CreateSimpleAvatarWizardCmd

From Flux Developer Wiki

Create Character

The Create Character command will create one of the three Level of Articulation (LOA) models specified in the H-Anim  spec, 1 thru 3, respectively:

H-Anim characters are rather complex in that they must comply to the H-Anim spec. There are many minor details, such as the joint orientations and a naming convention that must be followed. As opposed to re inventing the wheel, it is advised that you start with on of the characters supplied with Flux Studio. We provide the three Level of Articulation (LOA) models that are included with the H-Anim spec; loa1 thru loa3, respectively:

These characters were created by Matthew T. Beitler. They contain one small Box Node inside each Segment. The Box Nodes are located at the joint centers. These Box Nodes were created with the Flux Studio Joint Center Wizard. These characters are a great starting point for creating your own characters. They provide the skeleton on which you can add meat to the bones.

An alternative to loading one of the included characters is to import any compliant H-Anim character found out on the web. Just download the file then Drag and Drop the *.wrl file into an open Flux Studio doc. Please respect the copyright information found in the Humanoid Info field and World Info Node.

Once an character is loaded, you can use the Create Character Animation wizard to create a Flux Studio Animation Node that has control over all the Joints in the character. From there, you can rotate the joints at each keyframe to design your behavior. The Flux Studio Keyframe Animation Editor provides many friendly features such as Drag to rotate the Joint, Tab to select the next Keyframe, Copy and Paste Keyframe, Copy and Paste Orientation, and many many more.

Flux Studio automatically locks the Translation and Scale of the Joint Nodes so that it will not let you modify those attributes. Some of the Joint Nodes are constrained to rotate about certain axis, and they have limited range. These constraints are already set for you in the included characters. They can be modified in the Locks Property Page of the Joint Node. The Joint Nodes Joint Limit Fields are optionally enforced. The View/Character Options dialog lets you toggle on and off the enforcement of the Joint Limits. The Upper and Lower Joint Limits can be modified in the Joint Property Page.

In addition to creating your own Character behaviors, you can also import behaviors from existing Character characters found on the web. When you import an Character wrl file, you also import any behaviors that are contained in the file.  The power of H-Anim is the standard naming convention that promotes interchangeability. Flux Studio leverages that power by providing features that let you easily copy/paste characters and behaviors. Flux Studio lets you Copy and Paste characters and behaviors within a single file.

You can Copy a single Animation Node that controls the Joints of an character. To Copy an Character behavior, simply select an Animation Node found in the Tree Window and click on Clipboard/Copy Character Behavior. To Paste that behavior in another character, simply select any node within an character, and click Clipboard/Paste Character Behavior. The behavior will automatically attach itself to the corresponding Joints in the selected character. This method will only move one Animation Node at a time. To transfer several related Animations, and any supporting geometry and/or Sensor Nodes, the Copy and Paste Character commands are the most efficient. Select any Node on the character you want to Copy. Click on Clipboard/Copy Character. There two different ways to paste the character. You can simply Paste the character into the scene with the Clipboard/Paste Character command. This command will NOT map any behaviors. The more powerful option is Clipboard/Substitute Character. The selected character will be removed and replaced with the character in the clipboard. All the Animations Nodes that control Joints within the replaced character will be remapped to the new character.