Animation creation

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Create native animations

Open Build > IK Edit > Animations, then Create an animation. The creation mode uses the same skeleton, move/rotation tools, world/local gizmo, Ctrl rotation, symmetry and hand/foot IK handles. Its Pose, Animations and Visible bones tabs keep posing, timing and display controls separate. Return to IK contacts restores the existing contact definitions and their enable states.

Record keys

The initial frame records the rest skeleton with your IK contacts solved on it. An animation is built from there: what plays on the avatar is not part of it, and while creating, the avatar shows the rest skeleton and your keys. Manual joint edits made in the contact editor stay there; pose them here. Choose a frame with the slider or adjacent numeric field, pose the avatar, then record it:

• Key this bone records the selected joint. When its IK chain is being edited, the affected ancestors are recorded too; symmetry includes the edited counterpart.
• Key changes records the joints affected by the staged pose edits.
• Key full pose records the real skeletal joints in the displayed pose.

Recording is applied after the pose has been evaluated. The temporary pose correction is removed when its new sampled keys are ready, so influence weights are baked once. Other unrecorded pose edits remain staged. Seeking or playing clears these temporary corrections and displays the keyed clip. Previous/next controls and nearby numbered keys navigate the selected bone. Remove this bone's key removes its rotation/position keys at that frame.

Rotations are native local quaternions. Pelvis translations are relative to the avatar root. Other joint positions are included when a direct edit changes them; ordinary rotation keys retain the avatar's joint positions. The authoring grid is 30 fps, from frame 0 to 1800 (60 seconds). Native files contain continuous key times rather than an original frame rate. Position channels must stay within the native format's -5 to +5 metre range per axis. An invalid capture reports an error without writing a partial key.

Set priorities and playback

Bones / priority enables each track and sets its priority independently. -1 inherits the global animation priority. Disabling a track excludes it from preview/export while keeping its keys in the draft. Turning off the final track shows the rest skeleton; exporting still requires an active track with keys.

Playback settings contains:

• Start/end frames and the resulting exported duration. Trimming retains outside keys in the draft, samples both new boundaries, and rebases the exported file to time zero.
• Global priority, loop enable, loop start/end, ease-in and ease-out.
• Native hand pose and expression.

Loop times are seconds relative to the exported start. The creation preview shows exact keyed frames; the ordinary import preview displays final playback easing, hand pose and expression. The existing native codec writes the file and validates the complete result before saving or preparing import.

Reuse an IK pose and keep drafts

Return to IK contacts to adjust prim targets, bone targets or virtual controls. In Animations, choose the destination Frame (.anim) and Capture current IK pose to add your contacts, solved on the rest skeleton, to the current draft. This bakes the real skeletal pose; the LSL companion supplies live target following during play.

Creating another animation retains the previous draft in the draft selector. Up to sixteen drafts remain available during the viewer session, including after closing/reopening IK Edit. Save .anim files to keep exported clips before leaving the viewer. Outside trimmed keys and disabled tracks remain in the session draft; an exported file contains the selected active clip.

Save or import

Save .anim opens a native file dialog and writes the validated file. Prepare .anim import opens Block's existing animation import inspector with the same native bytes. Review its preview, destination, name and permissions, then use the normal upload action. Preparing the inspector does not start an upload or payment. The pose editor closes for this review and its drafts stay available through Animations.

Encoding, preview binding, file dialogs and disk writes use background jobs. Grid upload and playback of the resulting inventory animation are validated by the human in Second Life.

Offline validation

AURORA_DEMO_IK_EDIT=clip creates head rotation and pelvis position keys at frames 0, 30 and 60, then displays frame 15. clip-frame displays frame 45; clip-priority shows the global/inherited and per-bone priorities; clip-settings displays loop/ease metadata; clip-crop trims frames 15–45; clip-import prepares the ordinary native import inspector without uploading; clip-release closes at frame 720 (capture 800 to check restoration).