Animation & Non-Shape Influelces

UNDER THE HOOD

ANIMATION & NON-SHAPE INFLUENCES

Presented info applies strictly to correlation of avatar shape and animation, not to other aspects of SL

Animation & Hover Height

Hover height is a quick trick to adjust your avatar’s distance from the ground or another object. In fact, it changes the position of your avatar within the HitBox. Ergo, it will also impact the animation position in your furniture or HUD, and you might find yourself very much displaced from what should be your normal position. Use it wisely, and try to remember to check it before you call a creator.

Same position, different hover heights

Shoe Base

Old system Shoe Base will impact overall body height, causing displacement of the avatar center. For individual animations, this is might be less important, but for interactive animations (couples, for example), this change will cause noticeable displacement in the avatars’ mutual position.

So, if you love to wear high heels with the old system Shoe Base all the time, ask your partner to adjust their avatar height accordingly.

Animation & Broken Ankle

Broken ankle is caused by rotation of the feet in animation. As high heel base adds more rotation, the ankle joint gets a “broken” appearance.

Feet are joints that must be animated, and they cannot be excluded from the animation process.

There are different approaches to this problem, depending on the animator’s choice:

The animator may choose to work with minimal foot rotation, with the assumption that high heels will be worn. Used with bare feet, these animations will often look weird in terms of foot position.
The animator may choose to rotate the feet according to the animation (my personal choice) and leave the decision to the end user whether to wear shoes or not. However, without a Broken Ankle fix, these animations can look unnatural when used with high heels.

The Broken Ankle Fix corrects the feet and blocks all foot animations, often resulting in less realism in some animations. As it is, in fact, an animation with an added script to play it on the avatar, it must have higher priority than the main animation.

Feet: Animated High Heel Shaped Locked