Poser 8 & Second Life issues. Need Help.

[MaurusBlack]

Hi I have recently started to create my own poses/animations in poser 8. My problem is after I have created my pose/animation. I have to usually use the first frame, the T pose on frame 1 to adjust the level of in Second Life World. I usually end up spending a lot of L's just to get it right. It takes me forever to figure out where Poser an SL find ground level. It appears it's with the waist always being above the perimeter of the outside mesh in T pose frame 1. Can anyone explain why I have to go through all this an spend so many L's just to tweak the pose an get it to ground level instead of all the way in the air, or under the ground? Am I doing something wrong with poser that I have this bug? I am including screen shots of exactly what I mean so you can see visually what I have to do in order to make my character poses in second life level to ground. Thanks for reading!

http://img190.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=362239715_image1_122_521lo.jpg image1

http://img107.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=362240387_image2_122_347lo.jpg image2     

[Ishtara Rothschild]

First off, the Phoenix viewer allows you to preview your animation inworld (on your own avatar, not just in a tiny window) before uploading. That might save you a lot of money.

As for the vertical position of your avatar, that depends on the hip position in frame 2 of your animation and all frames that follow. Frame 1 is only used to determine which joints are used by your animation (i.e. which joints have changed in position or rotation between frames 1 and 2).

What I would do is start out with a 2 frames long animation, apply or leave the T-pose in frame one, apply your initial posture in frame 2, and export it. Then change the hip position in frame 2 to adjust the vertical position of your avatar if necessary and export another BVH, and so on. Once your feet are at ground level, add more frames and finish the animation, using the same vertical hip position as in frame 2 (unless you want to move the avatar up or down during the animation of course).

 

PS: You only need to do this if you're creating an AO animation. If you want to use the animation in a poseball, you can simply adjust the llSitTarget offset values in your poseball script accordingly or move the poseball around.

PPS: Also keep in mind that avatars greatly differ in height. If you have a very tall avatar, the avatar of a small person will hover above the floor when playing your animation.

PPPS: I use Poser 7, and so far I always had my feet more or less at floor level when I went with the standard female SL model for Poser and left it at the default position, with her feet touching the floor. But my avi is only 165 cm / 5.5 ft tall.

[Medhue Simoni]

ROFL, did you know that image site will pop up a stream of a naughty girl in her bedroom?

 

Anyways, Ishtara is very much right, but let me put my spin on this. The only time height becomes an issue is with an animation that brings you close to the ground, in an AO. Me, I move the first frame's hip height. Why? Because I make motion capture and once the animation is brought into the program, you can't just go thru and change all the heights of the other frames. In motion capture, those heights of all the frames are very important to the motion, changing the first frame, or Tframe is just way faster.

OH, and Poser 8 looks alot different than Poser 7, I might have to upgrade, but I rarely use poser anyways.

[MaurusBlack]

lol! Sorry about the porno popping up. I don't use imagevenue much and needed quick image hosting site an picked that one not needing an account. I did not know it shot out random porn....sigh.

I'll use phoenix then for better previews. I did start to adjust my height in T pose before the actual pose/animation. I guess my other issue is I sometimes get where my pose is upside down! So I end up having to figure out how to make it right side up. Again if that happens I been doing so before hand. I was just wondering if there was an easy fix to this issue besides that.

What do you use to make animations mostly then if you don't mind me asking Medhue? Maybe I should just try different software? I'd like the easy of use of Poser with out the head aches of the T pose issues.

I have had an old version of Poser and yeah it's much different from the version I had which I think was like 4 or 5. It seems much easier though. Doesn't seem to work as well as I'd like it to with Second Life though.

Thanks for the help!

[Poenald Palen]

Whoaaw...you are uploading to maing grid each time. I mean, you must not know of the beta grid? Um, the wiki will help you find out about how to log in, it uses the same viewer you have right now and all you do is enable a grid option menu at start up via...well, I can't remember teh key combo....ctrl+alt+g? Um, either way you just need to hit the key combo and then choose "Aditi" and you have a copy of you rinventory, 5000L (more added when LL feels like it lol) and you just upload and test away! The grid is seperate from Agni, which is the Main Grid. So anything that works there will NOT be in your inventory in world. Things on beta can NOT be put on marketplace or sold to put money into your main grid account. The Aditi grid is a clone, so is you avatar and inventory. They make an update now and then, so you might lose you beta grid test uploads if they decide to refresh the Aditi grid and your avatars inventory ect. YOu will get a exact copy at the moment they do the snapshot...um, that is all really. Free testing grounds, just map search for a sandbox (teh whole grid is not here, only a small portion of it!) and have fun! When you get something good, then spend L's to upload that one item that works!!!

[Medhue Simoni]

It is probably good to know a number of animation programs, and I use many of them. SLat is the 1 that I use for almost everything. If I use any other program, it is just for a special feature, and I will almost always pull the animation into SLat for any real editing.

 

Here is a diagram I threw together. All my notes are in red. SLat is the only program that makes editing the graphs of the axis the main way of editing. This is smart if you want smooth looking animations. Sharp movements are easily seen in the graphs. The bottom line is tho, you not only can make better animation more easily, you can do it fast. Really fast. There are alot more features, but these are basically the most important to me.

Oh, warning tho, it can be bugging. I always find ways around them tho. I kinda promote the program too because I'm hoping more programers do some work on it to make sure it stays compatible.