Prokamo · Procedural Character Animation for Games and Short Films

Help & shortcuts

How Prokamo works, and every key it answers to

The basics

Getting started

An animation is a stack of layers. Each one poses the bones on top of everything under it, so order matters.

Read it from the bottom up: Locomotion walks at the bottom, Weight sells each step over it, Head look-at turns the head last, at the top. Drag a layer to change the order, and the result changes with it.

+ Add layer: The button under the stack puts a new layer on top (or right above the one you picked); the + between two layers slots one in right there.
Layers from a save: In the same menu: brings in every layer of a saved project at that spot.
Name · tags: Name it in the top bar and add up to three tags (Enter or a comma adds one, × or Backspace removes it). They're saved with the project, name the saved file and the exported clip, and a preset fills them in.
Tabs: As many animations as you need in one project, one per tab above the stack. When they outgrow the strip it scrolls. The magnifier at its end finds any of them by name, with Animations and Poses apart. Right-click a tab to rename it, use it as a Pose, or close it.
Pose tabs: Right-click a tab, Use as > Pose: what its stack makes at one frame becomes a pose named by the tab, for the layers that use poses. That frame is the flag on the timeline; drag it to pick another. It stays live as you edit the tab, and exports as the pose held.
Saved: Your work is kept in this browser as you go: every tab, the Kit, the character, and where you were. A refresh, a crash, or coming back another day picks up where you left off, with Start fresh in the note if you'd rather not. A second browser tab starts its own work.
Recover…: In the menu: the last 20 versions kept, a couple of minutes apart, to open one again. What's open at the time is kept as a version first. Save project still downloads a file, for a backup or another computer.

Tools under the stack

The layer bar

The bar rides right under the stack and holds the tools that work on the stack as a whole.

Hover any of them for its name and shortcut. A grayed-out tool has nothing to work on yet, like Redo before an Undo.

Add layer: A layer above the selection, or at the top. Shift+A
Undo · Redo: Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z.
History: The last 20 steps: click one to go straight back to it.
Group: One Weight, Mute and Solo for the selected layers. Ctrl+G
Flatten: Bakes the stack into one Take that plays at full speed.
Mask: Keeps the selected layers to the body parts you pick.
Collapse · Expand: Folds every card, so the whole stack fits. Once they are folded, the same button unfolds them all.
Clear: Empties the stack. Undo brings it back.

Most tools act on the selection.

Click: A layer's header picks that layer alone.
Ctrl+click: Adds a layer to the selection, or drops it.
Shift+click: Adds every layer between it and the last one picked.
Ctrl+C Ctrl+V: Copy the selected layers and paste them in another tab, or another window. Ctrl+X cuts.

Narrow panel?Group, Flatten, Mask and Collapse fold into the … button at the end of the bar.

Many layers, one set of controls

Groups

A group puts one Weight, one Mute and one Solo over every layer in it.

Weights multiply: Noise plays at 60% of 50%, so 30%. Key the group's Weight to fade the whole move in and out over a walk.

Ctrl+G: Groups the selected layers where the top one sat. Groups in the selection merge into the new one.
Drag in · out: Drop a layer under a group's header, or between its layers, to join it. Drag it elsewhere to leave. Drag the header to move the whole group.
Mute: Silences every layer inside, even a soloed one.
Solo: On the group: all its layers play. On one layer inside: its neighbors go quiet.
… menu: Duplicate copies the group with its layers. Ungroup keeps the layers. Remove takes them with it.

One level deepGroups don't nest: a group dropped into another lands right above it. A folded group takes no drops, so open it first.

A group has no mask of its own: Mask on a group masks every layer inside. Copy a group and it pastes with its layers.

Bake it, keep it

Flatten and Takes

Flatten bakes layers into one Take: a pose for every frame, so it plays at full speed and stays exactly the way you liked it.

Select Ragdoll and Flatten: everything from the bottom up through it becomes one Take. Noise, above, keeps working live on the Take's result.

SpeedA heavy stack (Ragdoll, Weight, Physics) plays in real time.

Keep the takeA random or simulated result stays exactly the one you liked.

Build on itLayers above the Take keep working live.

What bakes: The bottom of the stack up through the highest selected layer. Nothing selected: the whole stack. A group always goes in whole.
What stays: Gear and props stay live, where they are. Muted layers bake silent and come back muted.
The Take: A layer like any other: a Weight you can key, Mute, Solo, a Mask, a place in a group. Its card shows the frames, fps and bones; From N layers lists what's inside.
Unflatten: On the Take's card or its … menu: every layer comes back in its place, with the Take's group, mute, solo, mask and weight. Nothing is lost.
Flatten up to here: In any layer's … menu: flattens through that layer.

In stepA Take passes on how far it walked, so Foot lock, Hand IK and the look-ats above it keep following. What it can't pass on is the timing of each step: flatten a walk together with layers that move in step with its feet, like Weight and Arms.

Baked for this clipA Take keeps the fps, length and loop it was baked with, on this character's bones. Changed them? Unflatten and Flatten again. Its card warns when the clip's length or fps no longer fit.

Flatten again over a Take and more layers: they fold into one Take, never a Take in a Take. Community downloads arrive as one Take, so Unflatten one to see how it's made. Ctrl+Z undoes a Flatten.

Only these parts

Body mask

A mask keeps a layer to the body parts you pick. Every other bone keeps the pose from the layers under it, exactly.

A wave clip masked to Arm R, above a walk: the arm waves, and the rest of the body keeps walking.

1 Select layers2 Mask3 Pick parts

Root & hipsSpineHead & neckArm LArm RLeg LLeg R

The parts on Manny. Creatures list their own: Front leg L, Hind leg R, Tail, Wing L, Jaw and so on.

Which bones: A bone goes with the part its chain starts in: fingers (and a weapon bone) ride with their Hand, twist bones with their limb; the root, pelvis and IK bones with Root & hips.
Whole body · Invert: Quick picks in the popover. Every part on, or none, means no mask at all.
The chip: A masked layer's header shows how many parts it moves. Hover for the list; click to change it.
Several at once: Select several layers, or a group, and they all get the same mask.

Root & hipsThe root carries a layer's root motion, and the pelvis its hip sway. Leave the part off and the layer moves neither.

HandsEach hand is a part of its own. Mask a layer to everything but the hands and a grip under it (a Hand pose on a gun, a sword, a mug) holds while the layer moves the rest; or mask a layer to the hands alone.

