"Failed To Initialize Motion" when uploading bvh files

[Alexxis DeCuir]

Hello everyone. I made some static poses in Poser 8 and exported them to .bvh files. When I try to upload an animation to second life it says "failed to initialize motion" and has the upload button greyed out. I have the lastest viewer for second life, and I have tried to upload all of the bvh files I have with the same outcome.  Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

[Lusus Saule]

Even though the poses are static they would still need to have 2 frames. Maybe this solves your delemna...?

[Medhue Simoni]

Have you uploaded similar anims b4? I just uploaded anims fine yesterday on the latest viewer.

[Alexxis DeCuir]

I haven't uploaded animations/poses before.

When I opened the poses in poser, and pushed play it says it's 30 frames long, but its just a static pose?

I'm a noob at this stuff, just got Poser 8 less than a week ago lol.

[Lusus Saule]

I haven't used Poser to create animations but I've used http://www.qavimator.org/ Its free and easy to use, especially for static poses. Just cut the frame rate down to 2 poses for static poses and you shouldn't have any problems.

[Rayne Keynes]

If the first frame of your anim isn't marked as a key frame or in some way becomes corruptecd, SL will choke hard on it. The rest of the frames in it aren't as important.

[Deira Llanfair]

Hi Alexxis,

First of all you must use the SL Avatar figure - get it from the download section of this website.  You could also use a Poser 2 figure as that has the same skeleton - but no other Poser figures can be used.  Unzip the download SL avatar file and put all the contents in the Poser Library.

 

For a static pose you just need 2 frames - just edit the frame number in the frame counter at the bottom of the screen - this is on a tab which you may need to open up.  Change the 30 frames to 2.

 

Go to frame 1 and select the SL figure - just double click on it from the library tab (opens from the right side of the screen).  This should be in the zero rotation T-pose.  Just make sure by clicking all the joints one at a time and look at the values set in the parameter dials - make sure they are all zero.  (You may need to open the parameter dials window from the menu options.)

Move on to Frame 2 and pose your figure.  Use the various camera positions to check it is ok and save when you are happy with it.

Now click File\Export and select bvh and export your file ready for upload.

In the SL upload window make sure you have checked "Loop" and set a suitable priority for your pose.

Check out the stickies on the Animation Forum and other post there for more information.

[Galathir Darkstone]

I'm no expert on animations, though I have dabbled a little. For SL, I believe it is important that your initial frame be different from the following frame. In a static pose, the differences between this initial frame and the frame(s) used for the pose are what actually determine which parts of the body are animated/posed. Many animators, from what I have read, just use the standard default "T" pose in the first frame for the base position, then use the subsequent frame(s) for the actual pose or animation. If all of your frames are identical, there is no change in the animation, which means that if it were to load into SL, it wouldn't do anything. I haven't seen the error message in question, but logically, it seems that this ~could~ potentially be your problem.

[Alexxis DeCuir]

This worked perfectly! Thank you so much. I had no idea the first frame had to be the T pose. That was probably what was prohibiting me from uploading my poses. I learn something new every day. Woo, now I can finish fixing my other poses , upload them, and then figure out how to get them into my mushroom. Thank You again!

 

-Alexxis