Anim2D
A free, open-source 2D skeletal animation editor and FX builder for Windows and macOS.
Website · Download · Editor guide · FX presets · Contributing
Anim2D lets you rig and animate 2D characters with bones, meshes and constraints, then export them for
major game engines and runtimes (Unity, Godot, Cocos, Phaser, Pixi, libGDX and more). It also comes
with an FX builder that turns 37 ready-made effects into editable skeletons you can tweak, insert into
a character, or export straight into your project.
It is a single program, for Windows and macOS, with two modes:
- Anim2D, the editor. Bones, slots, region and mesh attachments, IK / transform / path constraints,
skins, weight painting, mesh tracing, a dopesheet and graph editor, crossfade preview, texture packing
and GIF / MP4 / PNG-sequence export.
- Anim2D FX Builder. Pick a preset (impacts, slashes, explosions, coin bursts, hearts, level-ups,
UI pings…), adjust it with live preview, and generate a Spine package or insert it straight into the
editor.
Features
| |
|---|
| File formats | Opens skeletal animation JSON and binary project files across established format versions. Exports JSON or binary .skel with an optional packed .atlas |
| Rigging | Bones with shear and inheritance, slots, draw order, skins with their own bones and constraints, IK, transform and path constraints, bounding boxes, clipping, points |
| Meshes | Mesh editing and tracing from alpha, weight painting, a Spine-style weights view, linked meshes, deform keys |
| Animation | Dopesheet and bezier graph editor, ease presets, retiming, motion paths, onion skinning, crossfade preview, events with audio, reference footage for rotoscoping |
| Tools | Auto-rig, physics baking, mirror, pose tools, frame sequences, PSD / OpenRaster import with live resync, command search, customisable shortcuts, themes |
| Export | Texture packer and unpacker, GIF, APNG, WebP, MP4, AVI, MOV, PSD and PNG / JPEG sequences, plus a Unity bridge that exports straight into a spine-unity project |
| FX | 37 parametric presets (catalogue), your own templates registered from Spine exports (round trip), deterministic seeded generation |
Install
Windows
- Download
Anim2D-Setup-<version>.exe from the latest release.
- Run it and pick what you want: Anim2D (the editor), Anim2D FX Builder, or both (the default).
It installs for your user only, so it doesn't need administrator rights, into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Anim2D, with Start-menu shortcuts and desktop shortcuts if you want them.
Running it again on a machine that has Anim2D updates that installation in place.
The builds are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC" the
first time. Choose More info → Run anyway. Each release lists SHA-256 checksums in
SHA256SUMS.txt if you want to verify the download.
Updates. Anim2D checks GitHub for a new release once a day. When there is one, it tells you what's new;
Install update downloads it, checks it against the release's checksums, asks you to save your work, and
restarts on the new version. You can also skip a version, check by hand with Help → Check for Updates…,
or turn the daily check off in Settings → Updates. The check only asks GitHub for the latest release.
Where things go. Your work is in Documents\Anim2D: Projects (where saving starts), FX Templates
and FX Output. Anim2D's own files are in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Anim2D: downloaded updates and logs\anim2d.log,
which is worth attaching to a bug report. Settings → General lists them all with an Open button. Settings
themselves are kept in the registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Anim2D).
To uninstall, use Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps, or Uninstall Anim2D in the Start
menu. Your projects are always kept. Two options, both off unless you tick them, also remove your
settings, downloaded updates and logs, and your FX templates.
Prefer not to install? Each release also has Anim2D-Portable-<version>.exe: one file that runs as is,
with no shortcuts or uninstall entry. Run it with --fx-builder to open the FX builder.
macOS
Anim2D needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, on an Apple silicon (M1 and later) or Intel Mac.
- From the latest release, download the disk
image for your Mac:
Anim2D-<version>-macOS-AppleSilicon.dmg, or Anim2D-<version>-macOS-Intel.dmg for an
Intel Mac (Apple menu → About This Mac says which).
- Open it and drag Anim2D into Applications.
- The builds are not signed with an Apple Developer ID yet, so the first time you open Anim2D macOS says it
can't check it. Choose Done, then System Settings → Privacy & Security, and Open Anyway next to
Anim2D. After that it opens normally.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
