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Tutorial 4: Rig and animate a character with bones

You will make: a simple character animation using the Rig/Animate tools in the Costumes area. You do not need a code script to pose the bones, but you can turn the finished frames into ordinary costumes and then play them with blocks.

Step 1 — Choose the character

  1. Select a sprite with a vector costume made from separate shapes. G-Spark is a good starting point because the project notes describe walk and wave starter animations for it.
  2. Open Costumes and choose Animation. If the button or mode is absent in your current build, stop here and confirm the version instead of guessing.

Step 2 — Set up the rig

  1. Choose Rig mode and add bones for the main body and moving parts, such as the arms and legs.
  2. Attach the appropriate shapes to each bone. Keep parent/child relationships simple: a hand can follow an arm, and an arm can follow the body.
  3. Move a bone end a little and check which shapes follow. Undo if the wrong parts move, then adjust the attachment before continuing.

Step 3 — Make poses

  1. Switch to Animate mode and select the first frame.
  2. Pose the bones for the starting position. Add another frame, move the bone ends slightly, and continue for a short loop of 4–8 poses.
  3. Turn on Onion skin if available to compare nearby poses. Try In-between to add a middle pose, or Smooth x2 to add/smooth intermediate motion.
  4. Press Play, then adjust frames that pop or twist unexpectedly. Start with a slow FPS setting while debugging.

Step 4 — Make costumes

  1. Use Make costumes to convert the animation's frames into regular costumes.
  2. Return to Code and add when flag clicked, forever, next costume, and wait (0.1) seconds.
  3. Press Start and confirm the costume order matches the poses. Save a separate copy before using the animation in a larger project.
when flag clicked
forever
  next costume
  wait (0.1) seconds

Gotchas: save/reopen behavior, clone animation independence, undo-after-rename, bitmap costumes and Stop during playback still need focused regression testing. Treat them as test cases, not guaranteed behavior. Keep each pose small so the character's centre and scale remain consistent.

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