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Creating a Keyframe Animation with Multiple Poses.

(following the instructions of Richard Gardner.  Thank you, Richard!)

Adding multiple keyframes to a SimPose animation requires a little advance planning on your part.

For my example, I decided I was going to create an animation of a person throwing a ball overhand.  The animation would have 5 keyframes.  Each keyframe would last about 10 seconds.  The entire animation would last 60 seconds.

Create your poses in SimPose.  Save them as a pose library.  

Here are my five lovely poses for my throwing animation.  

Pose 1 Pose 2 Pose 3 Pose 4 Pose 5

Dunno why my screen shots went all psychedelic on me, but you get the idea...

In SimPose, choose Keyframe, then click on New Animation: Tranlation (I bet they meant "Translation").
Change Sequence Length to the total length of your animation.  In this case, I set mine to 60.  Leave the defaults as they are.
Go back to Keyframe.  Click on Add Keyframe.  Insert your pose whenever you feel it should occur.  For my animation, I changed Add at Time to 10.  I checked the Use Listed Pose box, then selected Pose1. Now hit OK.
Hit Keyframe again.  Select Add Keyframe again.  Insert your second pose.  I changed Add at Time to 20, so that my second pose would occur 10 seconds after my first pose.  Hit OK.

Repeat the above process for each pose you wish to turn into a keyframe.

(After I finished, I decided my animation looked lovely, but was far too slow.  After I went back, cut my total time to 30 seconds, and shaved 5 seconds off each frame, I was happier.)

When you're satisfied with your animation, save the keyframe.  Next select Keyframe.  Go down to the bottom of the list and select Convert to CFP.  After you've converted, choose Animation and click on Save CFP Animation as.  You are now ready to import your sweet new animation into the game using the Animation Alchemist program.

Here are the files for my somewhat girly-looking over handed throwing animation.  Use it if you wish.

 Name:  Throw

Description:  X-Skill and CMX files for a throwing animation

Copyright 2003, Simply Enchanted.
For problems or questions regarding this web contact ktaylor@unt.edu.
Last updated: September 23, 2003