The Avastar Learning Curve

[Charalyne Blackwood]

I make my own poses and simple animations for fun, and the need to control my avatar's fingers got me to where I purchased and installed Avastar 2. However, all the tutorials at the Avastar site are for v1.x in spite of being under the "Avastar 2.0" tab. Actual help has been more difficult to find than the help for Blender. Frankly I feel I wasted the USD buying a program so poorly supported. I'm NOT a Blender goddess; all my poses to date are done in Qavimator because, unlike Avastar, is actually user friendly (and I can build mesh buildings all week). Any video help I've looked into has been a video in which the narrator is talking like an auctioneer, or is locked into a window that is either too tiny to see anything or fully maxed out with no ability to switch between the video and Blender. I'm not some high tech genius, but I'm not an idiot either. Is there any kind of information available that doesn't require a degree in computer science, nor does it fire the information at me like a spastic machine gun?

[Chic Aeon]

I came from Qavimator to Avastar for the same purpose - Bento poses.  I went through the yes very old tutorial using the newer Avastar and didn't really have any problems that I can remember.  The rules are still the same, you just have more bones to deal with (mostly fingers). So did you actually DO the tutorial and get that pose inworld?    It really doesn't do all that much good == for me anyway --  to just read things.  Doing helps.  

 

BUT, I just realized that I did (and still do) use Blender 2.79 so the INTERFACE is way different now with 2.8 and 2.9. What you may need to do is install 2.79 (you can have both on your computer at once - instructions are available on the web ).   THAT may be your issue?

 

The one thing that I can say is that you need to export in anim file format as the bvh format you are used to doesn't work from Avastar and apparently hasn't for years.  anim works fine, but you don't get a preview like with bvh and Firestorm.  You can use the beta grid if necessary.

 

 

[Charalyne Blackwood]

I did a simple pose but it wouldn't load into SL. Misnamed hip error thing. I updated Blender as new versions out. I need the preview since neither Qavimator nor Avastar/Blender uses my actual shape and I have to adjust accordingly. One big reason I use the Firestorm viewer is because the animation preview in the Second Life viewer is pretty lame. I really miss the Beta of Qavimator that included the extra bones

 

It all seems needlessly complicated and I feel like the simplest processes end up using hundreds of keystrokes more than should be. The intuitiveness of these apps is appalling. In Blender, I still haven't figured out how to have a texture on a mesh surface before loading into SL. Again, hundreds of keystrokes etc...

[Chic Aeon]

Well at sounds like you are trying to do something that can't be done.   As I said -- unless there is newness I don't know about which is certainly possible, I was told that bvh will NOT upload.  I never got it to work either.  Avastar 2 WILL make perfectly good poses  with Blender 2.79 in an anim format.  That I can say for sure.   I have done many.    You can always asked about this in the Avastar group. That would likely be a good next step. Good luck.