I’ve started messing around with Avimator to learn how to make my own custom animations in Second Life. I’d love to be able to create my own dance moves, particularly swing, African dance and hip-hop. Man, is it a bitch to learn though.
My first project is doing a basic 1920s "flapper-style" charleston. I downloaded some historic clips and started trying to emulate the movements in Avimator. It helps that I know how to do the dance myself, so I can figure out things like weight distribution and body posture. Still it’s taken hours to do a four second animation that still doesn’t really look right.
I’m beginning to see why there are so few animation creators in Second Life.
Please keep me updated about your SL animation efforts. I’d like to learn more.
I just posted guide to 50 Categorized Dance Animations and, as you’ll see, I’m covering dance in SL and different types machinima:
http://tinyurl.com/8k5xhu