MySkit Tutorial #1 - Create Your First Skit!

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Creating Your First Skit!

Any PLEO owner has probably noticed that PLEO moves! PLEO moves a lot in fact. Besides walking, most PLEO movement is controlled by skits, made with a program like MySkit.

In this tutorial, we focus on creating a simple skit.

Our goals are:

Starting MySkit
Creating a PLEO performance
Learning to edit PLEO motions
Previewing the motion (on your PC)

So you want to make PLEO do something? No problem. Let's get started!

1.0 Starting MySkit

(1)	Install MySkit if you haven't done so already. Download the MySkit Installer to your PC desktop. Double click the program & follow the simple step-by-step instructions.

(2)	Select the "Start" Menu, then "Programs", "PLEO Tools", and finally "MySkit". The first time you start MySkit, you see the "Welcome to MySkit" window (see right). You're asked if Windows should use MySkit to open PLEO skits. This only appears once & you won't be bothered by it again. Click "OK" (recommended).

(3)	If you clicked "Skip" instead, Windows is not configured. You'll need to start MySkit first, then use "Open" from the toolbar or File Menu.

2.0 Create a PLEO Performance

(1)	Time for something interesting. After starting MySkit, you'll see two editors shown -- one for Motion & one for sound. For the moment, we'll ignore the Wave editor.

3.0 Editing PLEO Motions

(1)

First, let's make the motion editor bigger. Click on the toolbar "Motion" button. The motion editor fills the MySkit window (see below).

Down the left side is a list of PLEO's movable joints. There are quite a few -- you might need the scrollbar to see them all.

Below the toolbar, is the 3D PLEO preview, and timeline (or ruler-bar). If you click-n-drag on the preview, the PLEO image rotates around for different views.

(2)

First, we need to lengthen the skit slightly. Move the mouse over keyframe blue tab at time 61, and left-click.. Note the tab turns green.

Next, click-n-drag the tag to frame 91 (the 3 second mark) as shown.

(3)

Move the mouse back to frame 30 (the 1 second mark) and left-click. This moves the orange cursor.

Next, move the mouse down to where the orange marker & black line for "Mouth" cross, and left-click. An orange "edit-diamond" appears on the intersection. An orange box also appears next to the servo title.

(4)

Time to get our hands dirty. Click-n-drag the orange edit-diamond upwards until the Mouth servo reads 90 degrees.

Alternatively, you could have pressed Enter, or clicked on the orange edit box. You'd then type in "90" directly.

(5)

Punching numbers is a little tedious. So let's use the "PLEO Window" instead! From the View menu, click "PLEO Window" (see right). You get a bigger PLEO with a media-bar along the bottom.

Click the pencil icon Pencil

in the lower right to enable editing.

Now just click-n-drag on PLEO's legs & head. Easy eh? Adjust PLEO as shown. Watch the motion editor while adjusting & you'll see the values change. Here are settings to aim for:

"Head Tilt" to be "18"
"Head Pan/Yaw" to be "-50"
"Mouth" to be "90"
"Front Left & Right Leg Vertical" to be "-30"
"Front Left & Right Leg Knee" to be "70"
"Waist" to be "-15"
"Back Left & Right Leg Vertical" to be "45"
"Back Left & Right Leg Knee" to be "-90"

Click-n-drag on PLEO's body to rotate & view from different angles.

(6)

Only a couple little things left.   We need to make PLEO pause slightly so it looks less mechanical.

Go back to the Motion Editor, and click on time 30 tab if not selected.   The tab turns green.

Press the toolbar "Copy" button.   Click on time 61, and press the "Paste" button.   A copy of our keyframe appears.

(7)

Finally, let's make PLEO look happy with some tail wagging..

MySkit has a nifty tool for this otherwise tedious challenge.   From the Motion menu, select "Tailwag Wizard".

The default settings are fine, so click OK.   Tada!   Instant tail wagging.

Don't like the result?   Select Undo from the Edit Menu & try again.

Feel free to try the different settings here.   The small preview shows how fast PLEO's tail will move.

(8)

Save it! Click the toolbar "Save" button. Because this is a new performance, MySkit asks for a filename.

Save somewhere on your PC -- not the memory stick -- preferably a folder just for skits. MySkit refers to this as your "action directory".

Type "firstskit" (or whatever filename you like) and click the Save button.

4.0 Preview the Motion

(1)	Ok, the moment of truth. Let's see what its going to look like on PLEO. Click on the "PLEO Window" -- anywhere but the media-bar. Click on the move-to-start button (left-most). You should see PLEO back in its default standing position.

(2)	Now click the green start button to begin playback. PLEO should look at you & wag his tail.

(3)	Congratulations! You've finished the first tutorial! Your first PLEO skit is ready to roll! Click-n-drag on PLEO to rotate around to different angles. Try the replay again. Feel free to play around with the media controls. In the next tutorial, we cover adding sound! Got a question? Ask Dogsbody!

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