Choreography creation/Creating Events

The bulk of choreographing involves the creation of Events. Events are chunks of the Timeline that tell an actor to perform an action, be it an animation, an expression, an AI trigger, a command to move to another entity, or something else. This article will cover how to create and manipulate them in a general sense, with a series of sub-articles giving specific information about the major type groups.

Event creation and manipulation

Once you have at least one Actor and Channel (see Planning your scene), Events can be created through the Timeline context menu. Once you have entered a name and any other required details, a new Event Bar will appear, usually salmon-coloured. You can then perform the following manipulations:

• Move the Event up or down the Timeline. Simply move your pointer over it and drag wherever you see the four-directional cursor. An outline will tell you where the Event will end up when you release, but note that it will not predict the vertical shuffling that will occur when there is more than one simultaneous Event in a Channel. Press the Escape key to cancel the movement.
• Lengthen or shorten the Event. Almost all Events can have their duration changed by dragging either end up or down the Timeline. Look for the horizontal movement cursor. Note that this will compress or decompress the Event, not cut parts from it, make it loop, or add a period of inactivity. As with Event movement an outline will tell you where the Event will end up when you release, vertical shuffling is not predicted, and pressing the Escape key will cancel the action.
• Change the intensity of the Event. This is accomplished with the Ramp tool. See Ramp manipulation, below.
• Add Event Tags. See Planning your scene.

Ramp manipulation

An event's Ramp, with several points plotted.

The ramp should already be active, just above the Timeline, but if it is not double-click on it in the tab tray along the very bottom of the FacePoser window or select Window > RampTool from the menu strip at the top.

This tool allows the overall intensity of the Event to be altered through a smoothed graph. To create a Ramp Point, Ctrl+Click somewhere to the left of the blue line. If you can't see the line, zoom out with the scroll wheel or resize the dialogue until you can. You can add any number of ramp points, all of which can be moved up or down (intensity) by dragging them with the left mouse button, left and right (timing) by dragging with the right mouse button, and in both axes at once by holding Ctrl and dragging with either mouse button. FacePoser will automatically generate a curve between your points that dictates the Event's intensity at that point in time. This curve has been calculated to provide a natural motion, so you should excercise care when overriding it at close quarters.

By default, the ramp graph will wind down to zero intensity at both edges. If you want it to start or end at a different level, right-click anywhere that is not a ramp point and choose the Edge Properties... option. This will let you specify an Edge Value for the Event's ramp to start or end at. You can also alter the calculation of the graph's curve, but this is very complicated and not recommended.

An event's ramp graph is displayed on the Timeline as a thin black line in the background of its event bar.

Event types

There are many Event types, some of which break one or more of the above rules, and most of which have their own unique settings and caveats. Each group will be covered in its own sub-article, listed here:

• Body animation
• Facial expressions
• Other Events