FAQ

Yes, it is in our plans. You can check our Trello roadmap to see how this is going.

1. Please make sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements.

2. If the requirements are met, please send your log and dxdiag files to our technical support team.

Most of the time this happens when there’s no animation data that could be pasted into your scene, meaning:

1. There’s no animation in the file you’re trying to import.

2. Animation data in this file is either corrupted or in incompatible format.

It is possible to do this on the prototype level.

Yes, this is possible.
Adding objects to the character is done during the rigging stage (the character rig should only consist of proto components).

How exactly it should be done depends on what kind of object you’d like to attach to the character.

If the object you’d like to attach is just a mesh, you’ll need to create a joint for it:

1. Create a new joint (Objects → Add → Joint):

2. Parent the mesh to this joint.
To do this, select the mesh in the Outliner and drag it on top of the joint:

3. Now you can proceed to rig the joint.

If the object is already attached to a joint, the steps described above are not necessary.

Now you need to parent the object’s proto components to the character.

4. Select the top component in the object.

5. Drag it on top of the character’s component you’d like to parent it to:

For example, if the character should hold the object in the hand, use one of the hand joints (hand_r in the example above).

In case the object is already attached to the character this step is not necessary.

After this, the object is ready to be rigged.

After you rig the object:

6. Select the prototype rigid body.

7. Go to the Object Properties panel.

8. Disable the Bind_with_parent option:

This way, there won’t be a relaxation connection between the object and the rest of the character (or an Edge connecting them), and the object will behave more like it is attached to the character and not like a part of the body.

Currently, AutoPosing can only work with rigs adhering to certain requirements.

The easiest way to build such a rig is to use the Quick Rigging Tool:

1. Open the Quick Rigging Tool (Objects → Quick Rigging Tool).

2. Set appropriate joints for every dot/field in the window.

See the Quick Rigging Tool page to learn more about how to do this.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible at the moment, but we are looking forward to expanding the capabilities of our autoposing tool by cooperating with companies that have a large amount of animation data to feed the neural network.

Not at the moment, but we plan to add an option to write Python scripts in one of the future releases.

Yes, you can import and export both animations and stand-alone models in widely popular FBX and Collada (DAE) formats.

There is also an option to export animations into video files.

If an animation you create ends up looking like this:

This is caused by incorrectly placed Additional Controllers.

Additional Controllers are used in combination with Main and Direction controllers to set the rotation for corresponding Rigid Bodies. This means that they should be placed at an angle to the line defined by Main and Direction Controllers, as shown on the image below, on the left side:

Left: a correctly placed Additional Controller. Right: an Additional Controller with an incorrect position.

When this angle is zero, - or close to zero - the software won’t be able to correctly calculate the rotation values for the Rigid Bodies, which in turn would lead to the distortion shown above.

So the solution for such an issue would be moving incorrectly placed Additional Controllers to their proper positions:

1. Enable Rig Mode:

2. Select the controllers.

3. Use Manipulators to place them at appropriate places.

4. Rebuild the rig by clicking Generate rig:

Alternatively, you can simply disable the Rig Mode.

Either way, the updated rig should work correctly.

To learn about placing Additional Controllers see the Additional Controllers page.

To learn more about Additional Points and Point Controllers in general, see these pages:
Point Controllers
Prototype Objects

Cascadeur is a software for creating believable and realistic 3d action animations

Unlike other animation software, character rig in Cascadeur includes physical objects. When you animate your character, you animate movements of rigid bodies as well. Then, our tools use this informnation to calculate, visualize and, if necesary, improve physical characteristics of the pose or animation of the character.

This greatly simplifies animation process and makes it possible to create complex action scenes without relying on motion capture and with no stuntmen involved.

We also aim to make Cascadeur as convenient and user-friendly as possible, so it will be easy to use even if you are not a professional animator.

For everyone interested in realistic character animation.

Physically accurate animations are not easy to make. Even something as simple as a falling dice requires a lot of effort. The purpose of Cascadeur is to make it possible to create physically accurate animations with only key frames, without relying on simulations or motion capture. If you are interested in realistic animations, this is the solution for you.

But even if you are not, Cascadeur is still very much capable of creating traditional character animation.

For a long time, Cascadeur was our inhouse project. Over the years, we’ve used Cascadeur for our games such as:

• Vector 1 and 2
• Shadow Fight
• Shadow Fight 2
• Shadow Fight 3
• Shadow Fight Arena

While working on Shadow Fight 3 we implemented numerous new features and revised many of the existing ones. It was then when we realized that the software has evolved and matured enough to be used outside of our studio.

We have a lot of plans for future improvements and new features, including but not limited to:

-Secondary body animation

-Animation loops

-Dynamic parenting

-Python scripting

-Skinning and blendshapes support

To learn about upcoming features, see our roadmap

You can check our social network accounts:

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cascadeurEN/

VK page: https://vk.com/cascadeurcom

YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCwF6yYbIFJmB5ynAkzq9Psg

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cascadeur_soft

Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/Ymwjhpn

You can also check our community forums at forum.cascadeur.com

Cascadeur supports third-party software through standard FBX and Collada formats.

See Import FBX/DAE and Export FBX/DAE to learn more about file formats.

Cascadeur is currently available for Windows and Linux.

MacOS version is also in the works.

Even if you’re a novice, it shouldn’t be hard to start.

While 3d animation is not an easy subject, we are aiming to create an instrument that will significantly lower the learning curve. So you won't need any specific knowledge to start creating animations in Cascadeur.

You can learn the basics by watching our Tutorials.

For more detailed topics, check our text-based tutorials

And if you’d like to know more about user interface and tools included in Cascadeur, you might want to check the Documentation.

You can download Cascadeur from our site.

In Cascadeur, the Y axis is always directed up; Cascadeur units, which are equal to centimeters, are used as measure units.

Neither of these can be changed at the moment. Because of this, models imported from software with different coordinate systems and/or measure units might end up with incorrect scales or rotations.

To work around this issue we recommend to take into account the configuration of coordinate axes and measure units in the software you are using for creating the models. Most of the 3d solutions provide options to change the corresponding settings either in the scene itself or during export.

In Blender, for example, if you are using FBX export, the corresponding settings can be found under the Transfor tab:

For the AutoPosing tool to work correctly, the additional points on the elbows and knees of the character rig should be placed as shown on the image on the left:

Left: the correct placement of the controllers; right: the incorrect placement.

Pay attention to this as you create a rig for the character.
You can learn more about rigging the character’s limbs on the Hinge Connections page.

The example is provided by the user Montana from Cascadeur Discord channel.

This problem appears when the AutoPhysics tool is applied to a stay-in-place animation, such as a walk or run cycle. In animations like these the character’s legs slide on the ground.

AutoPhysics uses fulcrum points to calculate physically accurate motions. If the character’s leg (or other body part) doesn’t change its spatial position across several frames, it is considered a fulcrum point.
But when legs slide on the ground, like in our case, the system does not recognize them as fulcrum points. Instead it assumes that the character is in mid-air, and alters the animation accordingly.

Currently, the tool is not suited for working with stay-in place animations. However, if you still want to use it for such animation, you can do the following:

1. Create an animation with a character moving.

2. Apply AutoPhysics to it.

3. Squeeze it into a stay-in-place animation.
See the Stay in Place Animation page to learn how to do this.

Tools like AutoPosing and AutoPhysics do not support outdated character rigs found in old scenes.
To be able to use such scenes, you'll need to re-generate the rigs in a newer version of Cascadeur.