akeytsu, 3D animation and rigging software for Unity

Very cool @ACharrier ! Really suggest for aspiring animators/riggers to check this out!

 

Thanks Thomas ;-)
I hope a lot of people will take a look at it!
Cheers,

 

I really hope we get some form of physics (PhysX) in this or bones pro alternative to give real body motions in the animations.
and
constraints to get character to prop and character to character interaction.
2 things i really would love to have in akeytsu.

 

I'm currently using Cat Rig in 3D Studio Max. It's a nightmare.

Here is what I would want from akeytsu:

1. Import my humanoid.
2. Setup the bones/rig
3. Setup basic skinning
4. Enable generic walk animation
5. Customize generic walk animation

I want to make a sexy female walking animation without having to make it from scratch:

Examples:

- Sexy female walking animation

- normal female walking animation
http://www.flipbookmarket.com/Daz3D-Poser/genesis-2-female/tc-sexy-walk-pack-2-dazposer - sexy walk 1
http://www.flipbookmarket.com/Daz3D-Poser/genesis-2-female/TC-Sexy-Walk-Pack-1-Daz-Poser - sexy walk 2

- sexy walk 3

Does akeytsu require that you make the walking animation from scratch? If so, then I will have to pass.

 

A simple generic walk cycle can be created from scratch in Akeytsu in no more than 10 minutes, 25 if your not an animator.

Cat doesn't require the animator to create custom walk cycles from scratch.
Have you attempted to import a female mocap walk cycle - or even a standard walk cycle - then edit it with the animation layers to create a unique animation all your own?
One simple solution could be - create a biped in Max with the same hierarchy as your Cat rig. Generate footsteps or load some mocap - convert the footsteps to freeform motion, export as mocap data, apply to your Cat rig, setup animation layers to customize the motion.
Alternately mocap files can be loaded directly onto Cat rigs and edited to your liking with animation layers.

You might consider working with the Cat tools and following some tutorials for a couple days to get comfortable with the way it works and how you can use it to your benefit before stating it's a nightmare.

imo - Realistic body motions can be achieved by artists who know how to animate and rig well.
Tacking on cumbersome physics and troublesome motion capture tools onto Akeytsu would reduce the benefits of this light weight animation tool. The entire selling point of Akeytsu is it's light weight and simple workflow.

 

I tried this soft and I like it. It makes sense. It would be great if someone like me who knows very little about rigging and animation could find tutorials about rigging and animation, using this soft. Bouncing ball. Pendulum. Two legs. Two legs and a tail. A simple character rig, with a walking cycle. How to add an accessory to a character, e.g. a helmet. If someone knows how to rig and animate, this soft is great. But if you wanna learn, you have to learn using other soft, where tutorial videos are available.
Kind regards.

 

Hey Ippokratis - did you view the video tuts on the site? I watched them and found them to be pretty straight forward, though coming from an experienced point of view with rigging/animating. Interesting perspective I never considered, you thought the rigging/skin weighting videos did not provide enough information for a novice animation artist?

Maybe showing while explaining the basics of common rigging techniques would be a good addition to the video tutorials.

 

Hi guys,

1) Sorry for the very late answer. It is true we made some tutos about akeytsu but not general tutos about animation and rigging basics. Well, it is more by lack of time (we are overbusied ;-)) and because some generic infos you can find on the net can already be really helpful. About animation basics i think about Preston Blair books or The survival animation kit of Richard Williams. Perfect to learn animation ! Concerning "more longer" akeytsu tutos i suggest the very nice videos that Gabriela Montes (from Epic Tavern) does on Twitch. Many thanks again Gaby for that ;-)

2) Happy to announce nukeygara will be present at Unite Europe in few weeks in Amsterdam. I will be there to make demos of akeytsu. So please contact us to book meetings. Can't wait to see you there, guys!

