Prokamo · Procedural Kinematic Motion

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 above it, so order matters.

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

+ Add layer: At the foot of the stack, or the + between two layers to slot 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: Up to 16 animations in one project, one per tab above the stack.

Tools under the stack

The layer bar

The bar rides right under your last layer 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 under the selection, or at the end. 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 after 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 top down through it becomes one Take. Noise, below, 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 below the Take keep working live.

What bakes: The top of the stack down through the lowest 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 down to here: In any layer's … menu: flattens through that layer.

In stepA Take hands down how far it walked, so Foot lock, Hand IK and the look-ats below 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 above, exactly.

A wave clip masked to Arm R, under 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 twist bones ride 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.

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.

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.

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 bundled clip, or one you import (.glb or .fbx).

Bones carry over as world-space changes from the clip's rest pose, so it works on any Manny export.

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).
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.

Your mesh, rigged

Rig

Import a .glb, .fbx or .obj standing in an A or T pose, set its height and facing, then drag the landmark handles onto its joints.

1 Mesh2 Height3 Skeleton4 Fit5 Skinning6 Weights7 Export

The Rig workspace walks you through it, one step at a time.

Humanoid: Every Manny bone is solved from the handles, keeping Manny's bone axes, so existing animations fit. Export skinned mesh writes it for Unreal, imported with Skeleton = SK_Mannequin.
Rig as: Two-legged, Quadruped, Hexapod, Octopod or Legless builds a skeleton to the creature's own shape.
Stance: Two-legged only, in Fit: Auto, Upright or Animal decides whether it walks like a person or like an animal (more under Creatures).
Parts: Drag legs, arms, a tail, ears, wings, eyes, a jaw or a plain chain onto the mesh where they join the body. Spine, neck and tail bone counts are yours to set; Auto-fit reads the joints from the mesh, Template places them at its size.
Bind: Computes the skin weights and makes the character active, so every layer and preset plays on it.
Brush: Smooths, adds or subtracts weights (Alt+click picks a bone). Show weights colors one bone's hold.
Islands: Give a separate piece of the mesh, such as an eyeball, wholly to one bone (Shift+click gathers several pieces).

Good to knowWeights are a first pass to refine in Unreal. A character rigged elsewhere can be painted too: with it active, the Skin step offers to paint its own weights, and in Unreal it imports with Skeleton = None.

Two legs to eight

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 two to eight legs, 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 above the Gait, which plants the feet last. Put Physics (a tail) and Stabilize (a steady head) below it.

Two legs? 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 two-legged 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).

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

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
`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`	Layers, Rig, AI
`Ctrl+,`	Settings
`Ctrl+\`	Hide or show the side panel
`F`	Frame the character
`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

Weight painting
`F` `Shift+F`	Drag to set the brush size, the strength
`Ctrl` `Shift`	Held while painting: subtract, smooth

Procedural animation for humanoids and creatures, for Unreal Engine 5.prokamo.com [email protected]