Animation Layers

by Tal Hershko in Addons


Edit your animation or mocap data quickly using a standard animation layers UI and workflow directly in your 3D viewport with an extra layers functionality.


Animation Layers is an addon that simplifies the work with the NLA Editor into a standard animation layers workflow. You can quickly create, select and edit each layer, and always seeing the end result while working on any layer.
Add or Remove Layers quickly, or control their Influence using NLA's "Mute, Influence, Solo and its Blending modes" options.
When you are happy with your animation, you can always merge your layers or bake into a new layer.
If you want to keep the same amount of the overall keyframes after baking, then you can also use the smart bake option.



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NEW UPDATES
Animation Layers 
V2 with NEW FEATURES -

V2.1.6.6 - Share Layer Keys - sharing keys between layers. It creates empty keyframes at the same frame position of the selected layer. Useful when iterating over a layer with a new layer, when adding keyframes at the same frames to avoid counter animation.
V2.1.4.8 - Multikey Tools were added to the Layer Tools subcategory. Multikey lets you edit multiply selected keyframes without going into the graph editor. Multikey also includes scale and randomize values properties for the selected keyframes. I've also added a Filter option to Filter specific properties - loc, rot, scale on w x y z for all the Layer tools.
V2.1.4.4 - I’ve added a simple basic inbetweener to the Layer tools menu. When entering a float value into the slider property you are adding/replacing a keyframe with the percent value between the 2 neighboring keyframes per Layer.
V2.1.3.0 - Included more NLA features - repeat and reverse are added when custom frame range is turned on. Those values are now also inluded in the AL Bake and smartbake.
Also added it's own sync action operator  which sets the custom frame range automatically based on the action length and speed/offset/repeat properties.
V2.1.2.1 - 'Combine' Blend type is now included also in Anim Layer's Bake, and used by default when adding new Layers. There's also a new option in the settings to change the default blend type.
V2.1.1.0 - Speed and offset time controls per layer. Included also in the smart bake.
V2.0.3.0 - Added custom 'Layer Frame Range' option - so more integration with the NLA. Included it also in the smart bake

UI update - Actions can be now selected also directly from the layer ui list using the small arrows.

Sync Layer/Action name - when turned on the names of the layers and the actions are always being synched with each other.
Auto Blend - when turned on a blend type is being applied automatically based on the scale and rotation values. This is to avoid characters and objects exploding or scaling to 0 when selecting the wrong blend type

Shapekey Layers - are now also included and available only on selected Mesh objects. You can select the data type 'Object' or 'Shapekey' from the top of the addon's panel.
It is now possible to create, delete, merge, bake and extract shapekey layers.


Extract Marked Keyframes - New Feature for Cleaning Mocap!
Use the timeline markers for the character Key poses and important inbetweens, and the operator will create a new layer with only the marked keyframes and evaluate the interpolation of the bezier handles.

New Bake Method - with new options. The new method can now also bake upwards, and can merge additive layers into a new additive layer. It also has a faster smart bake.
The old method (Blender NLA's bake) is also still available from the options.
SmartBake - got improved and is now estimating the new bezier handles of the new baked curves.

View and Edit Multiple Layers - keyframes in the timeline and dopesheet. Choose the type of the keyframes visibilty. Exclude layers using lock or mute.

Library Overrides is working with animation layers. When using Library Overrides it is better to make sure your source file (normally the rig file) is not including any animation layers or NLA tracks as well.

Extract selected Bones - to a New layer.

Reset Key Layer - to reset the keyframe to its 0 position in a selected layer, Using the hotkey alt+G+R+S normally resets the overall layers to 0.

Apply Cyclic FCurves - to selected bones. If you already have other modifiers applied, then it will still keep the modifiers and add cyclic Fcurves to them.

A new improved UI, Lots of bug fixing, more options such as locking, duplicating layers and selecting the actions directly in the panel.
There is a better integration with the NLA editor. It is not disabled anymore and you can now use it while working with the animation layers addon.

CGCookie's Auto Updater - is implemented!

Support Animation layers addon, and keep getting its updates

Shapekey layers are now also included


Extract Marked Keyframes - A new tool and workflow for motion capture cleanup

Reseting a pose and loading new actions automatically from the action editor



The Adventures of LollypopMan reviewing Animation Layers addon




Animation Layers 2.1 Branch available only from Blender 3.2 -
Because of an important NLA fix/update - tweak mode's full stack evaluation , I've started re-writing the addon.
The addon is now using NLA's new tweak mode option instead of using previously an active action and a subtract track for the selected layer.
Older versions from the main branch are also still working with Blender 3.2 as well.

What does it mean?
It means the addon will eventually be fully synchronized with Blender's NLA.
Right now 'Combine' Blend type is available as well (In previous versions it was not available). including also in Anim Layer's Bake.

So what's down the road?
Current Roadmap
- Adding Groups or Hierarchy to layers!
- Fully synchronizing the addon with the NLA - that means working with multiple strips on the same track/layer while switching between them automatically, and having all the NLA's options available via the addon, while keeping the UI easy to use.

Sales 6100+
Customer Ratings 74
Average Rating
Dev Fund Contributor
Published almost 4 years ago
Blender Version 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3, 3.2
License GPL
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