Create and tune avatar eikons in Herm Eikon Studio
Use Eikon Studio to create and tune avatars — attach image or video source, adjust contrast and spatial controls, and save with Ctrl+S.
Eikon Studio is a full-featured, keyboard-driven editor for creating and tuning your avatars. It opens directly inside the Eikon tab and gives you a live animated preview of your work alongside a Settings panel packed with knob controls. When you press Ctrl+S, Herm renders all six avatar states through the active rasterizer and writes both the .eikon file and your workspace state to disk in one shot.
Studio is divided into three panes. Press Tab (or Shift+Tab to reverse) to cycle focus between them:
Preview
A live 48×24 animated preview of the current state. Supports mouse drag to pan, scroll wheel to pan/zoom, and a minimap overlay in the bottom-right corner showing your current viewport.
Settings (Knobs)
The main control panel. Contains the eikon selector, rasterizer picker, source attachment, tonal controls (contrast, invert, flip), and any additional knobs exposed by the active rasterizer.
States Strip
A row of six thumbnail previews — one per avatar state. Lets you select which state to edit and trigger per-state source or knob overrides.
On wide terminals (≥120 columns), Preview and Settings are shown side-by-side. On narrower terminals, they stack vertically. The States Strip always appears below both.
The eikon you are currently editing. Press Enter to switch to another eikon, create a new one, or install from an external source.
rasterizer
The engine that converts your source media into text art. Press Enter to open the rasterizer picker. Available rasterizers are listed; unavailable ones show a warning.
The image or video file the avatar renders from. Press Enter to attach a local file, generate one (if image or video generation is configured), or clear the current source.
fetch source
Shown when no local source exists but a remote source URL is known. Press Enter to download the published source media so you can re-tune it locally.
Move selection between pan-x, pan-y, zoom, and fps rows
← / →
Adjust the selected spatial control
Shift + ← / →
Fine-adjust pan (0.01 steps)
Mouse drag
Pan the frame
Scroll wheel
Pan vertically
Shift + Scroll
Pan horizontally
Ctrl + Scroll
Zoom in / out
The minimap in the corner of the preview shows a half-block representation of the full source extent. The shaded region indicates your current viewport position. Spatial controls are only active when a local source file is attached and ffmpeg is available.
If your preview shows (baked) in the title, the Studio is displaying pre-rendered frames from the .eikon file because no local source is attached yet. Use fetch source or the source row to attach a file and unlock live editing.
The strip at the bottom of Studio shows six thumbnails — one per avatar lifecycle state: idle, listening, thinking, speaking, working, and error. Use ← / → when the strip is focused to cycle between states. Press Enter on a state to open its action menu:
Source… — Attach a source file specific to this state.
Tune this state only / Clear override — Fork the knob settings for this state independently from the base, or remove the fork to revert to shared settings.
States with a per-state source file show own src; states with only a knob override show forked.
Press Ctrl+S (or your configured eikon.save key) to save. Herm:
Renders all six states through the active rasterizer.
Writes the packed .eikon file.
Writes studio.json with your current rasterizer, spatial, and knob settings.
Sets the saved eikon as the active avatar.
Bumps the revision counter so the Gallery and sidebar reflect the change immediately.
You must have a source file attached before you can save. If no source is attached, Herm shows a warning and does not write to disk.
If you try to navigate away with unsaved changes, Herm prompts you to Save, Discard, or Keep editing. Pressing Esc on a dirty session also triggers this prompt.
Press u from Studio to submit the current eikon to the community Marketplace. Herm shows a preflight bundle preview before submitting. Eikons that were installed from the Marketplace cannot be re-submitted until you create a local draft.
