Table of Contents

Add a header to begin generating the table of contents

Introduction

This is a guide for our Token Animator tool made with the 3D software Blender 3.1.0. Blender is free, you can download it on the official website. If you are currently pledged to the Epic Tier, you can download the archive below.

Note : You need Blender 3.1.0. The Token Animator doesn’t work properly with the 3.2.0 version or higher. The link below redirect you to recommended download links for PC, MacOS and Linux.

It's purpose

Although we love to create animated effects for Virtual Tabletops, it was unrealistic for us to add animated effects on tokens due to the infinite possibilities and couldn’t satisfy everyone needs. Furthermore, we also had to respect licenses established by Token Creators.
With this tool, you’ll be able to create your own animated token by using your favorite artist’s splash-art or topdown token and adding multiple animated effects to it.

To keep in mind :
Before sharing a Token created with this tool, be absolutely sure the license of the original artwork allows you to do so. When in doubt, please don’t share it.
If the license permits it and even when it isn’t required, the etiquette would be to always credit or mention the Author where you can.
Also, we don’t provide a commercial license for the assets provided in this tool as of yet, so any token created with this tool can’t be redistributed as part of a commercial endeavour.
For more details, see this section

It does have a very limited options to edit an artwork. It is recommended to use an editing software to make specific changes on an artwork, like Photoshop for example or GIMP.

This tool is only useful if you want to add animated effects made by us and provided with the tool on a specific artwork such as splash-arts and topdown tokens. Here are a few examples of what you can do with it.

Duration : 4sec

Fps : 24.

List of resources for Top-down Tokens

Here is the list of creators providing topdown tokens. It is non-exaustive, please contact us on discord if you want us to add your favorite Creator to the list.

Note : Webp format isn’t compatible with Blender.

Creating your own Top-down Token.

You can also create your own topdown token with HeroForge and Photoshop.

Here is a step-by-step guide on Youtube showing how to do it.
Videos have no sounds and we made for a user on our Discord Server. If there is anything you don’t understand, feel free to ask !

I made a little mistake, my token should face the bottom of the screen instead of the top.

Installation

You need to install Blender first if not already done.
Then download the archive. It contains the entire tool. You don’t need anything else.
Extract the archive in your prefered location on your computer.
Inside the archive you should see something like this :

That done, the installation is complete. But before jumping right into the fun part, you might want to have a basic understanding on how to use Blender.

Things to know before the start

First, I recommend you to watch at the very least the Part 1 of the tutorial series made by Andrew Price. This video is wellmade, I personnally began to learn Blender thanks to him.

Also, in the description of his video, he provides a PDF with useful shorcuts. A must have. After that you should be familiar with the UI of Blender.

This is not needed, just a recommendation. All you need to know to use the Token Animator efficiently is explained on this web page.

For those who wants to keep it simple, I did a simple Cheat Sheet with only the necessary shortcuts when using the Tool.

The User Interface

This section covers all you need to know to be able to navigate in the software and use different part of the tool. Let’s open the tool and see what’s inside !

You’ll notice that the UI layout is different than the Default UI of Blender. It is organised so only what’s useful for you is easily accessible to create your animated token.

Browser Panel

It allows you to navigate between the project’s folders. It will help you to find artworks, effects, borders, etc … without having to rely on your OS’s browser.

It is working very similarly to any other browser with features like : previous folder, next folder, parent folder, refresh, address bar and search bar.

Tabs

Tabs in Blender are mostly used to switch the UI layout depending on what you want to do, for example modeling, texture editing, sculpting, etc … But in this case I decided to use them to divide effects into groups. It should make it easier to navigate between type of effects and allow you to go straight to what you want to add to your token. They are located on the top part of Blender’s UI.

I divided them in two categories.

BUILDER Tabs (in Uppercase)
Utility Tabs (in lowercase)

Builder Tabs

Artworks
- This tab is where you’ll load your token image. It can be any artwork and you’ll be able to use a mask if necessary without having to resort to another software.
PNGs
- Mostly composed of sequences of pngs representing artworks with effects embeded on top of them.
- For example, rotating cogs, shimmering borders, etc…
Borders
- For now most of the available borders are from the github XXXX. But more will come in the future.
- If you want us to include specific borders you like, be sure they are under a suitable license.
Shorts
- Very brief effects, the final animation has 97 frames in total. These effects will be shorter than that.
- For example a glint or a shimmer.
Rings
- Speaks for itself, these effects are in a ring shape and will loop seamlessly.
Particles
- Same as above, pretty straight forward. This tab will gather all animated effects with particles and will loop seamlessly.
Stages
- This one is a bit of an extra. I liked the idea of adding stages underneath topdown tokens. Like figurines when we play around a table. I don’t know if it will be popular but it’s there ! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  Let me know !
- Different shapes are available, and also different textures for the flat side of the stage. For example, Cobblestone, Woodplanks, etc …
Stage Anim
- Related to the previous tabs, these are animations made to be added on top of the stages. Could be useful to simply highlight an imporant NPC.

Utility Tabs

Render
- When your token is ready to render, you can hit CTRL+F12 to render your animated token in a webm format. Or you can use this tab to change the settings to render it to another format or an image sequence.
- You can also change the output resolution or the name of the rendered file from here.
Backstage
- This is were I test things to keep other tabs tidy. I decided to leave it in the final file just in case some people want to do the same.

Manager Panel

Each Tab has its own Manager Panel. That means they are completely independant from one another.

It will allow you to decide which effects you want to display in the Preview Panel and to choose the height of the effect’s layer. Additionally, when you want to edit the material of an effect, you can select its corresponding cog to display its material in the Shader Panel.