All or nothingA part is on or off. For a softer mix, lower the layer's Weight; an Animation clip also has a weight per body part.

Flattening keeps a mask's effect in the Take, and a masked Take stays its own Take when you flatten over it.

Feet stay put

Keep contacts

A switch under a layer’s Weight: the feet stay where the layers under it put them while the layer moves the body, the knees bending to take it.

On: A hip drop becomes a crouch, and a lean stays standing. The legs the layer carries along, but does not move itself, are solved back onto their feet.
Off: The legs go where the body takes them: a character flying, swimming, or hanging.
On at first: Noise, Idle sway, Creature idle, Weight, Smoothing, Overlapping Action, and Exaggerate start with it on, as they have always kept the feet. Every other layer starts with it off.
Not offered: Layers that make the feet’s motion themselves (a walk, a jump, a clip, a ragdoll, Foot lock) don’t have it, and neither does a character without legs.

With a maskThe switch acts on what the layer leaves after its mask: a layer masked to Root & hips can drop the hips and keep the feet.

Strafes and backpedals

Direction

A setting on Locomotion and Gait: which way the walk goes, measured from where the body faces. The same walk becomes a strafe, a diagonal, or a backpedal.

0 · 90 · 180: Straight ahead, a strafe to the right, and backward. Negative angles go left.
The body: The feet step along the travel line while the chest and head keep facing forward. A person’s hips turn part of the way toward the travel (Hips turn toward it).
Backward: The walk runs backward in time: the foot reaches back, lands on its toes, and lifts heel last. A person’s steps are a quarter shorter there, at the same cadence.
One beat: Every direction lands its left foot (a creature’s lead foot) on the same frame, so a set of directions blends in a Blend Space.
Sideways hips: Between 60 and 120 degrees the hips can open toward the front or toward the back (Sideways, the hips open). Side clips in a blend should match their neighbors.

No foot through a legA person’s stance widens going sideways and the swinging foot arcs round the planted leg. A creature’s body cannot turn like hips, so it never crosses its legs: where two feet would meet, it takes shorter steps, and the loop info says so. Wide-legged creatures (insects, spiders) go sideways easily; narrow ones shuffle.

In the Node graphThe Direction node reads it from the walk: the angle, how much of it is forward and sideways, the hips’ turn, and the travel. Lean the spine into a strafe, or swing a tail out against a side step.

Direction holds for the whole clip, so it has no keys. On a Root motion path the path is the travel and the body turns off it.

Clips for a game

Locomotion Kit

The Kit tab on the viewport’s right edge makes the set of clips a game’s movement needs from the tabs you already have, laid out as a tree like the Rig’s parts. It makes only what you pick.

Character: How it moves. Turn to move: each speed straight ahead, plus turning loops at 45 and 90 degrees a second each way, the body turning toward where it goes (Unreal: Orient Rotation to Movement). Strafe: each speed in 4 or 8 directions while the body faces the aim (Unreal: Use Controller Desired Rotation). Names start sets the first part of every name: A_Manny_Walk_F, _FR, _R, and so on.
Idle: Any tab, played as it is. Under it, Turns in place: 90 and 180° each way, stepping round.
Speeds: A tab each: a Walk, a Jog, a Run, or a Crouch. Every clip of a speed is its tab with the walk turned (Direction), so one edit to the tab reaches them all. Under each speed, its own Loops, Starts and stops (stepping off from standing, and to a stop, feet together), and Pivots (slowing, coming about, and walking off the other way). With Strafe, starts, stops, and pivots come in every direction, or forward only. A tab with no Locomotion or Gait (a clip of yours, or a library one) is the clip ahead, and its other slots take tabs.
Actions: Jump, cut from a jump tab into a start up to the top of the arc, a fall loop held there, and a land. Make a Jump tab starts one from the idle with a Jump on it: shape its height, timing, and hang, and layer anything on top. And any tab of yours as it is (an attack, a wave), named like the rest: it plays once unless its tab loops.
Rows: Each row counts the clips it makes. A dim + row adds that part, and the × on a row takes it off. Click a row for its settings and its clips’ names, under the tree.
Slots: Beside each clip’s name under the tree, where it comes from: Made by the Kit, Mirror of the slot on the other side (a left from its right), Left out, or any tab of yours, played as it is (mocap, a Motion library clip, layers of your own; a Pose tab is its pose, held). The Kit’s own tabs come first, and a big project gets Find a tab… for the rest. The pencil makes a Kit clip a tab of its own to refine, the other side mirroring it, so you only work on one side; pick something else there to split them.
Preview: The picked row’s clips play at once, each copy standing out from the middle the way it goes, the idle in the middle.
Export kit…: Opens Export > Animation with the Kit’s clips ticked: download them, or send them to Unreal. Your tabs stay as they are.
In Unreal: Sent to Unreal, the Kit goes in its own folder, Kit_Manny, laid out like the tree: Idle, a folder for each speed (its starts and pivots in their own), and Actions. A new character goes into Character first, and every clip onto its Skeleton.
Update: Once the Kit is in Unreal, a dot marks each row whose clips changed since, and the foot of the panel says how many. Update sends just those, each onto the asset it made, so the Blend Spaces and Animation Blueprints using them keep working. Renaming a speed or the names makes new assets; the old ones stay in Unreal.

Hips both waysWith Strafe, a speed’s Loops can add a _HipsBack copy of each side clip, so a Blend Space can swap the hips as the aim swings past the side.

The Kit is saved in the project file.

Timing

Blocks

Block out when each layer plays: the top of the three time editors. Blocks for when, the Dope sheet for which keys, Curves for how a value moves.

1 Blocks: when2 Dope sheet: which keys3 Curves: how it moves

Open it with Blocks over the timeline; the switch at the head of each editor moves between the three. One row per layer, in the stack's order. A layer nobody has timed is a quiet block across the whole clip.

Drag a block: Moves it. A Jump, Gesture, Impulse or Ragdoll starts where its block starts: the block's left edge is its Start, so moving the block moves the action. A walk or breathing keeps its own rhythm; its block only says when it shows.
Ends · top corners: Drag an end to trim where it starts or stops. Pick a block and drag a handle on its top corners to fade it in or out, instead of keying its Weight.
Poses inside: A Pose loop's poses and Ragdoll Motors' poses over time show as hills in their block: drag one to move it, its ends to ease in and let go, its top right corner to hold it longer.
Weight: Still says how much of a layer reaches the body, and is still keyable. Weight keys to fades turns a Weight that fades a layer in and out (0 to 100% and back) into its block.
Keys: Click to pick (Shift adds), arrows nudge a frame (Shift: 10), Delete gives a block back the whole clip, double-click opens its card. A click on empty time moves the playhead.

