Bop

A light, comic hit — the body lurches into the bop in a quarter of a second, a flag marks the instant it lands, and a little later everything eases back to neutral.

A cartoon person and a dog, both lurched sideways mid-bop, as if just bonked.

Use it in a cartoon Open it in the block editor The pack file (JSON)

What it is for

Bop is a light, comic hit — a tap on the head, a bonk, a soft thump that is funny rather than painful. The whole thing is under a second, and it leaves no mark: by the end the body is back to neutral. It plays well under a sound effect or a single word of dialogue, like "Ow!"

The principle it shows: timing

How "hard" the bop reads comes entirely from timing. The pose snaps into its most extreme shape — the right arm swung forward and down, the body pitched 7° and shoved sideways, the weight dropping onto a bent, planted leg — in 0.26 seconds, and the flag_hit marker fires at the exact instant that lurch finishes: not before the arm arrives, and not after the hold begins.

The program, line by line

when it starts
  glide right arm 92, right forearm -2, left arm 10, left forearm 30, rot -7, dx 16, dy 6, right leg 22, right shin 14, left leg -16, left shin 6 over 0.26 s (out)
  set flag_hit to (tau)
  wait 0.26 s
  glide right arm 0, right forearm 0, left arm 0, left forearm 0, right leg 0, right shin 0, left leg 0, left shin 0, rot 0, dx 0, dy 0, head 0 over 0.28 s

when it starts — begins the moment the move is put on a character.
glide right arm 92, right forearm -2, left arm 10, left forearm 30, rot -7, dx 16, dy 6, right leg 22, right shin 14, left leg -16, left shin 6 over 0.26 s (out) — the whole body lurches into the hit: the right arm swings down and forward, the body tilts 7 degrees and shifts sideways, and the legs plant unevenly as the weight lands.
set flag_hit to (tau) — marks the flag named Hit! the moment that glide finishes: the instant of contact.
wait 0.26 s — holds the hit pose for as long as it took to get there.
glide right arm 0, right forearm 0, left arm 0, left forearm 0, right leg 0, right shin 0, left leg 0, left shin 0, rot 0, dx 0, dy 0, head 0 over 0.28 s — everything eases back to neutral, no part left out of position.

Try this

Lurch into the hit in less than a tenth of a second instead of a quarter. The bop now reads as a sharp, startled jab rather than a soft comic bonk.
In the program: ramp · over 0.26 → 0.08
Hold the hit pose for 0.7 seconds instead of 0.26. The character stays stunned for much longer before shaking it off, which plays as a harder hit.
In the program: wait · s 0.26 → 0.7

How it differs from Catch and Snap claws

Catch also marks a flag partway through its program, but keeps moving afterwards, pulling the catch in; Bop's flag comes right before the body resets, with no follow-through after it. Snap claws is a quicker reaction on the hands alone, without Bop's whole-body lurch.

Works on

Worked out by the build: it plays the move in the engine on each body and checks what moves on screen. Nobody types this table.
Body	Moves?	What moves
2 legs (a person)	yes	whole body, arms, legs
4 legs (a dog)	yes	whole body, front legs, back legs
no legs (the monster with no legs)	yes	whole body, arms

c4c:beh:bop · version 1.0.0 · c4c-free · by Jabbertoon