I love OSGrid. I love the crazy amount of prims, I love the freeness (yeah I said freeness...) but, I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how to get animations to work consistently.
It seems that sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, even after resetting the scripts. Also, sometimes some people see them as working, and others don't. I've been told to clear cache, relog, it must be my machine, or a slow connection, etc. etc. etc., all well meaning advice, but not all of it valid. I have a new super speedy Mac machine, a great internet connection and no problems with lag in other worlds. Can someone help a sister out? Pretty please! Does it have to do with the scripting of the animation balls? The script engine? The viewers? Opensim? Whatever it is, can it be fixed? I'm a total noob so I honestly don't know the answers. Thankies in advance for your help! xoxoxoxo

Hi,
I understand your frustration, there are many reasons why you are seeing this, please provide more information as to what occurs in which given situation, because there's no point me just saying "yeah that happens to all of us" there is always a reason, sometimes it is cache, sometimes it is grid lag, sometimes viewer lag, sometimes faulty scripts, sometimes its dodgy animation files, (There are a lot of broken animations in OSGrid and also a lot of old scripts that behave badly) so lets isolate each instance, and remember this, different people will see different things, the animation is actually done in the viewer.


Lets break it into 2 parties, you and everybody else, if you see an animation but someone else doesnt, then there is no problem (for you or the anim) the other person must clear their cache, not you. the animation works.
So lets establish that it doesnt matter if others see the anim or not, if you can see it then its working ok, let them fix their own viewer issues.

Next lets break it into 2 parts, the animation, and the script, (assuming you have the animation file in your inventory) double click the anim in your inventory, and click Play ("In World" if there are others to help), if you see it, then the animation works, and others should see it too (may take up to 10 seconds before it plays on someone elses viewer) if neither you or anyone else sees the anim playing then it probably is a faulty anim.

Finally test the script, (first make sure you have an anim that works by the above method)if possible change the animation in the script to one thats known to work, and change the name it is called in the script (so the script is calling the right anim) and see if the new anim plays, if it does then it has proved the script to be ok.

If you still have no joy, then tell us what exactly happens when you try to run a given animation with a given script in a script activated region, and others are watching,
Post the script you are using if you think it may be a faulty script.
Regards
Cam

I think the biggest frustration is when you know the animation is good, and the script is good, because a couple's dance, for example, works fine for both people in some people's viewers but not for others.

Mina, her sweetie Jake, and Linda Kellie and I along with a dozen or so others were at an impromptu dance party on my sim, using couples dance balls. I could see Linda and I dancing in sync, but to Linda the animations weren't working. I think Mina and Jake had a similar issue. Cache clearing and relogs took place in an effort to resolve the issue, without success.

Could this be narrowed down to a viewer issue, a sim issue, a grid server issue, or a region server issue? What is a good way to find out? And what would be good remedies to try?

Just want to bump this up, I know it's a widespread problem but I haven't yet tried to focus on a solution with my mind already cluttered with other issues

This has been a problem for the longest time, and I think that rather than trying to emulate how these things work in SL, opensim should move forward and try to make it better.

A nice feature to add to the region would be a tempo buss, this would allow someone with admin privileges to do so to tap the tempo of music, animation rates etc, and have all of the animations in the region that are tied to the tempo buss sync to it.

Wow! Thanks for the input everyone! Cam I will re-read your suggestions and thoughts and try and figure out what's going on.

Zardoz, I agree that it should be something that OpenSim tries to make better. Animations give our avatars life and make our virtual worlds just a little more enjoyable. Since I am new to OpenSim in general, is there a "to do" list anywhere that can be added to or where suggestions can be made?

Thanks Key, yes it was a little frustrating huh?

Me and my partner have been having this animation problem since we first came to OSgrid, and I have done extensive analyses of the symptoms but not being able to pinpoint the source of the problems. Here is a description of the finds:

1. The problem occured consistently both when we were both using Imprudence, when one of us was using Imprudence and the other Firestorm, and now when we both use Firestorm, so it's hardly (only) viewer related.
2. The problem does not seem to occur in sims/regions where an animation is already in sim/region cache.
3. The problem occurs when an animation which is neither in sim/region cache nor in viewer cache is played for the first time.
4. The symptom is that the animation is only played for exactly one of any and all users present who doesn't have the animation in viewer cache already, seemingly semi-random which user.
5. An alone user who logs in or teleports to the sim/region after the initial use of the animation will always see it.
6. A user who doesn't see the animation at first will do so if he/she alone relogs, teleports out and back to the region, or tries the animation again after 5-15 minutes.

Since it may be hard to keep track on if one has cached an animation somewhere else but the present region, the problem may seem very random. Same thing with that the animation seems to become available to the next user after 5-15 minutes.

A practical example is after a clean install (including scrapping of caches) of a simulator and using a multi-animation dance poseball with some 60 dances after viewer caches are cleared. When we go through the dances the first time after that, only one of us will see each dance for each of us, so each dance has the following possible outcomes:

a) I see us both dancing, she sees us both standing.
b) I see me dancing and her standing, she sees me standing and her dancing.
c) I see me standing and her dancing, she sees me dancing and her standing.
d) I see us both standing, she sees us both dancing.

If one of us has a slow connection, that's usually the part who will see the fewest, if any animations. The second time we go through the dances (when usually 10-15 minutes have passed), we both see the dances, but if we're fast going through them the first time, some dances may still just be visible to the same part who saw them the first time. The dances will then work until the next time both region and viewer caches have been cleared.

In the sims where I've been able to find out the settings, the Flotsam cache has been used, while other settings have varied some.

Thanks for your in depth description Magnus. Hopefully that will give people some more information to chew on. Anyone?

Yes thanks Magnuz for breaking it down into easy parts,

are you saying if you have the anim loaded in your cache then you wont have issues? if this is the case then the issue is about the anim actually loading onto a viewers cache, but if there is still an issue even after you have it in your cache, then it is a different issue.
In either case this does sound like a bug, Magnuz if you can clarify that one question for me, then you have refined it enough to place a mantis bug report, and from what others have said, it is not a new issue so I wonder why it hasnt been reported before.
http://opensimulator.org/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php
You will be doing your community a service
Cam

Yes, yes! Thank you both. I don't know the ins and outs of reporting issues, so if you two could truly nail down the details and one of you report it, that would be fantabulous!

FYI - we tested a theory that Key heard about, suggesting that having regions as standalones then connecting via hypergrid to OSG seemed to resolve the animation issues. That's all peachy and I'm glad that I can get them to work in some way, but shouldn't it all be the same whether it's a standalone or not? I really don't want this issue to fall to the wayside, especially since you guys all say this has been an issue for some time.

Has anyone submitted this to the mantis or whatever it's called? (See, you really do not want me to do it, lol.)