assets/docs/animation.md

# So you wanna animate in Blender?

Various guides for animation.

## Setting Up A New Animation
Upon animating the file, you need to add a new action to the rig. Click on the "New" button on the action editor.

![](images/anim_setup1.png)

Now, name your animation, and configure it to the expected framge range you'll need. The file's animations are currently set to 60 FPS, so 60 frames = 1 second of animation. Also, mark it as cyclic (if it is intended to loop). You can adjust this frame range later if necessary--it's just used for exporting.

![](images/anim_setup2.png)

Finally, hide the Rigify layers you don't want so you can focus more clearly on what you need for blocking out poses. This is the default setup I suggest.

![](images/anim_setup3.png)

Now you're ready to start animating!

## Finalizing an Animation
When you're done with your animation (or want to look at others), go ahead and push it to the NLA stack. You'll have to be on the "AnimationFull" workspace to do this step (see the tabs at the top of the window).

![](images/anim_finalize1.png)

If you're done working on it, mute the track so it doesn't play while working on other animations.

![](images/anim_finalize2.png)

Finally, to reset your rig for further animation, re-enable all the Rigify layers, select all bones in the 3D viewport with the 'A' key (or `Select > All` at the top of the viewport), and then `Pose > Clear Transform > All` to reset bone transforms.

![](images/anim_finalize3.png)

Your rig should be A-posed and ready for more animation!

## Editing Existing Animations
If you want to go back and tweak an already-pushed animation, simply double-click the track, and start it so you can see the preview.

![](images/anim_editing1.png)

When you're done, deselect the track and unstar it.

![](images/anim_editing2.png)