Skeleton
Gamemaker

IMVU avatar pose editor

For creating triggered poses and furniture seat poses. Currently animation is NOT supported, however there is a workaround, see IMVU forum for details.

	How to download and install the editor
	Running under Windows 10
	How to get the skeleton file
	About the editor and how to use it
	Warning about file formats (Please read this)
	Other people's tutorials (links)
	More on how things move
	Advanced features and tricks
	Release notes on the current version
	History and links for older versions
	Technical notes about the XAF files generated by the editor
	How to modify and rebuild the editor using Gamemaker

How to download and install the editor

Download the zip file:

The latest version is pose2g.zip or the version immediately before is pose2f.zip and extract to a folder.

Obtain the file "Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.xsf", and put the file in the same place as pose2e.exe

The first time you run the editor it will take a longer time to load while it creates the file "Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.txt", and on subsequent runs it will load the txt file and load in much less time.

Vista compatibility: I've had reports that all versions of the editor up to 2d run under Windows Vista Home Basic without problems.

Windows 10 compatibility: I've had reports of problems, so I have carried out a test run.

Obtained pose2g.zip
Extracted pose2g.zip (automatically creating a folder "pose2g")
Obtained Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.zip
put "Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.xsf" into the pose2g folder
Run the "pose2g" application
When prompted decline to install DirectPlay. All Gamemaker applications of that age call for directplay, even if the specific game doesn't use it

This doesn't put the editor in a neat install folder under "program files", and the program as built assumes you want to load/save from the program folder but it is running. Also note that you shouldn't try to put it in "Programs" as that folder has protection making it effectively read-only.

How to get the skeleton file

The correct place to obtain
"Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.xsf"
is from one of the IMVU avatar examples in the Creator Center. This file should be in most of the IMVU avatar example files.

Alternatively you can download a copy of the xsf file from my site here:

Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.zip

Extract the "xsf" file to the same folder as the program.

About the editor and how to use it

IMVU POSE TOOL VERSION 2d
BY BorisTheEngineer

Esc Quit

F1 Show Information

Enter saves the file

L loads a file

Note the file must be an avatar pose or animation, other files may break it.

If the file loaded was an animation then the final keyframe will be taken.

Up/Down: Select bone

Left/Right Rotate view

Z: Zoom, if current bone is part of hand then displays hand large, to leave zoomed view

select a bone other than part of hand and press again.

Manipulations relative to next bone

Q,A Rotate the bone

W,S Rotate on different axis

E,D Rotate on different axis

Manipulations relative to current bone

R,F Rotate the bone

T,G Rotate on different axis

Y,H Rotate on different axis

The program Pose2d allows the avatar skeleton to be manipulated using twelve keys to rotate a joint in different ways and the arrow keys to select which joint. The resulting pose can be exported as an XAF file that can be loaded into the IMVU previewer and assigned to a seat on a furniture product, or a trigger on a clothing product.

Version G allows editing of the height above ground, press "U" and you will be prompted for a new height.

Warning about file formats

The pose editor in its present form can not open the "binary" type files used internally by IMVU Create Mode. Create mode converts the large XML-based data files generated by various tools into smaller binary files that can be processed more efficiently.

What that means is that if you add a file to a product and then later extract the file the extracted version will be in a different format even though the old name and extension may be retained.

Binary formats may be recognised by the fact that they do not open properly in Wordpad and internally they are given identifiers beginning with "C" and not "X".

As always the advice is to keep your original files and do not rely on extraction. I do not promise to produce a CAF loader but it may be possible.

Other people's tutorials (links)

Polystyrene's pose making forum thread Also A post I made about faces

Eaglesoars' furniture pose tutorial (gone)

Sneakyhov's free poses forum thread (gone)

More on how things move

	There is an ongoing thread in the IMVU forum discussing the program here (March 2008) and on using it here
	If a bone is selected the bone that actually moves is the bone attached to it. This appears to be a CAL3D thing, though it may also be common practice in 3D rendering.
	Bones are moved using six key pairs Q and A, W and S, E and D, R and F, T and G, Y and H
	For most joints you should try W and S first.
	Roughly speaking each pair rotates around a different axis. You can think of them as X, Y and Z but as the skeleton gets shifted the reference orientation shifts.
	The first three key pairs work relative to the attached bone
	The second three pairs work relative to the selected bone
	"TIP" bones probably don't do anything, they're only there to show movement on the previous bone.
	There is no "UNDO" or "REVERT" key
	Note that the F5, F6 save and load facility is depreciated, it still works but since you can reload an exported design now there is no need.
	Version G may behave differently to previous versions

Advanced features and tricks

Partial poses

It is possible to edit the XAF file down to only contain positions for part of the skeleton, a hand for example. Once you've done this you can reload the part over another pose and it will only affect that part. This can be used to simplify annoying tasks like hand manipulation.

