Custom Actions and Motion Capture

When the action library doesn’t have the move you need, make your own. The Animation studio builds an animation for one character from a series of poses, and gives you four ways to get those poses: pose by hand, describe the motion to AI, build on an existing animation, or record yourself with motion capture. The app calls these your own animations; they work just like library actions.

Open the Animation studio

1. Select the character on the canvas. It must be facing Front
2. Click Actions in its toolbar
3. Under My animations, click Create your own animation

The Animation studio opens in a popup and asks how you want to start:

Option	What it does
Describe it with AI	Type what the character does; the AI animates it and you fine-tune
Start from a pose	Pose the character step by step on a simple timeline
Build on an animation	Start from one of your saved animations or a library animation (idle standing, waving, walking, talking, dancing or jumping, when the character has them). The original stays unchanged
Record with camera	Act it out on your webcam or in a video, and Glintia turns your movement into poses

Your work is saved as a draft as you go, so closing the popup by accident doesn’t lose it.

Note

Your own animations are drawn from the front. If the character is turned to Side or 3/4, the Actions panel asks you to turn it back to Front before you can create or use them.

Pose an animation by hand

An animation is a set of poses on a timeline; the studio moves smoothly from one to the next. Start from a pose gives you two standing poses, at 0 and 1 second, to begin with.

1. Click a pose dot on the studio timeline to select it
2. On the character, drag the blue dots to pose it. Pull a wrist or an ankle and the limb bends naturally. The small purple dots turn the hands and feet
3. Move the playhead and click Add pose here to add the next key moment. Turn on Ghosts to see faint outlines of the neighbouring poses
4. Drag a pose dot along the timeline to retime it, or double-click it to duplicate it. The first pose is always at 0 seconds
5. Press Space or click Play to preview, with Loop on to repeat it

With a pose selected, the side panel offers:

• How it moves to the next pose: the easing for the move out of this pose, with a curve preview
• Hands & face for this pose: swap in other hand, mouth, eye or brow drawings the character has
• Elbow bend direction: In or Out for each arm
• Reset this pose, Duplicate and Delete (an animation needs at least two poses)

With no pose selected, the panel shows an overview of every pose and Smoothness (frames per second): 12 · choppy, 24 · smooth or 30 · smoothest.

Undo with Ctrl+Z and redo with Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z (Cmd on a Mac). Delete or Backspace removes the selected pose.

Describe it with AI

1. Choose Describe it with AI
2. Under Describe the motion, type what happens, for example “jumps up excitedly with both fists in the air, then lands and waves”. You can also click the microphone to say it instead of typing
3. Set Length (seconds), from 1 to 15
4. Click Generate animation. The AI acts out your description in a few seconds, and every pose stays editable

Once you’re in the editor, the wand button opens the same tool with three modes:

• New animation: replace the timeline with a new motion
• Add to end: append 1 to 4 new poses, for example “then takes a deep bow”
• This pose: re-pose the selected pose from a description, such as “arms crossed, head tilted back proudly”

Generating motion doesn’t use AI credits. Dictating with the microphone is transcribed at the usual rate of 0.25 AI credits per minute.

Record with motion capture

Motion capture turns your own movement into poses. Choose Record with camera in the studio, then pick a source on the Capture your movement screen.

Record live with your webcam

1. Click Record with camera and allow camera access
2. Stand back so your whole body fits in the small camera view. The character on screen copies your movement live
3. Click Record. After a 3, 2, 1 countdown, act out the motion
4. Click Stop recording. Recordings run up to 30 seconds and must be at least 2 seconds long

While you record, Glintia also reads your facial expression and hand gestures and switches the character’s face and hand drawings to match, when the character has matching artwork. If those detectors can’t load on your device, you’ll see Expressions off or Hand gestures off and only your body is captured. After capture, a message lists any detected motions the character had no artwork for; those poses are left unchanged.

Upload a video

1. Click Upload a video and choose a clip from your phone or computer (up to 100 MB), or a GIF
2. On Trim your clip, drag the range to keep just the motion you want. 3 to 10 seconds works best
3. Click Turn it into animation

Uploaded videos capture body movement only. GIFs skip the trim step.

After capture

The processing happens entirely on your device; the video never leaves your browser. If your legs were out of frame or hard to track, you’re asked whether to Keep the character’s legs still (recommended). The result opens in the editor as poses you can fine-tune like any other animation.

Tip

Film your whole body, face the camera, use good lighting and a plain background. Big, clear movements track best.

Save and use your animation

1. Type a name in Name your animation (up to 60 characters)
2. Click Save animation. If the button is greyed out, hover it to see what’s missing: a name, at least two poses, or a length of at least half a second
3. Click Back to editor

The animation is saved under My animations in the Actions panel for this character. Glintia also renders a short animated preview for its tile. Use it like a library action: click it to make it the default action, or click + to add it to the timeline. See Adding and Directing Characters.

Edit or delete an animation

Hover your animation in the Actions panel:

• Click the pencil (Edit this animation) to reopen it in the studio, then click Save changes
• Click the trash icon (Delete this animation) and confirm. This deletes it everywhere and can’t be undone

Limits

Limit	Value
Your own animations per account	30 (delete unused ones to make room)
Poses per animation	2 to 60
Animation length	Half a second to 30 seconds
Live webcam recording	Up to 30 seconds
Uploaded video	Up to 100 MB
Facing	Front only

An animation belongs to the character it was made for and appears only in that character’s Actions panel.

Troubleshooting

• “This feature needs WebAssembly”: the studio’s pose engine needs WebAssembly. Turn off Lockdown Mode or strict security settings for the site, or use another browser, then reload
• Camera unavailable: allow camera access for the site in your browser and click Try again
• “We couldn’t see a full body in this clip”: make sure your whole body is visible and well lit
• “That was too short”: record at least a couple of seconds with your upper body visible
• “You have reached your custom action limit”: delete animations you no longer use

Related articles

• Adding and Directing Characters
• AI Actions
• Upload and Rig Your Own Character
• Keyframes, Motion Paths and Camera Moves