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Animation Instructions.md

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Animation Instructions.md

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Instructions for making a custom Animation

You can make your own custom animations which you can then load by clicking Pose > Animation > Load Animation and choosing the file.
The animation files are xml files.

Parent node

The parent node is called animation and has two properties:

  • name is a string that will be used in the Pose > Animation list.
  • length is a floating point number representing the default number of seconds it takes to complete one loop of the animation, in other words the period.

Child nodes

The child nodes represent the body parts of the player character:

  • torso

  • left-arm

  • right-arm

  • left-leg

  • right-leg

  • head

Additionally, there are two more nodes used to offset the model:

  • offset displaces the entire model

  • leg-offset displaces only the legs

Body parts and Offsets

The body parts and offsets are equal in their structure.
Body parts have rotational child nodes named pitch, yaw and roll that represent euler angles. These nodes do not all have to be present.

The offsets have positional child nodes named x, y and z that represent an offset in meters/blocks. These nodes also do not all have to be present.

Eachof these transformation nodes contain a list of keyframes modifying their values over time. Optionally, they can also have the following properties:

  • length, which overrides the length of the animation for this particular transformation.
  • i, which declares a default interpolation for this particular transformation.

Keyframes

A keyframe node has two properties:

  • t, which is the time in seconds that has passed since the start of the loop.
  • i, which is an optional node declaring the interpolation type that will be used between the current keyframe and the next one.

The node itself will contain a numeric value.
Example: <keyframe t="0.25" i="SMOOTH">-30</keyframe>

Interpolation

The default interpolation, if none is specified, is CONSTANT for the first keyframe, and for following keyframes whatever the interpolation of the previous keyframe is.
Here is a list of interpolation modes:

  • CONSTANT will maintain the value of the current keyframe until the next keyframe.
  • LINEAR will linearly interpolate between the current keyframe and the next one.
  • SMOOTH will smoothly interpolate between the current keyframe and the next one using two adjacent extrema of a cosine curve.
  • SMOOTH_IN will smoothly interpolate into the next keyframe using a root and adjacent extrema of a cosine curve.
  • SMOOTH_OUT will smoothly interpolate out of the current keyframe using a root and adjacent extrema of a cosine curve.

Please keep in mind that the first keyframe is not considered to be the next keyframe after the last keyframe, so if you want an interpolation after the last keyframe to the end of the loop I recommend inserting a keyframe at the time limit of the loop with the desired value.