Tutorials · Animation and Cutscenes · Chapter 8

A marionette

The pieces

Building the rig

1. Select theatre, click + Add node and choose Node. Rename it marionette: press F2, type the name and press Enter. Set its Position to 1140, 288. That is the right wing, with its soles on the boards.
2. Select marionette, click + Add node and choose Sprite. Rename it bar and set its Position to 0, -105.3. Drag art/puppet-bar.png from Assets onto its Texture, and set Size to 40, 24, Anchor to 0.5, 1 and Sort Layer to 9.
3. Select bar, click + Add node and choose Node. Rename it strings. It holds the three strings and moves nothing itself.
4. Select strings, click + Add node and choose Sprite. Rename it string_head. Drag art/puppet-string.png onto its Texture and set Size to 1, 36, Anchor to 0.5, 0 and Sort Layer to 8.
5. With string_head selected press Ctrl+D, and rename the copy string_left. Set its Position to -18.5, -9, its Rotation to -10.87 and its Size to 1, 63.6416. Press Ctrl+D on string_left, rename the copy string_right, and set its Position to 18.5, -9 and its Rotation to 10.87.

1. Select marionette, click + Add node and choose Sprite. Rename it torso. Set its Position to 0, -55.3 and its Rotation to 90, so that its bone points down from the neck. Drag art/puppet-torso.png onto its Texture and set Size to 22, 16, Anchor to 0, 0.5 and Sort Layer to 6.
2. With torso selected click Add component and choose BoneComponent. Set its Length to 21.5.
3. Select torso, click + Add node and choose Sprite. Rename it head, set its Rotation to 180, so that its bone points up, and give it art/puppet-head.png, Size 14, 14, Anchor 0, 0.5 and Sort Layer 7. Add a BoneComponent and set its Length to 14.
4. Build the left arm the same way, each bone a Sprite and a BoneComponent, each under the one before. upper_arm_left goes under torso at 3.5, 6.5, lower_arm_left under it at 13, 0 and hand_left under that at 11, 0. The pictures, sizes and lengths are in the table below, and every arm bone takes Anchor 0, 0.5 and Sort Layer 7.
5. Select upper_arm_left and press Ctrl+D. The copy brings its two children with it, still called lower_arm_left and hand_left. Rename the three upper_arm_right, lower_arm_right and hand_right, and set the copy’s Position to 3.5, -6.5, the right shoulder.
6. Build the left leg: upper_leg_left under torso at 21.5, 3.5, Rotation 6.88; lower_leg_left under it at 15, 0, Rotation -13.75; foot_left under that at 13, 0, Rotation 6.88. Each leg bone takes Anchor 0, 0.5 and Sort Layer 5. The turns bend the knee a little outward, so the legs stand rather than hang.
7. Select upper_leg_left, press Ctrl+D, and rename the three copies upper_leg_right, lower_leg_right and foot_right. Set the copy’s Position to 21.5, -3.5, and turn the three the other way: Rotation -6.88, 13.75 and -6.88.
8. Select marionette and press F. The Viewport frames the whole rig: a node that draws nothing is framed by what its children draw.

Length

The Bone’s Length: how long the bone is, in local units, measured along its own x from its node to its tip. It is drawn in the Viewport as the kite in the picture above. The marionette’s are each the distance from its joint to the next one down the limb, a little shorter than its picture, since the pictures overlap at the joints (the foot’s is its picture’s whole width): 21.5 for the torso, 13, 11 and 5 down an arm and 15, 13 and 6 down a leg. Here nothing reads them yet. Chapter 10’s IK measures a limb’s reach by them, and a Bone added with no length set is 32.

Rest Position

The Bone’s Rest Position: where the bone sits when nothing is holding it out of place, in the units of its parent. It starts at 0, 0, and stays there in this chapter. Capture rest pose fills it in from where the bone stands, in chapter 11, and Reset to rest puts the bone back there.

Rest Rotation

The Bone’s Rest Rotation: the turn it returns to, in radians, 0 as it starts. It shows radians where the node’s own Rotation above it shows degrees: a quarter turn is 1.5708 here and 90 there. Many of a component’s own angles, like this one, are in radians; a few show degrees as the Transform does, such as a framing’s Rotation on the camera rig of chapter 12. Chapter 11 captures it.

Rest Scale

The Bone’s Rest Scale: the size it returns to, 1, 1 as it starts, which no bone of this marionette changes. Chapter 11 captures it with the rest.

A dance on its bones

1. Select marionette, click Add component and choose PropertyAnimationComponent.
2. In the Animation tab at the bottom, open the Properties mode, and press New property clips. It writes scenes/marionette.propanim and points Clips at it.
3. Press the + beside the clip tabs, type dance and press Enter.
4. In the Property Animation set Clip to dance, tick Playing and set Looping to Loop. Leave Speed at 1.
5. Turn Record on: the toggle in the row with the Play button, beside Capture RESET.
6. Take the table below a bone and a time at a time. Type the time into the time box, 0.00 s, beside the Play and Stop buttons, and press Enter. Select the bone in the Hierarchy. In the Inspector, under Node, type its Rotation for that time, in degrees, and press Enter. The tab goes on showing the marionette’s clips while a bone is selected, and the edit lands in the open clip as a key at the playhead.
7. A bone’s first key makes its row, and the row begins on Linear. On each arm’s row open the interpolation menu and choose Linear (angle). On each leg’s row choose Cubic (angle).
8. Press Capture RESET. It writes a clip called RESET with one key, at 0, on each of the eight rotations: the arms hanging at 0 and the legs at the stance you built them in. It writes the values the bones were built with, wherever the playhead stands, and not the pose the dance gives them there.
9. Turn Record off, press Save in the bar, which writes marionette.propanim, and press Ctrl+S.

The dance as built

Check it works