The Animatica panel

#Model and character

The Model and Armature are always at the top, so you can change either at any time.

Starting fresh? Click Add Ready-Made Character, then animate that character. It downloads the first time. You can switch to your own rig later.

Already have an armature? Pick it under or animate your own rig, or in the Armature field.

Want to see a finished shot first? The file icon in the panel's header opens an example scene: a character on a set, with the prompt already in place, ready for Generate Motion. The examples climb from a single gesture to a sequence of key poses. Opening one asks first, because it replaces your current file; it opens with scripts off. Use Save As to keep your changes somewhere of your own.

Several characters? With Follow Selection on (the arrow icon next to the Armature field, on by default), selecting a character — its armature or its body — makes it the one Animatica animates, with its own prompts and key poses. While a take is being made or reviewed, the character stays until you Accept or Reject; the review says Accept or Reject to switch to ….

With Animatica Cloud you can generate onto many custom armatures, not only the ready-made character.

#Prompt and Generate

Type what the character should do in Prompt (for example "walks forward sadly"). This is the selected Timeline block's prompt; more blocks go on the Timeline (see Prompt blocks).

Press Generate Motion. It is usually under 30 seconds; the first run after a while can take a minute while the cloud wakes up. The panel shows Working… Ns and a Cancel button.

If something stops a take being sent, the button greys out and the line under it says why. The grey line below the options says how long the take is, which frames, and how many key poses it will hit. A key pose outside that range is named in red: it will not be sent.

#Options

Under Generate Motion:

• Loop — the model makes the block a seamless cycle: a walk, a run, an idle. It plays on past its end, and ticking it ticks In place too, so the cycle stays on the spot. Loop needs a single prompt block, and cycles work best at 2–4 seconds: the block's length is the loop's length. It only appears when the model supports it.
• In place — keeps the character on the spot. Only the travel is taken out: the path it moves along (a line, an arc, or a curve). The body's sway and bounce, jumps and crouches all stay. You can set it before generating or switch it on and off while reviewing, without generating again.
• Variations — how many versions of the take one Generate makes: the same prompts and poses, performed differently. It only appears when the model supports it.

#Reviewing a take

A new take waits for you in the Reviewing take box at the top of the panel. Play it in the viewport, then decide.

• Variation 1 of N — with Variations above 1, the arrows flip between the versions without generating again. Accept keeps the one showing.
• Seed N and Lock — the seed this take used. Lock it to get this take again next time; otherwise every Generate is a new take.
• In place — switch it on or off for this take. Switching it off brings the travel back.
• Generate Again — a new take with the same direction.
• Regenerate Active Block — with two or more prompt blocks, makes the selected block again and keeps its neighbours.

Accept keeps the take.

Each accepted take is added to the NLA as its own named clip, on its own track (Animatica: <prompt>), above the takes you accepted earlier, which stay where they are. A take with several prompt blocks becomes one clip per block, each on its own track, so every block exports as its own animation. The action you had before you generated is kept too, stashed on a muted [Action Stash] track, and your keys either side of the take keep playing. A kept loop keeps cycling to the end of the scene. The one exception is a take generated into a gap between your own keys: that one is filled into your action instead.

In NLA tweak mode, Generate, Accept and Reject wait: press Tab in the NLA editor to leave it first.

Reject throws the take away and puts back exactly what you had: your action, your pose and the scene's frame range. Keys you added or changed during the review are kept. Takes you accepted earlier stay.

A few things you can rely on:

• Accept, Reject and Generate are one undo step each.
• Saving the file during a review is safe. Reopen it and the take is still waiting, and Reject still knows what to put back.
• A loop keeps cycling after you accept it.
• What In place took out is kept with the accepted take as its root motion, so it is not lost.

#Several characters at once

Select two or more characters and the floating bar's Generate becomes Generate N Characters (or Generate 2 of 3 when one has no prompt; its tooltip says who is left out and why). The panel offers the same button, with a line saying how many generations it will cost. Choose how they are directed with Shared, beside the bar's Generate, or in the panel:

• Each Their Own — every character uses its own prompts, key poses, waypoints and pins. For a scene with distinct actors.
• Shared — every character uses the active character's prompts, each with its own seed, starting from where it stands: variations on one action, for a crowd. Waypoints and pins are left out.

They are sent together, in one request when the server takes batches; the bar's working button says how many it is making. Then the bar has Keep All, Redo All (failed characters go again too), a button per version that flips every character, and Discard All. In the panel, the review has a row per character, with its own ✓ (keep), ✗ (throw away) and ↻ (generate that one again). Keep All and Discard All act on all of them, and Redo All makes every waiting take again. With Variations above 1, each row has its own arrows, and All: next variation flips the whole crowd. In place acts on every take waiting. A character that failed is listed with the reason and does not stop the rest.