Welcome! So you want to learn about animating for SL huh? I don't say this in a mean spirited way at all, but are you sure? Good luck to you!

I've been making animations for SL since June '04. While I never thought it'd be easy, given how everything is in SL, I didn't expect to want to throw my computer out the window this much. First of all, Poser sucks. I mean, really sucks. My background for animating comes from visual effects for films with training in Maya, Shake, Houdini and others.

Poser is clunky. The parts that should help actually hurts you more. For instance, you have Inverse Kinematics (IK) that holds the feet and/or hands in place while you move the hips around. But more often then not, you end up with painful looking bends and dislocations. Then you have the way it moves the figure from one keyframe to the next. The default way gives you a twisting and turning mess that you end up having to go in a break the spline. (more on that later).

The next set of frustrations you have is the fact that SL treats a bvh file like a 2 year old with a cookie. Through the "optimization" process it'll throw out keyframes that are too far apart or when body parts don't move enough. You also have a very limited range of movement before the clothing and skin mesh looks broken.

If you are still reading, there is some hope for you yet. Included here is all the information I've figured out, stumbled upon, or read about.

I use version 5 of Poser. I've thought about upgrading to later version, but that is not needed for the use of SL. So if things are different on your versions, appologies for that.

Cheers - Luth Brodie