On a loopA block can run across the end of a looping clip and come in again at the start, so a wave late in the cycle finishes early in the next.

Animate any value

Keys and curves

Every value has a key diamond at its right. One look tells you its story:

HollowNot animated

OutlinedKeyed elsewhere

FilledA key at the playhead

I: Keys the value under the pointer at the playhead. Clicking its diamond does the same.
Alt+I: Removes that key, as does clicking a filled diamond. Change a keyed value and it keys itself.
Key strip: Under every keyed value: click a key to jump to it, drag to move it, double-click to add one, right-click to delete. Its curve icon switches between smooth and linear (the tooltip says which).
Curves: The graph editor for every keyed value: tangents, weighted handles, copy and paste. Double-click a key in a strip, or Alt+click a diamond, to open it right there.

TipWith Loop on, curves wrap: the last key flows right back into the first.

No pops at the seam

Looping

With Loop and Seamless on, a clip of any length loops without a pop.

start3 whole cyclesend = start

Every periodic layer (gait, breathing, sway, look-at, noise, pulses, repeats) snaps to a whole number of cycles of the clip. The line under the transport says what was adjusted.

Locomotion: Adjusts its speed or stride to fit. Fit clip duration on its layer keeps the exact speed and changes the length instead.

Heads upKeying a rate (breaths per minute, sway period, speed) while Seamless is on makes the cycle count jump mid-clip. The line under the transport warns you when it does.

Overlays

Pose loop

Pose the character yourself, right in the viewport: Ctrl-drag it at a frame and the motion eases into that pose and back out around it, every loop.

1 Add Pose loop2 Pick a frame3 Ctrl-drag4 Time it

Posing is on when the layer is new. Pose in viewport, Pull or Rotate and Reach are in the tool box on the viewport’s left edge, which shows while a Pose loop is in the stack. The strip on the card shows each pose as a hill: its fade in, hold and fade out along the clip.

Pull: The same pull as Rig > Weights: grab a hand, the head or the hips and the body follows, the nearest joints the most, as far as Reach lets it. Hands and feet hold their place; grab right at a knee or an elbow to swing it like a pole vector. Lock keeps a long Reach off the body: Root keeps the character where it stands (the hips can still turn), Pelvis keeps the hips still too. Esc while dragging puts it back.
Rotate: Turns one joint and what hangs from it, nothing else: a forearm or spine twist, a wrist, a head turn, one finger. Ctrl-click a part to pick its joint and a rotate gizmo shows on it: drag it about an axis to turn the joint (Local: about the bone twists it; or Parent, World), its outer circle about your view; hold Shift to turn in 15° steps. Ctrl-drag a part swings its joint toward the pointer. The joint’s turn shows in degrees in the tool box; type one to set it. Ctrl+Shift-click picks more joints (or takes one out): the gizmo turns them all by the same amount, each about its own joint, so a spine picked whole curls evenly. R switches Pull and Rotate, Esc lets go of the joints.
Flip · Symmetry: Flip turns the pose at this frame over, left for right (in Rotate with joints picked, only those and the ones opposite). With Symmetry on, whatever you pose on one side the other side mirrors; the middle stays as you pose it.
Lead in · Hold · Follow out: Frames to ease into the pose, to stay in it, and to let go. On a loop the fades wrap round the ends, so the cycle stays seamless.
Ease: Smooth eases in and out, Linear doesn't, Snappy speeds up into the pose and arrives fast, like a hit, then lets go as Smooth does.
Strength · Amount: How far one pose goes, and all of them: past 100% pushes a pose further than you posed it.
Add · Replace: Add turns the bones on top of the motion under it, so a run keeps its swing with your pose's expression on it. Replace eases them to the posed shape itself.
Flip at ½ loop: The same pose flipped to the other side, half a loop later: pose the left arm's swing once and the right arm gets the mirror of it. Flip flips a pose where it is.
Ctrl + wheel: Hold Ctrl over a part and roll the wheel: down smooths it a step (its bend evened out and eased toward the rest pose), up curls it further, within its joints. Reach sets how much: the joint under the pointer and that many up its chain (over a toe, Reach 1 is the toe’s bend alone; over a fingertip, Reach 3 is the finger); over the palm, every finger. What a click would touch lights up while Ctrl is held. Each click is kept as the pose at the playhead’s frame.
Strip · timeline: Click a pose's diamond to pick it and jump to it; drag it to move the pose. Its diamonds show on the timeline too.

One part per layerOnly the bones a pose moved are kept. Give one Pose loop the arms and another the legs, each under its own Body mask, and time them apart.

Overlays

Key Thief

Steal the keys from any motion: a run, a ragdoll knockback, a clip. Key Thief keeps the fewest key poses that play it back, so you can mute what is under it and pose the keys yourself.

1 Add Key Thief on top2 Capture keys3 Mute the layers under it4 Ctrl-drag a key

It plays the layers under it frame by frame and keeps the frames where the motion turns, until the keys play the motion back closely or it reaches At most. The root is never keyed, so the travel under it goes on.

Capture keys: From frame and To frame are the frames to steal from; At most is the most keys it keeps. Capturing again replaces the keys between those frames.
Pose a key: Ctrl on the character at a key’s frame poses that key, with Pull, Rotate, Reach, Flip, and Symmetry from the tool box on the viewport’s left edge. At a frame without a key it makes one. Bones the pull leaves alone keep the key they had.
Between keys: Smooth curves through the keys around each one, as the motion it was stolen from moved; Linear goes straight; Stepped holds each key until the next.
Keys · thumbnails: Click a key on the strip, or its thumbnail, to go to it; drag a key on the strip to move it. Delete removes it, and the keys either side take over.

Steal, then shapeA lower At most gives a looser, more pose-to-pose take; Stepped gives a held, limited-animation look. Put Exaggerate or Overlapping Action on top of it.

Overlays

Overlapping Action

Parts of the body play the motion a few frames late, so they drag behind and settle after: arms, the head, a tail, ears, wings, fingers.

