Animation Creator

01Choose how to start

At the top left you have three tabs. “By hand” starts from a template (Wave, Nod, Celebrate, Clap, Salute, Shrug, Dance) or from a blank page. “From video” turns a clip of one person into keyframes. “Walk style” generates a complete walk from a few parameters.

The project saves itself in the browser after every change, so it’s there when you come back. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z step through the history.

02Pose the body

Click a point on the body to select it, then drag a coloured ring to rotate the joint. Hands, feet and the pelvis can also be dragged directly: the arm or leg follows like a chain, with the elbow and knee in their natural plane.

In the Inspector every joint has its own named motions: “Bend the elbow”, “Raise the arm sideways”, “Bend the knee”, “Lean forward”, “Turn left”. A positive value does exactly what the label says, and you can type the degrees in the field next to the slider. “Other side” puts the same rotation on the other side.

“Symmetric”, the first button in the bar under the model, mirrors what you pose: bend the right elbow and the left one bends too, drag one hand and the other follows. Next to it are mirroring of the whole pose and copying one side onto the other. “Ready poses” and “Hands and fingers” set a pose or a hand shape (fist, point, peace, thumbs up) in one click.

03Build the motion on the timeline

Move the timeline to another moment and pose again: the keyframe is added on its own. The diamonds on the timeline are the keyframes; click one to select it, drag it to move it. Space plays and pauses, K adds a keyframe, Delete removes the selected one.

For each keyframe you choose the transition to the next: smooth, ease in and out, linear or a jump. For looping animations, the “Last pose = first” button stops the loop from jumping.

“Feet on the ground” keeps the lowest sole on the floor, in the preview and in the export. Turn it off for jumps or sitting poses, then set the body height.

04From video

Pick an MP4, WebM or MOV with a single person, filmed with the whole body in frame and a fixed camera. Select the part to analyse (30 seconds at most). Detection runs in the browser; the video never leaves your computer.

“Mirror” is for clips shot with the front camera, “Fingers” also detects the hands, “Movement in frame” moves the ped along with the person. The result becomes ordinary keyframes you can fix by hand. If the legs aren’t visible enough, the animation uses only the upper body.

05Walk style

Start from a style (Casual, Confident, Tough, Elegant, Tired, Hurried, Sneaky) and adjust the speed, stride, bounce, hip and arm swing, elbows, lean, attitude and head. The soles stay fixed on the ground while they carry the body, so the ped doesn’t slide.

Choose which clips go into the export: the walk is always included, “Idle” and “Run” are optional. “Edit the walk by hand” turns the cycle into keyframes if you want to change it pose by pose.

06Export the resource

Under “Animation and export” you type the dictionary name (the .ycd file), the clip name and the chat command. For an emote you choose whether only the upper body moves, whether the player can move and whether it holds the last frame.

The export costs 18 credits and gives you a ZIP with the resource ready for resources/: fxmanifest.lua, client.lua and stream/<dictionary>.ycd, plus a README.