Offering an artist-friendly UI and a host of industry-first tools, Akeytsu is a fast and easy-to-use rigging and animation program for game development. Early access pricing is available until the official release on October 25, 2017.
“The official release of Akeytsu features several timesaving industry-first tools, including a new IK/FK solver, a first of its kind half rig mirroring process, partial cycling automation, a new way to keyframe and much more.
A few of the new industry-first features in Akeytsu include:
Light Rig & Skin – Skinning and rigging tools have been simplified to accelerate this entire process. Curve manipulators are no longer necessary to handle the character, as artists can now simply click on the skinned mesh to create their poses. A new duo skin feature provides intuitive duo-steps skinning, saving time without sacrificing high quality results
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IK/FK solver - Doing away with complex manipulators, Akeytsu’s simplified process allows animators to handle IK and FK in a single skeleton.
Spinner – Akeytsu introduces a unique 2D manipulator, allowing fast and easy rotation, translation, reverse foot and IK pole vector controls. It has also been designed to avoid the constant and tedious camera view adjustments required by most tools to select thin axis line on screen.
Curveboard – Akeytsu offers a fully integrated F-curve editor directly in the 3D viewpoint, granting users the ability to animate in a single monitor.
Cyclemaker – With Cyclemaker, animators only need to do the first part of a character’s motion cycle; Akeytsu will automate the rest. Cyclemaker also makes it so artists can modify motion on just one side, then have the software automatically modify the other.
Stacker – Akeytsu’s stacker reworks the X-sheet, from traditional 2D keyframing to fit the 3D workflow, offering a vertical keyframe editor that works in conjunction with the timeline keyframe editor. The stacker takes into account the built-in layering system of the mixer.
Akeytsu is designed for use by small indie teams, larger professional studios or even students looking to experiment with animation software. Using the FBX file format, animators can bring their models into Akeytsu from any 3D package, and then return the modified file to the original program – including game engines – to complete the rendering.
To help develop and polish Akeytsu, Nukeygara put it through a demanding two-year beta process, conducted by over 3,000 animators who used it for gaming, as well animation projects for other mediums.
Akeytsu will be available in three versions: Learn (free for students and teachers, $39 for educational institutions), Indie ($179) and Pro ($589).