Some simple insturctions on how to operate the program:
First, you can change some of the basic settings of the program in the 'settings.ini' which is in resources/config.

Editing the skeleton

To select which bone you want to edit, click on the bone. If successfully selected, it should turn light blue.
The controls for editing the skeleton are as follows:

• Selected Bone Editor - adjust the rotation of the selected bone. There's currently no indication of how a rotation affects the skeleton, so you must learn by trying.
• Height Adjustment - changes the vertical position of the entire skeleton. This is for cases like a running animation where the character bobs up and down.
• Rotation Of Selected Bone - this shows the current rotation of the selected bone. It has a BUG: It will not update the rotation automatically after changing Frames. You have to click on the bone again to update it.

Editing and Saving Frames

Frames (aka keyframes) are the positions the program interpolates between. This is done with four different types of motion tweening.

• Picking a Frame to Edit - The Select Frame dialog has three parts: An indicator of which frame is current, and a Previous and Next Button to pick the current frame. The Frame index starts from 0, meaning that if you're on frame #2, it's the 3rd frame (0 - 1 - 2)
  Please note that changing the current Frame does NOT autosave any changes in the Skeleton since the last save.
• Create & Save Frames In the Frame/Animation Manager, there two buttons:
  • New Frame From Current Pose - this grabs the current skeleton pose and adds a new frame at the end of the frame queue. So if there are 3 Frames, and you click that button, it will create a fourth frame. Note that it does not auto-save the previous frame.
  • Save Pose to Current Frame - this grabs the current skeleton pose, and saves it to the Current Frame. It does not change how many frames there are in the animation.
• Current Frame Properties - this panel contains the information about the current frame, and allows you to change it's properties.
  There are 3 important pieces of information:
  • Motion Type - The motion type is changed by the Change Motion Type button. The type of motion determines how the movement between the current frame and the next frame is calculated. There are 4 types of motion:
    • Linear Motion: Moves at a contstant speed between frames. Starts off and stops abruptly. Looks unnatural, but can be used for frames which start off from a moving state. and end with a moving state.
    • Ease In: This starts off slowly, accelerating up to speed, and then stops abruptly when it reaches the next Frame
    • Ease OutL: Starts off abruptly, and slows down before reaching the next frame.
    • Ease In/Out: Starts off slowly, accelerates, then slows down before reaching the next frame. This looks most natural, but if you want fluid animation for more than just 2 frames, use a combination of the above motion types.
  • Time to Wait on this Frame - This indicates how long the animation should pause on the current frame, before starting the transition to the next frame. Values are in Milliseconds (1000ms = 1 second).
  • Transition to Next Frame - This is how long the movement between the current frame and the next frame will last. Again, values are in milliseconds. You can edit these two fields by clicking on the numbers, and using the numbers and backspace to type in values.
  Don't forget to click Apply to Current Frame to save the frame properties!

Playing, Loading and Saving the Animation

The animation is defined by all the frames and their properties.
Note that the animation is looping, and that the Frame properties of the last Frame are used to transition back to the Original Frame.

• Playing the animation: To play simply look for the Animation Player panel, and click Play. This will hide the frame selector until you click Stop, at which time it will return to editing.
• Saving the Animation: In the Frame/Animation Manager you can find the Save Animation To File button. Clicking this will bring up a panel asking you for a name. Click in the text field (it should turn blue) and type in a name. The name can be only letters, upper or lowercase
• Loading an Animation: In the Frame/Animation Manager there's also a Load Animation From File button. This will again bring up a box, and ask you a name of the animation you want to load.

Note that saved animations are in the "resources/config/skeleton/animations" folder, saved under XXXX.hsaf, where XXXX is the name you chose whilst saving.
BUG: Please do not attempt to load/save animations while playing an animation! This will crash the program!

There are also music controls at the top of the program.
And finally, to exit, press Escape and select Exit Program