A r m a t u r e s  -  I n t r o d u c t i o n

Important Note:  The Armatures section is the only section where the blocks in the topic list at left are not in alphabetical order.  They are in order from the top down.

This revolutionary new patent-pending technology could well be one of the most useful features you'll ever use-- you've got to see it to believe it (and you can if you read on).  Armatures are a little hard to describe though so in addition to the notes here we've made two short videos (see below).  The two most common uses for Armatures (so far) are:

1) For giving ultimate control over character rigs.  For example, you can set up buttons to select certain items, or controls to move items.
2) They allow you to create custom interface controls.  For example place an undo button in the World View, make buttons that control the Item List Filtering, make buttons that run commands, expressions and scripts.

Think of Armatures as another part of the Develop/API/Script/Expressions/KeyCommander system but with point-and-click ease.

For character control you rig your character (bones, IK, etc.) then create an Armature to control the rig.  Armatures can be loaded and saved, transferred to other characters, etc.  For customizing the interface, they're similar to assigning keyboard shortcuts but you actually have something to click on in the interface, plus you can have various actions depending on which mouse button you press.  Play around with them and you'll see that even we have only scratched the surface of what they're capable of.  You can take a look at the Basic Screen Controls armature to get a basic idea of some things you can do.

While it may look like a lot of buttons and blocks, the idea is very easy.  Here are the basic steps:

1. Create the Armature  (on the main block)  (Skip this step if you are adding to an existing Armature.)

2. Turn on Realtime Draw and create a button in the World View.

3. Set the Type of handle it should be-- one that you click on, like an on/off switch, or one you drag (Action block)

4. Set what the Action for the handle should be, such as run an expression or control an object (Action block)

5. Set the specific action to do, based on step 4 (on the blocks below the Armatures list, but mostly the Handles block)  For example, set which object it controls, what icon it should have, where it is on the screen, etc.

6. Set mouse button actions.  Each handle can have separate actions for each of the three mouse buttons, just add more Actions on the Action block.