h Change/Add the Animation file

4.h Change/Add the Animation file

Once you have used the Accessory Action Editor once, you’ll find its like riding a bike – so simple…our bike just happens to be a top of the line carbon fiber deal with dura-ace components, spinergy wheels and weighs just under five pounds!

Actions are not to be confused with animations. An Action file can contain multiple animation files. It can also contain sounds. Action files are all encompassing. They reach into your soul and tease it. They bathe in cream and walk tall. Action files are God.

Fig 3.5 – Action Editor tab complete with Action (in blue) and ensemble (in red)

The header for Accessory Actions contains the usual Apply Changes button and a button called “New Action”. Accessory products can have multiple embedded Actions. These can be either be an Idle or a Triggerable Action. For example, the Baby Greeny Dragon contains Idle animations to make sure it keeps flapping its wings no matter what your avatar might be doing. It also contains triggerable actions that respond to what is typed in the 3D window like ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘flip’.

In the tab called Edit Actions, click the New Action button. This will load the action editing parameters necessary to load and edit your Accessory Action. The first section is called Triggerable Action Name # where # = the actual number of the Action. Your first Action will always be named Triggerable Action Name 0 while the next one you add will be Triggerable Action Name 1 and so on. Within this panel there are many useful tools:

Click the “Play Action” button when you want to witness your triggerable action. If your Accessory is meant to have a constant, idle animation (like the Baby Dragon or the Balloon Turtle), then there will be no need to hit this button.

In the “Trigger Word” box, you may choose the word that, when typed, will trigger the Accessory action. If you want the animation to be an Idle animation (always playing) the name should be “stance.Standing”.

Underneath the Trigger Word box is the Sound box. Here you may browse for any sound that you want associated with this action. You may also delete the sound if you prefer or just leave it blank if you don’t want any sound involved. IMVU only supports .ogg sound files but the content of the sound file can be anything you like. Just remember to use caution when adding large sound files as these will make your overall product size larger.

And last but not least, the “Add Ensemble to this Action” button…well….adds an Ensemble to the Action. Ensembles are collections of assets and variables that can play within one Action. This is handy if you want to have random variety in what happens when your Action is played. An Action can consist of one or many Ensembles.

There are two options in the Action file parameters:

‘No. of ensembles played (0 = infinite loop):’ allows you to set how many ensembles play within an Action. In all honesty, it is more convoluted than that and so I offer this simple guidance: Set this number to zero if you want to have your Action loop forever (as in the case of an idle or prop action). Otherwise, just leave this number at the default of 1.

In the “After playing ensemble” drop down, you may choose “Pick new ensemble” or “Pick same ensemble” or “Cycle through ensembles”.

Pick new ensemble means that your Action will choose randomly from the Ensembles available in the Action every time an iteration comes to an end.

Pick same ensemble means that your Action will play the same collection of Ensembles every time an iteration comes to an end.

Cycle through ensembles is something we added to allow us to make sure that all of the ensembles embedded in the avatars were actually working. This is handy for anyone testing an action with multiple ensembles.

4.h.4 Ensembles

The first thing to note in an Ensemble is its name. As you add Ensembles to an Action and more Actions with more Ensembles, the numbers in the Ensemble name rise. The first Ensemble will be called “Ensemble 0/0” where the first number refers to the Action number and the second refers to the Ensemble itself. So, if you were to add an Ensemble to Action 0, it would be named “Ensemble 0/1” and so on. If you were to add two new Actions, then your first new Ensemble in Action 2 would be named “Ensemble 2/0”.

Ensembles can consist of one .xaf file and one .xpf file. The rest of the knobs and doohickeys pertain to the specific .xaf and/or .xpf files contained within the Ensemble. The first doohickey of note is the “Probability of Playing” (or POP) box. When your Action contains multiple Ensembles, the number typed here will tell the Action how often it should choose to play this particular Ensemble. The number typed here ought to be 1.0 or a fraction of 1.0. For example, if you want this Ensemble to play roughly 30% of the time, you would type in .3. It is best, though not required, to have the total values of all of the POP boxes equal 1.0.

In the “Stop After” box, you may choose to stop the Ensemble after “Longer effect ends”, “Shorter effect ends” or “Do not stop. Effect loops”.

If you choose to stop the Ensemble after “Longer effect ends”, then the Ensemble will wait until the last frame of the last asset to stop.

If you choose to stop the Ensemble after “Shorter effect ends”, then the Ensemble will either wait until the last frame of the first asset to stop to end OR after the amount of frames typed in the “Fixed duration frames” box.

If you choose to stop the Ensemble after “Do not stop. Effect loops”, then the Ensemble will not stop. This option ought to be used when the ‘No. of ensembles…” in the Action File Parameters is set to zero.

The “Playback Speed Multiplier” allows you to speed up or slow down the playback speed of your animation when triggered. However, this box does not affect sound effects. Here are examples of what certain values do:

0.5 = half playback speed.
 1 = same playback speed.
2 = double playback speed.

