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Update – 12/15/2022: Cascadeur is now available. A video tutorial will help you learn the basics.
The team behind Cascadeur also told us a little bit about their plans for next year: “Besides the almost finished Hands AutoPosing tool, the further expansion of the AutoPosing and AutoPhysics tools are on the to-do list for the next updates. Also, more interaction of characters with the environment, a convenient control picker, and – in the medium term – a pose library.“
Article published on 13/12/2022.
After more than 10 years of work, Nekki studio is about to officially release Cascadeur, their 3D animation software. This tools relies on AI and has been through about 3 years of beta testing. According to Nekki, more than 100 000 people joined the beta.
Cascadeur is a standalone 3D animation software relying on keyframe animation. AI is used to sketch the animation.
Basically, as you are creating your keyframes, the AI system will adjust the pose of your character to create a more believable pose. Thanks to this AutoPosing tool, explains Nekki, you will be able to work faster. Of course, you can also disable this feature and tweak everything by hand.
Furthermore, Cascadeur also provides a way to avoid having to switch from FK to IK, as well as a rigid body system to introduce physics elements. For example, Cascadeur can compute the trajectory of a jumping character, and help you add secondary motion.
Of course, Cascadeur also provide tools that you expect in an animation software, such as the ability to import video references, to visualize the trajectory of a specific point, onion skinning, a graph editor, etc.
As for pipeline integration, Cascadeur can handle .FBX and .DAE files. And if you are using a standard character rig from Unreal Engine, Mixamo, Daz3D, Character Creator, Metahuman Creator, Player.me, this rig will be detected and rig controllers will be added automatically.
Here’s a video demo that Nekki provided us. We added some English and French subtitles if you need them.
Various payment plans are available. You can subscribe monthly or annually. It should be noted that a free, “Basic” plan is available for hobbyists, freelance artists and small teams.
For more information you can check out the official Cascadeur website, where the software will be available shortly. Tutorials are also avaible on the official website.
