Best software for creating animations?

General Discussion
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So I was wondering, what do you guys think the best software for creating animations is?

I know lots of people (including myself) use Blender, but I know there is other software out there.

So to build a list, what are the best programs for making 3d animations for your game models?
What features does it have?
Is it easy for someone new to animating to learn?
Is it compatible with existing JME workflows/formats such as GLTF?
Can it convert animations between different bone structures?
Why do you like it?

The reason I ask, is I am looking for something new that my team can use, we have discussed Maya and 3DS from Autodesk, but I am not sold on them. I use blender a little, but it is not an easy program to just pickup and start animating with no experience with it.

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Note: for animation, I think the same is true for Maya and 3DS. Not easy to just ‘pick up’.

In any of those tools, I think rigging is the hardest, though. If you rig it properly then someone can do the animations much more easily. Extra time spent rigging things properly always pays dividends later, in my opinion.

That being said, I’m also curious about your question. :slight_smile: Maybe some other tool really does make this easier than the big names.

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I am not an animator, I am using the Auto Rig Pro blender add-on for rigging and animation retargeting. I should say it’s a lifesaver.

You can auto rig humanoid models (recently added support for bird models also) and simply retarget Mixamo animations into your character. You can find all its features on the add-on page.

Edit:

Gltf export is on the road map but you can switch this line

bpy.ops.arp_export_scene.fbx(filepath=…)

with

bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf(filepath=self.filepath, export_selected=True, export_format='GLTF_SEPARATE', export_def_bones=True, export_frame_step=1)

and do the following

in the file auto_rig_ge.py and it will work for Humanoid rig export.

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MakeHuman + Blender with MakeWalk + tons of bvh including those from Mixamo + BVH hacker.

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Mixamo also does auto rigging. Not sure how well it works though.

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Has anyone used MOSKETCH: MOSKETCH – Moka Studio ??
It looks interesting.