1 Add it on top2 Set each part’s delay3 Cascade on or off

It works over any motion: it records the layers under it at every frame, and a late part points the way it pointed that many frames ago, so it lags the body’s turns as well as its own swing. Loops stay seamless.

Delays: A row for every part of the character: the spine, the head and neck, each arm and leg, the tail, and every chain the Rig made (ears, wings, fins, antennae). In frames; below 0 a part leads, as a head leads a turn. Each one can be keyed.
Cascade: A part runs later toward its tips, so a hand trails its elbow, fingers trail the hand, and the tip of a tail trails its base. Off, the whole part runs its full delay.
Planted feet: Legs left at 0 stay planted when the hips or the spine run late.

Start smallTwo or three frames reads as weight; past six, a part looks loose. Eyes and the jaw start at 0.

Overlays

Exaggerate

Push the motion under it further, so the action reads bigger: a run swings wider, a knockback hits harder. Below 0% it calms the motion down.

Amount: Each moment goes further from the motion’s middle: on a loop, its average over the loop; on a clip that plays once, the average over the second around that moment, so it still starts and ends where it did, and a sudden move gets a little anticipation.
Feet · travel: A foot planted in the motion under it stays planted, and the root’s travel is left as it was.

Stack itOver Key Thief it pushes the stolen keys; put Overlapping Action above it and the pushed motion drags too.

Overlays

Ragdoll Motors

Muscles for a fall: put it above a Ragdoll and the falling body drives its joints toward a goal with real strength, to tense, hold a shape, brace for the ground and let go.

A walk that trips: the Ragdoll takes over the fall, one Motors layer tucks the arms (its Body mask), the one on top braces for the ground. Each drives the Ragdoll under it.

Goal: Pose holds a shape through the fall: Tuck, Arms out, Cover head, Spread, or any tab you used as a Pose. Animation pulls toward the layers under the Ragdoll, so a hit body still staggers in step. Brace reaches the arms for the ground as it comes up, turns the head away, and lets go after the hit.
Strength · Weight: At Strength 1 a joint holds its shape against the body's own weight, like a person tensing; a hand and the chest hold alike. The layer's Weight is how much of that reaches the body at each moment: key it up to tense, down to go limp.
Springiness: How the joints settle as the muscles take hold: soft settles without a bounce, snappy arrives with a little overshoot. Under Muscles with Strength, for every pose.
Poses: + Add pose puts a pose at the playhead: the body tenses into it there, holds it and lets go. The whole-fall pose holds wherever no timed pose does. Click a pose for its Frame, Tense in, Hold, Let go and its own Strength; drag it on the card's strip or in Blocks.
Copy to a Pose tab: Makes a ready-made pose into a tab of your own, used as a Pose, and points the layer at it. Change it there, any way you pose: the fall follows.

One job per layerStack Motors layers for a tuck and a brace, mask one to the arms, key their weights apart. Where two drive the same joint, they share it by strength.

See the frames around this one

Onion skin (beta)

Ghosts of the character at the frames before and after the playhead: the future in your theme's accent, the past in an orange or a blue that stands apart from it. Pose at one frame and the ghosts around it change as you drag.

The onion, bottom left of the viewport (or in the view bar)Switch onScrub or pose

O turns the ghosts on and off from anywhere in the viewport. The drawer keeps your settings in this browser.

Ghosts at: Around: so many frames before and after the playhead, every few frames. Keys: at the frames that hold keys and poses. Whole clip: spread over the clip. Pinned: frames you pin, which stay put while you scrub.
Past · Future · Every: How many ghosts on each side (up to 10), and how many frames apart.
Opacity · Fade: How strong the nearest ghost is, and how much fainter the farthest one gets.
Tint · Rim · Wire: A soft shaded body, a glowing outline with a clear center, or the mesh's wires.
Click to jump: Point at a ghost to light it and see its frame; a click takes the playhead there. A click on the character itself never jumps.
In place · Through the body: Stack the ghosts on the character instead of where a walk carried it, and show them through the character instead of behind it.
While playing · Timeline marks: Keep the ghosts during playback, and show their frames as ticks along the timeline in the same two colors.

Only on screenGhosts never reach an export, Send to Unreal, Live Link or a preview. They wear the character's gear and props, and loops wrap: before frame 0 come the last frames of the loop.

See the path and the spacing

Arcs (beta)

The path a hand, a foot or the head takes through the clip, with a dot at every frame. Dots close together are slow, far apart are fast, and a kink in the line is a hitch you can see. Before the playhead in the onion's past color, after it in the accent.

Arcs, beside the onionSwitch onScrub or pose

P turns the arcs on and off from anywhere in the viewport, and so does the Arcs switch in the view bar. The drawer keeps your settings in this browser.

Follow: Hands at the knuckles, Feet at the ankles, the top of the Head, and on a creature its wing tips and tail. Weight is the center of mass: a jump's true curve. + Pick, then a click on the character, gives that exact spot an arc of its own (a fingertip, the nose, a sword's tip), kept for that character.
Over: Whole clip, or Around the playhead: so many frames each side, fading with distance.
World · In place · Hips: Where the point went in the scene; with the walk's travel taken out, so a foot draws its loop; or against the hips, so you see how the hands swing against the body.
Time · Speed · Part: Color by before and after the playhead, from slow to fast along each arc, or each arc its own color.
Marks: A ring where each point is now, diamonds at key and pose frames, a square where a point holds still, frame numbers if you ask for them. Dot size makes them all bigger or smaller, and they shrink as you zoom out.
Spacing checks: A red-orange mark under a frame that jumps off its path or breaks the spacing around it, and a bar where a loop's last frame misses its first. A foot landing is a corner, not a hitch.
Click to jump: Point at a dot to light it and see its frame and speed; a click takes the playhead there.

Only on screenArcs never reach an export, Send to Unreal, Live Link or a preview. They follow a pose as you drag it, nearest frames first. The part of an arc behind the body is drawn faint.

Show it off

Playblast and Capture

Playblast renders the animation to an .mp4, frame by frame, so nothing drops: for a post, a review, or a reel. Capture copies a picture of the viewport. Both sit at the top of the left rail, and both carry the Prokamo logo.

Playblast, in the railFrame it in the previewRender .mp4

The camera starts from your view, so frame the shot in the viewport first. Scrub the preview to check it all the way through.

