[sldev] Body motion and facial expression tracking, Microsoft did it

[Dale Mahalko]

Worse yet, what about the avatars which don't have hands? Under the
current avatar animation system, for a dragon avatar to have smooth
non-jerky wing motion, the avatar may be warped to make the arms into
wings which get an overrider for smooth flapping motion, and the arms
may only just be unmovable prims.


Heh, the avatar should be a free form skeleton definable with N-number
of appendages (255 max), two of which can be assigned the standard
"LHand/RHand" identifier and thus shakable, while other unlabeled
appendages in excess of the standard appendage label allotment are
unselectable for action via scripts but still animatable within the
avatar itself.

This way you can have an Pacific Northwest Tree Octupus avatar with 8
moveable avatar appendages, two of which can be used for shaking
hands, dancing, etc. Or a centuar avatar with defined LHand/RHand for
shaking hands, etc, distinct from the two pairs of feet. Or a
millipede avatar...

I'm not sure how a snake/worm would be handled. In that case perhaps
the Head labeled appendage also has the LHand/RHand label..


Oh, and getting back on thread topic, how do you map realtime visual
motion of a person sitting in front of their computer onto a Tree
Octopus avatar?

- Dale Mahalko / Scalar Tardis