The SmartBody distribution comes with its own application/renderder and toolset called sbgui. This file is located in the /bin directory (if you have downloaded the source code from SVN, it is located in core/smartbody/sbgui/bin after the sbgui project is built). To run SmartBody within an existing game engine or other framework, please refer to the section on Integrating SmartBody With a Game Engine.

How to Use sbgui

By default, the sbgui application will open showing an empty scene. The right side of the window contains a view of the 3D scene, the left side contains a list of objects in the scene, and the lower left corner contains attributes associated with selected objects.

Quickstart

Choosing  "File->Load from script" and then selecting a Python file (.py) will run the contents of that script. There are many example applications located in the examples/ directory that can be tested and experimented with.

(Above) Some example scripts showing characters, crowds and online retargeting.

Sample Scripts

Using Messaging: The Virtual Human Messaging System

SmartBody can communicate with other applications over a network using a messaging system called the Virtual Human Messaging system (VHMSG). The VHMG system uses an asynchronous transport framework called ActiveMQ, which in turn operates over TCP/IP.   Thus, in order to use VHMSG you need to either install an ActiveMQ server or connect to an existing one. ActiveMQ is free and can be downloaded from http://activemq.apache.org/. Note that SmartBody will function properly without an ActiveMQ server installed. However, some functionality (such as real-time text-to-speech) requires asynchronous communication over the VHMSG bus.

Messages are typically sent by specifying the component that 

Running sbgui on the Command Line

The following command line arguments can be used with sbgui:

getViewer().show() # shows the user interface window

getCamera().reset() # resets the camera to the default location

The sbgui application will read a file called .smartbodysettings which will contain a number of configuration paths for various components that SmartBody uses:

mediapath=../data
pythonlibpath=../Python27/Lib
ogrepath=../OgreSDK
speechrelaycommand=start TtsRelayGui.exe
renderer=ogre

All paths are relative to the location of the sbgui exectutable. mediapath indicates the media path. pythonlibpath indicates the location of the Python libraries. ogrepath indicates the location of the Ogre support files. speechrelaycommand indicates the launching instruction for the speech relay. renderer indicates whether to use the built-in renderer (custom) or the Ogre renderer (ogre).

If no arguments are given to sbgui, an empty scene will be shown. To load a scene, choose the  File -> Load from Script... menu option. Any Python (.py) file that contains SmartBody commands can be used. By using the File->Load from Script... menu option, anything that currently exists in the SmartBody scene will be removed before the commands in the file are run. Below are some example commands that can be used to run the contents of another file:

scene.addAssetPath("script", "data/examples")
scene.run("AddCharacterDemo.py")

The first command tells SmartBody where to find a folder/directory that contains scripts to be run, while the second command tells SmartBody to run the AddCharacterDemo.py script that will be found in one of the paths already specified. 

In some cases, GPU skinning will not be available, in which case you can use the CPU-based software skinning, which results in slower performance via View-> Character->Deformable Geometry. Note that pawns are represented as red spheres.

Adding Assets to the Scene

Various assets, such as skeletons, motions and models can be added to the scene. There are several ways to add assets:

1. Use drag-and-drop from the file system to the Resource Viewer (the window that contains the tree showing the objects in the scene on upper-left hand side of the application)
2. Use Python commands to load specific data files or folders.
3. Use drag-and-drop to load a model, skeleton, or character into the 3D scene.

To add an asset via Python commands, use the following syntax:

scene.addAssetsFromPath("path/to/my/data")

Adding Models to the Scene

Models can be added to the scene by attaching geometry to a pawn. You can set the 'mesh' attribute on a pawn via the Resource Viewer (Window->Resource View, click on pawns, select the pawn, then in the Attribute Editor (window in the lower left hand side) enter the path to the COLLADA/.dae or .obj file). Additionally, the 'meshScale' attribute can be used to scale the geometry. This can also be accomplished through Python:

mypawn = scene.getPawn(pawnName)
mypawn.setDoubleAttribute("meshScale", .2)
mypawn.setStringAttribute("mesh", "/path/to/geometry/file.dae")

Camera Control

Also, the following menu choices are available:

Selecting and Positioning Characters

A character or pawn can be selected by either 1)  left-clicking on the character in the 3D scene, or 2) Choosing the character's name under the Characters list in the Resource Viewer. This will cause a manipulator to appear at the character's root joint, which may vary in location on the character (sometimes the root joint is on the ground, other times it is in the middle of the character). The manipulator either shows a bounding box, a translation widget, or a rotation widget:

A character or pawn can be manually positioned by selecting one of the manipulator handles via a Left Click and then dragging the manipulator handles character to the new location. To rotate the character or pawn, select the object, press 'e', then adjust the manipulator handles.

Note that only the root/base joint can be altered interactively.

Controlling Characters

Characters can be controlled either by sending Python commands, or by using the BML Creator. Commands can be sent interactively through the Command Window, or through the VHMessage system using an 'sb' command.

In addition, characters can interactively move by first selecting the character, then right-clicking on the desired location, if they have the locomotion behavior.

Changing Lights

The default scene automatically places two directional lights, one which is rotated 135 degrees along the z-axis, and one rotated negative 135 degrees around the z-axis. The purpose of these automatic lights is to provide some initial lighting of a scene.

If you want to create and position your own lights in the scene, sbgui considers any pawns that start with the name 'light' (such as light0, light1, etc.) to be a light. Lights can be created either via scripting, or through the Create->Light menu option. Once a light is added to the scene, the default lights will no longer be present.

Other Controls