KINEFX ANIMATION
The animation tools in KineFX make it easier to create motion by providing a flexible, non-linear workflow for blending, layering, and editing animation clips. Animators can seamlessly combine keyframed animation with ragdoll dynamics, while using constraints, and motion mixing to produce more natural and complex character movement.
Ragdoll
Ragdolls in KineFX help animators create more believable and natural motion by simulating realistic physics and body dynamics. Instead of manually keyframing every reaction, ragdolls allow characters to respond dynamically to forces, collisions, and the environment. This not only saves time but also adds an extra layer of authenticity and weight to animations, making movements feel more grounded and lifelike.
Tethering
The new tether feature in Ragdoll gives animators full control over animatable stiffness, allowing characters to be tightly attached, act like a rope, move independently, or even be puppeted like marionettes.
Breaking Tethers
Animators can easily connect characters, adjust stiffness, and create realistic dragging or pulling effects while allowing tethers to be enabled or broken for seamless transitions between combined and independent ragdoll behavior.
Animate Props
The Scene Animate Prop feature lets animators combine character motion with pre-fractured geometry to create crashes, break objects, and layer complex destruction effects while keeping everything fully animatable for easy adjustments.
Animation Catalog
The new animation catalog lets animators quickly apply, blend, and reuse saved poses and animations. This speeds up blocking and enables pose sharing between characters for a more efficient workflow.
Poses
The animation catalog in Houdini lets animators instantly apply saved poses to characters with a single click, eliminating the need for repetitive manual posing.
Animation Clips
Animation can be saved and reused the same way. The catalog gives a preview of the animation so you know what is being applied to the character.
Animator Experience
Animators need to work quickly and efficiently, which requires a clean and organized workspace that allows them to focus on their characters and motion. Reducing on-screen controls and visual distractions can speed up the creative process and make posing and adjusting animations more effective.
Tear Off Viewport
Houdini now lets animators tear off a synced viewport, allowing them to pose and animate characters while instantly seeing real-time updates from the camera view.
Hide Controls
Houdini includes control visibility options that let animators automatically hide controls during playback, scrubbing, or dragging, making it easier to see poses and animations clearly without manual toggling.
Handle Preferences
New customization options give animators control over the size, alignment, and brightness of handles so they can personalize the how they look for a more comfortable and efficient workflow.
Skin Controls
Skin controls let animators directly select and pose highlighted areas on the character, reducing visual clutter compared to traditional controls.
Constraints
Constraints are used to lock specific body parts or objects to other elements, such as attaching a hand to a prop or keeping a foot planted on the ground. They allow animators to set up offsets and adjustments without complex rig setups. This makes it easier to preserve existing animation while working on a shot.
Full Body IK Posing
Full body IK lets animators easily pin body parts in place while posing, enabling more precise and controlled character positioning.
Controls
New constraint tools let animators quickly lock objects in place while providing automatic extra controls to fix issues like stretching, intersections, or broken poses.
Parenting
Parent constraints let animators attach objects, like a hand to a guitar, while preserving existing animation and providing extra controls for easy offsets, fixes, and adjustments.
Look At
Look-at constraints let animators control a character’s orientation with a single control while retaining all existing constraints and animation for a smoother, more efficient workflow.
Motion Mixer
The motion mixer allows animators to blend, layer, and rearrange animation clips without being locked into a single timeline, making it easier to experiment and iterate. It provides the flexibility to combine multiple motions seamlessly, adjust timing, and add variations without reanimating from scratch.
Mixing Motion
Explore how the new motion mixer seamlessly blends, trims, and combines multiple animation clips while preserving IK and preventing issues like foot slipping for smooth, natural transitions.
Animate FX
Adding animation FX in the motion mixer gives animators full access to APEX tools like layers, motion paths, and selection sets, allowing easy pose adjustments and blending changes without re-animating.
Ragdoll
Motion mixer gives animators full access to the APEX toolset, enabling them to blend clips, keyframe changes, and add ragdoll dynamics to create more dynamic and flexible animations.