This tutorial will show you how to animate a character, in order to implement body language for acting. (This tutorial assumes that a scene is already created, and a character is added.)

1. Learning the body animation interface

Open up the character specific radial menu. Left click on the [character animation] button to access the animation tools.

Of the two tabs in [Character Animation Interface] window, [facial animation] and [body animation], we will now concentrate on the [body animation], to deal with the body language of the character. The [skeleton] section shows all the bones in the selected character; the [animations] section is a tree of all available animations to the character; [animations added so far] is a list of animations currently in use; a small timeline shows the relative positions of animations in use.

The [skeleton] section not only shows the structure of the character, it also acts as a filter for animations. Left click on different bones of the character and see the animation list in [animations] change.

2. Animating the body

As seen in the list of animations, most movements are localised to one arm, or just the head or just the legs. This means to animate a person, you need to combine each different localised animations to create a full body animation. It seems a lot of work at the start, but it adds a lot more flexibility and combinations as a result. Let's try animating an angry person who is pointing his finger and shaking his head.

Start by animating the head-shaking actions. Select the head bone in [skeleton] to filter the animations on the right, click on the box [head] to open the tree, and click on [shake0] to preview the head-shaking animation. Looks like what we want, so left click the [+] or double click [shake0] to add to the timeline below. The animation [head:shake0] now appears in the [animations added so far] section, as well as a box in the small timeline. Preview the small timeline with [|>].

Now we want to add the finger pointing animations. Let's say this person is right-handed, so finger-pointing is done on the right arm. Click on one of the bones on the right arm (stage right) in [skeleton] to filter the relevant animations. Left click [right arm] and left click [unbend] in the tree and finally preview the action [forward2] to see the person do a chopping action. Add it to the mini-timeline by double-click or [+].

In the mini-timeline, now you have [HEAD:shake0] followed by [RA:unbend:forward2], if you preview it, the person will shake head first, then wave arm. To make them happen at the same time, left click select the [RA:unbend:forward2] and drag it to the start (left) of the mini-timeline. The software is smart enough to move overlapping animations to a different channel. Preview again to see both happening at the same time.

Now we want the right hand to be pointing. Left click the right hand to filter the relevant animations and left click [right hand], [out], [index0] to preview an animation that points the finger in right hand. Add the animation to the mix.

Move the [RH:out:index0] animation to the start like before and preview. You see the person pointing, shaking, waving at the same time, but they don't finish together. So you have to resize the animations. Resizing is done by selecting an animation in the mini-timeline, then move the mouse to the right edge of the animation until the cursor becomes “<->”. Then you can left click drag or middle button drag to change the animation length. The difference between left click drag and middle button drag is that the latter can only increase the animation length by complete cycles, ie. 1s animations can only lengthen to 2s or 5s, but not in between. Try them and see for yourself.

Left Click Drag:

Middle Click Drag:

Note: This only changes duration but not speed, so the animation repeats itself over and over again to reach the new duration.

Previewing helps.

So lengthen every animation to be as long as the longest animation, then preview. Everything will start together, end together.

All that's left now is to give the left arm something to do, let's have the left arm on the waist to give a more intimidating body language. Pick out the animation [LA:on:waist0] and add it to the mix. Make sure everything start and end at the same time, then preview the whole thing. Click [add to timeline] to move the animation to the actual timeline so you can coordinate the actions with other events in the scene.

Tip: after making the general animation of what you like, you can always try a few things:

• add the animation [TORSO:breathe0] and make it run simultaneously with your animation to make it more lifelike.

• stagger the timing of the animations slightly to make the character look less robotic, like make one arm move slightly earlier than the other, after all, people are not metronomes.

• combine other animations to change the posture of the animations, and give the character attitude, like move the head around. (works well when multiple people are doing the same sequence)

3. Saving/Loading and clearing animations

The [save] and [load] buttons in the [animations added so far] are used to save and load animations you've made, so save the combo animation you just made by left click the [save] button. Give it a suitable name, and left click [Save]. [clear] buttons clears the list of animations. You can also remove animations by clicking [-] beside each animation in [animations added so far] or press [Delete] in the mini-timeline to remove the selected animation.

After the previous animation is saved, now we will load it for later use, or load it on different characters.

Save the scene for now and we will go through the processes of rearranging animations in the main timeline another time.