Assigning Animations to States

The Microsoft Agent animation services automatically play animations when the hosting client application uses certain methods. For example, when an application calls the MoveTo and GestureAt methods, the server automatically determines where the character is displayed and plays an appropriate animation. Similarly, Microsoft Agent automatically plays Idle animations when the user has not interacted with the character for several seconds. These conditions when the server automatically plays animations on an application's behalf are called states. However, for the server to know which animation to play, you must assign animations to these states.

To define a state, create the appropriate animation, expand the States entry in the tree view of the Editor window, and select the State icon. The list of animations you have created appear in a list box on the right side of the window. Check the animation you want to assign to this state. Note that you can assign more than one animation to the same state. This allows the server to randomly select different animations for the state. Assigning an animation to a state does not prevent an animation from playing that animation directly.

You can also assign an animation to a state by selecting the animation's entry in the tree. The Assign To State list box on the Properties page lists the states. Select the check box of the state to which you're assigning the animation.