ANIMAX

ANIMAX is a procedural animation system for Blender that makes animating multiple instances simple. It allows you to create complex animations – which are hard to achieve using Blender's built-in animation tools – much quicker and easier.

Why ANIMAX ?

You may be asking yourself: why should I use this add-on?

The short answer is: it allows you to make highly professional animations with very little effort in a short space of time.

The workflow is straightforward. Simply choose one or multiple effects (or load a preset), then play with the parameters, and you’ll have an animation in no time – all with no math or geometry nodes required.

If you’re a motion graphics artist, ANIMAX makes a great addition to your toolbox.

Features

• Easy to use, simple UI and straightforward workflow.
• Tools for fracturing a mesh object into pieces.
• 12 different effects to choose from.
• 34 animation presets.
• 13 fracturing presets.
• Save and load your custom presets.
• You can animate the objects inside a collection.
• You can add and animate texts procedurally.
• You can animate any geometry node tree that outputs instances, in addition, it’s possible to change the inputs from the add-on’s UI.
• Animate the materials with the help of the Attribute Node (Cycles & Eevee).
• and much more… 
  

Change Log

V 2.3.2

• bug fix: better handling of backward compatibility.

V 2.3.1

• bug fix: previewing the shards in the Slicing tool was not working properly.

V 2.3.0 Video

• A new Voronoi fracturing tool.
• Now it's possible to preview the cutters in the Slicing tool.
• Slicing tool speed up, up to 3 times faster in some cases.
• No need to apply the transform or modifiers before slicing.
  
• Geometry Nodes Generators shipped with the add-on.
• Playback optimization (Delete faded out instances).
• A new operator to detect the issues in a mesh before fracturing it.
  

V 2.2.1

• bug fix: fix the drivers when reloading the properties.

V 2.2.0

• Upgrade to Blender 4.0.

V 2.1.1

• bug fix: missing geometry output in Blender 3.5.

V 2.1.0

• The ability to create custom UI control for the animations, by exposing the parameters of any effect in the items panel.
• Bake the procedural animation to Keyframes or to Shape Keys.
• A new operator for duplicating the Items.
• 3 New Slicing presets.
• Small presets fixs.
• bug fix: Wrong index when loading a preset.
• bug fix: Error when deleting the container.
• bug fix: Items visibility operators weren't working properly.
• bug fix: Error in copy, paste, with the syncronized effects.

V 2.0.0

The animation system is rewritten from scratch, as now the add-on is powered by geometry nodes, which opened up the door for a ton of new features:

• 12 different effects, and most importantly now there is a clear distinction between the effects and the presets.
• 34 animation presets (combination of effects).
• The ability to add multiple effects.
• The ability to synchronize the effects.
• You can save your combination of effects as a new preset.
• Animate the materials using ANIMAX, with the help of the Attribute Node (Cycles & Eevee).
• The ability to copy, paste and duplicate the effects.
• Now it’s possible to use a curve to change the interpolation.
• A new interpolation method (Ping-Pong).
• You can use the proximity to an object to drive the offset (Effectors).
• You can use a texture to drive the offset.
• It’s possible to repeat the time, for looping the animation.
• Global time control (Time remapping).
• Now it’s possible to add a text procedurally, and to change its parameters, no need to separate the characters and all the extra work.
• Animate the instances outputted from any geometry node-tree, and the ability to change the inputs from the add-on’s UI.
  

V 1.6.2

• bug fix: the Paste operator not working when the effect is "None".
• bug fix: Some operators cause crashes after Undo.

V 1.6.1

• bug fix: Error when baking to keyframes with the effect Copy Animation.
• bug fix: Error when selecting the objects of a collection while the collection is excluded.
• bug fix: Error in some operator's poll when launching a search (f3).
  
  

V 1.6.0

• bug fix: Wrong index on the UI list when deleting all the elements, it was a harmless bug, but fixed anyway.
• New fracturing tool named “Mesh Slicing”.
• Performance improvement, approximately double the speed in most cases, the more objects in the collection the more performance gain.
• New, more robust way for adding the collections, now it’s possible to add multiple collections, and to enable and sort the collections in one go.
• Bake to the delta transform.
• Bake only the Location, the Rotation or the Scale.
• Set the start and end frame of the baking automatically.
• Copy/Paste the effects.
• The possibility to invert the random direction.
• Hide the objects of a the collection from the add-ons list.
• “Clear Keyframes”: it’s possible specify what channels you want to remove.
• Butterfly effect: The vibration not uniform.
• Custom selection order speed up.
• Small UI improvements and another round of code clean-up.

V 1.5.0

• bug fix: Incorrect icons for the random addition (Custom mode).
• bug fix: "Keep Original" in the "Split Operator" was not working as expected.
• Start frame could be a negative number.
• Exposed the "Material offset" of the Solidify modifier in the UI (Split Operator).
• Improved performance for the Follow Curve effect + the ability to change the resolution of the curve right from the add-on's panel.
• Refactoring of the Copy Animation effect, almost 50% speedup.
• Shoot effect performance improvement + new parameter "Add Noise" to randomize the movement of the objects.
• The easing list has separated words for better readability.
• The ability to run the "Cell Fracture" add-on from the split tab (if enabled).
• Optimization of the "Custom Selection" operator, at least 400% faster now.
• Code cleanup and some small optimizations.

V 1.4.4

• bug fix: Deleting the wrong Collections when using the Split operators.

V 1.4.3

• bug fix: Rotation panel not showing up in the Custom mode (Blender 2.82).
• bug fix: Local Rotation not showing up in the Copy Animation effect (Blender 2.82).
• bug fix: Object selection in drop down lists not working properly.

V 1.4.1

•  bug fix: (Scene has no attribute cursor_location), do to this change in the API on March 1st 2019. ANIMAX 1.4.0 works with the versions of Blender prior to March 1st.

V 1.4.0

•  Upgrade to Blender 2.80 Beta.
• Tracking the selection order is now a modal operator.
• New parameter (Seed) for the Random Direction.
• Now uses the new Collections system instead of the old Grouping system.

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.

V 1.2.1

•  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,  Alessio