character studio is a set of components that provides a full set of tools for animating characters.

character studio lets you create skeletal hierarchies for two-legged characters (called bipeds) that can be animated quickly using a wide variety of methods. If your character walks on two legs, the software provides unique footstep animation that automatically creates movement based on gravity, balance, and other factors.

If you want to animate motions manually, you can use freeform animation. This type of animation is also suitable for characters with more than two legs, or characters that fly or swim. With freeform animation, you can animate the skeleton with traditional inverse kinematic techniques.

You can also animate a biped skeleton by loading motion capture files. You can convert back and forth between these methods to take advantage of their several benefits.

character studio also provides tools for skinning a character using the biped skeleton, or any other type of linked hierarchy.

The software provides a unique ability to separate the motion of the animation from the structure of the character. This means you can animate a giant walking and apply that motion to a tiny elf, or animate a fat character and retarget the same motion to thin one. Using a library of motions, you can animate a character doing hundreds of different actions, as easily as loading a file.

The software provides a comprehensive range of tools for motion editing. You use motion scripting to sequence animations with transitions. Different animations can be overlaid using layers, or blended with the new nonlinear Motion Mixer.

You can use function curve editing, available on the track bar or in Track View, or in the new Animation Workbench, to alter animations. The workbench also provides specialized tools to analyze and correct errors in motion. Finally, the software provides options for creating crowds of bipeds or other objects with a procedural animation system that uses forces and behaviors to drive the characters' motions.

character studio consists of three basic components: