Kinematic 0.5.0 is out. Modeling and sculpting in the viewport, a timeline on every graph, photo and sound editing. What's new
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Kinematic / Who it's for / Motion designers

Kinematic for motion designers.

Logo stings, title cards, social cuts and music visuals. Copies, stagger, keys and type render while you work, a song can drive any value, and the same file writes ProRes or plays on an LED wall. Free, even for commercial use.

  • Motion designers
  • Title designers
  • 3D generalists
  • Brand designers
Download for macOS 0.5.0See the work
On this page
tiles flipping in ring by ring, staggered by distance
How the loop is built
3DGeoGrid→3DGeoAttribPhaser→3DGeoInstanceOnPoints→3DGeoSceneRenderToImage
The work

Stings, titles, loops and spins.

The jobs that fill a motion designer's week, and how each one comes together here. Every picture on this page comes from the app.

a logo mark writing itself on, then off
Logo sting

Draw a logo on, stroke by stroke

Bring the logo in as an SVG file or draw it with the pen. SVG draw-on writes each stroke on, a driver on its progress sets the timing, and SVG morph turns one shape into another. It stays vector until the last step.

SvgPath→SvgStrokeDraw→SvgToImage→ImageBloom
Draw a logo with the pen →
an extruded title in polished gold, lit by a studio sky
Title card

Set a title in gold

Extrude your own .ttf or .otf with a bevel, give it gold or chrome, and light it with an HDR sky so the highlights roll across the letters as it turns. Lay type along a path, or pull the outlines out as curves.

3DGeoTextExtrude→3DGeoTransform→3DGeoSceneRenderToImage
Turn a chrome ring into gold →
a name bar and a tag fading in over the feed
Lower third

Put a name on screen

A name bar and a tag that fade in on a fader, over a live feed or a clip. Need one for every speaker? Render the same file once per name and change the text from the command line.

terminal
$ kinematic render super.kin -o super_ana.mp4 --set name.text="Ana Ruiz"
ImageTextOverlay→ImageAlphaOver→StreamingNDISendInterface
Put a lower third over the feed →
The tile loop from the top of this page at a tall 1080 by 1920 and a square 1080 by 1080
the same loop at 1080 by 1920 and 1080 by 1080
Social cut

Every size from one file

Set the size once in Project Settings and every node set to Project follows it. Tall and square sizes are presets on the video output, and the command line renders any size without opening the file.

terminal
$ kinematic render loop.kin -o story.mp4 --resolution 1080x1920
3DGeoSceneRenderToImage→OutputVideoFile
Render from the terminal →
ground raised by the bass, mids and treble of a song
Music visual

Fly over a song

Split a track into bass, mids and treble and give each one a job: the bass lifts the mountains, the treble roughens the ground. Nothing is baked to keys, so a new mix needs no new animation.

AudioCrossover→3DGeoHeightfieldNoise→3DGeoHeightfieldToMesh
Fly over a song →
the camera circling a painted model in one full turn
Product spin

Turn it on a turntable

The camera circles, the frames land in an MP4. PBR materials, HDR light and shadows, with depth, normal, ID and motion passes beside the color when the comp needs them.

3DGeoCameraOrbit→3DGeoSceneRenderToImage→OutputVideoFile
Render a turntable video →
The work you know

Copies, stagger and keys.

The moves you build every day, each one a node you can open again later. Nothing gets baked or made editable.

The keyframe editor: three colored lanes with bezier keys over a time ruler
the keyframe editor
Ten thousand cubes riding a noise field
10,000 cubes on a noise field
sparks dragging ribbons of light
  • Copies on points. Put a copy on every point, along a curve or scattered over a surface, and let noise or random numbers give each one its own size, turn and color.
  • Stagger. Attribute phaser gives every copy its own short move as one progress value runs from 0 to 1, in order of distance, index or any value you write. The loop at the top of this page is two of them.
  • Keys and curves. Right-click a handle in the viewport and choose Animate with Keyframe. Shape the curves with bezier handles, or draw one freehand and let it settle into a few clean keys.
  • Expressions. Give any number a driver like sin(time), or let it read another node's value, and it moves as you work.
3DGeoInstanceOnPoints→3DGeoInstanceNoise→3DGeoAttribPhaser→KeyframeParameterAnimation
The timeline and the keyframe editor →
What Kinematic adds

Animate to music.

Load a track or open a mic, and the sound can push any setting while it plays. No keys to bake first.

a song's loudness and hits driving particles
a box swelling with a song
a shape moved by a voice
  • Follow the level. A smooth loudness that swells and settles, ready to drag onto a scale, a twist or a particle count.
  • Catch the hits. A trigger on every kick or clap, for cuts, flashes and bursts.
  • Split the bands. Bass, mids and treble apart, so each one drives its own thing.
  • Lock to Live. Tempo, beat and bar from Ableton Live, through the free AbletonOSC script, so cuts land on the downbeat.
drivers on the particle node in the big clip
emission_rate  #channel("fit_emit", "output")
gravity        #channel("fit_grav", "output")
turbulence     #channel("fit_turb", "output")
InputAudioFile→AudioToVolume→FitRangeNumeric→ImageParticleSystem
Make a visual that pulses to your music →
What Kinematic adds

Simulate in the same file.

Fire, smoke, liquids, cloth and rigid bodies sit in the same graph as your type and copies, and so do 3D scans. No round trip to another app for the hero shot.

a ring catching fire
Red and teal paint spreading into each other in a tray
two paints marbling in a tray
scan by Marc (superspl.at), CC BY 4.0
  • Set it alight. Pick any shape, open Simulate and choose Fire from this. The nodes land on the canvas, ready to tune.
  • Change it while it runs. Push the buoyancy or the wind mid-sim, then scrub back through it on the timeline.
  • Liquids and cloth. Marble two paints in a tray, drape a cloth, drop a soft toy. Each starts as one node with presets.
  • Scans too. Gaussian splat scans render beside your meshes, and a cage squashes one like any other shape.
3DGeoFluidSimpleSolver→3DGeoFlipSimpleSolver→PBDSimSolver→3DGeoSceneRenderToImage
Light a torch →
What Kinematic adds

Take it live.

The loop does not have to end as a file. The graph that renders it can also play it on a screen, a projector or a wall of lights, while you change it.

a projector on a building front, previewed in 3D
a live render, out over NDI
a pattern on 640 RGB lights
  • Press F1. Perform Mode clears the editor away and the picture fills the screen.
  • Send it. NDI to a vision mixer or OBS on any platform, Syphon to another app on a Mac, or a live stream to YouTube or Twitch.
  • Map it. Pin it onto a set or a building front with the Projection Mapper, and blend two projectors into one picture.
  • Light it. Sample each frame onto LED fixtures and send it out over Art-Net or sACN. Map a MIDI controller's knobs to any setting, and put cues on a Stream Deck.
terminal
$ kinematic run loop.kin --out ndi://Loop
3DGeoSceneRenderToImage→StreamingNDISendInterface→ProjectionMapper→ImageToDmx
Projection mapping →
How it fits

Files, apps and gear.

Scenes, type and art come in from the apps you use now. Renders go back out in the formats your editor and compositor read, or straight to a screen.

Into Kinematic →
FBXcameras, lights, instancingAlembicUSDglTFOBJSVGpaths to draw on or extrudeFonts.ttf and .otfEXR and HDRskies to light withImage sequencesMP4, MOV, MKV, WebMWAV, FLAC, MP3.cube LUTs
← Back out
H.264 and H.265ProRes10-bitVP9 and AV1PNG, TIFF, EXR framesnumberedLayered EXRcolor, masks, depth, IDsSVGFBX, Alembic, USD, glTFOpenVDBfire and smoke
↔ Live, as it plays
NDIevery platformSyphonon a MacRTMPYouTube, TwitchArt-Net and sACNLED walls, lights
↔ Apps and gear
MIDI controllersnine with a ready map, any knob by learnStream Deckcues on the keysAbleton Livetempo, beat and barOBS and Resolumeover NDI or SyphonPhones and tabletsOSC, TouchOSCWebcamstracking and keying

Every file type, protocol and device is listed on Works with.

