> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://help.intangible.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://help.intangible.ai/build/pose-edit-mode.md). # Pose Edit Mode Pose a character joint by joint, or start from a named pose and adjust from there. A character arrives in a default stance. Getting it to kneel, reach, or sit in a car seat means moving joints, not the whole figure. Pose Edit Mode does that one joint at a time. Pose Edit Mode shipped in release 2.0.67. ![A character in Pose Edit Mode, joints shown as white dots along the rig, with the mode indicator top left and the control legend bottom left](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-0251f6ac9d0c23f8cd762e57883f9b03beba82bf%2Fpose-edit-joints-01.png?alt=media) ## Pose a joint 1. **Select the character** in Build. 2. **Open Pose Edit Mode** from the **Pose** button on the contextual toolbar that appears with the character selected. The indicator at the top left changes to read Pose Edit Mode, and the button's own tooltip changes to Exit pose mode, because it is a toggle: click it again to come back out. 3. **Find the joint.** Joints appear as white dots along the rig: shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, ankles. 4. **Click the joint.** Rotation rings appear around it, one per axis. 5. **Drag a ring.** The limb rotates around that axis. The rest of the figure holds. ![Rotating a joint in Pose Edit Mode](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-eb9e066776107d79f1fd2809f8fe81e96fd71936%2Fpose-edit-rotate-01.gif?alt=media) ## Start from a named pose Building a pose from the default stance is slow. The **Select Pose** library holds presets you can drop onto the character and adjust from there. Poses carry names like Being Carried, Bent Over, and Crouch 01 through Crouch 06. A search field filters the list. ![The Select Pose library: a search field, the Actions, Activities, Gestures, Movement and Neutral category chips, and a row of named pose thumbnails](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-52d2e1439c217de70683e5c325c1ca448593dd9d%2Fpose-edit-library-01.png?alt=media) Pick one, then adjust individual joints on top of it. Choosing a pose closes the drawer and puts focus back on the viewport, so undo works on the pose you just applied without clicking into the scene first. Filter chips sit above the thumbnails, or inside the grid when the drawer is narrow. The pose you are currently on is marked in the grid. Inside Pose Edit Mode, the pose toolbar has a **Full body poses** button that opens the same drawer. The **Full body poses** and **Save full body pose** buttons show only for humanoid characters. Other rigs can still be posed joint by joint, and can use [partial poses](#save-and-reuse-part-of-a-pose). Library poses fit any humanoid whose bones carry Mixamo names, whatever its proportions or rest pose (T-pose or A-pose). A pose built on one body shape can miss its contacts on another: praying hands may not quite meet on a character with longer arms. Adjust those joints by hand after applying. ## Move limbs by their ends (IK) Rotating shoulder, then elbow, then wrist to put a hand on a table is slow. Inverse kinematics lets you drag the hand there and the arm follows. The pose toolbar at the bottom has one **Kinematics** button. Its icon shows the current mode, and its menu offers two: * **Forward kinematics (FK)**: rotate individual joints. This is the joint-by-joint posing described above. * **Inverse kinematics (IK)**: move hands, feet and hips; the joints follow. Dragging past reach pulls the body along, except pinned limbs. Press `K` to switch between them without opening the menu. ![The Kinematics menu open above the pose toolbar: Forward kinematics (FK), Rotate individual joints, and Inverse kinematics (IK), ticked, which moves hands, feet and hips while the joints follow](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-20358f3c39de428605b872a8eaa6b46153a8d858%2Fpose-kinematics-menu-01.png?alt=media) In IK, select a hand, a foot or the hips and the gizmo can move it as well as rotate it. The elbow or knee bends to keep up. The IK option is greyed out, with the reason, on a character it can't drive, and reads **Character is loading** until the rig is ready. ### Pin a limb Drag the hips down into a crouch and the feet slide with them. To stop that, pin them. With an IK hand, foot or the hips selected, the bar beside it carries a **Pin** button ("Pin – other drags won't pull it along"). A pinned limb stays put while you drag the rest of the body. Click it again to **Unpin**. ## Curl the fingers Click a hand or any finger joint and the bar beside