I am just about to build a small scene wherein I will have a female model appearing to juggle a few sphere shapes with texture maps. And then use, Transporter, (hopefully if it works right), to then import the, Poser 5(MacOSX), model and animation to, Carrara 3. I was wondering if any of you know of a preset animation set or file that I can simply apply to the Poser 5 model or not. The way in which I want/need the spheres to be animating... with the models arms moving with them is in a visible circle from the front view. I intend to utilize big spheres too that will have a spherical texture map associated to them. Got any suggestions? I could use a few as I get ready to accomplish this. Thank's ahead of time for any suggestions or assitance. I am new in the, Poser Forum, I kind'a lurk and have been enjoying all the art here for many years. I also have had, Poser since version 3 but have not really worked a lot with it since 4. Thank you for your patience with me ahead of time as well I know that you are all involved in what you do. :)

I'm answering because I know from firsthand experience that most jugglers hate to see juggling animated wrong. (as an example, the other day I had to endure a cartoon lion "juggling" ten hotdogs. They all just floated around in slow motion, in a great big, perfect circle, and didn't even flip. He must've been levitating them with his mind.) the reason we hate to see this is because non-jugglers see stuff like this, and begin to think that it's actually humanly possible, and that we are merely inferior jugglers because we can't do the impossible. So, in order to help you to not add to the confusion, I'm going to give you a brief education on the basics of juggling, and some video clips to use for reference. The most basic juggling pattern, the fist one every juggler learns, and the most widely used, is called the Cascade. It's not actually circular. It's more like the symbol for infinity (a figure eight laying on it's side). You can see video of a man doing the Cascade with bowling balls here: (he starts with the Cascade, then goes into a trick called elevators) http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steven.mcallister/video/Juggler.mov The Cascade (basically) can only be done with an odd number of balls. Usually 3, 5, or 7. The "circular" method, is quite a bit more difficult, and it's actually called the Shower. the Shower can be done with just about any number of objects, more than eleven is possible. you can find a few samples of the Shower at the link below. Notice that the guy showering 3 balls is the only one who comes close to a perfect circle, by keeping the balls low and fast. Increasing the number of objects means increasing the height of throws, thus warping the circular pattern. This is done out of necessity, the higher you throw the ball, the more time you have to catch it... (Showers here) http://www.jongleringsoasen.se/aquarium/pqrst.html If you're looking to do something that looks magical, almost as if someone is using juggling to weave a spell, I'd suggest using the Cascade, and adding in a few more complex cascade based patterns, such as: Burkes' barrage, the cherry picker, cyclo 1 and 2, http://www.jongleringsoasen.se/aquarium/abcde.html#D and maybe some mills mess thrown in... http://www.jongleringsoasen.se/aquarium/klmno.html#L That place, the video-paedia of juggling has basically everything you'll need to animate a very complex juggling routine. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, let me know. John

Fascinating! I had no idea juggling even involved different patterns. The names themselves are interesting. Maybe Python can help here? (Incidentally, why can't computer people think of such wonderful names? Burke's Barrage and Mills Mess are far easier to remember and pronounce than ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, BIOS......)

After looking at some of the clips in that "video-pedia", I'm even more impressed. Rubenstein's Revenge is simply impossible. There's no way a human can do that. But the video says otherwise.

While python scripting might help in this situaltion, I don't know that anyone is going to go through the trouble of writing the script. Although if anyone does want to try, they might find some help here: http://www.juggling.org/programs/java/ These java applets will animate juggling balls in various patterns and tricks, and can be programmed for new patterns using Siteswap, which could accurately be called the scripting language of juggling. For more on siteswap: http://www.juggling.org/help/siteswap/ Teach your palmpilot how to juggle... http://www.siteswap.org/palm/ and if you want to see some stuff that REALLY looks impossible, but is actually fun to do.... http://contactjuggling.org/moves.php?action=listbyballs2&balls=1 anyway, Instead of waiting around for someone to write a juggling python script, use the videos like mo-cap, and animate on twos or threes. (on twos: Keyframes on 1,3,5,7,9, etc. every other frame. On threes, Keys on: 1,4,7,10,13,etc. every third frame) and you should be fine.

Thanks for the links brainmuffin. I've been trying to learn to juggle for ages but can only keep the rhythm going for a short time. I took it up because a friend is very good at it and it looked like an achievable challenge, so I started but I'm still not very good, I live in hope though. 8) Catlin

You're very welcome, Catlin. I learned when I was 13, from the book "Juggling for the Complete Klutz". It's the perfect beginner book.

I may have to find that book, lol 8)