Uploading Animations to Second Life

1. The light grey bar at the very top of the Preview window displays the filename of the animation you have chosen as well as the duration of the animation. Duration is equal to the number of frames in your animation divided by the frame rate you specified in your animation and is independant of SL's playback frame rate.
   
   
2. Below the filename is the name by which your animation will be called in your SL inventory. This defaults to the name of your file, but you can change it here if you like. (You can also change this after upload.)
   
   
3. The next line down is your animation's description. Again, you can specify this here or after upload.
   
   
4. Now we get into the important stuff! SL assigns a Priority to each animation. This is done to enable SL to determine which animation controls which body parts when two or more animations are played simultaneously by the same avatar. Priority is specified as an integer from 0 to 4 such that an animation with a higher priority number will take precedence over an animation with a lower priority number. If two animations are played with the same priority, the one which was initiated most recently overrides the older animation.
   
   Animation priority is important because our avatars are normally engaged in one of several default animations which are built into Second Life. When we play a custom animation, we can decide whether or not our custom animation will override SL's defaults -- but we need to make that decision here, in the upload preview. Animation priority cannot be adjusted after upload!
   
   You can find a list of SL's built-in animations along with their assigned priorities here.
   
   Another important characteristic of animation priority to consider is the fact that an animation may not have the same priority for every body part. Each body part that you adjust in your animation will receive the priority which you assign to the animation, but anything which you do not move at all will receive the lowest priority. This can result in undesirable consequences when a default animation which does animate that body part kicks in on top of your custom animation. To prevent this from happening, make a small adjustment (even one degree) between the first and second frames for each joint which you want to ensure remains aligned with your animation.
   
   
5. To assist us in determining which priority we need to set for an animation and to see how our animation will look while an avatar is engaged in the most common default animations, SL provides us with the ability to choose whether we will preview the animation while Standing, Walking, Sitting or Flying. Click on the down arrow to the right of the "Preview while" field to view the drop down menu and make a selection.
   
   
6. On the next line we choose whether or not our animation will loop - that is, play constantly until requested to stop, or play through only once from start to finish. If you select the loop box, you can specify the portion of your animation which will loop by adjusting the in and out percentages. (You'll need to do a bit of math to figure out what percentage numbers correspond with which frames in your animation.)
   
   If you want your entire animation to loop from frame 2 right through to the final frame and then jump back to frame 2 again, leave the In% at 0 and the Out% at 100.
   
   If your animation is a two frame static pose, set it to loop and leave the In% at 0 and the Out% at 100. It is also possible to create a static pose with a multi-framed animation. The first few frames may include movement which eases the avatar into the pose, the middle frame (or frames) would be the pose itself, and the final few frames possibly a movement out of the pose. In this case, you would want to adjust your in and out percentages such that only the middle, unchanging frames looped.
   
   
7. Below the loop information we have a drop-down menu which enables us to choose the hand position which our avatar will display while playing our animation. Unfortunately, Second Life does not allow us the ability to fully animate avatar hands at this point. Instead, we animate a model which does not include hand morphs and then choose from a limited selection of built-in hand morphs in the upload preview.
   
   Hand Pose choices are:
   
   
   • Spread
   • Relaxed
   • Point Both
   • Fist
   • Relaxed Left
   • Point Left
   • Fist Left
   • Relaxed Right
   • Point Right
   • Fist Right
   • Salute Right
   • Typing
   • Peace Right
   
   but their implementation is reported to be sketchy at best.
   
   
8. As with hand morphs, SL also does not currently provide us with the ability to customize facial animations. Instead, we can choose one of the following built-in facial expressions in the upload preview:
   
   
   • none
   • Aaaaah
   • Afraid
   • Angry
   • Big Smile
   • Bored
   • Cry
   • Disdain
   • Embarrassed
   • Frown
   • Kiss
   • Laugh
   • Plllppt
   • Repulsed
   • Sad
   • Shrug
   • Smile
   • Surprise
   • Wink
   • Worry
   
   
   
9. Below the facial expression choices is a line on which we specify the ease in and ease out times (in seconds) for our animation. The default is .3 seconds for both, which prevents a really jarring pop between whatever the avatar was doing previously and your animation, but you may wish to lengthen the ease in and out times if you wish a smoother transition. The minimum ease time is 0 - which is not recommended. The maximum varies dependent upon the length of your animation, up to a maximum of ten seconds for in and out on a 30 second animation.
   
   
10. Below the Ease parameters are our preview playback controls. Start/Pause, Stop and a Scrubber.
    
    
11. Immediately below the playback controls is where the preview of our animation is displayed. Note that you can zoom, pan and orbit your camera within the preview just as you would elsewhere in Second Life. (Click in the preview window and mouse up and down to zoom in and out, hold down Ctrl and drag your mouse to orbit, and hold down Shift + Ctrl and drag your mouse to pan.)
    
    Note that your animation may appear somewhat different in the SL preview than it did in your animation software. There are a couple of factors which can cause this:
    
    
    1. Second Life's BVH importer performs an "optimization" of animation data prior to upload into SL. This is done in order to mimimize load on SL's servers and network whenever an animation is played (and consequently downloaded to each client within viewing range). The formula used for optimization is supposed to allow subtle motion to come through intact, but sometimes key frame data which changes only slightly from the previous key frame is dropped. If it appears that this has happened to your animation, cancel the preview, go back into your animation software and make a slight adjustment to increase the motion, then try again.
       
       
    2. The Second Life mannequins which are used as the models to create SL animations are based on "Ruth" and a male avatar of similar proportions. The model used to preview animations prior to upload into SL is a female avatar somewhat taller and skinnier than Ruth. Your own avatar (or other avatars who may end up using your animations) will have different proportions yet again. The BVH file used to control animation relies on absolute positioning data which is not adjusted by SL to accommodate avatars of different sizes and shapes. Therefore, SL animations are NOT one size fits all.
       
       A pose which places one avatar's hands on her hips may cause another avatar's hands to be buried well inside and an animation designed to make an avatar kneel on the ground may result in one avatar floating several inches above the ground and another sinking into it. For this reason, if you are designing animations for use by others, it is a good idea to design several "sizes" of each animation so that prospective buyers can try them all out and decide which one fits them best. If you are designing animations with a particular avatar in mind, it can take a bit of trial and error and guess work before you start to get a feel for how an animation needs to be adjusted in order to fit that avatar.
       
       You might want to test your early animations out on the Beta Test Grid so as to save yourself the wasted $L of uploading many unusable animations. (The Beta Test Grid is a fully functional but transitory SL environment. Animations uploaded to the test grid should behave in the same fashion as they would on the main grid, but changes to your inventory and $L transactions on the test grid are not reflected in your main grid account. --- If you are happy with an animation, you will need to upload it again into the main grid and pay your $L10 from your real account, but if you don't like an animation, you can junk it with no $L lost.)
    
    
12. Finally, at the very bottom of the animation preview window, make sure everything is set just as you want it and hit "Upload", paying your $L10 to import your animation into Second Life or click "Cancel" and return to your animation editor if you have determined that your animation requires further adjustments.