Studio: Game view and live preview

The Game view puts the real game beside Punchy! Studio’s stage. Punchy! Moves plays the clip you have open on your own player, so you see the pose, the face and the timing the way the game draws them, and every change you make shows at once, before you export anything.

This page is for anyone making Punchy! Moves clips in Studio. It shows how to turn the view on, what it plays and what it leaves out, and what each control does.

Before you start

• Punchy! Studio and Punchy! Moves, installed together. The Game view needs Punchy! Moves installed next to Studio, for the same Minecraft version and loader. Studio can still edit and export Moves packs without it. Get Punchy! Studio from Modrinth or CurseForge, and Punchy! Moves from Modrinth or CurseForge.
• A Punchy! Moves build with Studio’s live preview. Moves 1.0.0 has the preview. When Studio finds a Moves build without it, the Game view tells you to update Punchy! Moves.
• A world. The clip plays on your own player, so you have to be in one. A creative flat world is the easiest place to test, and Studio needs no server.
• A clip. Open one in the Animation tab of the Third Person perspective. If you have none yet, Punchy! Studio for Moves packs makes your first one step by step.
• This page was checked against Punchy! Studio 1.1.1 and Punchy! Moves 1.0.0.

Turn it on

What the Game view shows

• Your own player in the game’s own frame. The picture is the game’s frame, copied beside the stage, so the skin and the world are the game’s. Studio’s stage is a replica of how Punchy! Moves poses a player. The Game view is the game itself, so when the two differ, trust the Game view.
• The clip at the playhead. Scrub the timeline, step with the arrow keys or click the ruler, and your player stands where the clip is at that time. Press Play and the game plays it from there.
• Loops and holds. A clip with loop set to true repeats. A clip that does not loop plays once and holds its last pose, and Studio’s playback stops at the end. Press Space at the end to play it again from the start.
• Every change, at once. Key a bone, move a key, change the length or undo, and the game shows the new clip straight away.
• The face. The clip’s face keys and looks play, and the looks and eye shapes of the pack you are editing show too, before you export them. If Punchy! Moves cannot read a part of them, a line in the Game view names what it leaves out.
• Your player only. Punchy! Moves poses only your own player. Other players in the world move as they always do.

What it leaves out

The Game view plays the clip itself, exactly as the animation file holds it. Punchy! Moves poses your player with that clip in place of everything it would play on its own: walking, emotes and the blends between them.

• Item bones. The Game view poses the body and the face. The right_item and left_item keys of a clip do not play in it, so a held item is not moved by the clip. In the game they play once the pack is exported and the clip is bound to an action that holds the item.
• Compat files play no part. Whether a compat file names the clip, and which speed, blend or overlay it gives it, does not matter here. To see a clip the way the game plays it, bind it, export the pack and try it. Make it an emote shows how.
• Reaction changes are not sent. The Game view plays your clip’s face keys, but it does not preview the changes you made to face reactions. Export, then do whatever sets the reaction off in third person. For a changed Starting a run reaction, start running.
• It lives in the Animation tab. The Face and Bindings tabs have no Game view, and leaving the Animation tab for either of them closes it. The Library tab opens the pack list over the Animation tab, so the Game view stays on behind it.

Controls

The keys are those of the Punchy Studio keymap, the default. With another keymap, the menus and F1 show yours, and the stage orbits as Pick a keymap says. The game frame always turns the player with the right or middle button, and the camera settings of Edit > Preferences… change the stage, not the game frame.

The other shortcuts of the Animation tab work as usual, and F1 lists them.

What Studio does to your game

• When you open it, Studio turns the game’s camera to look at your player from the view you picked, and remembers the view you had before.
• When you close it, whether by the menu, by opening the Face or Bindings tab or by closing the editor with F6, Punchy! Moves poses your player again, the packs’ own faces come back and the camera returns to the view it had.
• The setting stays on. Only View > Game View turns it off. While it is on, the view opens again when you come back to the Animation tab or open the editor again.
• Turning your player is real. Dragging in the game frame turns your player in the world, and closing the view does not turn it back.
• The world keeps running. The editor does not pause it, so be somewhere safe.

Try it: a clip that plays once

A looping clip never shows how a clip ends, so make one that does not loop. It takes about a minute. Punchy! Studio for Moves packs has the longer walkthrough, from a new pack to an emote.

Written as an animation file, a clip like the one you keyed looks like this. Studio writes the file when you export, and a pack made by hand can hold the same text:

{
  "format_version": "1.8.0",
  "animations": {
    "raise_arm": {
      "animation_length": 0.8,
      "bones": {
        "right_arm": {
          "rotation": {
            "0.0": [0, 0, 0],
            "0.8": [0, 0, 90]
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Add "loop": true beside animation_length and it repeats. That is the only difference between a loop and a hold.

To make the clip by hand, save the text as a .json file in the assets/punchy_moves/animations folder of a resource pack. Animation files builds a whole pack that way, pack.mcmeta included.

Try a clip from a real pack

A pack you already have works the same way. Choose File > Packs, and under Copy a pack from the game pick the pack. The example pack provided by Crafto, Fluid & Foolish, the animation pack for Punchy! Moves that the demos on this wiki use, is a good one to study. Select one of its clips, sword_attack_1, which does not loop, and play it with the Game view on: it plays once and your player holds its last pose.

The parts of a clip the Game view plays

How every key of a clip is written is in Animation files. Checks in the Properties panel lists anything the game reads differently from how the clip is written.

When the view shows a message

A short line in the Game view tells you why it cannot show the clip.

Things to know

• The Game view shows the clip, not the rules. A clip can look right here and never play in the game because no compat file names it. Check the Verdict in the Bindings tab, export and try it.
• A clip that does not loop stops at its end. Studio’s playback stops there, and the game holds the last pose. Only the JSON value true loops.
• Reactions are not previewed. Export to see changes to face reactions.
• The stage and the game can differ. The stage is Studio’s replica, and the game is the truth.

Related pages

• Punchy! Studio for Moves packs: the whole editor, from a new pack to an emote on your wheel.
• Create an animation and Animation files: the Studio, Blockbench and file routes, and every key of a clip.
• Compat files: what decides when a clip plays.
• Faces in packs and clips: keying looks and eye shapes, which the Game view shows.
• The Blockbench rig: animate in Blockbench, then copy the pack into Studio to watch it here.
• Camera and features: the third-person camera of Punchy! Moves.