AO Priorities?

[Rongway]

Can someone please try and explain AO priority to me?

I was under the impression that priority 4 overrode all others. But that doesn't work that way with fishing (Goldtoken Fish Hunt). But it does override drinking animations (when drinking a beer, for example, it looks like I'm spilling my beer down my leg... beer spillage BAD). Would priority 3 be better?

[Theresa Tennyson]

I prefer AO's with the animations at priority 3 - that's all I need for everyday use and most special holding animations, etc. are higher priority so they'll work as designed without my having to turn my AO off.

[Sassy Romano]

It's nothing specific about AO's, just animation priorities.  You're correct that a higher animation will override a lower animation however there are a couple of caveats.

An animation might only animate a single bone or group of bones.  Such as a drinking animation where only the arm needs to move.  In that case, a priority 3 animation such as an AO stand can quite happily continue while only the arm at priority 4 moves to drink.

Similarly animations of the same priority interact such that the first animation at say priority 4 may be animating all bones, then if another priority 4 animation start that also animates all bones, that one will take over.  Although again, it could be a same priority animation that only animates  certain bones so that they can work together.

What gets frustrating is when AO providers decide to make all their stands priority 4, assuming that they're the only thing we ever want to see ourselves doing.  Very wrong really.  It's annoying to be in a priority 4 stand, then start say a priority 4 drinking animation and a few seconds later, the AO selects a different stance and kicks out the drinking animation so that we can bee seen in a new glorious stance.

The solution is ... priority 5 (and higher), but that's not really a solution, it's just an arms race to higher and higher.  Next up, some AO provider will do all their animations at priority 5.

[Perrie Juran]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

It's nothing specific about AO's, just animation priorities.  You're correct that a higher animation will override a lower animation however there are a couple of caveats.

An animation might only animate a single bone or group of bones.  Such as a drinking animation where only the arm needs to move.  In that case, a priority 3 animation such as an AO stand can quite happily continue while only the arm at priority 4 moves to drink.

Similarly animations of the same priority interact such that the first animation at say priority 4 may be animating all bones, then if another priority 4 animation start that also animates all bones, that one will take over.  Although again, it could be a same priority animation that only animates  certain bones so that they can work together.

What gets frustrating is when AO providers decide to make all their stands priority 4, assuming that they're the only thing we ever want to see ourselves doing.  Very wrong really.  It's annoying to be in a priority 4 stand, then start say a priority 4 drinking animation and a few seconds later, the AO selects a different stance and kicks out the drinking animation so that we can bee seen in a new glorious stance.

The solution is ... priority 5 (and higher), but that's not really a solution, it's just an arms race to higher and higher.  Next up, some AO provider will do all their animations at priority 5.

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The cats meow to me would be if WE could choose what priority the animation should have.

If I decide to do the Linda Blair Headspin I should be able to set it's priority.

[Sassy Romano]

Yes that would be nice but won't happen so we're stuck with setting priority during upload.

[Perrie Juran]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Yes that would be nice but won't happen so we're stuck with setting priority during upload.

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I know.

But I can have a wish list. 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

 

The solution is ... priority 5 (and higher), but that's not really a solution, it's just an arms race to higher and higher.  Next up, some AO provider will do all their animations at priority 5.

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LLs could solve that by making 5 higher priorities and in the following way:

5: cannot be assigned to a normal action (cannot be used for stand, walk, run, fly, etc.) - when played, it will override all actions.

6: can only animate up to 75% of the 'joints'

7: can only animate up to 50% of the 'joints'

8: can only animate up to 25% of the 'joints'

9: can only animate one single joint.

 

Cause yeah its a mess right now with how stand AOs often take over other things.

 

My number 5 might be me not understanding things... I notice that when I flip on my dance animation, they keep playing even when I walk or sit... but my stands will flip off when I walk or sit. As in, I don't need to turn my AO off to avoid suddenly standing when sitting. So my number 5 is basically an animation that controls for ALL actions as long as it is playing. But I'm not sure if that is needed or if I am not understanding animations right.