Assembly Mode
Animate
These tools will help you bring your creations to life, whether by simply recording your actions, or getting fancy with keyframes and timelines.
Action Recorder
The easiest way to get things moving. Just stamp the gadget into your scene and it will begin recording your actions as soon as you do something.
Hit stop recording when you're done, or retake if you need to start again. You can move objects around, adjust tweak values, possess things...
All your actions will be stored in the gadget. You can edit it afterwards, or even just use retake to start over, so don't be afraid to experiment.
Let's make a videogame staple - a moving platform. Nip into sculpt mode, get yourself a cube and use edit shape. Stretch and flatten it into a platform shape.
You can use controlled scale to do that. Stamp it down when you're happy and head back to assembly mode. Clone it twice so you have 3 platforms.
Put two of them a distance from each other, and put the third next to one of them. This will be your moving platform. Now get an action recorder and stamp it down.
Don't worry - it's not going to start recording till you start moving things. Grab the platform and move it on a straight(ish) line till you get to the other platform.
If you feel like you've messed up, just hit retake to start over. When you're happy, select stop recording. Notice the dotted line when you hover the platform.
This is the animation path. Tweak the action recorder, and set playback mode to ping-pong. Start time. Your platform moves back and forth as if by magic!
Keyframe
Works like the action recorder, but storing the action(s) of a single point in time. Used alone, they are most useful for one-off stuff. Switching a light on, for example.
You can add multiple actions to a keyframe - select the gadget with , hit edit keyframe and perform another action - but they will all happen at the same time.
Keyframes really come into their own when you use them in combination with a timeline. Then you can have many of them, each with different actions stored.
All the actions will happen when you want them to, and you can blend between them and build more complex animation, from a character's fight moves to an entire battle.
Let's use a keyframe to change the time of day in our scene. Stamp a sun & sky gadget and a keyframe. As soon as you stamp it, recording begins.
But just take your time. This is just recording the state of things. Tweak the sun & sky gadget. On the sun properties page, reduce the sun brightness. About 10% is fine.
On the sky properties page, pick a nice dark sky image, like no. 1. Then reduce the sky brightness, again to about 10%. Hit the stop recording button.
The scene will return to its original sun & sky settings, since keyframes aren't powered on automatically. We want a timer to do that, so stamp one down.
Connect timer output to the power port of the keyframe. It'll give us a nice smooth signal which increases in strength, because it represents where the timer is in its run.
Start time and watch night fall on your scene.
Works like the action recorder, but storing the action(s) of a single point in time. Used alone, they are most useful for one-off stuff. Switching a light on, for example.
You can add multiple actions to a keyframe. Select the gadget with on , hit edit keyframe and perform another action - but they will all happen at the same time.
Keyframes really come into their own when you use them in combination with a timeline. Then you can have many of them, each with different actions stored.
All the actions will happen when you want them to, and you can blend between them and build more complex animation, from a character's fight moves to an entire battle.
Let's use a keyframe to change the time of day in our scene. Stamp a sun & sky gadget and a keyframe. As soon as you stamp it, recording begins.
But just take your time. This is just recording the state of things. Tweak the sun & sky gadget. On the sun properties page, reduce the sun brightness. About 10% is fine.
On the sky properties page, pick a nice dark sky image, like no. 1. Then reduce the sky brightness, again to about 10%. Hit the stop recording button.
The scene will return to its original sun & sky settings, since keyframes aren't powered on automatically. We want a timer to do that, so stamp one down.
Connect timer output to the power port of the keyframe. It'll give us a nice smooth signal which increases in strength, because it represents where the timer is in its run.
Start time and watch night fall on your scene.
Timeline
This is rather like a sequencer... but for everything. And we mean everything. A timeline isn't only for animation. You can add just about anything to it.
Basically, if it has a gadget, you can wire it up, place it on a timeline, and have it do its thing when you want it to. Sounds, logic, sensors, cameras, lights... you name it.
Open the timeline canvas with +. Hover over the edges and press and drag to resize it. Zoom in and out by holding and pressing or
Check the button prompts round the imp for more controls. Let's give it a go. We'll make a rock fall and shake our camera. Stamp in a sphere for the rock, some way off the floor.
