The Kinematic Tool is an animation addon for Blender designed to speed up the kinematic switching workflow. Since kinematic switching is such a fundamental element of 3D animation, the tools and methods for switching and working with Inverse Kinematics (IK) and Forward Kinematics (FK) should be as helpful and fluid as possible. The Kinematic Tool was built as a response to the sluggishness that is common with more conventional approaches to kinematic switching.
Here are the improvements and innovations the Kinematic Tool provides. These are all fully explained throughout the docs:
The final keyframe of an IK range is now and forever in IK (no more switching from FK to IK to make an edit then switch back).
Each assembled IK chain comes with a fully repositionable, unrestrained pivot point, so you aren't locked to limited points of rotation.
You can batch align FK to IK chains at the starts and ends of IK ranges.
You can turn on automatic updates for aligning, interpolating, and motion paths.
The inactive kinematic chains can be made "invisible" (but not hidden), and will automatically change visibility when changing between inactive and active, and vice versa.
When an inactive kinematic chain goes "invisible", it doesn't hide the animation data from the Action Editor, so you can still work with keyframes.
You can quickly calculate the motion paths of the actual deformation bones of an assembled Kinematic Limb that move a mesh, not just the currently active bones.
You can quickly update motion paths with a click of a button.
Rigging! Comes with snappy rigging operators for assembling a Kinematic Limb on any raw 3-bone chain, as well as disassembling, renaming, repositioning and parenting.
Once assembled, you can rename bones as much as you'd like. The system references bone collections and custom properties.
Comes with a 'Follow Rotation' assembly operator, and each assembled Kinematic Limb has 'Follow Rotation' built in.
You can batch interpolate all keyframes that maintain the switching, pivoting, and follow rotation systems.
This user manual serves the Kinematic Tool version 2.0 release, which works with Blender version 4.0 or higher (at time of release). Here are some cool videos showcasing the coolest animation addon in the universe:
Rigging is quick and easy!
Pivot any way you can imagine!
IK ranges allow you to define IK and FK modes simply.
You can setup IK ranges with ease.
Aligning the FK chain to the IK chain at the end of an IK range is snappy.
You can toggle chain visibility.
Motion paths can be automatically updated with "Auto-update motion paths".
You can switch between Follow Rotation ON and Follow Rotation OFF.
Pay attention to the direction of the limbs :)
All the heavy-use animation operators can be added to the top-right tool shelf.
The Prototyper f + m models come with the Kinematic Tool.
The Uniped & Biped practice models also come with the Kinematic Tool!
From here, you can start by learning about the Pre-Rigged Models, start animating with IK Ranges, find out more about Pivoting, or even learn how to assemble kinematic limbs in Rigging. Don't know how to install the tool? Head over to Installation :)
