How do I make an AO/combine animations?

[CagesAstern]

 Hi, can someone give me detailed instructions on how to make an AO?

More details: I've got this attachment that makes my character do an animation, namely, hold onto the blazer over his shoulder. While he's standing still, he does this animation, but as soon as he walks, he stops doing the attachment animation and does the AO's normal walk animation. Is there a way I can get him to do the walk animation and the hold blazer animation at the same time?

EDIT @LindalKidd; Hi, thanks for the advice! Does it change anything that I already have an AO. Specifically I have the Oracul Assassin AO.

EDIT @Rolig Loon; Hi, also thanks for the advice! I decided it would be a more sensible idea if I opened up the animation attachment, extracted its animation and script, put the animation into the AO HUD, put the script into the AO HUD and edit the notecards with the name of the animation in the right way in what I think are the right places. Unfortunately nothing changed. The HUD kept working. I just got the message when I equipped the HUD that it could not find the animation despite the fact that its name is definitely correct.

I won't copy and paste the before and after because it's rather long, instead I'll try to explain the changes I made. There are 3 sets of 3 notecards inside the HUD, designated with SET 1/2/3 and a height, I think 125cm, 150cm and 185cm. I don't know why there are three sets of them as they are identical, but I assume there are three within a set because it adapts depending on how tall it detects your avatar is. My character is maximum height, so I think only the 185cm should be relevant, so, I added the word "Fatewear: BlazerShoulder" with precisely the same capitalisation and spaces at the end of the list starting [Stand.1], [Stand.2], [Stand.3], [Turn.R], [Turn.L], [Sit.N], [Sit.G], [Walk.N], [Crouch], [Walk.C], [Running]...basically everything but Jump, Land and Swim.

EDIT: Aha! OK, so I've edited it into the AO so I don't have to wear the attachment because I worked out that you have to replace every [space] with a ".". I did so, and now it basically functions as if I were wearing the attachment but unfortunately, my avatar still stops doing the animation when he starts walking.

[CagesAstern]

 Hi, can someone give me detailed instructions on how to make an AO?

More details: I've got this attachment that makes my character do an animation, namely, hold onto the blazer over his shoulder. While he's standing still, he does this animation, but as soon as he walks, he stops doing the attachment animation and does the AO's normal walk animation. Is there a way I can get him to do the walk animation and the hold blazer animation at the same time?

EDIT @LindalKidd; Hi, thanks for the advice! Does it change anything that I already have an AO. Specifically I have the Oracul Assassin AO.

EDIT @Rolig Loon; Hi, also thanks for the advice! I decided it would be a more sensible idea if I opened up the animation attachment, extracted its animation and script, put the animation into the AO HUD, put the script into the AO HUD and edit the notecards with the name of the animation in the right way in what I think are the right places. Unfortunately nothing changed. The HUD kept working. I just got the message when I equipped the HUD that it could not find the animation despite the fact that its name is definitely correct.

I won't copy and paste the before and after because it's rather long, instead I'll try to explain the changes I made. There are 3 sets of 3 notecards inside the HUD, designated with SET 1/2/3 and a height, I think 125cm, 150cm and 185cm. I don't know why there are three sets of them as they are identical, but I assume there are three within a set because it adapts depending on how tall it detects your avatar is. My character is maximum height, so I think only the 185cm should be relevant, so, I added the word "Fatewear: BlazerShoulder" with precisely the same capitalisation and spaces at the end of the list starting [Stand.1], [Stand.2], [Stand.3], [Turn.R], [Turn.L], [Sit.N], [Sit.G], [Walk.N], [Crouch], [Walk.C], [Running]...basically everything but Jump, Land and Swim.

EDIT: Aha! OK, so I've edited it into the AO so I don't have to wear the attachment because I worked out that you have to replace every [space] with a ".". I did so, and now it basically functions as if I were wearing the attachment but unfortunately, my avatar still stops doing the animation when he starts walking.

[Lindal Kidd]

What you'd have to do is find, or make, a walk animation that includes the "hold the blazer over the shoulder" arm positions.  Animations can be made in Poser or other animation programs and uploaded to SL.  For details, see this page: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-create-animations/ta-p/700027

Once you have the animation, you can easily add it to an AO.  If you use the Firestorm viewer, the viewer has a built-in AO.  If you don't use Firestorm, you can get a free copy of the popular Zhao II AO, or any of several variants.  These can be loaded with walk, stand, sit and other animations.

An AO consists of four things:  The HUD object itself, the AO script, a configuration notecard that tells the script what animations to use for which activities, and the animations.  You just drop the animations you want to use into the content tab of the AO, then fill out the configuration notecard.  This must be done carefully, because the script is very picky about syntax, spaces, and names.

[Rolig Loon]

You can have as many AOs as you like.  You just shouldn't wear more than one at a time because they will interfere with each other.  In this particular case, you shouldn't have to do much magic if you can make or buy the right blazer-holding anim.  Take a look at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Animation_Priority, which explains about animation priorities.  What you have now is probably a Priority 3 or 4 blazer-holding anim.  That means that a priority 4 walk animation will override and cancel it.  What you need to do is find or make an anim with priority 5. 

It's actually not as hard as you might imagine to make one.  Natalia Zelmanov's blog --- now a bit dated but still a great place to learn the basics -- has a three-part tutorial on how to create a simple anim, starting here >>> http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2007/10/day-391-creating-poses-part-1-standing.html  .  Years ago, I followed that tutorial to make an anim for carrying a pocketbook.  It works like a dream.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

NOT ZHAO II!! PLEASE, NOT ZHAO II!

 

Yes, it's a lot better than the first one and, yes, it's been around a long time and it works. Have you any IDEA of the number that are set-up incorrectly though and keep spamming errors? These things used to be the bame of my life when I was scripting in sandbox areas. As a scripter I was displaying script errors to catch any of mine. Far more often than was useful though I'd just get flooded with "animation xxxxx" not found, etc. To make it worse the peope wearing the AOs had no idea and, generally, didn't care. It worked "well enough" for them, they didn't see the errors and they didn't care if they spammed anyyone else.