HVA Animation 101
by MadHQ

Programs that you will need:
1) Voxel Section Editor II version 2
2) HVA Editor

Included Files:
1) rotor.vxl
2) heli.vxl

This tutorial only explains how to make a animated voxel buy using Voxel Section Editor II version 2.

Step 1: Making a multi section voxel
Open the rotor.vxl. Now go to section>new>import from another model. And find heli.vxl and click open. Now you have a multi section voxel. And now you can save it as rotor or go to “save as” and save it to what ever you want. Then close the vxl editor.

Step 2: Setting up the HVA
Open HVA edit. File->New, now find that multi we made in step 1. And click next. And then next again. (It will ask you “select what kind of animation you’d like to create.” Don’t worry about not being able to select anything but black animation that’s fine.) Now it tells you its ready to import it the editor just click finish.

Step 3: Moving the roter into place
At first look at the Voxel it doesn’t look right. Because the roter is in the center of the helli. To fix this follow the easy steps. You will see in the right box two selections “DUMMY01” and “DUMMY0” select “DUMMY01” and under the file bar find the 4 pointed arrow in the shape of a cross. (If you hold your curser over it should say “translate”) click the translate button and go down to the front, back or left, right views all your going to do is move the roter. You should still have the roter selected so just click near the roter and move it up to the top of the helli. You will have also have to move it the center from the top, bottom view. Ok now that that is done we can move on.

Step 4: Animation of the voxel
Now we are going to make the roter spin. To do this go to edit->frame->insert after position. You may not notice anything that happened but I will help point it out so can see. (Once you have done that under the file bar. You will see that a few more buttons have changed from grey to black. You don’t need to click any of them for animating a heli.) So this is it might get hard. Up next the translate button (the arrow cross button.) go to rotate center and click it. Now go to the top view and right click and go to zoom->x1. Now click and hold in the top view of the voxel, And move it up or down. You will want to make sure that its rotated 45 degrease. So it will look like a diamond. And now you will have to move it again just like what we did in step 3 to be the roter needs to be. Now that that’s done we can check in the HVA editor to make sure it spins.

Step 5: The check
Ok now we will check to make sure the animation works right. Go to view animation. (Looks like a piece of a movie reel) click it and small box should show up. And in this box you will see your voxel. Click the 3rd button. And your voxel should start spinning. But the roter isn’t spinning yet. To see it spin you have to click the first button. And it should start to spin. Now save it as the name of you .vxl and close.

Step 6: Test it out in game
Congratulations!!! You have animated your first voxel. That wasn’t so hard was it? Now go test it out in game.