Animations are movement data applied to a digital skeleton, which would subsequently be attached to a mesh to create the impression of movement. This section covers how to upload animations into a digital skeleton in the CAS.

Exporting from Blender

The CAS works best if animation files are exported in glb format. This guide is using Blender version 4.3.2.

1. Assuming your animation is complete in blender, you want to ensure that your animation is named appropriately in the action editor. You also want to ensure that it is the only animation in the armature.
2. You will also want to check the Manual Frame Range option in the and set the appropriate frame range of your animation. Tyto assumes a frame rate of 30fps. Additionally, adjust the frame range in the render settings.
3. Once those are set, select only the armature in object mode. Go to file > export > glTF 2.0
4. For the export properties, you will want these options checked. Once they are set, name your export and export your animation glb wherever you wish.

Importing to a skeleton in the CAS

A skeleton is where animations for a body type are housed. Typically skeletons can be shared if the body type is similar enough (ie. two different named characters can share the same skeleton if they are both tall and lanky characters) Let’s go through how to upload animations to their own skeletons in the CAS:

1. From the main CAS menu, select the Animations link.
2. You will find yourself in the Animations page, where the skeleton library is housed
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select the + Create New button. Name your skeleton and then *select the Create Skeleton* button**
4. You will find yourself in the page of the skeleton you have created, where you will house the animation files for that skeleton. You can drag and drop your animation glb into the upload area, or click on that area to navigate to your mesh file in your folders and select the desired mesh file.
5. Once uploaded, you will see your uploaded animation in the page of your skeleton. You may continue to upload animations associated with that skeleton to this page. NOTE: You should ensure every skeleton has an animation named idle, as that is the programmatic default read by the engine.

Now you have your skeleton, and you may attach the skeleton to a mesh to create an NPC asset, which will be covered in the NPC Editor section of this document.

Best Practices

Here are some general guidelines for animations to be set up for import into the CAS:

As mentioned, each skeleton you create in the CAS would mandatorily need an animation named idle in its library for the skeleton to programmatically work. Be sure to have at least one idle animation per skeleton, and ideally it would look like how the intended character would move when standing still, but this is up to your creative discretion.
Reiterating again, you want to ensure that your animation is named appropriately in the action editor. You also want to ensure that it is the only animation in the armature before export, as a result you would probably have several blender files, each its own representative animation for your character.
We recommend naming your files and your mesh data in a way that best makes sense to you and your organisational sensibilities.