How to control events and actions?

This tutorial will describe how to manipulate animations on the main timeline. These include facial, body and waypoint animations. (This tutorial assumes a scene has been created with at least one character, and the user is familiar with adding facial, body and waypoint animations to the timeline.)

1. Learning the timeline interface

Open the generic radial menu, and left click on [timeline] to show the [Timeline Control].

In the [Timeline Control] interface, there is a time tag connected to a green scrub line. This indicates the time at which the scene is at. Right click on the timeline or left-click drag the time tag to move the scrub line. Double-clicking the time tag to scrub to a more precise time. This allows you to jump to an arbitrary point in time to change things. Cool huh?

At the right of the timeline, there are three buttons:

• [|>] – play or preview the scene

• [|<|] – move scrub line to the start of scene

• [|>|] – move scrub line to the end of scene

2. Manipulating facial animations on the timeline

Add a facial animation to the timeline by accessing the [facial animation] from the character radial menu, then add a face to the timeline. As a result, a smiley face block appears in the timeline where the scrub line is. Select it with left click, and when mouse cursor is over it, the time location of the animation appears. Controlling speech/lipsync animations are similar to facial animations.

There are four manipulations that can be done to the facial animation:

• move – drag the animation

• snap to scrub line – select the animation followed by [Shift + S]

• edit – double click on the animation to open the [facial animation] interface to edit (click on [add to timeline] to add the new facial expression at the same place)

• remove – select the animation followed by [Delete]

Add multiple facial animations and preview with the timeline to see the character's face change. 

3. Manipulating body animations on the timeline

Add a body animation to the timeline by accessing the [body animation] from the character radial menu, then add a body animation to the timeline. As a result, a solid rectangular block appears in the timeline where the scrub line is. Select it with left click, and when mouse cursor is over it, the time location and duration of the animation appears.

There are five manipulations that can be done to the body animation:

• move – drag the animation

• snap to scrub line – select the animation followed by [Shift + S]

• resize – select the animation followed by left-click/middle-click dragging the right edge of the block to change the duration of the animation (the thin strip on the top indicates the duration of one iteration of animation)

• edit – double click on the animation to open the [body animation] interface to edit (click on [add to timeline] to add the new body expression at the same place)

• remove – select the animation followed by [Delete]

4. Manipulating waypoint animations on the timeline

Add a waypoint animation to the timeline by accessing the [waypoint mode] from the character radial menu, then confirm the waypoints. As a result, a pair of flags appears in the timeline where the scrub line is. Select it with left click, and when mouse cursor is over it, the time location and duration of the animation appears.

There are five manipulations that can be done to the waypoint animation:

• move – drag the animation

• snap to scrub line – select the animation followed by [Shift + S]

• resize – select the animation followed by left-click dragging the right edge of the small flag to change the duration of the animation by changing the speed of movement

• edit – double click on the animation to enter the [waypoint mode] to edit

• remove – select the animation followed by [Delete]

Save the scene when you are happy with the results.

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