Size: 16:9 wide, 9:16 tall for Shorts, TikTok, and Reels, or 1:1 square, each at 1080 or 720, at 30 or 60 fps.
Loops: One to three passes of the animation, each at its own speed: play it, then again in slow motion. A walk keeps walking from pass to pass.
Camera: Still holds your view exactly. Character follows the character’s body (wherever its rig carries the travel) and keeps it centered in any shape of video; Bone does the same for the bone you pick (the head, a hand). Lag eases the camera when the speed changes and smooths the bob, while the character stays where you framed it. Follow up and down lets the camera rise and fall too.
Orbit: Turns the camera around the character over the video, up to a full turn either way (360° with Linear is a turntable that loops seamlessly), with an ease: Linear, Auto, Exp in-out (holds at the ends, sweeps through the middle), or Exp mid (quick at the ends, slow through the middle).
Show: The floor and its grid (they show the travel; on even when the viewport’s floor is off), the bones, the onion skin and the arcs (offered while they are on in the viewport, drawn around each frame as playback would), and the burn-in: the animation’s name, frame, time, speed, loop, and character, in a small line beside the logo.

CaptureCopies the viewport at full size, stamped like the videos, ready to paste anywhere. A right-click on the playhead does the same.

Which way is plus

Angles and units

Pitch +leans forward

Yaw +turns right

Roll +tilts right

1 mis 100 Unreal units

Shift drag: Fine steps while you drag a value.
Ctrl drag: Snaps it.
Click a value: Type it in. Distances are in meters.

Play what you already have

Animation clips

The Animation clip layer plays an existing animation: a motion from the Motion library, or one you import (.glb, .fbx or .bvh, Kimodo’s included; drop a .bvh on the view to play it).

LocomotionCrouch and crawlIdles and posesJumps and traversalUnarmed combatSword and shieldPistol and magicEmotes and gesturesEveryday actions

Open the library from Add layer, from the card's Browse the motion library, or type a motion's name in Add layer's search. Pick one and shape it with any layer on top.

Bones carry over as changes from the clip's rest pose, and a clip made in a T-pose plays right on Manny's A-pose. With Root motion off a clip plays in place; on, it travels.

CreditThe library's motions are the Universal Animation Library 1 (Pro) and 2 by Quaternius, CC0: yours to use anywhere.

OverrideReplaces the pose below it, by its weight.

AdditiveStacks on top of it, say on a walk.

In · out · speed: Trim the range and set the pace.
Loop · hold · ping-pong: What it does when it reaches the end.
Loop crossfade: Blends the clip's tail into its head, so a one-shot loops cleanly.
Body parts · limb locks: A weight per body part, and four limb locks that hold a foot or hand at its clip-start or bind pose. Every value can be keyed.

Something in hand

Attached props

The Attached prop layer puts a mesh on any bone.

HandgunHatchetDaggerBoxYour .glb, in meters

The three built-ins are real sizes and share one grip: along Z through the fist, the origin at the center, X forward. One hand socket fits all three.

Its values: Unreal's socket transform: location in cm (X forward, Y right, Z up), rotation as pitch, yaw and roll.
Copy for Unreal: Tune it while the animation plays, then press Location, Rotation or Scale to copy text you can paste onto the socket in Unreal's Skeleton editor. All copies the whole transform.
XYZ: The axes helper uses Unreal's colors.

Good to knowProps are for the preview: they aren't exported.

Build your own motion

Node graph

The Node graph layer opens a node editor, like a Blueprint: build a motion from inputs, math, generators, vectors and effects.

Inputs without a link are typed straight into the node, and the viewport follows every edit.

Add a node: Drag one in from the list, or right-click the canvas.
Link: Drag from a socket to another of the same type. Each type has its own color; the legend is in the editor's status bar.
Move around: Right-drag pans, the wheel zooms. Drag on empty space to box-select, Shift+click to add to it.
Effects: Rotate bone, Move bone, Look at, Limb IK, Rotate chain, Chain wave, Foot IK and Signal pose the rig top to bottom. Bone, chain and leg lists show what the loaded skeleton has, so one graph works on Manny and on a creature.
Gait nodes: Under a Gait layer, Gait, Leg and Body size give the cycle, each foot and the animal's size (the Tail and nod preset shows them).
Pose pad: Four of your Pose tabs at the corners of a pad that shows on the layer card, named by their poses. Drag the dot, or key it, to go from pose to pose; wire x and y to drive it from anything instead. Replace turns the joints toward the poses, Add lays them over the motion, and a corner on No pose is the motion itself. Mask the layer to pose just the hands.
Drive: Sets a setting of another layer from the graph: pick the layer and the setting (a slider on its card, or its Weight) and wire in the value. Set, Add or Multiply, by as much as the graph’s Weight. The slider shows driven and plays the value. When the value reads the pose (a bone, a leg, the slope), put the graph below the layer it drives.
Curve: Shapes a value with a curve drawn on the node: drag a key or its handles, double-click to add a key, right-click to remove one, or start from a preset. With nothing wired into x, it runs over the clip.
Parameter: Becomes a keyable value on the layer.
Expression: Takes any formula from the Expressions layer, with a, b and c as inputs.
Notes: Comment drops a sticky note, Ctrl+G wraps the selection in a group, and double-clicking a node's title adds a note to it.

Wider going sidewaysBelow a Gait, wire the Direction node’s sideways share through a Remap into a Drive on the Gait’s Stance width: a narrow creature widens its stance as it strafes, and takes longer steps.

Your mesh, rigged

Rig

Import a mesh, fit a skeleton to it, bind it and paint its weights: the Rig workspace (Alt+2) walks you through it one step at a time, and every layer and preset then plays on your character.

1 Mesh2 Height3 Skeleton4 Fit5 Skinning6 Weights7 Export

A step ticks when it's done; Next takes you on, and the stepper goes back to any step you've reached.

1 · Mesh: A .glb, .gltf, .fbx or .obj: a humanoid in an A or T pose, or a creature standing naturally. Drop it on the viewport, or Import mesh…; Add a model… merges another file into it.
2 · Height: How tall it is (soles to the top of the head) and where it stands. Red-orange dots mark anything under the floor, and Put on floor lifts it.
3 · Skeleton: What to rig it as (below), and which way the file is up and facing: it should stand like Manny, Y up and facing +Z.
4 · Fit: Drag the handles onto its joints and the skeleton follows. A creature adds its parts here.
5 · Skinning: Bind & use in viewport works out the skin weights from the fit and makes it the active character. Binding settings trade speed for detail.
6 · Weights: Optional: brush the weights where a joint pinches, posing the character as you go.
7 · Export: Send to Unreal through the Prokamo Bridge, or Download .glb. The In Unreal list gives the import settings to copy.

