Whenever I create an object like a cube mesh and hit i to keyframe it, a series of lines show up immediately in the IPO window that I can edit to influence that object.
I created an armature, and I can create keyframes that show up in the action editor, but nothing shows up in the IPO editor. Am I doing something wrong? I could have sworn I was able to do this a while back when I first started learning blender.
Basicallly, it would make animating the armature a lot easier if I could control the animation by adjusting the rotation curves of each bone if this is possible.
You need to switch the IPO display (in the IPO window header) to POSE, the default is OBJECT.
That tutorial you’re using also appears to be very old, I suggest you do the “Intro to Character Animation” one (link in my signature, that was written by Ryan Dale, this past summer.
Be aware though that animating bones via IPO curves isn’t nearly as easy as animating other objects. Bone rotations are calculated using quaternions which means four curves control rotation using some sort of mystifying logarithmic magic. You can’t just grab a RotX curve and have the bone respond as you might expect.
Of course, if you understand quaternions or are happy to just fuss with curves till you get the desired response, then you might still enjoy the experience.
That said, it can be handy to go in and mess with the curves once the keys have been set in order to adjust and smooth (or sharpen) the animation.