ANIMAX
ANIMAX is a procedural animation system for Blender. Useful for animating multiple objects. It allows you to create complex animations that are hard to achieve using Blender's built in animation tools.
Why ANIMAX ?
You may ask yourself: Why should i use this plugin?
The short answer is: because you can get some professional looking animations, with a very little effort, in a very short time.
The workflow is straightforward, just choose an effect (or make your own), play with the parameters and the timing, and you have your animation ready, no math or programing required.
If you are a motion graphics artist, then ANIMAX would be a great addition to your arsenal.
Features
- 15 different effects to choose from + the custom mode to create your own effects.
- Ease of use, a simple UI and a straightforward workflow.
- Tools for splitting/shattering a mesh object into pieces.
- Convert the procedural animation to keyframes.
- The animation is procedural, but it's possible to keyframe a lot of parameters for more complex animations.
- And much more…
The limitations
ANIMAX isn't an all in one solution for all your animations scenarios, because it's designed for some specific animation types, if you want a more complete tool check out Animation nodes.
- When using ANIMAX you can animate a limited number of objects (2000 objects, with 3-5 fps in my computer), a stronger computer will not help a lot, do to the nature of Python.
- The add-on relies on a Python library "Numpy", which is bundled with the official Blender builds, but not with the daily builds.
- You can Bake (convert to keyframes) only one group of objects at a time.
- You can control only the (loc, rot, scale) of the objects.
Change Log (The latest version is 1.3.0)
V 1.3.0 - Video demo
- Presets system for the Custom mode, you can save, load, and share your custom presets.
- Convert the procedural animation to a single animated object using Shape Keys. It's pretty much the same method used in the awesome add-on Animation Joiner.
- Now it's possible to animate the different properties without disabling the Interactive mode.
- bug fix: incorrect baking results when the objects are parented.
V 1.2.0 - Video demo
- Object Picker: To quickly pick an object.
- The possibility to change the location of the add-on's Panel (Tool Shelf, Properties).
- Pushing the objects away (Custom mode, Transformers effect).
- Local Rotation (Custom mode, Copy animation effect).
- The possibility to sort a single direction.
V 1.1.0 - Video demo
- 3 New Effects (Collapse, Rain, Elastic).
- 9 New easing types.
- A new parameter (Offset) for the Spiral effect.
Gratitude
A big THANK YOU to:
Jacques Lucke,
Pratik Solanki
,
Sean Kennedy
A written documentation is included.
And here is a playlist to answer the FAQ (requested by the customers).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEKm0IJXFko&list=PLHQA94bJq143vVSp22yb_lMRtAskqTB-3
First make sure that you are using the latest stable release, daily builds and 2.8 branch are not supported.
You will find the installation instructions in the Manual.
Do not extract the zip file, just install it as is.
For MAC OS users the zip file might be extracted automatically after the download, in this case compress the folder "ANIMAX" to a zip file, then follow the instructions in the Manual.
Some effects are better for transition like (Shoot, Popcorn, Zigzag, Sparks II, Streaks, Custom...etc)
It's not really morphing from an object to another, but it's an illusion, to make it work the most important aspect is timing.
Here is a video in how to do it.
There are several ways to do so:
- By keyframing the Time parameter
- By keyframing the In/Out parameter and the start frame.
- Baking.
And for multiple effects in a row, just keyframe the Effects dropdown menu.
Here is a video in how to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmkKh463avo
Purchase this item to leave a review!
Monaime Zaim 10 months ago
Thanks for rating, if you mean animating the Shape keys, then Yes it's not intended to do so (at least for the time being).