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"Polystyrene" wrote:
I wrote a couple of tutorials in a group I'm in about creating poses and animations
using BorisTheEngineer's Pose Editor and I thought I'd share them in here. Maybe they will be useful for someone :)
Pose Making!
BorisTheEngineer has created a pose editing program - no fancy 3D software needed!
Pose Editor site
Forum thread about the program
The program gives you the avi's skeleton and allows you to manipulate the bones, then you can export it as an .xaf file
to use in the previewer. You can add poses to furniture or create triggered poses.
Use the up/down arrow keys to select the bone you want to move. Bones are moved using six key pairs - Q and A, W and S,
E and D, R and F, T and G, Y and H. The different keys rotate the bone on a different axis. Use left/right arrow keys to rotate
the skeleton. To export the pose just hit enter. This will create a file called test.xaf in the folder where you have the
program saved. Note that each time you hit enter it will create a new file called test.xaf, so to prevent a pose being
overwritten simply rename the "test" file before exporting a new one.
There is no "undo" or "reset" function in the program, to start from scratch again you need to close and reopen the program.
So far I've just been playing with triggered poses. To create a triggered pose, derive from a product such as this one, which is all ready for adding poses. Go to the Actions tab in the previewer. Note that there are two boxes
under this panel, blue and red. To add a new pose, click add on the left side of the blue box. Now, to put your pose
file in, click browse under Skeletal animation in the red box, find your .xaf file and click ok. You'll
need to enter a trigger word - this is what you type in the client to make the pose work. Type your trigger in under Action
parameters in the blue box, where it says Trigger.
Now, your pose file that is created in the program only lasts for about a second. So to make it last longer you'll need
to loop it. Add a value under Frame controls in the Skeletal animation section of the red box, where it
says # loops. To stop your pose from moving with the avis idle movements, select Replace from the Composition
dropdown menu. To make the avi morph smoothly to the pose rather than just jumping to it, you'll need to add blend in
and out values too.
If you want to add more poses, click Add in the blue box and add another pose in the same way as above.
Once you get the hang of manipulating the bones the Pose Editor is quite easy to work with. You can instantly export your
poses to the previewer to see how they look, so you can easily check every change you make. Oh, and one more hint....the fingers
are very tricky to work with because you cannot currently "zoom in" so it's very hard to see what you are doing.
It's easy to end up with fingers that look broken lol, so I tend to just leave the fingers as they are.
Hope that all makes sense ;)
For your reference, here is a screenie of what the previewer looks like for one of the pose packs I've created:
[center] [/center]
"Polystyrene" wrote:
Basic avatar animation
I'm not sure if there is another way to do it, but what I've done is basically just morphing between poses. You basically
work in the same way as if making a pose, but you add multiple poses, or ensembles to one action.
So far I've only made one very simple (and fairly crap) animation - this. You can use Try It if you'd like to see how it looks. But like I said, it's my first animation and not very good :P
First, derive from a pose-ready product such as this one. Then go to the Actions tab. Add your action and give it a trigger word. From the drop down menu in the blue box
where it says After Playing, choose Cycle through Ensembles. This makes the animation cycle through each
"pose" in the set.
Next, working in the red box, you add ensembles for each pose in the animation. Put your .xaf files in under each
ensemble, where it says Skeletal Animation. For the animation to morph smoothly between poses, the composition must
be set to Average. The problem with this though, is that the pose will change a bit depending on the avi's idle movements,
but I couldn't find a way of getting around it. You can adjust the speed of the animation by putting a value into Playback
Speed (low value for slow, higher value for faster). Humm and actually I'm not sure what Blend Weight does or
why I have a value there in my example lol.
Make sure you set your composition and speed for all ensembles. The speed doesn't have to be the same
for all ensembles - you may want your avi to pause for a little longer in a particular pose.
To adjust the length of your animation, put a value in where it says # ensembles played (in the blue box). This
value is for the total number of ensembles you want to be played - for example, my animation has 2 ensembles and I set that
value to 30. This means that the animation plays through my ensembles 30 times in total (not 30 times for each ensemble),
ie, my animation has 30 movements.
Here is a screenie of what my previewer looks like for the animation linked to above:
[center] [/center]
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I've never done any 3D work before, sorta just figured this out on my own, so if anyone has better or easier ways of doing
things, any hints or tips or ideas , please post them :D
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Ok have a question....
Can I add a pose from this program to a derived mesh?
My question pertains to my golf tent/bbq
a mesh Hellstrong created for me. Can I add a putting pose or animation to his product?
yea that petuculair mesh has 2 nodes u can trigger to, so that mean u could replace the current 2 poses.
Yesterday i whas busy with triggering poses so i learned a thing or 2.
If u wanna places meshes in other products, this is what u can do:
1. the product already has poses.
then u could goto the action tab and assosiate ure own poses with the product what replaces the meshes already in it.
2. The product doesnt have poses
Then the only way to add poses is to make new nodes for it, by using Sketchup, blender or 3dsmax
U have to give the nodes a diffrent name so u can trigger to them.
For instance, Instead of using '' seat01.Standing '' you name the node ''Seat01.Hellstrong01 ''
I made a pose spot to derive from if u wanna use the poses as a furniture instead of as an accasorie 
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