HumanoidBiped creatureFour legs or moreLeglessMachine Beta

Humanoid: Every Manny bone is solved from the handles, keeping Manny's bone axes, so every Manny animation fits. In Unreal it imports onto SK_Mannequin.
Creatures: Biped, four legs or more, or legless: a skeleton of its own, built from parts (see Parts).
Machine: Rigid parts that turn on hinges, slide, spin or work as a cylinder.

Good to knowHold Alt over any control in Rig to see what it does. A bound character is kept in this browser; Save fit… keeps its handles and parts in a file.

Rig > Fit

Fitting the skeleton

The handles are the joints: drag one and the skeleton follows. In the list, a filled dot marks a handle you placed; a ring, one still where Auto-fit or the Template put it.

Auto-fit: On the Rig bar: reads the joints from the mesh and places every handle. It asks first if you've placed any by hand.
Template: The plain template at the size of the mesh, reading nothing from it.
Mirror: Copies one side onto the other: left onto right, or right onto left.
Symmetry: On by default: moving a left or right handle moves its partner too.
X-ray · Names: A see-through mesh, so handles inside the body can be grabbed; each handle's name above it.
Selected: Click a handle to select it, then drag its gizmo (its center moves it in the view) or type its X, Y and Z in centimeters.
Finger handles: Humanoid: a knuckle, a mid and a tip handle for every finger. Switch off the chip of a finger the hand doesn't have: it keeps its bones, with no weight.
Islands: Give a separate piece of the mesh, such as an eyeball or a buckle, wholly to one bone: Pick an island, click it (Shift+click adds more), pick the Bone, then Give island to bone. Center bone on it centers an eye's bone in its ball.
Fit file: Save fit… writes the handles, parts and islands; Load fit… puts them back on the same mesh.

UndoCtrl+Z and Ctrl+Y take back handle moves, Auto-fit, Mirror and hanging parts, 100 steps deep. Adding or removing a part starts the history afresh.

Rig > Fit, creatures

Parts

A creature is built from parts: drag one from Tools onto the mesh where it joins the body, then drag its handles onto the joints.

Leg pairArm pairFingersToesTailEar pairEye pairJawWing pairProboscisChain

Drop: A part lands inside the body under the pointer, a pair mirrored on the other side. A click puts it where such a part usually goes. A Chain dropped off the center line becomes a pair; a second Tail or Arm pair adds Tail 2 or Arms 2.
Parts tree: Every part under the one it hangs from. Chains shows the parts; Joints opens each into its handles. Click a part to select it and see its settings; × removes it.
Hangs from: A part hangs from the bone nearest its base, never an eye. To hang it somewhere else, drag its row onto another part, or pick one under Hangs from: ears on the eyes, a tongue on the jaw. A dot marks a part hung by hand; Auto puts it back.
Bones · Mid handles: More bones bend as a curve instead of a hinge (5 to 7 for a giraffe's neck, 8 to 12 for a lizard's tail); mid handles let a neck curve, a tail curl or an ear arch.
Fingers · Toes: How many (1 to 5), bones per digit, and Retractable claws: a claw bone past each tip that can slide back in.
Legs: Each pair reads as a mammal's or an insect's from its knees; Auto, Mammal or Insect sets it.
Stance: Biped creatures only: Auto, Upright or Animal, whether it walks like a person or like an animal (more under Creatures).

Nothing hangs from fingersFingers and toes stay on their hand or foot, and the trunk is what everything else hangs from: every other part can hang from any part, as long as it doesn't hang from itself.

Weights · Rig > Weights

Paint weights much faster

In Weights (Alt+3), or the Rig’s Weights step, turn on Paint weights and brush where a joint pinches. Then hold Ctrl and drag the character into the pose where it goes wrong, and paint it right there.

Ctrl-drag poseCtrl+wheel smooth · curlShift-drag smoothAlt-drag subtractAlt-click pick bone[ ] sizehold B size

Pose: Ctrl-drag anywhere on the character: the bone under the pointer is pulled, and the joints above it follow, the nearest the most. It holds while you paint.
Reach: On the Rig bar: how much of the body one pull moves. Low, just a jaw or a hand; higher, up the arm into the spine; past the hips, the whole body.
Hips: Grab the hips and the waist bends while the chest holds, until Reach takes the chest along too. Hands and feet hold their place while the body moves.
Knees · elbows: Grab right at a knee or an elbow and it swings like a pole vector, the foot or hand staying put.
Ctrl + wheel: Hold Ctrl over a part and roll the wheel: down smooths it a step (its bend evened out and eased toward the rest pose), up curls it further, within its joints. Reach sets how much: the joint under the pointer and that many up its chain (over a toe, Reach 1 is the toe’s bend alone; over a fingertip, Reach 3 is the finger); over the palm, every finger. What a click would touch lights up while Ctrl is held. A run of clicks is one step of Undo pose.
Undo pose · Reset pose: Take back the last pull, or let go of the pose. Play, moving the playhead or leaving Weights lets go too.
Smooth · Add · Subtract: The brush modes on the Rig bar. Add and Subtract paint the bone picked there (Alt+click the mesh picks the one that moves that spot most).
Size · Strength: [ and ] step the size, Shift+[ ] the strength. Or hold B and move the pointer (Shift+B: strength): let go to keep it, Esc puts it back.
Show weights: All bones colors each bone's hold in its own color; Brush bone shows the brush bone's as a heat ramp from 0 to 1.
Undo stroke · Revert all: Take back the last stroke, or go back to the weights as bound.

Rigged somewhere else?Open Weights with it as the active character (or drop its .glb there): it is ready to paint at once, and Send to Unreal under the brush sends it back, rebuilding the mesh in place when it goes under the same name. A .glb can be painted; an .fbx can't yet (bring it in as .glb).

Unity, Mixamo, VRoid, Godot, SOMA

Other skeletons

A character rigged for another engine or tool imports as it is: Prokamo reads its bones as the Mannequin's, so every layer and preset plays on it.