And the dangerous one…..”Delete this Ensemble”! Be sure you mean to press this button. You can always add an ensemble back but all of your previous entries would be gone. Yuck.

The Skeletal Animation Panel follows the same naming convention as the Ensemble 0/0 naming convention.

The Skeletal Animation Panel is where you browse for and edit settings for your .xaf file. The Browse, Amplitude Scale, Playback Scale and Delete .xaf buttons and boxes should all be self-explanatory as we have covered them at a higher level. The difference is that you can tweak either the individual pieces of your Ensemble within the Skeletal and Morph panels or effect them both within the Ensemble #/# panel.
Skeletal animation effects compose in proportion to their “Blend Weights”. By default, all “Blend Weights” are 1.0, meaning that effects will have equal influence, not considering ramping up or down. Ramping will further affect the composition proportions in a way that depends on the composition function, specified below. The two options are Average and Replace. A Replace effect will attenuate the influence of other lower priority and non-Replace effects by the inverse of its ramp value. If its ramp value is 1.0, then the other effects are reduced to zero influence. The “Blend Weight” range is 0-100 with its default = 1.
“Blend Weight” doesn't affect sound effects, since sound effects compose additively.

“Blend Weight” affects morph effects based on Averaged morph targets (i.e., morph target channels that are named ".Averaged" in the pre-exported asset itself).

The “Composition” box allows you to effect whether an animation replaces or averages with other animations in the Action. When you choose Replace, the Replace effect ramps up to 1.0, the other non-Replace effects and lower priority replace effects will be ramped down to zero. When you choose Average, the effects will compose with influence in proportion to their ramped relative weights. If there are two effects of equal relative weight, a fully ramped Average effect will have 50% influence, sharing the other 50% with an existing effect, instead of reducing the existing effect to 0% influence.

With “Debug Mode” checked, you will be able to refer to the console window for a detailed description of just what is going on during your animation. Since there is a lot of spew to the console with this option on, the default is set to unchecked.

Skeletal Frame Controls allow you to set Blend In/Out frames, Loop Start/End frames, and the # of Loops. However, you must always remember to give the actual number of frames in your animation asset in the “# of frames in asset” box. This done, the Blend In/Out boxes allow your animation to blend seamlessly from whatever triggered or idle animation is being played at the time you play the Action you are editing. If you choose a Blend In/Out time of 0 frames, then your animation will pop.

It is possible to loop your animation for as long as you want and for as many frames within your asset as you want. This can effectively cut your .xaf down to only the necessary frames needed to export. Much can be accomplished by simply playing with the loop parameters. What follows is a more verbose description of just what looping means:

This parameter specifies where the loop section begins.  The effect will begin on frame N, advancing to the end frame, and then cycling back to the start frame for the remaining loop iterations. After all iterations have played, the effect will advance through the end frame to the remaining frames.  The effect remains "on" during the release period.

If the start and end frame are both zero and the effect loads successfully, then the end frame will be adjusted to be the last frame. Thus if you want a simple looping effect you can set the start frame, end frame, and loopIterations all to zero.  If you want a simple one-shot effect, then set the start frame and end frame to zero, but set loopIterations to one.

If the start and adjusted end frame are the same, then the effect does not have a loop section, and the loopIterations parameter will be ignored.

4.h.4.b Morph Animation Panel

The first difference between the Morph and Skeletal Animation panels is that the Morph panel is missing the “Composition” box. This is due to the fact that this functionality needs to take place in the actual morph target name within your 3D program.

The second difference is the addition of the “Amplitude Scale” box. By adding numerical values greater than 1.0 to the “Amplitude Scale” box, the .xpf will scale the active morph targets. For example, if you had set a morph to 75% upon export, and then set your Amplitude Scale to 2, the morph would play back at 150%. This can result in some fun varieties that you never would have thought of while setting key frames. Play around with it to see what I mean.

4.i CFL tab

Once you have finished deleting files from the CFL tab, SAVE your product. When you save, you essentially make the asset deletions stick. Do not hit Apply Changes as this will only bring all of your deletions back and you will have to do the whole thing over again.

4.J Save and apply changes

Now that you have successfully loaded your skeleton, mesh(es), animation(s) and texture(s), it is time to Save and ApplyChanges. Heck, you might just want to Save again just to be sure.

5. Submit your product

You've got a CFL and a catalog image so you are now ready to press the big, red ‘Submit Product to IMVU catalog’ button in the Product Info panel. If you are not logged into the website, you will be asked to log in. Please log in using the Developer account you are currently using in the Previewer. If there is a mismatch, you will be asked to log in. Once logged in, a web page will pop up wherein you can (and should) edit multiple fields:

• 
  Choose where in the catalog your product will live
  
• 
  The Product’s name
  
• 
  The Product Description (you can add HTML tags to this)
  
• 
  Product rating (See IMVU’s Terms of Service for guidelines – anything containing nudity and/or otherwise adult content must be given a mature rating)
  
• 
  Product price
  
• 
  CFL file – for this section, just copy and paste the URL provided just above the edit box. TIP: If you haven’t saved your CFL, this URL will not appear.
  
