Working with avatars has some advantages over working with people...hair always looks good, avatars often have amazingly varied inventories to draw on for props, and they can stand without fidgeting (if you take off their AOs of course) while you set up your shot.
There is one drawback though that I've run into so far...you can't just tell your actor/avatar..oh move your hand higher..or grab them around the neck. Well, technically you CAN tell them..they just can't do it. Without poses and animations that is
The pose fair is going on now till the 15th of April on a sim called Postura. There must be a hundred stores here. You can buy loaded AOs, individual poses and pose packs for singles and couples, furniture with poses built in, and cool things to pose with for photos. For instance {what next} has a rowboat with poses in it - photographers must love those things. Here's their
SLURL at the pose fair - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Postura/153/241/26 and a picture of their little space showing the rowboat.
Here's a pic of another cool prop..a brick wall to lean on. It's from Glitterati - they have a huge real world store with poses and props. Here's the slurl to their store at the fair - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Postura/125/242/26
As a new machinima maker, I"m trying to decide what kinds of poses I need. And looking hard for animations. Probably need to invest in some specialty HUDS.
Then there's the problem of getting your actors to have the right animations..because a lot of them are no transfer...grrrrr.
