Strange distance / scaling problem in Poser 8. Help!

[Maar Auer]

Hi everyone.

I animate dances, using Poser. Have done so a long time without any problems, until recently. So I should know the basics. This bug is all new to me.

I have created a 900 frames couples animation in Poser 8. In it, the characters move as they should. But when I export as bvh and upload, the animations start behaving irrationally in such way, that distances are miscalculated: if my avatar should take, lets say, one step forward, the legs move as they should, but the distance covered is not even half of what it should be. So my avatar almost stays stuck at one place, although it should move around. This miscalculating affects only distances forward-backward and sideways: the avatar turns around, pirouettes, just as it should.

But the weirdest thing is, the second avatar in the very same poser file, uploads normally! So when I have them dancing together, the other figure is prancing happily around while the other one is staying stuck, sulking, in its place. You can just imagine what the dance choreography for couples looks like in SL *shivers*.

I have spent weeks creating this latest animation. When the bug first manifested itseld, I was so upset, nearly tore all the hair out of my head, thinking I'd lose all my hard work. I recently upgraded to Poser 2010 Pro, so I thought thats what caused this behavior. I downgraded back to Poser 8. But nope, that wasn't it.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? I searched the net, but found nothing.

I have come up with a (hmmm, slim but anyway) workaround. In the very same poser file, where I have my two avatars, male and female, I simply import new SL avatars from Poser library. I copy and paste the animated frames from previously animated figures. Then I export each figure as bvh, and find out which two figures decide to scale distances correctly in SL that given day. Even between different work sessions, this seems to change. It is not a solution, I know, but at least its a workaround. Took me a  few very painful hours to come up with that trick.

Now I am trying to finish one animation. Currently I have six figures on stage. 4 of them I have hidden, as figures number 4 and 6 seem to behave themselves upon uploading, for the time being. *huge sigh*.

So please, help me? Any ideas, anyone?  Info, in case you need: I'm on Windows 7, 64 bit. Poser 8. I know all the basics of SL animating, having succesfully created a pile of couples' dance animation for SL, so my T-poses should be all correct, as well as uploading procedure.

Thanks a million, you kind soul :)

- Maar Auer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Heck, I'm clueless. I can only suggest bringing the animation into a different program, possibly Qavimator, and looking at it. If the positioning frames are really messed up, then you should see it. Also, this kind of sounds like an option somewhere to prevent "skating", but poser is not my prefered program. I basically only use it to combine animations and convert skeletons and formats.

[Maeve Balfour]

Hi Maar - Chances are that you have already tried this, since you said you know your way around Poser's basics etc... Still, I will mention it all the same...

Have you tried checking the HIP movements of each AV in the 3D space? (check the dial values). A common mistake is for people to move the AV bodies around, without actually using the HIP to create the movement. Poser (and the exported BVH files) use the HIP as physical reference for positioning (and in SL's case, it uses the default first frame T-pose to calculate the AV location in the second frame onward etc).

So it's possible you might have moved the correctly animated AV via the HIP, but mayhaps have used the incorrectly animated AV's BODY for its movement.

Just a thought... I hope this helps in some way :matte-motes-smile:

 

EDIT: A side note - I HAVE noticed that often the distance you move your AV through physical space in Poser is often not accurately represented in SL for some reason. (Though two AVs together will move the same corresponding distance). I suspect this might be due to Poser's tiny measurement system when compared to other 3D applications, OR possibly something to do with metrics preferences... (clutching at straws with ideas tho).