With Choreographer

Animatica Choreographer generates motion from prompts, keys and paths. Marionette poses and edits motion by hand. Each works on its own, and Marionette does not need Choreographer. Installed together, they combine.

#One bar

With both installed, Choreographer's bar carries Marionette's buttons, and Marionette's own bar stays hidden, so there is one bar, not two. Its groups go in the order the work goes: pose it, key it, direct the take (Choreographer's own buttons), refine it, the ghosts, what is drawn, and the settings.

Marionette's settings are in Choreographer's Options, under Posing and Edits. A newer Marionette, when there is one, shows there too.

The cross on Choreographer's bar folds it to a tab, as Marionette's does, and its entry in the viewport's View menu hides it.

#Editing a take

Every Marionette tool works on Choreographer's takes: the Autopose handles, the motion trail, the zoetrope, the Smooth Brush, Lock in Place, Pick Up, the Motion Check and Energy.

• Key Pose sets one of Choreographer's key poses: a pose the next take passes through.
• Click a ghost to edit the key pose it stands for. The playhead goes to its frame, and with the Autopose tool on, its handles are on that pose.
• Edit Root Trajectory turns the take's root path into a curve on the floor. Bend the curve and the take is re-pathed along it, its steps and sway riding along. The timing stays the take's. Keep bends gentle: the feet are not re-solved, so a sharp new bend slides them.
• Lock in Place holds again over a new take: a take generated over a lock's frames is locked again.

These two need Choreographer: a ghost clicked to edit its pose, and the root path bent. Everything else works the same on your own animation.

#The onion skin and the ghosts

Choreographer's ghosts are your key poses. Marionette's onion skin is the frames an edit at the playhead reaches. They show side by side, and the zoetrope spreads the onion skin out.