Posing characters for Screenshots

There are many instances where posed characters are needed for screenshot; this brief guide will help getting it done quickly.

Creating and exporting the pose

This is no different than exporting a normal animation. In case of need, consult the exporting guide.

Preparing the model

Sometimes you need your character to wield a weapon or a prop, and you don't want to align manually the item in the engine. In this instance, you can create a new cdf that already has the item you need.

1. Open the Character Editor from the View tab of the engine.
2. Load the cdf of your character of choice.
3. Under the attachments tab, be sure that you have the weapon attachment selected, and the correct bone attachment (which usually is named weapon_bone).
4. Select a new item under Object (the button has tree dots |...| ).
5. Press Apply button, and make sure that is aligned with the bone by pressing Align with Bone button.
6. Go to File, and use the Save as command, since you want a different name for your customized cdf.

Adding the model to your engine scene

Create or load your scene of choice in the engine, then in the rollup bar, select the Objects tab.
Then select Entities, and AnimObject for the list. Drag and drop the AnimObject into the scene.

Adding the cdf and the pose to the AnimObject

1. Under Material Layers, pick the Model requester and search for your .cdf file.
2. Under the Animation sub-tab, check AlwaysUpdate and Playing fields, then manually input your pose name in the Animation requester.

This is it. If your pose is not playing at all, make sure that you restarted the editor, and that the animation caf file itself is placed in the correct folders (again, use the exporting guide if you are unsure about this).