it carries a **Rig** button. It opens a panel with one **Curl** slider: * **With the hand selected**, Curl bends every finger together, from straight at 0% to a fist at 100%, with the thumb wrapping over the fingers. * **With a finger selected**, it bends that whole finger. Releasing the slider is one undo step. Curl works on characters with Mixamo-style hand bones. If the rig can't load, the panel says **Couldn't load the rig** with a **Try again** button. ![The Rig panel open under a selected wrist with the Curl slider at 57% and the fingers half-closed below it](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-187e83181cec176e62cae30d278edfe8f5327e32%2Fpose-rig-curl-01.png?alt=media) ## Save your own pose Once a pose is right, save it so you can drop it onto any humanoid later, or hand it to the rest of your team. 1. **Build the pose** in Pose Edit Mode. Start from a library pose, adjust joints, or both. 2. **Click Save full body pose** on the pose toolbar. It is the icon with a plus, next to the **Full body poses** button. 3. **Name it** in the **Save Full Body Pose** dialog. The dialog renders a thumbnail of the character first, and the button reads Preparing… until it is ready. Names can be up to 100 characters. 4. **Click Save.** A toast confirms **Full body pose saved to My Poses**. ![The Save Full Body Pose dialog: Save this full body pose to your team's pose library, a thumbnail of the character, the name Raised fist typed in, and Cancel and Save](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-4348a7ea70e727fd592577f4f7e54c737b3c4516%2Fpose-save-dialog-01.png?alt=media) The pose lands in a **My Poses** category in the pose library, with the name and thumbnail you saved. It is saved exactly as it looks, including any joint edits you made on top of a library pose, so applying it later reproduces the same result. ![The Select Pose drawer filtered to the My Poses chip, showing one saved pose, Raised fist, with its thumbnail](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-e73b5cb01139324803d436602b86762f3562b78e%2Fpose-library-my-poses-01.png?alt=media) ### Who can see saved poses Saved poses belong to the workspace you are working in, not to you alone. * **Team workspace**: everyone on that team sees the pose under My Poses. * **Personal workspace**: the pose is saved to your personal workspace, so only you see it. Poses saved in one workspace do not show up in another. See [Workspaces](/teams-and-billing/workspaces.md). If the dialog says **Select a team to save a pose.**, the editor could not tell which workspace to save to, for example in a project shared with you from a team you are not on. Switch to one of your own workspaces and try again. ### Rename, replace or delete a saved pose Hover a pose you saved in a pose library and a **...** menu appears on it: * **Rename** opens **Rename Pose** with the current name. * **Replace with current pose** overwrites the saved pose and its thumbnail with the pose on screen, through the same save dialog with the name filled in. A full body pose can only be replaced by a full body pose, and a section pose only by a section pose. * **Delete** asks first. The pose leaves your team's library, and scenes that already use it keep it. Library poses and clips have no menu; only poses saved in your workspace do. ![The ... menu on a saved pose under My Poses, open on Rename, Replace with current pose and Delete](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-8ff7a0f27eb1a6d0a9e9bc9c1adad92c28a5801c%2Fsaved-pose-menu-01.png?alt=media) ## Save and reuse part of a pose Sometimes the body is fine and only the hand is wrong. Section poses save and apply one part of the body and leave the rest of the character alone. On a humanoid, the joints belong to five named sections. They nest, so a bigger section contains the smaller ones: | Section | Covers | | -------------- | --------------------------------- | | **Hand** | the wrist and every finger | | **Arm** | the shoulder to the fingertips | | **Upper body** | the spine, the head and both arms | | **Leg** | the hip to the toes | | **Lower body** | the hips and both legs | Upper body and lower body together make the full body. Lower-body poses keep the hips' height, so a kneel or a sit lands on the floor, and the upper body keeps facing where it was. Click a joint in Pose Edit Mode. The bar beside it offers the sections that joint belongs to, narrowest first: a library button (**Hand poses**, **Arm poses** and so on) and a save button. When a joint sits in more than one section, each button has a chevron and a menu, and its tooltip names them all, such as *Hand, arm, and upper body poses*. A joint in one section gets a plain button. ![The bar beside a selected wrist: the section pose library button and the save button, each with a chevron, then Pin and Rig. The save menu is open on Save hand pose, Save arm pose and Save upper body pose](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-55c8af1b91ee06a04e23d22641e27ae247b91206%2Fpose-bone-bar-hand-01.png?alt=media) ### Save a section pose 1. **Pose that part of the body** the way you want it. 2. **Open the save button** beside the joint and pick the section. 