Skeleton Studio

The Rigging workspace is Opal's bone-based character studio. Build a rig in Setup, pose and key it in Animate, save a character asset, then drive those clips from the same Motion Machine that plays ordinary motion clips.

It is intentionally different from Motion and Art Canvas:

Workspace	Best for	Output
Rigging	A character made of bones, slots, skins, and IK	Character assets and skeleton clips
Motion	Keyframe an object's transform or fire a Motion Machine	Motion clips on scene objects
Art	Frame-by-frame sprite sequences	.ssb bundles

Important: Setup edits the character's rest pose. Animate only shows a sampled pose. Saving, undo, and character export always store the rest pose — scrubbing in Animate does not overwrite the rig.

When To Use It

Use Rigging when a character should bend, swap outfits, or reach for a target.

A walker or fighterBones for torso and limbs, art on each slot, clips for idle / walk / attack, Motion Machine to switch them.

Reach and aimAdd IK on a 2-bone chain, then drag the tip — the chain solves to the target.

Bendable limbsConvert a slot to a mesh, pick bind bones, auto-weight or paint, then Deform in Animate.

Outfit swapsDuplicate a skin. Bind replacement art while that skin is active; slots you skip still show the default skin.

Open The Workspace

1. Open a project in the editor.
2. Click Animate ▾ → Rigging in the top bar.
3. Start from a scene sprite (it becomes the root art, same place and size) or from Assets.

Dock	What is there
Left	Tools: Setup / Animate, the tool strip, and the active tool's options
Centre	The stage, showing only the rig you are editing
Right	Rig: target and character actions, setup guide, rig tree, animations, draw order, skins, inspector
Bottom	Assets in Setup, Timeline in Animate — Rigging switches the tab for you

Ctrl/Cmd+Z in Rigging rewinds the rig, not the scene.

Setup And Animate

Press Tab to switch modes.

Mode	What it is for
Setup	Build the rig: bones, art, IK, meshes, weights, skins. Every edit here changes the rest pose.
Animate	Pose and key. The rig only displays the sampled pose.

Tools that build structure (Bone, Bind, Art, IK, Mesh, Weights, Pivot) live in Setup. Deform lives in Animate. Select and Pose work in both.

Setup Guide

The Setup guide at the top of the Rig panel is a checklist that ticks itself from the rig — it never changes the tool under you. Hide it any time; Setup guide brings it back.

Step	Action it offers
Add art	Open Assets
Draw bones	Bone tool
Put art on its bones	Assign to nearest bones
Pose and key	Animate

A tip on the guide: Pivot (9) moves the root anchor without moving art. Convert a slot to a mesh for bendable limbs.

Getting Art Onto The Rig

Art attaches the moment you pick it.

• Select the bone (the root is selected to begin with), then double-click a sprite in Assets — it attaches centred on that bone.
• Drag a sprite from Assets onto the stage to put it where it lands, on the bone under the pointer (or the selected bone when there is none).
• A sprite already on the stage becomes the rig's root art the moment you start rigging it.

Once bones exist, Assign to nearest bones moves every piece still on the root onto the bone whose segment lies closest, without moving the art on stage. Drag a slot onto a bone in the rig tree, or pick its bone in the inspector, to place one by hand.

Tools

Tool	Key	Mode	Use
Select	1	Both	Bones, art, IK targets. Empty-space drag box-selects bones. Shift / Ctrl extend.
Bone	2	Setup	Drag from a bone to add a child. Shift snaps 15°. Alt draws a sibling.
Bind	3	Setup	Choose the bone new art attaches to, then double-click or drop sprites.
Art	4	Setup	Drag art to move it. Alt rotates, Shift scales.
Pose	5	Both	Tip rotates, head moves, Alt-drag tip scales. Shift snaps 15°.
IK	6	Setup	Click a bone for a 2-bone IK target. Shift = 1 bone, Alt = 3-bone.
Mesh	7	Setup	Drag vertices, click to add, Alt-click to remove.
Weights	8	Setup	Paint the selected bone's influence. Alt subtracts, [ ] resize.
Pivot	9	Setup	Click where the root should anchor; art stays put.
Deform	0	Animate	Push mesh vertices; Alt softens. Keys the deform at the playhead.

Posing On The Canvas

Gesture	Result
Drag a bone's tip or body	Rotate (every selected bone rotates together)
Drag a bone's head	Move
Alt-drag a tip	Scale along the bone (Alt+Shift scales uniformly)
Shift while rotating	Snap to 15°
Drag on empty space (Select)	Box-select bones
Click art (Select)	Select its slot

A bone that ends an IK chain moves its IK target when you drag it. Locked bones cannot be posed; hidden bones cannot be picked.

The Rig Tree And Draw Order

The Rig card is one tree: bones nest under parents, each bone lists its slots, IK underneath. Click to select, Ctrl/Cmd+click to add, Shift+click for a range, double-click to rename. Drag a bone onto another bone to reparent it (world pose is kept). Drag a slot onto a bone to move that art without it jumping. Each row has hide, lock, add-child, and delete.

Draw order is a separate flat list, front-most first. Drag rows or use the arrows. In Animate, Key draw order records the current order at the playhead.

The Inspector

The inspector follows the selection:

• Bone: length, position, rotation, scale, parent, inheritance, colour, physics-bone settings for ragdolls. In Animate, editing a pose field keys it.
• Slot: bone, colour and alpha, blend mode, active attachment and variants, art offset/rotation/scale, mesh tools (convert, bind bones, auto-weight, paint, edit vertices).
• IK constraint: bend direction, mix, enabled, target position, keying buttons.
• Skin: rename, duplicate, delete, set active.

Skins

A new skin starts empty but shows the default skin's art for every slot it does not override. Bind art while a skin is active to override that slot only. The default (first) skin cannot be deleted.

Auto-Key

With Auto-key on (the default in Animate), posing a bone records a key for exactly the channels you changed. Rotating an arm keys rotation only. Press K to key every channel of every bone at the playhead. With Auto-key off, a pose is a preview that the next scrub resets.

Keyboard

Keys	Action
1–0	Tools
Tab	Setup / Animate
Space	Play / stop
K	Key the whole pose
E	Cycle easing on selected keys
← / →	Step one frame
, / .	Previous / next keyframe
H / L	Hide / lock the active bone
Delete	Delete the selection

Character Assets

A new Character saves itself to the asset library as soon as it has a limb, art, or a clip (the banner shows Saved to library). Add to scene places it in the current scene. A rig built on a scene sprite stays with that object; Save as Character turns it into a reusable asset.

Edit in Rigging on a character asset opens it as a draft with the same id.

Skeleton clips can be driven by the Motion Machine alongside regular motion clips. See Motion and rigging.

Related Docs

• Motion and rigging
• Pixel Studio — draw the parts before you bind them
• Art Canvas
• Assets and importing
• Physics and collisions — ragdolls on physics bones
• Editor overview