Animtoolbox is an addon with a set of tools and workflows for animation such as Temp Controls, Editable motion path, Retime markers, Copy Paste Matrices and more.

A complete new documentation (with ongoing updates) is now available

Support is available also at Animtoolbox Discord channel

Recently updated to version 0.0.7.1 available also via the auto updater in the addon preferences.

AnimToolbox features three categories: Temp Controls, Anim Tools, and Display Tools.

TEMP CONTROLS

A modular rigging system designed for animators, Temp Controls allows you to create different chain setups and link or unlink them together. The animation is always baked back into the Temp Controls and eventually into the original rig or armature, with or without smartbake, which keeps original keyframe positions and recalculates the keyframe handles.
Each control can also have an extra child bone for extra control, or Root when using a different space then world space.
There are two types of World Space Controls

Track Target Ctrls

Creates a target ctrl in world space. It includes Axis, Offset and also Twist options. Twist is controlled using the Temp Control rotation on the twist axis.

The following example shows how to use it to create a quick delay on the head.

Copy Transform Ctrls

Is the standard basic control copying all the transformations in world space.

The following example show how to use it for overlap motion on the ears.

Filter specific axes to control and delay only the up and down movement

Temp IK

Creates a quick temporary IK from the selected FK controls. It's now possible to give an offset to the pole target ctrl.

Temp FK

Creates FK chain based on a selection order. When selecting in a reversed order, the option to flip the bones will be turned on automatically.

Link Temp Chains

Link different chains to each other or unlink them. This eventually turns Temp Ctrls into a modular system.

The following Tutorial goes over the different controls and how to link them in more detail. It shows two different setups used to edit the legs of a motion capture.

Bake Temp Ctrls

bakes to the original rig, and removes all Temp Ctrls or only selected chains. can now use different frame ranges

Scene range, custom range and keyframe range which also works with smartbake.

It is also possible to include all layers in the smart bake. This is especially useful when baking into a new animation layer.

Cleanup

If you are not happy from the results you can always quickly remove temporary rig setup. Choose All to remove all rig setups, or selected to remove only selected chain, or relative to remove the rig setup realted to current selection.

Temp Ctrls Switch

Enable or disable the Temp Ctrls influence on the original rig.

Temp Ctrls Shapes

You can always change the shape and size of your Temp Ctrls. Also after they were created.

World Space Empties

Similar to world space controls but bakes animation into empties instead of a control rig.

EDITABLE MOTION PATH

Edit animation curves directly in the viewport. move the keyframes or their Bezier handles. It's also possible to add and remove keyframes to the path.

Available motion path hotkeys

Shift to add or remove keyframes from selection.

Ctrl + Left Mouse Click - Add or remove keyframes. When a keyframe turns blue, it means it will be removed once the mouse is clicked.

G or Left mouse click for grabbing and moving.

R rotating the selection.

S scaling the selected keyframes.

XYZ are available for locking specific axes.

Numpad . for zooming, available only while hovering on a selected keyframe.

V - to change handle types, like in the graph editor but directly in the viewport

Ctrl + T - Change interpolation, similar to hotkey T in the graph editor / dopesheet.

Retime Markers  

Retime mocap or animation using Blender's native markers.

It is now working also with multiple objects, bones and layers/nla strips.

Relative Cursor Pivot  

The 3D cursor is moving relative to the selection, and is being utilized as a Temporary Pivot Point.

Keyframes Offset

Offsets all the keyframes of the selected bones or objects. very useful together with World Space Ctrls. It is now using an interactive slider for a non-destructive workflow. available also from the toolbar.

Different offsets based on different selection orders.

Copy World Matrix

Copy the world matrix of an object or a bone. It recalculates also child of constraints, so it will always go back to the same position in world space. Examples for Useful cases:

• Fix sliding legs for cyclic animation that move with a root bone
• When switching between different setups, and things start to jump around like child of constraints.
• align object with bones

Copy Relative Matrix

Works only with two multiple selected bones or objects. Copy the distance between the selected object or bone to the active object/bone.

Copy Relative Matrix works also between objects and bones, you can use it instead of dealing with constraints, to attach an object at specific frames.

Paste Matrix - Pastes the matrix that was copied to the selected bone. It is possible to paste to the current frame, selected keyframes or a frame range. When using frame range it is possible to define the frame range easly with the markers widget.

Convert Rotation Order

Converts the rotation order to a new rotation order, while keeping the animation as is. It includes also a recommender for rotation orders to avoid gimbal locks issues.

Sharekeys

select multiple bones or objects, with keyframes on different frames in the timeline. press Sharekeys and keyframes will be added to all controls across the timeline, so now they share the same amount of keyframes at the same frames. This also can be usefull during blocking phase.

Isolate Pose Mode

Isolated the Armature when going into posemode from other Armatures.

Animated Collection Visibility

Turns on and off all the collections with animated bones inside.

Blendings

Blend To Mirror

a slider for mirroring poses. Instead of using Blender's mirror pose, you can use this slider for mirroring but without having a complete symmetry.

Inbetween Keyframe - Based on Anim Layer's inbetweener. Adds a keyframe with an inbetween value, between two keyframes. Can work also within anim layers or nla tracks.

Inbetween World Matrix - This is similar to copy/paste world matrix but works as an in-betweener. Value of one is the the world matrix position of the next keyframe. Value of minus one is the world matrix position of the previous position. Entering a value over the limits will push the pose.

Frame range Marker widgets - adjusts the scene or bake frame range using Markers.

UI updated

With new colored icons and was also added to the header menu. There's also an option for a quick icons menu.

Sidebar panel

RIGGERTOOLBOX

A set of tools for creating customized rigs. Current tools are still very experimental. It's added as a bonus tool that needs to be turned on in the preferences. It still works also with Blender 4 but not much maintained since I'm currently focusing on the Temp Ctrls, as a modular rigging system.

Add Chain Controls

Creates a chain of parent and stretch target controls for all the selected bones. can create also closed chains such as mouth loops. Can keep the hierarchy order within the bone controls.

Add Bbone widgets

automatically create controls for Bbones. These are not the built-in standard Blender Bbone controls, but rather controls that are working similiar to bezier handles. They are connected to the bbone properties through drivers.

Merge Rigs

join rigs together into the active rig. Removes duplicated bones and keep their hierarchy order and constraint connection. The duplicated common bones can be used as connection points between the two rigs.