The GPosers Guide to Ktisis

Written By
Nanami Chiaki @Gilgamesh

With the recent "Maintenance Moding" of Anamnesis, I've seen a lot of people wanting to switch over to Ktisis, but getting frustrated due to various reasons. I've been using Ktisis for quite a while now, (Since it went public basically) and I'd like to hopefully help anyone that's wanting to start, but is having trouble making the switch for one reason or another! My goal with this guide is for it be usable by both beginners, and advanced users alike.

THIS GUIDE WILL BE SPLIT IN THREE PARTS
SECTION I of this guide will be (I hope) easy to digest and provide just enough information about what a function does, and how it interacts with the user.SECTION II of this guide will go into how to actually get started with posing and cover what most people that use Ktisis will actually be using for the majority of their GPosing.SECTION III of this guide can be considered the "Advanced User" section, and will go more in-depth about each function and how it might interact with the user as well as other plugins that are commonly used with GPOSING (such as Brio, Glamourer, etc.)

DISCLAIMERS - PLEASE READ

  • This guide assumes you are familiar with all the functions of the in-game VANILLA GPose Menu, and that you have already installed, and enabled, the Ktisis Plugin in Dalamud. If you haven't yet installed the Ktisis Plugin, please visit the Ktisis Discord using the Discord Icon at the top of the page for help installing it.

  • There are some interactions and controls in Ktisis that are not documented, listed, or otherwise noted anywhere within the plugin. I will be marking these interactions alongside the features they are associated with, with a [CONTROL NOTE] marker to indicate there is an undocumented control associated with the feature.

  • Please remember that Ktisis is still in Alpha Testing (as of writing this guide - Version 0.2.19)
    The plugin itself is completely functional, but there is some minor Weirdness™ to be aware of. Meaning that some menus aren't graceful to navigate and some buttons have no description. Some buttons and functions of the plugin do not have a name, so I will be referring to them as how I personally refer to them.

  • When XIVLauncher/Dalamud are down during game patches, Ktisis will be down as well.

  • There are a few places within the plugin that you'll see an Information icon (represented by a lowercase "i" inside of a circle). These will provide some information related to the feature that it's placed near, however there are only a few of these, and they don't necessarily provide all the information needed.

With that all out of the way, Let's get started!

Glossary of Terms

Before the Table of Contents, I'd very quickly like to go over all the terms I'll be using in this guide.

  • [Actor] - Any Entity that can be manipulated within GPose. This includes (but is not limited to)
    Players, NPC's, Monsters, Minions, and Props.

  • [Gizmo] - The fun looking UI Element within Ktisis that lets you dynamically Move, Rotate, and Scale your Actors.

  • [Game World] - Refers to the current Instance, or Zone you are in. This can be anything from an entire region (Lower La Noscea) to just a singular room (like an Inn room.)

  • [World Coordinates] - These are coordinates that are relative to the position in the Game World
    (aka World Coordinates [0, 0, 0] correspond to the literal center of the current Zone).

  • [Local Coordinates] - These are coordinates that are relative to your currently selected Actor.

  • [.chara file] - File Extension used by both Anamnesis and Ktisis that is used to save Actor appearances.

  • [.pose file] - File Extension used by both Anamnesis and Ktisis to save Poses made using either Tool.

  • [.cmp file] - A depreciated File Extension used to save Poses that was used by an outdated app called the CMTool. .cmp files currently are not supported by Ktisis and as such, would need to be converted to a .pose file before being able to load it in Ktisis. As of Version 0.2.20, Ktisis now lets you load .cmp files!

  • [Posing Mode/Pose Mode] - The toggle that allows you to start (or stop) posing your Actor.

  • [Slider/Sliders] - A box that usually has numerical values in it that can be adjusted by Clicking and Dragging Left/Right on the box, or by CTRL+Left Clicking on the box to manually input the value.

  • [Skeleton] - The rig your Actor uses that contains all the individual Bones you can manipulate. This is visualized in Ktisis as Dots (Bones) connected by Lines (Skeleton)

  • [Bone] - The individual parts of your Actor's Skeleton that you can select to manipulate your Actor.

  • [Parent Bone] - The Topmost Bone that guides how any Child Bones will adjust when the Parent Bone is adjusted.

  • [Child Bone] - The Bones that a Parent Bone controls when it is adjusted.

  • [Redraw] - The act of re-rendering your Actor, usually used to fix something that broke horribly.

Table of Contents

The Buttons below will bring you to the different sections of the guideThe Main Page button will bring you back to the landing page.

Section I - Beginners Guide

Section II - The Gizmo and Pose Tab

Section III - Advanced Guide
UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Thank You Page

Section I
Beginner's Guide

The Basics

First things first, what the HECK do all these menus do?

Ktisis has 5 important menus you'll need to get familiar with. 4 of these menus you'll find as Tabs near the top, the last you'll find as a button in the Actor tab.Each of these tabs have a number of dropdown menus to show/hide which I will go over in each tab breakdown section later on.

[CONTROL NOTE] Hey! You're paying attention to the Control Notes, thats great!
Every Box and Slider that has a numerical value in it, can be CTRL+Left Clicked to enter the values manually.

  • [Actor] This tab contains what I would describe as the "miscellaneous" features of Ktisis, and also contains the 5th menu I mentioned. You won't spend much time in this tab outside of your initial pose setup.

  • [Pose] This tab is where you'll spend most of your time in. It contains all the Transform options for Rotating, Moving, and Scaling all the Bones you can select. This tab is big and is probably the thing that will overwhelm you the most if you're coming from Anamnesis.

  • [Camera] This tab contains all the GPOSE camera manipulation options you'd find in the Vanilla game, and Anamnesis, along with some other extra features.

  • [World] This tab was introduced just recently, and lets you change Time, Weather, and even change the Zone's skybox texture to any other Zone's in the game!

  • [Edit Actor's Appearance] This is almost an entirely separate tool within Ktisis itself, and I will explain what all it does later on in the guide. The tl;dr is that it's basically a cut-down, mini version of Glamourer.