3. **Name it** in the dialog: **Save Hand Pose**, **Save Arm Pose**, **Save Upper Body Pose**, **Save Leg Pose** or **Save Lower Body Pose**. The thumbnail is framed on that part of the body. 4. **Click Save.** A toast confirms it, such as **Hand pose saved**. Section poses follow the same workspace rules as full poses, and get the same **...** menu. ### Apply one 1. **Click a joint** in the part you want to change. 2. **Open the library button** and pick the section. A drawer lists the poses saved for it, with a search field. 3. **Pick one.** Only that section changes. The rest of the character, including the base pose and any other joint edits, stays as it was. One undo reverses it. Applying an arm or upper-body pose replaces the hand pose under it, because the arm contains the hand. If nothing has been saved yet, the drawer says so, for example **No hand poses yet. Select a hand and use Save hand pose to add one.** ### Left side, right side Hand, arm and leg poses apply to either side. Apply a right-hand pose to the left hand and it is mirrored, so a pointing finger still points, rather than bending the wrong way. ### Other rigs Characters that aren't humanoid, such as a horse or a custom rig, and extra bones on a humanoid, such as a ponytail, have no sections. On those, the bar offers **Partial poses** and **Save partial pose**, which cover the clicked joint and every joint below it. Saved poses and partial poses were added in release 2.0.74. Sections, IK, Curl and the saved-pose menu were added in release 2.0.77. ## Pose your own rigged character A rigged character you import keeps its skeleton. Import a skinned GLB or FBX through the asset library (see [Import your own models](/build/import-your-own-models.md)) and it is placed as a character. Select it, open Pose, and its joints pick and rotate from the rest pose it was exported in. * **Mixamo bone names make it a humanoid.** The full body library, the sections and Save full body pose all work on it. * **Any other skeleton** poses joint by joint with partial poses. It doesn't share the humanoid pose library. * **Animations don't come in.** The rig does; its animation clips are dropped. * **It lives under My Assets** in the asset library, not in the Characters drawer. ## Move the whole character Posing joints moves limbs. To move the figure itself, select the **root circle** at the base of the rig. With it selected the ordinary gizmo comes back, so you can translate, rotate and scale the whole character, with the same global and local modes and the same snapping you use outside the mode. See [Transform](/build/transform.md). That means you can pose a character and place it without leaving and re-entering. Added in release 2.0.72. ## Moving around while you pose The camera controls differ from the main Build viewport. | Action | Input | | ------------------- | ----- | | Orbit | Mouse | | Pan | Mouse | | Zoom | Mouse | | Frame the character | `F` | **`Esc` exits**, and so does the X in the control bar, and so does clicking the Pose button a second time. The mode's own toolbar labels its exit **Exit pose mode**. ## Hairstyle Pose is not the only thing on that contextual toolbar. **Hairstyle** sits beside it and opens a **Select Hairstyle** drawer: a grid of styles with a **Search hairstyles** field above it, and a **None** card first that clears whatever the character is wearing. ![The Select Hairstyle drawer: a None card carrying a crossed-circle icon, then a grid of hairstyle thumbnails, with a search field across the top](https://1179478100-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FSWrjIqlgVAblx6vHGJiM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-086734d223f60845e812e394deb4838f4db4c11e%2Fselect-hairstyle-01.png?alt=media) Picking one applies it and closes the drawer, the same way the pose library behaves. ## Related * [Working with objects](/build/working-with-objects.md) for selection, parenting, and transforms * [Animation](/compose/animation.md) for keyframing a character across a shot --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. 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