Magpie Pro Feature Tour: 2. Actors

Animated characters are represented in Magpie Pro by actors. An actor defines all the possible poses that the character can adopt. A Magpie Pro project can have multiple actors, each with its own animation.

A Magpie Pro actor is defined as one or more pose groups, each with one or more poses. For example, a typical actor may have two groups, Mouth and Eyes. The Eyes group may have two poses, Opened and Closed. The Mouth group may have a few poses for the basic mouth positions, like A, O, U, etc. Actors are created and edited in the Edit Actors dialog box.

Figure 2.1 - The Edit Actors dialog box and a detail of a typical actor definition

Magpie Pro previews animation by showing a graphical representation of the actors defined for a project in the preview window. In relation to how they are previewed, actors can be image based (a '2d actor') or 3d object based (a '3d actor'). The most important piece of data that must be provided for an actor is the set of images and/or 3d objects that will be used in the preview window.

Figure 2.2 - The Preview pane showing a 2d and a 3d actor

The animation controls for actors are available in the Actors pane. For a 2d actor, the Actors pane simply shows thumbnails of the images associated with the poses.

Figure 2.3 - A 2d actor in the Actors pane

For a 3d actor, the Actors pane shows a slider for each pose. Image thumbnails are not required for a 3d actor, but can be used if desired.

Figure 2.4 - A 3d actor in the Actors pane

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