Unreal (Manny)Unity HumanoidMixamoVRoidGodotSOMA (Kimodo)

Bone names: Left_UpperArm, mixamorig:LeftArm, J_Bip_L_UpperArm: each is read as Manny's upperarm_l. The import message says which names it found.
Exports: Keep the character's own bone names, so a clip goes back to its engine as it came.
Kimodo: NVIDIA’s Kimodo makes motion from text on its SOMA skeleton. Import its .bvh in an Animation clip, or drop it on the view: it plays on any character, whichever rest pose it was saved with, with your layers on top.
No root bone: Root motion rides on the hips.
Eyes · jaw: Its eye bones and its jaw (Unity's and Godot's) work with Eyes look-at and Jaw.
Hands: Hand pose folds each finger about its own knuckle, however the hand was rigged, so a fist closes cleanly.
Textures: An .fbx whose textures can't be read (a .tif, say) shows in clay instead of solid black. A .glb carries its textures inside it.

Not recognized?The import says which bones it found. Tell us which tool rigged it (animation@prokamo.com) and we'll teach Prokamo its names.

Built from parts

Creatures

Skeleton… in the menu has stand-ins with their own skeletons, and the Rig workspace rigs your own creature from parts.

CheetahRaptorAntAngler fish

Gaitwalktrotpacecantergallopboundtripodwave

On whatever legs you rig, with the feet solved onto the ground.

Flap: Beats the wings and folds them on the upstroke.
Swim: Sends a wave down the body and out the tail.
Eyes look-at: Darts around, or follows the Head look-at.
Jaw: Holds open, chews or talks.
And more: Creature idle and a creature Foot lock; Breathing, Head look, Noise, Impulse, Physics, Pose, Expressions, Chain IK, Stabilize and the Node graph work too. Layers written for the Mannequin say so on the layer.

Mammal legshang below the hip

Insect legsthe knee arches above the hip

Rig > Fit > Legs shows how each pair reads and changes it. Legs that sprawl like a crocodile's (the thigh near level, out to the side) get a line in the viewport info saying how they're read.

Stack orderPut layers that move the body under the Gait, which plants the feet last. Put Physics (a tail) and Stabilize (a steady head) above it.

A biped? The spine decides how it walks.

Uprightthe chest within 40° of straight above the pelvis

Level backthe spine runs forward, like a raptor's

Stance: In Rig > Fit, for biped creatures: Auto reads it from the shape, Upright and Animal set it. The line under it, and the viewport info, say what it came to.
Upright: Also gets the human layers: Locomotion (walk, run, sneak, march), Jump, Stance, Idle, Foot lock, Gesture and Hand IK, sized to its legs. Gait still gives the animal gaits.
Level back: Gait's animal gaits. Set Stance to Upright to walk it like a person anyway.
Animal: Gait's animal gaits whatever its shape: it's never made to walk like a person.

On its toesA negative Heel strike lands on the ball of the foot, for a character that walks on its toes.

A creature's clip exports on its own skeleton. The presets tagged creature are worked examples.

Hats, clothes, armor

Gear

Fit gear to any rigged humanoid or creature. It takes its weights from the body under it, so it follows every animation.

1 Import2 Fit to body3 Weights4 Export

With a character active, Fit gear to <name>… in the Rig tab opens the Fit gear page.

Import gear…: A .glb, .fbx or .obj. Export the body with it, as it sits in your scene: the gear lands where the character was rigged, and the body is left out.
Move · Turn · Scale: It slides onto the skin, and the gizmo moves, turns or scales it. Fit to body settles it again, keeping your turn and size. Allow scaling is for gear made at another scale; See-through body shows what's underneath.
Copy weights from body: Takes the weights from the skin under it. Smooth softens them; Rigid makes it follow one bone, for hats, helmets and glasses.
Try it on: Plays the animation, so you see it move before you keep it.
Add to Gear layer: Wears it in a Gear layer, kept in this browser. Download .glb gives you the gear alone on the character's full skeleton; Send to Unreal puts it in the open editor, and a piece sent before updates in place.

Flicker?Gear made from the skin's own faces lies right on it and flickers where they meet: raise Lift off skin a millimeter or two.

Gear layerWhat the character wears: tick a piece to show or hide it, take it off, or Add gear… from a .glb skinned to this skeleton. It poses nothing, so it can sit anywhere in the stack.

Kept in this browserEvery piece you've made: Wear it again, or Forget its copy here. The .glb you exported isn't touched.

Export > Gear: Sends every piece at once, or just the worn ones, onto the character's Skeleton picked under Unreal.
Wear selected gear: In Unreal's Prokamo panel (Characters tab): select the gear in the Content Browser and the characters in the level. Each piece goes on the body that shares its Skeleton and follows its pose. Undo takes it off.

No bridge? In Unreal, import the .glb with the character's Skeleton picked, and every animation of that character plays it.

Prokamo Bridge

Unreal Engine

The free Prokamo Bridge plugin connects this page to the open editor, both ways.

Get it on Fab, where new versions come as updates, or as a zip from Settings > Unreal. Every step is in the Bridge guide.

Send to Unreal: With the editor open, Export says Unreal 5.8 · YourProject. Tick every animation tab to send them at once, each its own asset, onto the Skeleton picked under Unreal; each row's Root motion chip says whether the root carries the travel. With a character selected in Sequencer, it lands on it at the playhead. The Character tab (and the Rig workspace's last step) sends a rigged character; the Gear tab sends gear, and Wear selected gear in the Prokamo panel puts it on characters in the level.
Send to Prokamo: In Unreal, right-click a Skeletal Mesh, Animation Sequence or Static Mesh > Send to Prokamo. A From Unreal card here offers Load character, Add as clip, Rig it or Add as prop.
Live Link Pro: Turn on Settings > Unreal > Stream to Unreal, then Preview on selected in the Prokamo panel: the characters selected in the level play this animation as you edit it.
Sequencer link Pro: Select a character's Animation section in Sequencer and press Link selected section. It opens here as the base clip and Sequencer's playhead drives it. Actors picked with Use selected as targets become the Unreal target of Hand IK, the look-ats, Foot lock and Chain IK, even as Sequencer moves them. Bake into section keeps the result.
Live editing Pro: Right-click an Animation Sequence > Connect to Prokamo (live), and each edit here goes into it while you Play in Editor. The original is kept as <name>_BeforeProkamo.
Control Rig Pro: Export > Control Rig builds an animator's rig for a creature in the open editor (with Unreal's Python Editor Script Plugin on).
Sync markers: Where each foot lands: Foot_L, Foot_R (a creature's legs by name: Foot_FL, Foot_HR). A walk and a run in one sync group keep their feet in step. The timeline ticks each landing: the left side gray, the right the accent.
Footsteps: A notify at each landing, Footstep_L and so on: your Animation Blueprint gets an AnimNotify_Footstep_L event for sounds and dust, with nothing to add to the game.
Curves: FootPlant_L and so on, 1 while the foot is down, for foot IK. The Kit's starts, stops, and pivots carry Epic's Distance curve for Distance Matching; its turns in place carry Lyra's RemainingTurnYaw and TurnYawWeight.

