**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (How to Enter the Performance Editor by Node or Menu)**\
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Now that you have your scenario set in the Scene Editor (LINK) and your conversation built in the Flow Editor (LINK) , let's get into the Performance Editor and animate the virtual humans in your immersive experience!\
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You may enter the Performance Editor either by clicking the Performance tab on the left menu, or click 'Edit Performance' on any Dialogue Node.

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Components of the Performance Editor)**\
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Once you're in the Performance Editor, you'll notice the different components:\
\- Left-side: Dialogue List\
\- Middle top: Canvas Window\
\- Middle bottom: Performance Track with Audio Box and Animation Track\
\- Right-side: Animation Menu Panel & Audio Menu Panel\
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In the next couple steps, we'll show you around the different menus and options within the Performance Editor.\
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You may also view a video tutorial walk-through of PE in [Level 7: Lesson 3 of TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-3-cpd-pe-track-timeline)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Extend Canvas Window - Collapse Right Side Menu)**\
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If you'd like to extend the Canvas window, you can click the arrow to collapse the right side menu. Or leave it open to access the Animation and Audio tabbed menu panels.

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Canvas Preview Window)**\
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Within the Canvas Window you'll see a drop down menu in the top right corner, where you can change the perspective to either the "Player Spawn Point", (which is the most helpful as it is closest to what the final performance will look like for the learner), or the camera angle of any Virtual Human within your experience. \
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You can also zoom in or out of the environment as well as click the screen and drag to move the preview perspective around 360 degrees.\
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When you'd like to preview the Performance, just click the triangle Play button below the canvas!\
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Go to [Level 7: Lesson 5 of TSU](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-5-cpd-performance-editor-previewing) for a video tutorial and more guidance on the Preview.

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Go to 3D Preview)**\
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You may also go to the 3D Preview from within Performance Editor, if you'd like to see what the final published performance will look like. Just click on the yellow '3D Preview' button in the top right corner, and the preview will load for you to view!

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Performance Track Timeline for Audio & Animation Tracks)**\
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The middle section is where you'll notice the "ruler-like" timed Performance Track with the Virtual Human audio and below that, the space to add Animation Tracks.

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Explore & Preview Animations)**\
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Open the Animation menu to explore the Gestures, Emotions and Poses that are available to animate your Virtual Human!\
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You can hover over an animation to reveal a "play" icon which you can click to preview the animation. Watch the Virtual Human preview the gestures, emotion or pose within the canvas window.

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Animation Track Options: Gesture, Emotion & Pose)**\
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When you're ready to add Animation to your Virtual Human, click on the toggle icon by the name of the Virtual Human you'd like to animate first to open their animation track space and then click on the plus icon to show the menu options to 'Add Track' for a gesture, emotion or pose.\
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Click on the track you'd like to begin with.\
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If you'd like to watch a video tutorial on how to add animations in the Performance Editor, go to [Level 7: Lesson 4 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-4-cpd-performance-editor-animation)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Drag an Animation to the Performance Editing Track)**\
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How to add an animation track: click and drag it onto the Performance Track timeline. Let's add a Gesture first, for example!\
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Drag the Animation addition on the track line to set the timing where you want the Animation to occur.\
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If you'd like to watch a video tutorial on how to add animations in the Performance Editor, go to [Level 7: Lesson 4 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-4-cpd-performance-editor-animation)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Animate Virtual Humans - Add a Track for Gestures, Emotions & Poses)**\
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Now let's add a track for Emotions and one for Poses!\
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Keep in mind that you are only allowed 1 track each of: Emotion and Pose, while you can add as many Gestures as you’d like (so different parts of the body of the virtual human may move at the same time).\
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If you'd like to watch a video tutorial on how to add animations in the Performance Editor, go to [Level 7: Lesson 4 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-4-cpd-performance-editor-animation)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Animate Virtual Humans - Add Gestures, Emotions & Poses to the Track)**\
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Build up your Animation by adding multiple Gestures and Emotions throughout the conversation.\
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Be careful to not assign too many poses too close to each other to prevent glitchy animation, as the animation needs time to play out. \
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Hover over any added Animation to show the trash bin to click to delete.

If a gesture, emotion, or pose goes past the end of the audio in a node, the program will play out the animation until it is finished before moving to the next node. It may be better not to use long gestures towards the end of a dialogue node.

You can also click on the audio box within a dialogue node and drag it to the right on the timeline, which will cause the virtual human to begin speaking later than at the start of the node.\
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If you'd like to watch a video tutorial on how to add animations in the Performance Editor, go to [Level 7: Lesson 4 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-4-cpd-performance-editor-animation)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Animate Virtual Humans - Intensity & Fade)**\
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You may want to change the intensity (the extent to which the Virtual Human will express the animation) or the fade (the timing of how abruptly the Virtual Human will start or stop an animation).\
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Once a gesture, pose, or emotion is added to the timeline, double click on it to open a box that will allow you to increase or decrease the Intensity / Fade of each Animation. Click outside of the Animation to apply it.\
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If you'd like to watch a video tutorial on how to add animations in the Performance Editor, go to [Level 7: Lesson 4 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-4-cpd-performance-editor-animation)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (BEST PRACTICES: Duration of Animations vs. Dialogue Audio)**\
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\*Tip: As for the duration of clips…unfortunately, CPD doesn’t yet allow us to adjust the duration of gestures. If they exceed the duration of the audio (see the example image below), then it will cause the program to play out the animation until the gesture is done before moving to the next node.\
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Our suggestion is to use gestures that don’t extend past the audio too much. When your Virtual Human is speaking a shorter line of dialogue, you can also move the audio box to the right on the timeline and allow a second or two before the VH starts talking. You might even try using a gesture to make the VH look like they’re thinking about the learner’s response before they start talking.\
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To see a video tutorial that shows how to move the audio box to create space before a VH speaks, check out [Level 7: Lesson 3 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-3-cpd-pe-track-timeline)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR:** **(BEST PRACTICES: Animate all Virtual Humans)**\
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\*Tip: Remember that if you have more than 1 Virtual Human in your experience, you may want to animate all Virtual Humans, even if they're not speaking, so it makes the human animation and presence more realistic.\
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For more Best Practices with the Performance Editor, check out [Level 7: Lesson 6 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-6-cpd-performance-editor-best-practices)

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Add Audio)**\
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You'll see that automatically generated text to speech audio is provided within the Performance Editor already - within the audio box section. For more guidance on using this audio and choosing difference voices for your Virtual Human, see [Level 7: Lesson 1 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-1-cpd-pe-audio)\
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To replace the automatically generated text to speech audio, you'll want to first have your voiceover audio files ready! For more guidance on Voiceover, please see the [Lessons of Level 6 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-1-vo-basics)\
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If you're ready to implement your recorded voiceover files, go to the Audio tab on the right side menu and click ‘Import Audio’.\
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You'll want to export each dialogue line as individual an file, and files should be renamed and saved in a specific format before being imported into CoPilot Designer. Audio files supported include: WAV, AIFF or OGG. 

**PERFORMANCE EDITOR: (Add Audio)**

Navigate through your documents to upload your saved Audio File for the particular Dialogue Node.

CLICK TO DRAG the newly uploaded Voiceover Audio File → over to the audio box to replace the ‘Generated Audio’.\
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For a video tutorial on adding voiceover audio files into CPD, check out [Level 7: Lesson 2 in TSU.](https://talespinuniversity.com/tsu-lessons-db/lesson-2-cpd-vo-audio-implementation)