically, I use most of these programs and it depends on what I need to do, as each does some parts really good.

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I am a Mac user. SLat doesn't appear to support Mac and Qavimator, the last time I tried to use it, kept crashing when trying to save the .bvh file.  DAZ just makes no sense to me so I quietly shut it off and delete it each time there is a "free" download  special. 

I have been learning to make some mesh (or the fundementals of making it) in Blender but the learning curve has been high...OMG the interface is just crazy.   I know that Avastar is needed for both animatoins and mesh clothing, but have been reluctant to purchase since I currently do not use mesh clothing hearing the learing curve for it is just as high.  What is the interface like for animations?  Simple? Any good baby step beginner tutorials  (not searched at this point to many projects going on) you would recommend?

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Well, Avastar uses basically the same interface that all Blender users are used to, and I agree it can be difficult, especially when you are used to other programs. Gaia Clary has a great video series on Avastar. You can probably find those by typing her name into Youtube.

Of course, there are other options, but I don't know if they all work on a Mac, like BVHacker. What I would suggest, is for you to try Daz again. To me, It's a superb program, with an interface that can totally become your own. It does take some learning, but not overly complex. The quickness of using it and the ease of it all, just makes it a dream to use. Besides the animation tutorial, which I should probably redo, I have a few other Daz Tutorials that show other aspects, as well as customizing your tools.

Of course, I'm also assuming you have some experience with animations, but maybe that is a bad assumption, as you can't get Qavimator to work. There are different versions of Qavimator, so you might want to look for a different version. I've also found turning off fog can make the program more stable. I only use Qavi for specific things, so I don't know where you would find these other versions.

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Thanks!


Yes, am familiar with Gaia's work and tutorials. With so many other things going on building wise and learning Blender, I really haven't had the time or interest to tackle the Avastar series.  I generally buy the hard work of others where animations are concerned knowing how time consuming it is.. BUT, there are times I need something very specific so would like to try my hand at some point/   I know I should but eeeps, am just getting the hang sorta of mesh. 


Do you have a tutorial explaining the interface maybe? Or, a good workflow for DAZ?  Maybe a tutorial that walks you thru make your first animation.  I learn best by walking thru an excersize.  LOL...good idea not to assume my experience level...just call me Ms Newb!  I have made a couple static poses with QAV and In-World with UPoser, but that is about it.  So, yes, .....NEW girl!

 

 

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