Importing animations

The model's Animation tab writes an animation from a .glb, .gltf or .fbx file as a clip of the open model, in the game's own format, into the project. The animation can come from Studio's own export edited in Blender, or from another rig altogether, such as a Mixamo character.

It works on RF Online characters and creatures, Gate to Heavens characters and creatures, and World of Kung Fu characters. A World of Kung Fu creature or NPC is refused, because its animation is stored as whole frames of its mesh, and so is a model with no skeleton.

Importing a clip

1. Open the model and go to the Animation tab.
2. Choose Import a clip (.glb, .gltf, .fbx)… and pick the file. The tab shows the file's name, how many animations it holds, and how many of the model's bones it names.
3. Pick the animation from the list.
4. Choose how it is read: Auto, Direct or Retarget (below).
5. Set the key rate, and In and Out in seconds to import only part of the animation. Leave them empty for the whole of it.
6. Choose where it goes: New clip, or Over one of the model's clips (below).
7. Preview plays it on the model; Stop preview goes back to the model's own clip.
8. Write clip writes it into the project.

Check builds the clip without writing it and shows what it would be: the mode, the number of frames, the length, the key rate, the file it would write, and any warnings.

The model reloads after a write. Where the game finds clips by their folder, as RF Online creatures do, the clip is listed and selected straight away. Anywhere else the game finds clips through its own tables, so a clip under a new name is a file for you to wire up, and the result says so. Install puts the clip in the game; see Projects and Install.

Direct and retarget

• Direct plays the file's joints that carry the model's own bone names. Names match exactly, then ignoring case, then without a Blender .001 ending. A bone the file does not name holds its rest pose. Use it for Studio's own glTF export, edited in any 3D program.
• Retarget maps another humanoid skeleton onto the model's bones, so an animation made for a different character plays on this one.
• Auto, the default, reads the file directly when it names at least 80% of the model's bones, and retargets it otherwise.

The bone mapping

When the clip is retargeted, the tab lists every bone of the model with the joint of the file that drives it. Studio fills the list in by itself; change any row from its list, or pick the blank first entry to leave that bone at rest.

• The dot beside each bone shows how sure the automatic match is: green when it is confident, amber when it is less so.
• The line above the list names the rig Studio recognised the file as, and how many of the model's bones follow a joint.
• Map again automatically throws away your changes and matches the bones again.
• A limb of the model with no joint driving it is named in red, and the import is refused until each limb has one.

Save mapping keeps your mapping as a preset for that kind of rig on this model, and Load mapping puts the saved one back. The next file from the same kind of rig can use the same preset. Presets are kept in %APPDATA%\GoMMO Studio\clip-mappings\.

Root motion

The Root motion list, under the mapping, decides what happens to the character's travel:

New clip or over a clip

• New clip writes a file beside the clip that is playing, named after it with _IMP1 (then _IMP2 and so on) added, or under the name you type. A name the project or the client already has is refused.
• Over a clip writes over that clip's file in the project. Switch on Replace … 's file in the project to confirm. Any edits you had made to that clip on the timeline, and their undo history, are dropped.

To change an imported clip afterwards, trim, retime or key it on the timeline like any other; see Animations.

Using a clip for an action

Under Actions, the tab lists the open model's actions and the clip each one plays. On an RF Online monster, and on a Gate to Heavens class or monster, you can point an action at the clip that is playing:

1. Play the clip you want the monster to use.
2. Under Use the clip showing for action, pick the action, such as an attack or the idle.
3. Type a Variant from 0 to 15 for an action with several clips, or leave it at 0.
4. Check shows the change it would make; Use for action writes it into the project.

On RF Online, Studio updates the client's animation table for that monster, or adds the entry when the action has none.

On Gate to Heavens, several actions and characters often share one animation entry. By default Studio gives this action an entry of its own, so the others keep their clip, and copies the old clip's attack timing to the new one. Switch on Re-point the shared row to change the shared entry instead, so every action that uses it plays the new clip. Gate to Heavens shows the new wiring in the model's clip list after the client is reopened.

Install puts the change in the game.

RF Online player characters and World of Kung Fu choose their clips in ways Studio does not write, and the section says so. Write over the clip the action already plays instead.

Editing a clip in Blender

Edit clip in Blender, at the foot of the tab, opens the model in Blender with only the clip that is playing, and writes every save back over that clip. See Editing in Blender.

Limits

• No clip imported this way has been played in a game client yet. Check one in the game before you rely on it.
• RF Online: a clip can be at most about 13.6 seconds long. A longer one is refused with the length that fits, and Trim to … s sets Out there for you. A clip written over another starts its motion where the clip it replaces did.
• Gate to Heavens: each bone keeps the length the game's skeleton gives it, so a source whose bones are longer or shorter moves the joints by direction only. The clip's bounding boxes follow the joints, not the posed mesh.
• Retargeting onto a body that is not humanoid checks only the limbs Studio can find on it.