by not_that_NDA·Workflow
Images © not_that_NDA. Used for product review; image policy.
Earns its place in the superhive library as a broad animation toolkit developed alongside studio animators. As an early access release, some features may still produce errors.
AniMate Pro is a comprehensive set of animation tools for Blender that carries over some of the most requested features from Maya and AnimBot. It has been in close development with professional animators from Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks and other animation studios for over a year, and is released in early access, with users able to request features and report bugs directly to the developer.
The toolkit covers a wide range of keyframe work. Timeline Scrubbing turns a configurable key (default Space) into a modal that scrubs the timeline without moving the mouse from the viewport. Anim Lattice manipulates selected keyframes in the graph editor with a bounding box, while Anim Time Warper adjusts key timing on the fly using Pins, Bars and Easings. Anim Sculpt lets you sculpt directly over keyframes with proportional editing, described as essential for motion capture data.
Further tools include Anim Offset for proportional offsetting, Anim Nudge for shifting keyframes by a set amount, and Anim Poser for propagating poses across a range. The Graph and Dope Sheet editors also gain customizable top bars with four button themes and support for light Blender themes.
Animate Pro - Core is best for blender animators working with keyframes and motion capture who want Maya- and AnimBot-style timing, retiming, offsetting and pose tools.
Animate Pro - Core is completely free to download and use.
AniMate Pro includes Anim Sculpt, described as an essential part of the toolkit for working with motion capture data. It lets you sculpt directly over keyframes with proportional editing in the graph editor: Tweak moves keys around, holding Shift smooths relative positions between neighbouring keyframes, and Ctrl+Shift averages to zero or to the average of selected keyframes. Alongside the other timing and retiming tools in the set, this makes it useful for reshaping keyframe data such as motion capture directly in Blender's graph editor.
AniMate Pro is released in early access, so some features may give errors. The developer describes it as growing in features every week and being committed to fixing bugs swiftly, with users able to request new features and report bugs directly during development. It has been in close development with professional animators from Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks and other studios for over a year. If you plan to lean on it for production work, factor in that it is still an evolving early access tool rather than a finished release.
AniMate Pro adds a Timeline Scrubbing feature bound by default to the Space key, which stays configurable. Holding the key enters a modal that scrubs the timeline as if you selected the playhead, but without moving the mouse away from where you are working in the viewport. While holding, you can display GUI help covering the many configurable keys available. You can set it to work as a toggle or by holding the bound key, and choose whether scrubbing requires the left mouse button.
AniMate Pro's Anim Time Warper adjusts the timing of keys on the fly using Pins, Bars and Easings. You add Pins on selected frames, and Bars and Easings are created between them. Dragging a Pin adjusts the time between two segments, dragging a Bar preserves a segment's length, and dragging an Easing increases key density toward the Pins. Holding Shift pushes Pins or Bars in the direction of movement, while Ctrl pulls those behind it. During the operation, keys such as R, F, A and X handle realtime, full frames and adding or deleting Pins.
AniMate Pro is listed as free in this catalog. It is also noted as being included in the AniMate Forge add-on bundle, and the developer mentions early access pricing, so terms may differ elsewhere. For current licensing, availability and any bundle details, check the developer's page directly. The listing here reflects a free entry, but the developer's page remains the best source for the latest on how AniMate Pro is offered and what the AniMate Forge bundle covers.
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