Pivot

Every part turns and swings about its pivot. The app sets it: when the Animate tab opens, parts that touch are attached, and each pivot is set where the two parts meet. A part attached to nothing has no pivot of its own and turns about its bottom middle. The pivot’s controls are in the part’s line on Rig .

Where the pivot is

Open Animate › Rig and tap the part’s line under Its parts, or tap the part on the stage. The coral dot on the fig is its pivot. The Pivot row reads one of three things.

• auto-placed: the app put the pivot where the part meets the part it is attached to, or a preset move placed it. An arm or a leg named in Rig that lies along the body’s side gets its pivot at its top, the shoulder or the hip, so it swings from there and not from its middle.
• moved by you: you dragged the dot, used the sliders, or tapped a spot.
• none: the part is attached to nothing and turns about its bottom middle.

Move the pivot

Use Move the pivot to put the pivot where the part should turn. Tap it in the part’s open line. Three sliders and a button open under it.

• Slide Side, Up, and Front. Each reaches one block past the part’s edges.
• Tap the button Tap the fig to place it. It then reads Tap the fig…. Tap the spot on the fig.
• Drag the coral dot on the stage. It moves the pivot only while Move the pivot is open. At other times a drag on the dot poses the part.

The Pivot row then reads moved by you. Tap Move the pivot again to close it.

A part that is playing cannot take a new pivot. The line reads Stop its move first.

Reset pivot

Use Reset pivot to undo a pivot you moved. The pivot returns to where the part meets the part it is attached to, or to the top of a named arm or leg. On a part attached to nothing it returns to the bottom middle. The button is greyed until the Pivot row reads moved by you.

At the foot of Rig, Put every pivot back does this for every part, and attaches the parts again from how they touch now. The line reads Every pivot is back where its part meets the part it is attached to., or Nothing to put back. No pivot was moved, and the parts do not touch.

From Pose by hand

On Pose by hand , the line Bends in the wrong place? Fix its pivot in Rig › opens that part’s line on Rig.

The dot while you name parts

While Name its parts under Rig asks for parts, every part you tap shows its dot. Drag the dot to move the pivot. It slides across that part’s surface, snapped to the grid, and the Pivot row reads moved by you.

What the pivot means

• Turn spins the part around a line through its pivot (a propeller). The Around row sets the line: Up, Side, or Front.
• Swing hinges the part from the pivot (a lid).
• Slide pushes the part out from the pivot or back toward it (a drawer).

Walk & run and Gestures place a pivot on the parts they use when a part has none: legs and arms at the top, wings and tails at the root, wheels at the center.