Interface Overview¶
Octo Rig Composer is one window with three columns. The Outliner on the right is the rig; the Editor in the middle authors whatever you selected there; the Navigator on the left drives where in the rig you are standing while you author.
Nothing in this window touches your Harmony scene until you press Compose.
- Top bar — the UI preset picker and its five buttons, then Poses (pose presets), Widgets (the Widget Editor), ⚙ (preferences) and ? (help).
- Outliner — the rig itself: controls, pose layers, knobs, look-ats, drivers, constraints and visibility groups, in a tree. Selection here decides everything else on screen. See The Tree.
- Navigator — the grid(s) above the thing you are authoring. You move the cursor here to choose which pose of the parent you are working at. It never edits frames. See Navigator.
- Editor — the authoring surface for the selected node. Its shape changes completely between a control, a pose layer, a knob, a driver, a constraint, a look-at and a visibility group. See Editor.
- History — every undoable step in this session, newest at the bottom. Click any entry to travel there. See History & Undo.
- Targets — what the selected layer actually moves in Harmony. See Targets.
- Action bar — the MC Name field and the Compose button. See Compose.
There is no menu bar
ORC has no File / Edit menu. Everything is either a button in the top bar, a right-click context menu, or a keyboard shortcut. If you are hunting for a command, right-click the thing you want to change first.
The three columns¶
The left column navigates, it never authors. It shows the grid of whatever sits above your selection in the rig — typically the control that carries the pose layer you are editing — as dots you can move through.
- Left-click a snap: move there, timeline stays put.
- Middle-click a snap: move there and jump Harmony's timeline to that snap's frame.
- Shift+arrows / Ctrl+arrows: the same two gestures from the keyboard.
Below it sits the knob navigator (a slider, or a second grid) when the layer keys across a knob, then any pinned reference navigators.
When the column has nothing legitimate to show it says so in a blue hint box rather than going blank — for example "Level 0 — nothing above it. Composes head-less."
The column is split vertically with the History panel; drag or use the small arrows on the splitter handle to collapse either half.
The centre column is the editor for the selected node, and its top line is an address bar breadcrumb: Rig ▸ Head ▸ Head Knob ▸ Mouth Corners. A greyed, struck-through level in the breadcrumb means that level is muted for this node — hover it for the reason.
| You selected | You get |
|---|---|
| A Control | face switch (Front ⇄ Back), the face's grid, Share sides, Unroll |
| A Pose Layer | knob picker, grid type, visibility group, mirror, the L/R grids, the target list |
| A Knob | the same page as any pose layer — a knob still authors and still has targets |
| A Driver | Setup (targets, behaviour, options, scope) and the Values knob |
| A Constraint | Setup (targets, behaviour) and one Enabled toggle |
| A Look-At | the joystick, Setup for both modes, and one value card per pair |
| A Visibility Group | Hide Nodes and Hierarchy |
| Nothing | "Nothing selected. Pick a control or a pose layer in the outliner — or add one with ＋ to start a rig." |
The tree of the rig. It has three display modes — Dimensions, Visibility and Flat — and two filters (by widget Type and by Role), so the same rig can be read three different ways.
Add nodes with the ＋ menu, remove with −, rename with F2, duplicate with Ctrl+D. Drag a layer onto a control to assign it as a face; drag a layer onto another layer to make it a knob.
See The Tree and Display Modes & Filters.
The top bar¶
Right to left, the top bar carries two groups separated by a thin rule.
UI presets — a preset here is the look and layout of ORC itself plus your rig-building defaults, not the poses.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
Preset dropdown |
Factory Default, then shipped presets marked with a ★, then your own. |
| ⎘Overwrite | Overwrites the selected preset with the current layout. Click twice to confirm — the button turns amber and gives you a few seconds. Right-click it to reset a shipped preset back to factory. |
| 💾Save | Saves the current settings as a new named preset. |
| ✕Delete | Deletes the selected preset. Factory Default and shipped presets refuse. |
| ⬇️Export | Writes the selected preset out as a .json file. |
| ⬆️Import | Reads a preset .json back in. A name clash asks before overwriting. |
Tools
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| 📋Poses | Opens Pose Presets — save and load timeline frame layouts, UI grids, targets and side overrides. |
 Widgets |
Opens the Widget Editor — arrange the MC's on-canvas widgets visually. |
| ⚙Preferences | Opens Preferences. |
| ?Help | Documentation, Report a bug…, About Octo Rig Composer. |
The action bar¶
The bottom strip carries the two things that end a session's work.
MC Name — the name of the Master Controller ORC will generate. You do not have to type the suffix: press Enter or click away and ORC appends -MC for you (it will not double it if you typed it yourself). Press Enter a second time and it clicks Compose for you.
Compose — starts blocked. When it is disabled, its tooltip is the reason, and the reason is always actionable:
- "Enter a name for the Master Controller first."
- "The "Eyebrows" pose layer has no keys yet. Stamp a snap with F6 or delete the empty layer."
- "3 layers are keyed but have no targets (…). Add what each one should move to its target list."
- "Nothing to compose yet. Add poses, drivers, constraints, or look-ats — or set both Front and Back MC to bake a merged runtime."
See Compose.
The feedback bar¶
The strip under the action bar is ORC's status line. Messages are colour-coded and stack in a fixed order — neutral, blue, green, yellow, red — so a warning never hides a confirmation:
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Neutral | Plain information. |
| Blue | A session offer — "Saved session found — Front: robin-head-MC" with Restore / Dismiss buttons, or the trial notice. |
| Green | Something succeeded. |
| Yellow | A refusal you can act on, or an armed two-click confirmation. |
| Red | An error. |
A progress bar appears here for anything that outlives about a fifth of a second.
Resizing and collapsing¶
Every splitter handle in ORC carries small arrows at its centre. Click an arrow to collapse the pane on that side entirely; click the returning arrow to bring it back at its previous width. Dragging the handle anywhere else resizes normally.
The centre Editor can never be collapsed — it is the pane everything else exists to serve.