Poses Tutorial

Alex BoldtUnder the direction of Professor Susan Rodger

Duke UniversityJuly 2015

Introduction

• Poses are a very useful tool for saving an object’s part’s relative locations to one another. Basically just like when you pose for a picture, a pose in Alice saves a pose of the object’s body.• Once a pose is saved, the object can be set to that pose using a

method during the animation. • Objects can go from pose to pose in a smooth and natural looking

way.• WARNING!!!-Once you decide to use poses, you cannot change the

object’s size anymore! This will break the saved poses!

Starter World

• Download the poseTutorialStarterWorld.a2w world from the tutorial page, we will begin working there.

The Stand pose

• We will be creating poses of the iceSkater and we will be using real figure skating poses to create a short figure skating routine.• Note: The iceSkater comes with 4 poses built in, which you are always

welcome to use, but we will be creating our own.

• The first position we want to save is her standing position, which is the pose she is in right now.• First, select the iceSkater in the object tree

The Stand pose

• Next, in the iceSkater’s details, under her properties, click the ‘capture pose’ button.

The Stand pose

• A new pose box will appear, with the default name ‘pose 5.’• Rename ‘pose5’ to ‘Stand’ and press ‘Enter’.• We have successfully created a ‘Stand’ pose. We will create a few

more to use in our animation.

The Camel poses

• Next, we will make Camel poses.• These poses involve the iceSkater’s torso turned toward the ice while

she is facing forward and one of her legs is pointed back.• We will make one Camel pose for each leg.

Wikimedia Commons

The Camel poses• First, we need to bend her upperBody forward a quarter revolution,

so use a set-up method to do so. Open her tree up first to access her sub-body parts

The Camel poses

• Next, turn her neck backwards ¼ of a revolution, so she is facing forward

The Camel poses

• Finally, turn her leftLeg forward a ¼ revolution

The Camel poses

• That is it for this Camel pose• Just like before, go the iceSkater’s properties and capture this pose

and name it “LeftCamel” (because her left leg is up). Make sure you’re in the iceSkater’s properties, not her leftLeg’s properties!

The Camel poses

• We will now make the “RightCamel” pose.• To do this, we simply need to bring the leftLeg back down by making it

turn backwards ¼ of a revolution, and then bring the rightLeg up by turning it forwards ¼ of a revolution.

The Camel poses

• Save this pose as “RightCamel” just like before, under the iceSkater’s properties.

The ScratchSpin pose

• We will now create our last pose, the Scratch Spin. But first we should bring the iceSkater back to her “Stand” position.• To do so we need to call the ‘set pose’ iceSkater method as a set-up

method, and ask for the “Stand” pose.

The ScratchSpin pose

• To begin the Scrath Spin pose, first we will turn both the iceSkater’s leftShoulder and rightShoulder backwards 0.15 revolutions.

The ScratchSpin pose

• Next, we need to roll her forearms, which can be found under left/rightShoulder.arm.forearm.• Roll her left forearm left 0.15 revs, and roll her right forearm right 0.15 revs.

The ScratchSpin Pose

• The skaterGirl should look like this now:

The ScratchSpin Pose

• Lastly, we need to put her legs in the correct positions.• First, we will turn her feet out in their respective directions. So, turn

her left foot, found under leftLeg.lowerLeg.foot, 0.15 revs to the left.• Turn her right foot 0.15 revs to the right

The ScratchSpin Pose

• Now we need to cross her leftLeg over her right.• Simply roll her leftLeg 0.05 revs to the left

The ScratchSpin Pose

• That’s the last pose! Capture it as “ScratchSpin”.

The Routine

• Now we can make a skating routine with the poses.• Let’s start her out in the standing pose, so call the ‘set pose’ method

and set to the Stand pose again.

The Routine

• There is a ‘routineView’ in the cameraViews folder in the object pane.• Let’s set our camera up at this view by either setting the camera’s

point of view to it or using ‘more controls’ in the add objects menu.

Figure 8

• We’ll just be working in myFirstMethod for the rest of the tutorial.• Let’s make the iceSkater do a simple figure 8.• To complete the first loop, let’s drag in a do together with a move

forward 15 meters and turn right 1 rev. Set each style for ‘begin gently’ (so we can smoothly transition into the second loop) and each duration for 3 seconds.

Figure 8

• To finish the second loop of the 8, let’s place a new do together with a move forward 15 meters and a turn left 1 rev. This time however, we will end gently, so the iceSkater slows down to a stop.

Figure 8

• If we test this code, we see that the skater does the figure 8, but is standing straight up while doing so. Let’s use the poses now to make it more natural.• While the iceSkater is turning right, we want her left leg to be up, so

we should set her pose to the LeftCamel.• To do so, bring in a ‘set pose’ method from the iceSkater’s methods to

the first doTogether

Figure 8• When testing this, we see that she will be in the LeftCamel position

when the second part of the loop starts. It would be good if she could be standing just before the second loop, otherwise she will simply switch her legs while floating to go from LeftCamel to RightCamel, so let’s add a Stand set pose. This can be done with a do in order inside the do together, and a Wait.

Figure 8• Copy the do in order and move it to the second do together, but

changing the LeftCamel to RightCamel

Scratch Spin

• Now let’s make her do a simple spin to finish the routine.• After the second do together, add another do together.• Have her turn right 5 revs for two seconds, and the same time that

she sets her pose to the ScratchSpin for 0.5 seconds (remember, this means that it will take her 0.5 seconds to get into the pose, she will stay in it until she changes to something else).

Scratch Spin

• After testing, we see that she stays in the ScratchSpin pose after the spin ends, so let’s add a Stand pose, just like before. Let‘s make the set pose 0.5 seconds. If we want to match the timing with the spin, then we need to add a Wait of 1 second (0.5 +1 + 0.5 =2).

Finish

• That’s it for an introduction on how to make poses and how to use them! Add more to the iceSkater’s routine if you wish!

Play the slideshow to see the animation!