Animation Tools update + Tools Roadmap

TL:DR - Added 3 new Animations tools focused around Animation Layers.Rope Tools 2 in active development along side Pose tools - tool to manage character poses in extended way. Well, another animation is behind us, and that means we have updates to existing tools as well as a few cool new ones. Also, I feel like I've been all over the place with my tools lately, so I'd like to share what's currently available, what's planned, and what's been abandoned. I'd love to hear your feedback - what you'd like to see tools wise and what is working (or not) for you today.

Updates

3 new tools are joining Animation Tools, all focused on extending the Animation Layers addon functionality. There's a lot to improve - I wish I could just release my own version of Animation Layers... Anyway:NLA Track Speed Control

This one is actually pretty wild. It was a huge pain to animate speed changes in a loop. For example, if I wanted to move the hips slower or faster, I had to bake my action and adjust a ton of keyframes - or create multiple layers with various speeds, blend them together, and pray that the motion synced. Not anymore. Create a controller, change the speed of the layer however you like, keyframe it, ease it, and everything stays non-destructive.Check header video :)

Animation Layers Groups

I like to keep everything in one blend file and break my animations into small pieces - loops for arms, hips, extras, fixes, and so on. It gets cluttered very fast, and it's an absolute pain to switch poses when you have 12 layers to toggle. Naming conventions help, but there has to be a better way! Now you can create groups from layers and toggle them in a single click. Add and remove layers from groups freely and create any collection of layers you need.You can add layers by name, or by capturing currently visible layers.

Multi-Layer Constraint Influence Keyframing

This one is a bit experimental. While working on a specific pose, I often find I need a special constraint just for that pose. For example, I want the head to move freely in Pose A but follow the camera in Pose B. Easy enough with constraints - but the issue is toggling the influence off in Pose A and on in Pose B. When you're deep in animation and stacking constraints, keyframing them afterward becomes a real hassle. Now you can select a constraint and set its influence across all your poses in one popup. Popup looks a bit intimidating but don't worry it is self explanatory :)

Roadmap

I have a lot of ideas for improving my workflow and making things easier for others. I've been jumping around and implementing one idea after another, and I'll admit some of them are dead ends or just not very useful outside of my personal workflow. So the purpose of this roadmap is to give a quick overview of where the focus will be in the near future.

I'm working on a small web page with info and documentation for all available tools. Hope it will be online soon. Here's what's currently in progress:

Rope Tools 2

Full rewrite of the original Rope Tools, massively expanded with a ton of improvements.No release date yet, but I plan to release it to selected creators for testing and feedback next month.

Pose Manager

Create presets of your poses - just like native pose assets, but greatly expanded with shape keys, custom properties, and integration with other addons like Multiresolution and Animation Layers extensions.Final concept isn't locked in yet, but it's cooking. 🙂Currently part of Animation Tools - experimental branch but will be moved to stand alone addon in the future.

Asset Tools

A slow-burning project to help you create and manage your asset library.There are a lot of asset packs, models, and props floating around the internet, and these tools will help you organize them into a clean, tidy Blender asset library.Driver ToolsDiscontinued as I found much better alternative - GUI Slider on Superhive

Feedback

What tools would you like to see next? What tool you found most useful? Let me know in the comments!And for god sake please report bugs! - [email protected]