Cheers,
Aurelien

 

Hi guys,

I hope you are well.
Very few words to tell you akeytsu beta 3.0 with Skin Painter is available on nukeygara's website.
Enjoy ;-)

Then, i will be present at Unite Europe with akeytsu packed in my bag. So do not hesitate to contact me.
It will be a pleasure to meet you and make few demos ;-)

See you in Amsterdam!

Cheers,
Aurelien

 

Hi Aurelien, I've PM'ed you.

 

Hi Pedro,
Sorry for the late reply.
I've PM'ed you ;-)

 

Hello Aurelien,
your program looks very impressive so far. What I could not see by now is a constraint feature.
Is it possible to set deformations of one bone in relation to the deformation of another one?
Example: Bone 1 rotates by 50 deg and Bone is supposed to rotate half of Bone 1 rotation. In other words Bone 2 would be rotated by 25 deg.

In Blender you can set hundreds of constraints, which makes a rig very powerful. But there is a big own side in Bender, which results in an update delay.

If this would be possible in your program, it woul for sure be an instant buy.

 

This is called bend links mode. It is a default ability in Max on all bone chains, including regular bones, biped and cat.
Unsure if akeytsu has this built in - but agree with Fab4 - its a great tool to have for animators to use.

 

It would also be great if those bend links could be faded from 0 = ignored to 1 = used, like an fk\ik switch

 

Hi,

Sorry for late answer.
By the way, the team took few (well deserved) holidays so i made a break with forums.
Yes, we plan to add constraints and we particularly think about roll joints ;-)
Thanks for you support.
I wish you a beatiful summer end.

Cheers,
Aurelien

 

No problem, I read that it is vacation time on your official forums
I hope you had some nice time to relax.

So do you mean by constraints, that one bone cn move by the transformation of another or also that those depenencies can be changed by another constraint?

 

Hi Fab4,

Thanks ;-)
To be more clear: we will add roll joints system allowing automatic twist of joints by manipulating leaf joints (your remark 1). The same way we developed our Ready-To-Use IK, we plan to develop a R2U "looker" system for eyes control with aim constrain too (your remark 2). By the way we plan to develop a R2U reverse foot too ;-)

Many thanks
Cheers,
Aurelien

 

OK I just wanted to be sure. That is great news.
I think I will prepurchase very soon

 

Hi guys,
Just few words to tell you akeytsu is now available on Steam!
... with a fresh trailer ;-)

Cheers,
Aurelien

 

Hi guys,

I hope you are (all) well.
Have you seen our first Akeytsu V1 review from 80 Level ? You should take a look at it ;-)
Enjoy!

 

I'm a programmer. I tried to learn skinning and rigging from Maya or Blender, but could not get a good result. Akeytsu feels like home. For the first time, I can rigs and skin the whole character with ease, with good results. The workflow, panels, spinner (super like this) are brilliant and easy to understand. I hope there is a Akeytsu for modeling out there also. Small complains so far: I found updating skin sometimes not work, painting with brush not as smooth as Maya or Blender brush.

 

Hi Ikemen,

Thank you so much for your comment. Happy to know you enjoy Akeytsu (which is really different from other CG package, for sure ;-)).
About your feedbacks: you mean by updating skin our copy/paste skin feature, right? If yes, it's weird because we have pretty good results even with characters a bit different.
Could you give us more detail about your painting remark too? why do you feel our brush less smooth than Maya or Blender ones. You can use our forum to answer or contact us directly.
Thanks again for your support and please talk about Akeytsu around you ;-)

Cheers,

 

Hi guys,

We hope you are well.
While our team is focusing on V2 features (including tasty blendshapes ) we do not forget you for all that.
So here's Update 1.1.0 with the cool "Hide Skinned Mesh Vertices" allowing, f.i, to hide the empty side of your model when working your half skin, to work your skin from the inside! Vertex lasso (and ability to select "front only" vertices) included too.
Enjoy

https://www.nukeygara.com/learn-akeytsu/documentation#release-history