Now stamp a timeline, open it with +, and add a keyframe to it on the top row at 0 seconds, right at the start. As soon as you put it down you're recording.
You need to tell the keyframe what it is you want to record, so hover over the sphere and press . Hit stop recording and clone your existing keyframe with +
Move the clone to the 1 second mark. Scope in to the clone with +. This puts us into recording mode again, with the sphere position already registered.
This is because you cloned the keyframe. Grab the sphere, put it on the floor, and hit stop recording. Now, we don't want the rock to teleport from A to B, do we?
So hover over the space between the keyframes and press +. This adds a blend between them, i.e. a smooth path between the rock's start and end positions.
There are different types of blend - you can cycle through them here and find out more about them on the keyframe tweaks. Pick any blend for now.
We want the rock to stay on the floor once it's down there, so enable keep changes on the second keyframe. Now add a camera shaker, right after the second keyframe.
Start time and witness your rock fall. If you run it with the timeline open you can see the playhead pass over the gadgets and activate them.
What could you do to improve this? How about adding a sound effect, or tinkering with some of the tweaks?
This is rather like a sequencer... but for everything. And we mean everything. A timeline isn't only for animation. You can add just about anything to it.
Basically, if it has a gadget, you can wire it up, place it on a timeline, and have it do its thing when you want it to. Sounds, logic, sensors, cameras, lights... you name it.
Open the timeline canvas with on + on . Hover over the edges and press on and drag to resize it. Zoom in and out by holding on and twisting
Check the button prompts round the imp for more controls. Let's give it a go. We'll make a rock fall and shake our camera. Stamp in a sphere for the rock, some way off the floor.
Now stamp a timeline, open it with on + on , and add a keyframe to it on the top row at 0 seconds, right at the start. As soon as you put it down you're recording.
You need to tell the keyframe what it is you want to record, so hover over the sphere and press on . Hit stop recording and clone your existing keyframe.
Move the clone to the 1 second mark. Scope in to the clone with on + on . This puts us into recording mode again, with the sphere position already registered.
This is because you cloned the keyframe. Grab the sphere, put it on the floor, and hit stop recording. Now, we don't want the rock to teleport from A to B, do we?
Hover the space between the keyframes and press on + on . This adds a blend between them, i.e. a smooth path between the rock's start and end positions.
There are different types of blend - you can cycle through them here and find out more about them on the keyframe tweaks. Pick any blend for now.
We want the rock to stay on the floor once it's down there, so enable keep changes on the second keyframe. Now add a camera shaker, right after the second keyframe.
Start time and witness your rock fall. If you run it with the timeline open you can see the playhead pass over the gadgets and activate them.
What could you do to improve this? How about adding a sound effect, or tinkering with some of the tweaks?
Record Possession
A handy way to record the actions of a possessed character (or indeed anything you've made possessable) without having to enter test mode.
On pressing record possession, a count-in option appears, which is on by default. Once you possess, you are given a 3 second count-in before recording begins.
Go ahead and do your thing and it will all be saved in the possession recorder. Once you're done, de-possess and you'll have the option to retake or stop recording.
Let's make an obstacle course with a pre-recorded run the player has to beat. Make yourself a pile of cubes for a puppet to climb up using sculpt mode.
The puppet can jump pretty high, so scale some of those cubes up quite big. Once you have a structure you're happy with, stamp in a blank puppet and a possession recorder.
Possess the puppet and get to the top of the structure as quick as you can. Then de-possess and hit stop recording. Scope in to the puppet and open its microchip.
Find the controller sensor. Under possession mode, select none. This gives you a non-player character, as the player can't possess it.
Stamp in another puppet that you can control, go to test mode and try to beat your own run.
Mic On/Off
Switch this on when using an action recorder to record sound to go with your actions. Your imp will wear a wee hula-scope to show that audio is being recorded.
Recording pauses when you pause time and restarts when you start time, so you can take a break and the sound will always line up with the action.
The Dreams User Guide is a work-in-progress. Keep an eye out for updates as we add more learning resources and articles over time.