Animate Overview

Once the skeleton is all set up and the character's objects are attached, switch to Motion Studio Animate mode.

In animate mode, joints are held together by bones, and objects are held by bones. In other words, now the joints are in control of the entire character using an inverse kinematics (IK) technique. The effect is very much as if the joints were physical objects connected by fixed rods.

Moving the joints to position a skeleton is called posing.

Motion Studio supports local skeletons. Example: each of a figure's hands contains a local skeleton to control the fingers. Because the finger skeletons are local to the hands, the hands and the fingers can be animated independently.

Motion Studio always operates with trueSpace AutoRecord OFF. Because AutoRecord is off, whenever you pose your character, you must save your changes either by storing them in the Pose library or by recording them into a keyframe with the recording Deck.

If you don't save your changes, they will be lost if you change the active frame number, select a new pose, or go back to Setup mode.

Use the specialized Dope Sheet to see and edit the recorded keyframes for the current character. Each skeleton used by the character has it's own track in the Dope Sheet.

Because each skeleton has it's own track, you can mix and match various bits of animation for each part, and only keyframe those parts that you specifically need. For example, keyframe an arm wave, and the arm wave can be used or copied without disturbing keyframes for the legs or body.

The Shuttle controls provide enhanced animated playback capabilities.