For example these files straighten the fingers: left hand right hand

Non-standard avatars or accessory skeletons

This is a new feature and not properly tested

If you start the editor from the command line and give it the name of a skeleton file as a parameter then it will attempt to load the alternative skeleton and perform editing against that skeleton instead of the avatar skeleton.

	The filename must be provided without an extension
	The hand zoom feature will probably be useless unless your alternative happens to have limbs with the same bone IDs
	The editor ASSUMES that bone zero is the root or attachment bone and won't let you edit it.
	The resulting XAF files will only be compatible with the alternative skeleton
	You can make a shortcut with the filename in the shortcut

Release notes on the current version

4/4/10: Version 2g

pose2g.gmd

Experimental, cleaned up and simplified math but this probably swaps the controls around

kludged in a way to set height above ground

History and links for older versions

20/6/08: Version 2f

pose2f.gmd

Should fix a file loading error seen with version 2e

14/6/08: Version 2e (Withdrawn)

pose2e.gmd

Has a BUG that it fails to load the skeleton file under certain circumstances

Adds an error message if the skeleton file cannot be found

Adds the ability to load an alternative skeleton for editing products other than avatars

8/6/08: Version 2d

Download: pose2d.zip

or if you have gamemaker here's the GMD file by itself: pose2d.gmd

"Pose2d" fixes a small bug in the hand zoom feature that prevented you seeing one of the fingertips on each hand, also this version can read the "XSF" file issued by IMVU and make a text file from it, so I am no longer distributing the text file of the avatar skeleton.

Pose2d looks for a text file containing simplified data from the skeleton file. If it can't find it then it will read the skeleton file and create a text file from it. This takes a noticeably longer time.

29/4/08: Version 2c

pose2c.zip

"Pose2c" has a crude "Zoom" facility, select a bone within a hand and you can press Z to toggle a large view of the hand. Also the program can load either the text or XSF version of the skeleton data.

8/4/08: Version 2

pose2.zip

"Pose2" now has a file open and save dialog. Press L to load a XAF file. The F5 and F6 save mechanism is still there and may still be useful to roll back edits but you can now reload your XAF files.

7/4/08: I have nearly finished making a script that can read XAF files. When this is completed I'll be able to implement saving and loading properly, and also add "file" menus.

pose1.zip

Technical notes about the XAF files generated by the editor

	The file has a duration of 1 second so for a static pose you must set it to repeat forever.
	The file only contains rotations. This means that when you load an existing pose the height from the ground will be reset
	The pelvis node will always be the default height from the ground. To edit this you'll need to edit in a "Translate" entry using notepad.
	The file only contains one frame. If you don't mind a LOT of copy and paste it should be possible to bodge two files together to make an animation.

How to modify and rebuild the editor using Gamemaker

Note: this is for the benefit of anyone interested in the program code, you do NOT need to do this just to use the editor, however if you want to alter the colours, screen size, controls, or you're just plain curious then read on.

Source code for the editor: pose2g.gmd

Copyright notice: The Gamemaker runtime is copyright to Mark Overmars and Yoyo games, and the avatar data file is copyright to IMVU. The XML library is by Major_Victory. The Quaternion library is my own work. The program does not contain any CAL3D source code.

This program is written in Gamemaker 5.3 (www.gamemaker.nl) and can also be run in Gamemaker 7 (www.yoyogames.com) if the script called "draw_set_color" is deleted.

Using version 5.3 keeps the system requirements very low, it should run well under Linux using "Wine" because it only requires a fairly old version of DirectX, but since its hard to find Gamemaker 5.3 nowadays then if you want to experiment with it I suggest converting to version 7. Version 7 needs a newer DirectX and Direct3D, but that is rarely a problem.

In Gamemaker 7 there is an option to create an EXE file, this can be used just like the original.

There's lots of "goodies" in Gamemaker 7.0 that could be useful, like a 3D engine. Since my code doesn't use them I've chosen to use the least demanding version.

Draw_Set_Color

You'll probably want to load the file into Gamemaker 7. To run the gmd file under newer versions you have to make one small change: load the file into Gamemaker in advanced mode, find the script called "Draw_Set_Color" and delete it.

The reason is that between versions 5.3 and 6.0 the syntax for setting the drawing colour changed. To make my code compatible with newer versions it has a script containing the GM5.3 command to set the colour. On later versions the command to set the colour IS "Draw_Set_Color" and the script has to go.