Each effects have a name associated to them and it can be edited to allow a better organisation.

An effect also have a slider going from position 0 to position 9. Position 0 means the effect is hidden in the Preview Panel and positions 1 to 9 represent the height of the layer. At the end of the slider there is a cog symbol. When selected, it will display the corresponding shader associated to the effect in the Shader Panel.

Shortcuts to remember :

Left Mouse Button to select a slider, cog or slider’s names.
G Key to move a selected slider.
TAB key to edit a selected slider’s name.
Mouse Wheel to zoom in or out.
Middle Mouse Button to orbit the view. (Should never be needed here)
CTRL + Middle Mouse Button to pan the view.
Numpad 7 to toggle back to Top View.

Preview Panel

This is a 3D viewport of Blender but the point of view is from a camera with an orthographic projection. The Grid is there to show you the size of an effect/png in the final render.

Note : The Grid is set up to be invisible in the final render.

Shortcuts to remember :

Mouse Wheel to zoom in or out the view.
Middle Mouse Button to orbit the view. (Should never be needed)
CTRL + Middle Mouse Button to pan the view.
Numpad 0 to toggle back to the camera view point. (In case you lost focus on the camera’s point of view)

Shader Panel

This is where you edit an effect or your artwork/top-down token. It is composed of nodes linked to each other to form a node tree going from left (branches) to right (trunk). The far-right side of the node tree is the final result of the shader where all nodes converge to a single one, the Material Output. In this case it will be an artwork, or an animated effect.

If you want to learn how nodes are working, you can read this section in Blender’s documentation.

To edit an artwork, a border or an animated effect in the Shader Panel, you must first select its corresponding cog in the Manager Panel. Only then the right shader will be displayed here and you’ll be able to edit it.

Don’t forget to change the slider’s position to something higher than position 0 or the effect will be hidden in the Preview Panel and you won’t be able to see the changes you will be making.

Shortcuts to remember :

Mouse Wheel to zoom in and out.
Middle Mouse Button to pan the view.
Home Key to frame all the node.
Numpad . to frame the selected node.
Hold CTRL + Right Mouse Button to cut a node link.
Hold Alt and drag a node with Left Mouse Button to unlink it without severing the link.
Press the G Key while having a node selected to move it. You can also hold Left Mouse Button on a node to drag it around.

Timeline Panel

Useful in very few cases. It is collapsed at the botton of Blender’s window to get more space. To expand the Timeline Panel :

Move your cursor until it reaches the separation between the Browser Panel and the Playback Panel.
Your cursor should change to a “Two-side” arrow.
Click and hold the Left Mouse Button then drag your mouse toward the top of your screen until the timeline appears.
A light grey area going from frame 0 to frame 96 represent the timeline of the whole animation.
To hide the panel, same principle but drag your mouse toward the bottom of your screen instead.
On the timeline, you should see a blue Playhead. You can move it to see specific frame in the animation.
To move the Play head, click and hold the Left Mouse Button on the playhead then use your mouse to drag it.

Shortcuts to remember :

Spacebar to Platy/Pause the animation.
Mouse Wheel to zomm in and out /scale the timeline.
Middle Mouse Button to pan left or right.
Home Key to frame the timeline.
Left or Right Arrow to move the Playhead 1 frame .
SHIFT + Left or Right Arrow to move Playhead at the start or at the end of the timeline.

Setting up the file and Workflow

This is a part of the specific workflow I established when I created the Token Animator.

Back up the file

I recommend not skipping this step. You’ll be able to start from a pristine file if something goes wrong with your project. And you won’t have to redownload the project.

Two ways to do it :

With your operating system browser, copy/paste the *.blend file to make a duplicate of the file.
Inside Blender, Go the the File menu and Save As a new file in the same folder (as bkp for example).

Blender's Browser and Relative Paths

To avoid doing the same things each time you open the project, I recommend you do the following instructions. As shown on the video below, copy the corresponding relative path for each available tabs and paste it in the Browser Panel’s address bar. Then save the file.

//Previews\Artworks\
//Previews\Pngs\
//Previews\Borders\
//Previews\Shorts\
//Previews\Rings\
//Previews\Particles\
//Previews\Stages\
//Previews\StagesAnim\

Fortunately, you don’t have to do this for each asset. As long as you don’t change the structure of the archive, Blender should be able to find them automatically. But it doesn’t work that way for the Browser Panel. The purpose of the Browser Panel is explained here.

Workflow to follow

After both steps described above are done, each time you want to create an animated token follow this simple workflow :

Open the Token Animator file,
Save your project as a new file and name it (your token name for example).
Then start to create animated token

It will allow you to always keep the Token Animator file pristine and ready for a fresh start. As a result you’ll have one file per animated token.

Token Animator Guide

Artwork

PNG

Border

Short

Ring

Particle

Stage

Stage Anim

If you’re not interested by the content of a tab you can skip it, you don’t have to follow a particular order with the tabs. You don’t need to use every single tab to create your animated token.

Load your Artwork

How to load a POG or a Top-down Token

First, copy your artwork in the //Previews\Artworks directory located inside the project folder. Then in the ARTWORKS tab, refresh the Browser Panel to confirm that Blender can properly see it.

Note : Blender doesn’t support the Webp format.

Steps are described in the slides below.

Part of the guide for the Token Animator version 0.5 - Browser Panel

Part of the guide for the Token Animator version 0.5 - Manager Panel

Part of the guide for the Token Animator version 0.5 - Shader Panel