Anym has released a new physics-based animation engine designed to generate full motion from very sparse keyframes, with plugins currently available for Blender, Maya, and Cinema 4D. A plugin for Unreal Engine is in development.
The system uses a standard humanoid 22-joint armature, producing outputs that can be processed and retargeted within existing pipelines. Animators can set only the defining poses of a motion, with the engine filling in the intermediate frames. For simpler movements, this can require as few as one keyframe every five seconds, while more complex sequences may need one or two per second.
The tool maintains adherence to user-defined keyframes, allowing creative control to remain with the animator. Users can iterate through unlimited preview generations, with each attempt rendered in an interactive browser-based previewer. Final animations can be unlocked and exported back into the user’s scene once they are satisfied with the results.
Anym provides new users with five credits, equivalent to five seconds of delivered animation, upon account creation. Previews are not limited by credits, enabling ongoing testing and iteration before final export.
The plugins are available through the company’s GitHub page. For more information, visit anym.tech
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It’s a shame the plugin doesn’t work with 3ds Max. I gave Cascadeur a try, but honestly found it pretty awkward to bring things back into Max, especially since you can’t really edit it further once its in. So I ended up just sticking with CAT. Feels like there’s a real gap in the market for some kind of AI character system in Max—especially since its unlikely Autodesk will be porting MotionMaker to 3ds Max anytime soon.