Anypose, U-poser - limited vs. Qavimator etc.?

[Nika Talaj]

I'm looking for an easy tool to do a pose or simple animation every once in a while - don't want to become a pro or spend a lot of money.  So I bought AnyPose (an inworld tool), and I'm puzzled by the following seeming limitations:

-- No way to tilt hips so one is higher than the other without rotating the entire avatar

-- No way to move the entire leg to cross the avatar midline - e.g. the right leg cannot be moved toward the left.  Can achieve subtle crossings with knee and ankle rotations, but no more than that.

-- No way to tilt shoulders so one is higher than the other; don't seem to be able to rotate chest/abdomen in that direction, and there's no "shoulder" joint to move.

It's possible that I'm just not adept enough with Anypose yet, and if that's the case I'd love to be given some hints!

But assuming that these observations are right, here's my question: are these just limitations of this tool?  If so, what's the minimum-learning-curve tool I should get to overcome them?  Does U-poser (another inworld tool) allow more degrees of motion? 

Or do I have to go to a software package?  Would Qavimator do it? 

I don't see myself paying or climbing the learning curve for Blender or Poser Pro just for the occasional anim.

[Lanas Criss]

Qavimator and I have had a wonderful relationship and it has treated me well over the years.  I'm not familiar with anything else so I can't compare, but I can assure you that if you "don't want to become a pro or spend a lot of money" Qavimator could do the trick quite nicely.

I'll be honest, figuring it out was not easy to begin with but that's mostly because of several silly gotchas that once I finally trudged through the tutorials everything became clear and workable.

Never fear... Qavimator is here...

Enjoy your attempts at satisfying animation! 

Lanas

[Bree Giffen]

Qavimator works great for poses and animations. Easy to learn and it's free.

[Medhue Simoni]

I can't comment on U-Pose, as I've never used it, but I have seen videos of it.

Considering options like Qavimator, which has full functionality, I'd advise trying it. Compared to other animation programs, it is quite easy to understand.

As far as cost, there are quite a few programs that are more powerful than Qavi, and don't really cost too much. You can get Poser 7 for less than 50  bucks. It is nice to have but the camera controls are a pain in the butt. Blender has 2 different animation creation plugins for SL now and are free. I've played with them and they are pretty easy to learn quickly, considering the difficulty that most have using Blender. Personally, I use a program called SLat for most of my work, which is also free. There are also a number of other programs.

[Morgaine Christensen]

I am NOT an animator in any sense of the word.  I do have UPOSER and have found it simple and useful for the couple of static poses I have needed.  It does have animation instructions but I have not used that portion of it.  I know many use .   QVanimtor (??spelling)) and classes are taught in world on how to use it...plus QV is free....might be just what you need. 

[Nika Talaj]

Thanks for the responses!   I'm most interested in the inworld tools, since I hope to enable a friend of mine to do some simple poses quickly, he's an avid SL photographer, and vastly prefers working inworld.  I've tried Qavimator myself, and I just don't see him climbing that learning curve, not being in his first youth

An acquaintance of mine showed me what she can do quickly using Blender with Avastar - very impressive, and if I wanted to do a lot of poses I would definitely look into that.  But again, I don't see my friend doing it.

@Medue  I would love to see videos of U-poser, but I haven't been able to find any; if you have any bookmarks for them, that would be terrific. 

I found SLat on sourceforge, and yet another inworld tool on Youtube.  But it looks pretty lightweight.  U-poser has a lease-to-own program; maybe I'll try that.  Anypose is quick, but quite limited.

[BlazeAbsurdity]

I use Anypose .Have tried the other freebies. I just can't see using something that is not inworld. I use mine mainly for doing poses and animations for vehicles. If I make the poses or animations on my PC not in world then they are not going to be a perfect fit to the vehicle I am making them for.