What program?

[Torako Haiku]

If I can't animate in Maya for whatever reason, what program is recommended? Qavimator doesn't make a lot of sense to me (it doesn't have an undo function?) and blender is, well, blender. Is there anything that works like Maya?

[Chic Aeon]

LOL. I am still using Qavimator and saving often, The good news is that with practice the undo key isn't as important :D. But yes, UNDO WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD.   Blender is good but there are issues with export. You might want to look at Avastar?  I hear (haven't used) that it is popular for animations (of course with Blender I am guessing.  Since I have never used Maya I have no real suggestions but wish you luck finding a program that you enjoy.

[Klytyna]

If I remember correctly, Daz Studio could export animated poses in bvh format (or there was an exporter for it), was free, and could use 'poser figures' and sl avatars are available in poser format for animation work.
 

[Claireschen Hesten]

I use Daz (studio 4) it will save and export poses and animations as SL compatible bvh files. in the export there is a tick box for "second life compatibility" you need the poser figures in order to pose or animate the default figure that comes up wont work with SL. i found it very useful to import the SL male and female figures and save each one as a Daz scene for easy access

[Torako Haiku]

11 hours ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

I use Daz (studio 4) it will save and export poses and animations as SL compatible bvh files. in the export there is a tick box for "second life compatibility" you need the poser figures in order to pose or animate the default figure that comes up wont work with SL. i found it very useful to import the SL male and female figures and save each one as a Daz scene for easy access

Where would I get the male and female figures to import into daz?

[Torako Haiku]

22 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

LOL. I am still using Qavimator and saving often, The good news is that with practice the undo key isn't as important :D. But yes, UNDO WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD.   Blender is good but there are issues with export. You might want to look at Avastar?  I hear (haven't used) that it is popular for animations (of course with Blender I am guessing.  Since I have never used Maya I have no real suggestions but wish you luck finding a program that you enjoy.

Avastar is a blender plugin. It also costs $30...

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Torako Haiku said:

Avastar is a blender plugin. It also costs $30...

Yes, I know that. You didn't stipulate "free" in your OP.  If you are anti Blender then you will have fewer options, agreed.  Maybe you found an answer on the other post you made. Hope so.,

 

[Claireschen Hesten]

12 hours ago, Torako Haiku said:

Where would I get the male and female figures to import into daz?

I think http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Clothing_Tutorials is the page you need it has a download for the avatar models 

[Medhue Simoni]

IMHO, Blender, as far as animation goes, is the cat's meow of animation programs.

[OptimoMaximo]

Well now there's MyAniMATE to animate in Maya for Second Life. It also supports .anim format

[OlliesOrbit]

 

What about basic posing software? I tried DAZ studio with the mesh second life avatars provided by that link,  but I was unable to actually move the joints. It was like the avatar was one connected piece, and when I tried to rotate like an arm or leg the whole avatar would rotate instead. I didn't get an option to select individual joints.

 I also wanted to work with bento poses, so would Maya be the best option or what about QAvimator? I have blender but it is very complex and I am honestly just learning the ropes of all of this. 
 

[Alyona Su]

2 hours ago, OlliesOrbit said:

 

 

What about basic posing software? I tried DAZ studio with the mesh second life avatars provided by that link,  but I was unable to actually move the joints. It was like the avatar was one connected piece, and when I tried to rotate like an arm or leg the whole avatar would rotate instead. I didn't get an option to select individual joints.

 I also wanted to work with bento poses, so would Maya be the best option or what about QAvimator? I have blender but it is very complex and I am honestly just learning the ropes of all of this. 
 

Blender with Avastar allows you to "rig" the avatar to the SL skeleton and there is a classic and a Bento version of the Avastar SL skeleton. If you are still on the upward learning curve of Blender, first learn as much as you can about Blender user interface and how to find your way around. That way when (if) you do ger Avastar you can put it to use immediately because it is an annual subscription.

Edit to add: If your main concern is only animating, then hit YouTube for Blender tutorials on animating (you position the bones of the skeleton, not the mesh part) - Avastar comes with the SL Avatar mesh built-in and you can use those directly.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Cackle Amore]

8 hours ago, OlliesOrbit said:

 

 

What about basic posing software? I tried DAZ studio with the mesh second life avatars provided by that link,  but I was unable to actually move the joints. It was like the avatar was one connected piece, and when I tried to rotate like an arm or leg the whole avatar would rotate instead. I didn't get an option to select individual joints.
 

Sounds like you forgot to put it into pose mode, or what ever they might have that named in Daz.

At least in blender, when you have a rig selected, there's three options, Object mode, which is the default where it's just treated as all solid stiff item, Pose mode,which of course is how you animate and pose the individual bones, and then edit mode, where you well.. edit the bones.