Fun with Client Side AO's

I wanted to write about Animation Overrides in Second Life or AO for short. Typically, an AO is an object worn on your avatar that changes your default animations in SL to make them nicer. The way you walk, stand, run, fly, everything can be changed using an AO. There is a good video on the Linden Labs forums that talks about how to use an AO. That is a great reference if you are unsure what an AO is, and have wondered how it is that everyone seems to be so life like while you stand around like a lump.

Most AO's in world utilize a scripted HUD attachment to change your animations. However, many third party viewers (TPVs) offer a client side AO option. This allows you to override almost the same variety of things but without having to use a HUD. I don't want to debate the merits of using a client side vs a HUD attached AO. What I do want to discuss is some of the advantages of the client side option as I see it, and talk about some fun things you can do if you decide to go the client side route.

I am not going to really go into how to use the client side AO in this article. Perhaps I will in the future. Let me point you too an excellent resource on the Firestorm/Phoenix You Tube page. They have a three part series on setting up and customizing the client AO for Firestorm. The one shown is used by most if not all of the TPV's that have this feature.

OK let me start by listing four advantages of using the client side AO. It is for these reasons that I only use the client side option now in Exodus Viewer.

The Client AO User Interface

1. Easy Custom AO: While editing a notecard is not hard, the drag and drop simplicity of the client side AO means that I can build my AO easily in just a few minutes from scratch. I used animations from my old Vista AO combined with a set of hand picked animations from Kuso (Oracul). This is a great way to take your favorite animations and make them into a single custom AO.
2. Multiple AO's: Vista, Akeyo and even Oracul all make nice HUD based AO's, with lots of different functionality and customization. However, one thing that I could not get from any of them was the ability to load a distinct set of animations into a single HUD. For example, if you wanted to have both a male and female animation set with a HUD you really need two copies of the HUD each with a different set of animations. Now most people likely do not need more that one set of core animations, but I will cover in a minute some other fun things you can do with the client AO that make this very powerful.



Multiple AO's in my Viewer

3. No Copy Friendly: The way the client AO works is that it creates links to your animations inside of your inventory, and reads those links to find your animations. If you have an animation that is No Copy, but you want to use it a few different AO's, you can with ease as the client tool will just keep creating the links it needs.



Animation Links in Inventory

4. Resource Friendly: The true value of this is debatable. Modern AO HUD's are well scripted and are often among the least offensive of scripted objects. However, if you are looking to do your part in reducing script lag you can eliminate all of your AO related lag by using a client side AO. In some very unscientific tests using HUDs from various vendors I noticed a reduction a few 10ths of a ms in script time for my avatar without the AO HUD attached. Related to script resources, is my desire to keep a very clean viewer space and having things HUD free is nice, even though modern HUDs take up very little screen space when collapsed.

If you look at the screen capture under item two above you can see some of the AO's I have stored. Its quite easy to use the client side AO tool in unique ways. Three ways I am using this tool that are not for a traditional AO are:

1. Dance HUD: I have collected dances of a few different varieties. I have copied some of the dances into the stands area of my client side AO to create a dance HUD. I set the stands to cycle after a certain amount of time. Sometimes I use the random feature and sometimes not. Now I can switch from one set of dances to another and back to my standard AO very quickly. I dont have to attach a dance HUD or anything. Fast and simple. Perhaps the best thing is that I can add No Copy dances to multiple different saved dance routines. 
2. Reduced AO: I don't do Second Life combat often, but I learned quickly that silly runs, walks and other animations made combat more difficult. I used to turn my AO off during combat, but now I switch to a saved AO that has only a few simple animations that work well for combat. Because this runs client side it does not introduce lag which can be a killer in combat...literally.
3. Posing: I am just starting to play around with the idea of photography in Second Life. This is in large part due to my use of the Exodus Viewer and all of that many sliders and widgets for changing the way things look. I have collected various poses as time has gone along, and adding my favorites to the stands section in a custom AO allows me to switch into pose mode, and cycle through my poses very quickly. I can order my favorites at the top and begin taking pictures with a nice static pose very quickly. Because I have in effect turned off my regular AO by making this change I don't have to worry about some weird animation mix up happening mid shot.

I started using the client side AO in Firestorm and it continues in my use of Exodus. One of the primary reasons I do not use the vanilla Linden Labs version is that it lacks this client side AO feature. This tools isn't for everyone. HUD's from Vista and other companies offer a lot of very fine animation control which is not available in the client side option. Timings and transitions can be a little rough going with the client AO tool. Over all though I find it worth the trade off for the flexibility and features it offers.