Seated Characters

You can easily create seated characters in Anima using the Table Tool from the main toolbar, which is at the left side of the 3d Viewport.

To use it, first, select the tool and then left-click on any surface of the background geometry to create a chair object.

You can quickly adjust the orientation of the chair while you hold down the left mouse button, and it will get fixed as soon as you release it. As with any other Anima object, you can adjust the position and orientation of the chair at any moment with the select and transform tool.

After you create and orient the first chair, a new chair will be created as soon as you click on any other part of the surface. To stop this and exit the chair creation mode you can right-click, select any other tool or directly press the ESC key. Using this workflow, you’ll be able to create a lot of chair objects very fast.

If you want to place characters on existing chairs in your scene, import a background model that contains this geometry. If you want to place the chairs under your characters afterward, make sure you set the correct seat height using the Height Offset parameter.

To add a character to a chair follow this process:

1. drag a model from the Actor Library to the 3d viewport and release the mouse
2. Move the mouse to until the actor is on top of the chair object and a link icon is displayed. Click to link the actor to the chair.
3. The actor is now locked to the chair and moving or rotating the chair object will also affect the actor.

If you create more than one chair before you exit the create mode, then a Table object will also be created.  The table object is used to control to properties of a group of chairs, just select it and they will be shown at the Properties Panel. All the modifications on the parameters of the Table will update the common setting on all the chairs of the Table group. For example, if you’re not using a background model, you can set the chair’s seat height using the Height Offset value and all of them will be updated automatically.

You can drag actors from the Library Actors panel to the Crowd List and it will populate all the chairs of the table with them, using the same methodology that is already available in the Path or the Area tools.  Also, you can enter the number of characters to create using the Actor Count property or to fill all the chairs turn on Fill All Slots?. Remember that if you leave the Crowd List empty it will automatically use the full library.  Finally, click Generate to create the actors.

You can also create new chairs enabling the creation mode with a click on the Create Chair button.

To delete a Chair from a table group

1. Select the chair in the 3d viewport or the Project Panel
2. Press the Delete-key or right-click and select Delete.

Chair Properties

Motion Clip/ Category – Used to assign a Motion Clip or Motion Category to the area.

Height Offset – Offsets the character above the Chair marker. This is useful if you want to create characters but you don’t yet have a background model to set the seat height. Using this you could, for example, place the characters in anima and add the seats in afterward in your 3d application.

Tall Chair – Turn on this option if the characters are sitting on a tall chair or stool. It alters the positioning of their legs to allow for knee angles of greater than 90 degrees.

Translation – The position in world space of the seat. You can use these values to adjust the position, or alternatively, you can use the selection tool in the 3d viewport.

Rotation – The rotation of the seat.

Table Properties

Chair Create Mode – Click this button to turn on chair creation mode. When activated you simply click in the 3d viewport to add a new chair. Click on hold the left mouse button to place and rotate a new chair.

Set all Actors to manual – Click this button to set all actors to manual placement mode. Once you do this the Area properties will no longer affect these characters.

Generate – Click Generate or update actors using the current distribution settings. If characters have already been generated, clicking this button again will create a new random distribution.

Delete All Actors – To delete all the generated actors click the X button

Crowd List – Contains a list of all the actors to be distributed on the area. Drag selected characters to the list from the Actors panel or leave it blank to use the full library.

Actor Count – The number of actors to create on the seats. This value cannot be higher than the number of chair objects in the group.

Fill All Slots – Set this to Yes to fill all the available seats. In this mode, the Actor Count value is ignored and one character is created for each chair object in the group.

Keep Positions and Rotations – When this is set to No, clicking Generate will create a completely new distribution. When set to Yes the Position and Rotation of current actors will be retained but motions, color variations, and phase control will be randomized.

Animation Phase Random – Defines the range of motion clip phase offset that will be randomly applied to each actor.

Motion Clip Category – Used to assign a Motion Clip or Motion Category to the area.

Tall Chair – Turn on this option if the characters are sitting on a tall chair or stool. It alters the positioning of their legs to allow for knee angles of greater than 90 degrees. Applies to all chairs in the group.

Translation – The position in world space of the table group. You can use these values to adjust the position, or alternatively, you can use the selection tool in the 3d viewport.

Rotation – The rotation of the table group.