Tools, or instruments, are used for editing scenes. Each tool is designed for a specific task, with some of them intended for editing character poses and creating animatons, while other are for improving complete animations, creating physically accurate movements or working with character rigs.

This page lists every tool available in Cascadeur. For convenience, tools are separated into categories depending on their functionality.

Animation Tools

Selector Tool
The instrument for selecting scene objects such as characters and their body parts.

Manipulators
A set of instruments for moving, rotating and scaling  scene objects.

Hiding Tool
Allows hiding parts of the characters, making editing poses more convenient

Fixing Tool
Allows pinning selecting objects to their positions for more precise control

Ghosts
Simplify creating additional poses and can be used for fixing animation errors

Silhouette
This mode is useful when you need to make sure that character poses are expressive and easy to read

Trajectories
Show paths travelled by the objects and can be used for editing them.
There are several kinds of Trajectories in Cascadeur:

• Translation Trajectories show objects’ translation, i.e. their position in the 3D scene.
• Rotation Trajectories show how objects rotate as they move, and can be used for adjusting these rotations.
• Direction Trajectories render the selected object’s trajectory relative to its parent.

Additional Objects
These objects are not directly used in animation, but can be added to the scene to make the animation process more convenient.

Tween Machine
This tool is used for blending the object’s current position with a different position: either taken from other frames or calculated on the basis of these frames.

Mirror Tools
Provide means for reflecting character poses, simplifying animation process.

Copy Tools
Used for exchanging positions and spatial orientations of objects between frames.

AutoPosing
Generates character poses based on user-applied transformations.

• AutoPosing for Fingers is a specialized version of AutoPosing for working with fingers and hand gestures.

Interval Edit Mode
Used for adjusting multiple frames simultaneously

Scene Linking Tool
Provides means for combining several scenes into one without increasing their compexity.

Graph Editor
Used for editing animation curves.

Composition
Provides guiding lines for working with scene composition.

Spline IK
This tool uses curves to work with joint chains.

Root Constraint
Used for creating animation that involve root motion.

Mocap (Alpha) 
Used to recognize poses of images or frames, and apply these poses to the character in the scene.

Control Picker
An instrument for creating custom buttons to quickly select parts of the character rig.

Retargeting
Transfers animation from one rig to another.

Animation Unbaking
This tool takes a baked (fully keyframed) animation and automatically transforms it into an un-baked one, with fewer keyframes and various types of interpolation.

Blend Shapes
Deform 3D objects on a per-vertex basis. They work by storing several shapes of the same mesh, and then ‘mixing’ them together to change the object’s appearance.

Live Link for Unreal Engine
Transfers animation data between Cascadeur and Unreal Engine. Any change made in one software is immediately reflected in the other.

Inbetweening
Takes selected Keyframes and generates animation between them.

Timeline Tools

A set of instruments for setting character poses, creating transitions between them and otherwise building character movements

Keyframes define character poses and positions

Interpolation is used to create transitions between key poses

Animatiuon Tracks separate the scene into parts for convenience of the animation process

Track Stretching Mode is used for adjusting interpolation intervals

Playback Tools is a set of controls for playing back animations

Animation Cycles are used for easily producing looping animations

Audio Support gives you an option to use audio files in Cascadeur scenes

Physics Tools

Physics tools are used to improve character animation by making it physically accurate, or for creating physics-based movements such as jumps.

Center of Mass - a centerpiece part of a character rig, necessary for creating physically accurate movements

Ballistic Trajectory is used for creating physically accurate jumps

Ballistic Ghosts are used for correcting rotation of a character in the state of free flight

Fulcrum Points is an instrument for making character interaction with fulcrums (such as landing spots) look more lifelike

AutoPhysics analyzes the animation you’ve created and suggests a physically accurate version of it.

Fulcrum Motion Cleaning is used for correcting motion of the character’s fulcrum limbs.

Interaction with Environment is used to assign Collision Shapes to scene objects so they could interact with each other and with other physical objects.

Camera Tools

A set of tools for creating and managing camera objects.

Rigging Tools

Rigging Tool
A set of instruments for creating character rigs.

Quick Rigging Tool
A simplified option for quickly creating humanoid rigs.

See Also

Interface Guide