SwitchesExport > Animation turns each of them on or off. They ride in the .glb, and the Prokamo Bridge (1.3) writes them into the animation; sent again, its own are replaced and yours stay.

PrivateNothing goes through the internet: the browser talks to the editor on your own machine, on the port in Settings > Unreal. Each animation sent counts as an export.

No plugin? Download .glb and drag it into the Content Browser. For Manny's animations, set Skeleton = SK_Mannequin in the import dialog and tick Import Only Animations to leave the proxy mesh out.

Every key it answers to

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts never act while you type in a field or while a dialog is open. On a Mac, Cmd stands in for Ctrl.

Playback and time
`Space`	Play or pause
`J` `K` `L`	Play backward, pause, play forward
`←` `→`	Previous or next frame; with `Shift`, 10 frames
`↑` `↓`	Next or previous key; `]` and `[` do the same
`Home` `End`	Go to the start or the end
`Enter` `F2`	On the timecode: type a frame
Right-click	On the playhead, or anywhere on the track to move it there: make a Pose from this frame, pose it, end the animation on it, or copy its time or a picture of the viewport

Layers and keys
`Shift+A`	Add layer
`I` `Alt+I`	Key or unkey the value under the pointer
`M` `S`	Mute or solo the focused layer
`Ctrl`+drag	With a Pose loop or Key Thief posing: pose the character at the playhead's frame (`Esc` while dragging puts it back)
`R`	While posing: switch Pull and Rotate (Rotate: `Ctrl`-click a part to pick its joint, turn it with the gizmo)
`Ctrl`+wheel	With a Pose loop or Key Thief posing: smooth (down) or curl (up) the part under the pointer at the playhead’s frame
`Delete` `F2`	Remove or rename the focused layer
`↑` `↓` `←` `→`	In the stack: move between layers, fold and unfold
`Ctrl+A` `Ctrl+G`	Select all layers, group the selected ones
`Ctrl+C` `Ctrl+X` `Ctrl+V`	Copy, cut and paste layers
`Ctrl+Z` `Ctrl+Y`	Undo and redo; `Ctrl+Shift+Z` redoes too
`Shift` `Ctrl`	While dragging a value: fine steps, snap
`Alt`	Held over a setting, node or rig control: what it does

Files, workspaces and view
`Ctrl+S` `Ctrl+O`	Save the project, open a project
`Ctrl+E`	Export
`Alt+1` `Alt+2` `Alt+3` `Alt+4`	Layers, Rig, Weights, AI
`Ctrl+,`	Settings
`Ctrl+\`	Hide or show the side panel
`F`	Frame the character
`O`	Onion skin on or off
`P`	Arcs on or off
`Shift+S`	Silhouette
`?`	Help and shortcuts
`Esc`	Close the top dialog, menu or palette (in a search, clear it first)

Dope sheet
Click, `Shift`+click, `Ctrl`+click	Select a key, add to the selection, toggle one (a summary row's mark is every key at that frame)
Drag on empty space	Select the keys in a box
Drag a selected key	Retime the selection, in whole frames
`←` `→`	Nudge the selection a frame (`Shift`: 10); with none selected, step the playhead
`Ctrl`+`C` / `X` / `V`	Copy, cut, paste at the playhead onto the same settings
`Ctrl`+`A`, `Delete`	Select every key, delete the selection
Double-click a row	Key it at that frame (a summary row keys every setting under it)
Retime, then double-click	Drop a retime handle at that frame (double-click or right-click a handle to take it away)
Drag a retime handle	Stretch the time on one side of it and squeeze the other, up to the next handles or the clip's ends (the selected keys, or every key)
`Esc`	Cancel a drag, clear the selection, then close

Curves editor
`A` `F` `Shift+F`	Frame all, the selected keys, the active curve
`1` to `5`	Interpolation and tangent modes
`←` `→`	Move the selected keys a frame
`↑` `↓`	Step their value; with `Shift`, 10 steps
`Delete`	Delete the selected keys
`Ctrl+A`	Select all keys
`Ctrl+C` `Ctrl+X` `Ctrl+V`	Copy, cut and paste keys
`Shift` drag	Move keys in one direction
`Ctrl` drag a handle	Break the tangent

Node editor
`Delete`	Remove the selection
`Ctrl+C` `Ctrl+X` `Ctrl+V`	Copy, cut and paste nodes with their links
`Ctrl+D`	Duplicate the selection
`Ctrl+A` `Ctrl+G`	Select all, group the selection
`Ctrl+Z` `Ctrl+Y`	Undo and redo
`F` `Home`	Frame the selection, frame everything

Rig
`Alt+2` `Alt+3`	Open Rig, open Weights (painting any rigged character)
`Ctrl+Z` `Ctrl+Y`	In Skeleton and Fit: undo and redo the handles
`F`	Frame the mesh
`Shift`+click	While picking an island: add a piece, or take one back
`Alt`	Held over a control: what it does

Weight painting
`[` `]`	Brush smaller or larger; with `Shift`, weaker or stronger
`B` `Shift+B`	Held: the pointer sets the size, the strength (let go to keep it, `Esc` puts it back)
`Shift` `Alt`	Held while dragging: smooth, subtract for that stroke
`Alt`+click	Pick the bone that moves that spot most
`Ctrl`+drag	Pull the character into a pose (Reach on the Rig bar: how much of the body moves)
`Ctrl`+wheel	Smooth (down) or curl (up) the joint under the pointer and, by Reach, the ones above it; over the palm, every finger

Procedural animation for humanoids and creatures, for Unreal Engine 5.prokamo.com animation@prokamo.com