Skeletons and Clips

AG2 keeps the model, skeleton, clips, and graph as separate assets.

Asset	What it contains
.vmdl	The model you render
.skel	The bone hierarchy used by animation, plus authored bone masks
.anim	An animation clip authored for a particular skeleton
.ag	The rules for playing and combining those clips

A graph's clips should use the same .skel resource as the graph. Two skeleton files with similar bone names are not interchangeable clip bindings.

Create a skeleton

If your assets already include the correct .skel, use it. You do not need a new skeleton for every clip or graph.

Otherwise, choose Skeleton from the Asset Browser's Animation create category. You can also right-click an FBX, DMX, or SMD source file and choose Create Skeleton.

In the import dialog, select your skeleton source and set Import Scale to match your model. Leave Root Bone empty to import the whole hierarchy, unless you specifically need only part of it. You can assign a Preview Model to inspect the result.

Save the .skel in your project's Assets folder. Check the skeleton against your model before importing the rest of your animations.

Import a clip

Choose Animation Clip from the Animation create category.

1. Choose an FBX, DMX, or SMD animation source.
2. Select the skeleton the animation will use.
3. Check the take and import scale. The full animation is imported unless you change the frame-range settings.
4. Click Import... and save an .anim in your project's Assets folder.

You can also import from the graph editor's Animation Clips panel. This uses the graph's selected skeleton for you.

The import dialogs copy source files from outside the project into Assets, so those sources stay with the project.

Events

Open an .anim to mark moments or ranges on its event timeline. Use typed events to notify game code, ID events for graph conditions, and foot events for locomotion phases. See Animation Events for the differences and an authoring walkthrough.

Reverse playback

Use Play In Reverse on an unsynchronized Animation Clip node to play a clip backward. See Reversing Clips for playback and sampling options, including the synchronized-blend restriction.

Ordinary clips and additive clips

An ordinary clip describes a pose. An additive clip describes a change to another pose: for example, a small recoil movement added to a weapon hold.

Use an ordinary clip for your first graph. Do not connect an additive recoil clip directly to Graph Output and expect a complete character pose.

For additive animation, author the clip's subtraction/base settings and apply it through an Additive layer. Choosing Additive on a layer does not turn an ordinary animation into a correctly authored additive clip. See layers and masks.

Reusing old animation sources

You can reuse source animation files from an AG1 character. Import them as .anim assets against the new skeleton.

Preserve any important take, trimming, scale, playback-duration, and additive-base settings from the old setup. Importing the same FBX does not automatically reproduce every processing setting from ModelDoc.

ModelDoc sequence names and .anim paths are different things. An AG2 Animation Clip selects an .anim asset, not a sequence name embedded in the model.