Render with no window open.

Run the render from the command line. It steps the timeline one frame at a time and waits for every node, so no frame is dropped however heavy the graph. A numbered name writes a picture sequence instead of a movie.

terminal
$ kinematic render loop.kin -o loop.mov --timeline-range loop
$ kinematic render loop.kin -o story.mp4 --resolution 1080x1920
$ kinematic render loop.kin -o f_%04d.exr --timeline-range loop
$ kinematic run loop.kin --out ndi://Loop
The command line →
Coming fromCinema 4DCloner, effectors, fields and Sweep, and what they are called here.→Coming fromHoudiniPoints, attributes, wrangles and solvers.→Coming fromTouchDesignerLive visuals, outputs and show control.→Coming fromNukeCompositing, keys and roto.→Coming fromMayaModeling, rigging and the graph editor.→
Where to start

Lessons and demos.

Short lessons that end with something on screen, and demos that come with the app. Open one, press Play, then take it apart on the canvas.

LessonMake a visual that pulses to your musicGlowing bokeh that zooms in on every loud beat of a song you choose.LessonDraw a mountain logoTwo peaks and a sun, drawn with the pen and filled, ready to animate.LessonSpin a donut with one line of PythonA donut that tumbles and breathes, moved by two short expressions typed into its settings.LessonRender a demo to pictures from the terminalEvery frame of a demo, written as numbered pictures from one command.LessonPaste in a Shadertoy and give it slidersSwaying ribbons of light from a pasted shader, with Speed and Glow sliders.LessonCut a short videoYour clips in order and trimmed, with fades, dissolves and a title, out as an MP4.

In the app

Under Help, then Browse Demos. Each one opens as a copy, so change anything you like.

10,000 cubes on a noise fieldTen thousand cubes ride a moving noise field, each one driven by its own value.In the Demos browserRetro neon effectsA neon sign from stacked text effects: a tube outline, a double glow and a line that types itself.In the Demos browserTwisted torusA torus with a helical twist and a pulsing tube, copper to gold.In the Demos browserGlowing torusA spinning torus that glows so brightly that only its hottest parts bloom.In the Demos browserAnimated spiral loopA five-arm spiral that twists, thins and turns, with a soft glow on top.In the Demos browserScattered shape fieldShards scattered over a noise backdrop, each with a faceted glow.In the Demos browserTrail painterFour orbiting dots leave fading color trails, each frame painted over the last.In the Demos browserPaint splashCrimson and teal paint drop into a tray, keep their colors and marble together.In the Demos browser
Not yet

What it does not yet do.

Better to know before the first job. Missing something you rely on? Reach out.

  • After Effects projects and Lottie.aep files do not open, and there is no Lottie export for the web or apps. Hand renders over as ProRes or numbered frames.
  • Movies with transparencyVideo files are written without an alpha channel, so there is no ProRes 4444 yet.
  • GIF outGIF files open but do not save. Render MP4 or WebM for the web.
  • A path tracerRenders are live, with PBR materials, HDR light, shadows, bloom and fog. There is no path tracer for slow, physically exact finals.
  • Cinema 4D files.c4d scenes do not open. Bring them over as FBX, Alembic, USD or glTF.
  • Spout on WindowsSharing frames with other apps on Windows is on the roadmap. NDI works on every platform today.

Download Kinematic.

Free. No account, no license key. macOS, Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi.

Download for macOS 0.5.0Reach out