{"id":9662,"date":"2025-03-06T17:35:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T17:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/?p=9662"},"modified":"2025-07-09T10:33:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T09:33:59","slug":"toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"Toolkit &#8211; Male Animation\/Pose Setup"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-69ef5ca7382b9\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-69ef5ca7382b9\"  aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup\/#description\" >Description<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup\/#new-file\" >New File<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup\/#weight-painting\" >Weight Painting<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup\/#template\" >Template<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/toolkit-male-animation-pose-setup\/#timestamps\" >Timestamps<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: black; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; padding-top: 25px; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%;\"><center><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dqwW0o30prY?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/div>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"description\"><\/span>Description<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>In IMVU, because both male and female avatars using the exact same underlying skeleton the <strong>Animation Tool<\/strong> defaults to displaying meshes associated with the female avatar. As there are obvious and some subtle difference between the two set of meshes, the female avatar isn&#8217;t always useful to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/tag\/avatar-poses\/\">create poses and avatar animations<\/a>. To work around this, meshes from the male avatar can be loaded in and set up to correct for the difference.<\/p>\n<p><b>Duration<\/b>: total c. 10 mins (00:10:00).<br \/>\n<b>Info<\/b>: 1080p.<br \/>\n<b>Suitability<\/b>: Beginner+.<br \/>\n<b>Source<\/b>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/files\/imvu\/katsbits - TEMPLATE male poses.zip\">katsbits &#8211; TEMPLATE male poses<\/a> (c. 1.5 MB | *.blend).<br \/>\n<b>Product ID<\/b>: n\/a.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Design note<\/strong>: some additional considerations to keep in mind using this approach to create male specific animation and poses using the Toolkit;<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #fc0; color: #000; width: 98.5%; padding: 1.0em;\"><strong>Important<\/strong>: although the male head can be loaded in and linked to the underlying control rig, the shape key control panel (&#8216;morph controls&#8217;) don&#8217;t work with it. Instead the female head, named &#8220;<strong>Morph<\/strong>&#8221; in the <strong>Outliner<\/strong> (DO NOT CHANGE THIS), has to be used. This will give an approximation of a facial expression, pose or animation that will work with the male head.<\/div>\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"new-file\"><\/span>New File<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>To get this technique to work properly, each toolkit tool needs to be loaded into a clean or new Blender project or file. In other words, first create a new file &#8211; <strong><em>File \u00bb New \u00bb General<\/em><\/strong>, and then load in the appropriate tool, i.e. <strong>Clothing Tool<\/strong> first to copy the avatars mesh parts, then create a new file and load in the <strong>Animation Tool<\/strong> to paste the body parts.<\/p>\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"weight-painting\"><\/span>Weight Painting<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>So long as meshes are copied verbatim and not edited or altered they should link to the animation control rig without issue. However, a difference between male and female meshes means the hands are not <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/tag\/weight-paint\/\">fully weighted<\/a> and will need to be corrected before they articulate fully. When doing this only <strong>lfHand<\/strong> and <strong>rtHand<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/tag\/vertex-groups\/\">vertex groups<\/a> [1] need to be selected (<em>Object Data Properties \u00bb Vertex Groups<\/em>) and painted [2] for each respective hand;<\/p>\n<p> &#8211; left hand mesh = <strong>lfHand<\/strong><br \/>\n &#8211; right hand mesh = <strong>rtHand<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu\/toolkit-animation-male-vertex-groups.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 98.5%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/images\/tutorials\/imvu\/toolkit-animation-male-vertex-groups.jpg\" alt=\"Vertex Groups &#038; Weight Painting\" width=\"900px\" height=\"500px\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>When correcting the error in the hands, make sure the correct Vertex group [1] is selected for the corresponding hand [2] to avoid weight and\/or articulation issues.<\/i><\/p>\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"template\"><\/span>Template<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>Each time the Animation Tool is used it&#8217;s necessary to reset the open Blender file, which means losing any set-up modifications made to the avatar. Instead of, or to avoid having to constantly do this; once the &#8216;<em>male animation avatar<\/em>&#8216; is set up, save it as a generic template file, i.e. &#8220;<em>TEMPLATE &#8211; male animations.blend<\/em>&#8220;, that can be re-opened and saved as a different file for each new animation or pose project.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"timestamps\"><\/span>Timestamps<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Times are approximate;<br \/>\n &#8211; n\/a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,37,230],"tags":[622,871,725,550,194,835,1049,312,630,869,1085,685,930,684],"class_list":["post-9662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blender","category-imvu","category-tutorials","tag-animation","tag-animation-tool","tag-armature","tag-download","tag-imvu","tag-imvu-studio-toolkit","tag-imvu-toolkit","tag-modifiers","tag-poses","tag-rig","tag-source-files","tag-vertex-groups","tag-weight-paint","tag-weight-painting"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9662"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9804,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions\/9804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katsbits.com\/codex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}