Scene preview

1. The Scene preview row with On picked.
2. Reset preview, in the header. It shows while any preview is set.

When to use it

The scene preview draws the avatar in the Scene view as if an entry were on, off or set to a value, without Play mode and without changing the avatar. Use it to check what a toggle, a radial, a preset or a trigger does while you build. It only draws: nothing in the build changes.

For the situations the preview cannot show, such as your own animations or a merged animator, test in Play mode with Gesture Manager. See Your first toggle.

Turning it on

The preview is part of NDMF's previews. Turn it on in two places:

1. Tools > NDM Framework > Enable Previews switches NDMF's previews on.
2. Tools > NDM Framework > Configure Previews lists the preview nodes. The AvatarDoc node is on by default.

While the preview is off, the header says Scene preview is off. Switch it on under Tools > NDM Framework > Enable Previews, then turn on the AvatarDoc entry under Tools > NDM Framework > Configure Previews, to see entries applied to the avatar. The preview row still remembers what you choose, but nothing shows in the Scene view until the preview is on.

The preview draws on temporary copies of the renderers that NDMF makes. It never writes to your own renderers, objects or materials.

Settings

Scene preview

Shown in: Advanced for a toggle and a radial; Simple and Advanced for a preset, a trigger and an override · Default: Default · Choices: Default, On, Off

The row at the bottom of the panel. What it offers depends on the kind:

• A toggle, a preset and a condition trigger: Default, On and Off.
• A radial: Default and a slider from 0 to 1.
• A trigger that starts from a blend shape: no choice, only a note, such as Follows Face/Smile in the scene. It always follows the weight of its source shape in the scene, and cannot be forced on or off.
• A contact or PhysBone trigger in Flip mode: only the Simulate touch button.
• An override: the three choices, greyed out. Its pinned values are always part of the preview.
• A merged animator, and a row of the avatar's own menu or of another tool: no preview row. The panel of a merged animator says so.

A set preview belongs to the editor session, not to the avatar. Two copies of one avatar, such as a PC and a Quest twin, share it, and a script reload clears it all.

Default

Shown in: as the row

Clears the preview of this entry, so it falls back to its own default state: a toggle to its Default on choice, a radial to its Default. A condition trigger falls back to idle: it shows nothing until you press On or Off. For a preset, Default clears the previews of the controls the preset names and leaves every other preview alone.

On

Shown in: as the row

Forces the entry on. For a member of an exclusive group, the other members go off, as they would in the avatar. For a preset, it sets every control in its list to the state of its row, once, and it does not stay held the way a toggle's On does. The rows under Other parameters are not part of the preview. For a trigger, it draws the trigger's effects as if its condition were true, as long as its requirements and its gate allow it.

Off

Shown in: as the row

Forces the entry off. For a preset, it forces every control in its list off, or to 0 for a radial.

The slider

Shown in: Advanced · Default: the radial's own Default · Range: 0 to 1

Shown for a radial in place of On and Off. Dragging it draws the radial at that position, live.

Simulate touch

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, for a contact or PhysBone trigger in Flip mode

Flips the preview of the toggle that the trigger flips, once, the same as a real touch would. It changes the toggle's preview, never the trigger's own.

Reset preview

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, while any preview is set

A button in the header. One press clears every preview you have set, on any entry and any avatar. The wheel's Reset does the same. See The AvatarDoc window and the wheel. Pressed while the test hand runs, it also clears the previews the hand would put back when it ends.

Test with a hand

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, in the header's Test touches row while the avatar has a contact trigger, and in the panel of each contact trigger · Choices: Test with a hand, or Stop while the hand runs

Starts the test hand: a white sphere in the Scene view, with handles to move it, that stands in for a hand. Pressed in the header, it starts in front of the avatar's face; pressed in a trigger's panel, just in front of that trigger's sphere. While it runs, the selected trigger's own move and size handles step aside, so a drag can only move the hand. Drag it near the avatar, and every contact trigger of the avatar's AvatarDoc components reacts in the preview the way the contact the build makes would, measured at the dot in the middle of the white sphere:

• A Hold trigger is on while the hand touches it.
• A Flip trigger flips its toggle's preview once each time the hand comes in.
• A Fade trigger fades in from the edge of its sphere and is fully on at Fully on at. The preview draws its effects part way, in whole percents: shapes and properties between their two values, an object shown as soon as the fade starts, a material swapped past halfway, as Unity blends them. While a trigger is part way, its Scene preview row picks neither On nor Off.

The sphere of each contact trigger shows in grey, and turns green with its name while the hand touches it. The label beside the hand lists the triggers it touches, a Fade trigger's with how far it is on, and says when a requirement holds one back. Under the label sits Stop, which ends the hand whatever the inspector shows.

A requirement on a toggle and the trigger's Only while are read from the preview's own state, so switch the toggle's preview to try both ways. Another contact is measured against the hand too, and a parameter or a PhysBone counts as met. A group of conditions that are all toggles follows the preview with no hand needed; a group with a parameter or a PhysBone and no contact is left out. A trigger with no contact among its conditions, a blend shape trigger and a Fade trigger that follows a parameter are left out. A contact trigger's panel says when the hand passes it by.

The hand writes only previews: nothing on the avatar, the scene or the components, and no Undo step. While it runs, it decides the preview of every contact trigger it measures. Stop, entering Play mode, selecting another avatar or something that is not part of the avatar, and a script reload each end it, and every preview it set goes back to what it was. Selecting nothing, or a part of the avatar, keeps it. A preview you change yourself after the hand set it, such as a toggle a Flip trigger flipped, stays as you set it.

Counts as

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, in the header while the hand runs · Default: Hand and fingers · Choices: Hand and fingers, Head, Torso, Foot, Custom tag

The body part the hand stands for, which decides the contacts it can touch through their Touched by. Hand and fingers carries Hand, Finger and the tags of each side and finger, such as HandL, FingerIndex and FingerIndexR. Head carries Head, Torso Torso, and Foot Foot, FootL and FootR. Custom tag carries the tag in Tag.

Tag

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, in the header while the hand runs as Custom tag · Default: empty

The tag the hand carries, written the way a contact's Custom tag names it. Type it and press Enter. While it is empty, the hand touches nothing.

Belongs to

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, in the header while the hand runs · Default: Someone else · Choices: Someone else, You

Whose hand it is. Someone else touches the contacts with Others on, the way another player's hand does. You touches the contacts with Self on.

The note about requirements

Shown in: Simple and Advanced, when a trigger or a preview has a requirement the Scene view cannot read

A trigger or a Fade contact that has a parameter, a contact or a PhysBone as a requirement shows the note The preview cannot check a parameter, contact or PhysBone requirement, so it counts those as met. A requirement that is a toggle is read from the preview's own state, the same as Only while. This also holds for a blend shape trigger and for a Fade trigger forced on. The test hand measures a contact requirement against the hand.

What the preview shows

The preview draws objects shown or hidden, blend shape weights, material swaps, material property values, the weights of AvatarDoc Shapes pieces, and the pinned values of overrides. It follows exclusive groups, and the toggle of a trigger's Only while row. Custom animations are not part of it: the panel of an entry with an animation says so. A requirement on a parameter, a contact or a PhysBone counts as met, except a contact the test hand measures.

What AvatarDoc builds

The preview builds nothing. It is part of the editor only.

Messages

The preview raises no messages. When it does not show, the header note about the preview being off is the only sign.

Related

• Test without Play mode, and preview in the scene
• The AvatarDoc window and the wheel
• Toggle