• 
  Derivability – Allows others to make derivations of your work. If they sell, you get more money.
  

Fill everything out and press the submit button. BLAM! You have submitted a product to the IMVU catalog. It does feel good, doesn't it?

NOTE: In the future, if you want to change any info on the product info page, just click the ‘Edit Settings’ link.

NOTE: Although you can place any item anywhere in the IMVU catalog, it is prudent to place your product where it makes the most sense to your customer. Also, please remember that you can always edit the product whenever you want so you can change its location if you mistakenly placed it incorrectly.

5.a Rename the CFL on your machine

When a product is submitted to the IMVU catalog, its original name is replaced with a new, unique numerical name. This new name can be found on the product info page in bright red on the left hand side of the page. The naming convention for products in the IMVU catalog is always product#.cfl. So, you essentially only need to know the # your product has been assigned. We HIGHLY recommend that you now rename your CFL to match the name found on the IMVU server. Doing this will allow you to directly resubmit your product if it is any way broken.

5.b Hide/Show

Every Developer has the power to make their own products hidden or visible in the catalog. You can do this by clicking on the red button for hide or the green button for show. This comes in handy for when you have first created a product and are unsure as to whether it works. You can hide the product and then test it on your own – knowing that others cannot buy it.

5.c Use and Edit

Now that your product is live in the catalog, it is wise to hide the product and wear it in an IMVU conversation. If there is anything you would like to change about this product, you may do so by going back to the catalog, clicking Edit this Product and doing so.

5.d Fix and Resubmit

The CFL files we use in IMVU are their own little universes. Once you save them, they contain all of the relevant information needed to exist on their own. This means that if you update any file included in the CFL file, it will not just automatically appear in the CFL product. You must manually edit the CFL to include the new version of the file.

If you want to fix anything about your CFL, you have two routes you can go through:

1. 
   You can just go to that product’s info page and click on the ‘Edit this product in the Previewer’ link. This will launch the Previewer.
   
2. 
   You can launch the Previewer on your own and choose to Edit a Product. Then, just type in the product number of your CFL.
   

In either case, you can make your edits and save. Then, press the white ‘Resubmit modified product CFL’ button on the Product Info panel. This will bring you to a web page where you can follow the instructions to resubmit.

NOTE: There is no fee for resubmitting a product so feel free to fix your products…or even change them in minor ways. Of course, changing them in major ways will upset your customers and bring your Developer ranking down.

5.e Derived Products

There are two kinds of products in the IMVU product system: Primary products and Derived products. Primary products are usually the first product of a given geometry to have been built. You should think of Primary products as the master products from which all others ought to be derived from.
Derived products literally inherit all of the attributes of the Primary product but overwrite one or two features. They are smaller, faster versions of the Primary product as they should only contain overrides. Usually, these overrides are in the form of texture overrides. Since the file size is much smaller than the Primary product, Derived products will make your product more appealing to your customer as the download time is much shorter than the Primary.
NOTE: If someone were to purchase only the Derived product you made and not the Primary product, they automatically download the Primary product so that the Derived product will have something to derive from. Say THAT ten times fast!
Sometimes, you want to be the first Developer to make derivations of your work (for example, you might want to make different colored versions).
Making a Derived product is simple. The first thing to do is rename your recently created Accessory product to be the IMVU-created, product#.CFL naming convention. To find this name, simply go to the catalog page for your item – it is the bright red product#.cfl on the left hand side of the page.
Open the previewer and choose Create a Derived Product. This will prompt you to choose the CFL file from which you wish to derive. You will notice that you can only derive from a correctly named CFL and not from a randomly named CFL. This is because your Primary product must have a product number and therefore must actually live in the IMVU catalog BEFORE you create any products that inherit from it. This is a failsafe to protect you from submitting an Inherited product that would ultimately not work.

Choose your recently saved and newly named Accessory product CFL file. Although this will load the avatar as well as your Accessory, the only thing that will be saved is the override. Change whatever you want to be different in the new product, and then choose Save As. The new file name can be anything at this point as the name is automatically converted to a product number upon upload. Quit and rerun the previewer and then load your newly created Derived product just to make sure all of your changes took.

After making sure the product works, click the big, red ‘Submit Product to IMVU catalog’ button in the Product Info panel.

Wrapping Up

And that’s that. This may seem like a long-winded explanation, but the process is actually quite speedy once you've done it once or twice. So please give it a chance. If you have any problems at all, please do not hesitate to contact matt@imvu.com. We've said this before but we mean it: We at IMVU CAN NOT WAIT to see what you all come up with.

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