Kinetiq Editor Guide

The Kinetiq Editor is a professional browser-based animation environment that requires no installation. Access it at app.thirdrez.com/kinetiq.

This is the editor tour

This page is a high-level walkthrough of the Kinetiq Editor surface. Deep-dive pages for individual features (Mirror Animation, Loop Fixer, Quality Score, Foot Locking, Vision Capture, Retarget Studio, Rig Studio, etc.) are being added as we expand the documentation. See the sidebar ⚡ Kinetiq Engine section for the full list, or check What's New for recent feature releases.

For questions or specific feature requests, join our Discord or watch our YouTube channel for video walkthroughs.

Feature Overview

Real-time 3D Preview

• 60 FPS viewport rendering via WebGL
• Multiple camera views — 3D perspective plus true orthographic Front / Side / Top (grid-aligned 90°, Blender-numpad feel)
• Configurable grid styles and themes

Avatar Support

Multi-platform avatar loading via File → Add Avatar:

• Second Life Bento (159 bones, full facial + wings + tail)
• Second Life Classic (26 bones, legacy)
• Unity Humanoid (54 bones, Mecanim)
• UE5 Mannequin (67 bones — Manny / Quinn)
• VRM (0.0 + 1.0, VTuber pipeline)
• Ready Player Me (cross-metaverse standard)
• Reallusion CC4 (Character Creator 4 / iClone)
• Roblox R15 (15 bones) / R6 (6 bones)
• Mixamo (auto-detect via mixamorig prefix)
• Move AI (markerless mocap ingest)
• Rokoko (Smartsuit / Smartgloves)
• SMPL (research / ML pipelines)
• Custom rigs via Rig Studio

See Platform Support for the full breakdown.

Timeline & Keyframes

• Frame scrubbing and keyframe visualization
• Loop markers and frame range selection
• Multi-select keyframes (Shift+Click)
• Copy/Paste keyframes (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V)

Transform Tools

• Select (Q) - Select bones in viewport
• Move (G) - Translate selected bone
• Rotate (R) - Rotate selected bone
• Scale (S) - Scale selected bone

Know your toolbars

The editor surface has three toolbars. Here's every button and what it does.

Top toolbar — menus + scene tools

Left to right:

Control	What it does
THIRDREZ / Kinetiq Engine v1.4	The logo — also your version check
File · Edit · Capture · Rig · Polish · Physics · Export · Help	Every workflow lives in these eight menus
💡 Tips	Contextual hints for the current tool
✨ Retarget	One-click shortcut to Retarget Studio — bring any animation onto your avatar
Select · Move · Rotate · Scale	The gizmo tools (shortcuts Q G R S)
Mesh / Bones	Toggle what you see: skinned mesh, skeleton, or both
↩️ Undo / ↪️ Redo	Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y — full history
🧽 Clear	Reset the current pose
3D ▾	Camera view switcher — 3D perspective or true orthographic Front / Side / Top
Layout + 🎨 Theme	Single / Quad / Vertical viewport layouts; Kinetiq / Maya / Blender themes

Right-side toolbar — camera + tools

Top group — camera and selection:

Button	Shortcut	What it does
▢ Box Select	B	Drag a box to select multiple bones at once
✥ Pan	Shift + Middle Mouse	Move the camera view
🔍 Zoom	Mouse Wheel	Zoom in / out
⦿ Focus	F	Frame the current selection
⤢ Fit Screen	Home	Fit the whole model to the viewport
🏠 Reset View	Numpad .	Reset the camera to its default position

Bottom group — the Tools cluster (new in v1.1):

Button	What it does
🛤️ Trajectory	Draws the selected bone's motion path, color-coded by smoothness (green = silky, red = jagged). Updates live while you drag the Smooth slider
👣 Foot Align	Drops the avatar so its feet rest exactly on the grid — one click, no root fiddling

Bottom toolbar — transport + timeline

Refreshed in v1.3

The bottom toolbar was regrouped in v1.3 (Transport · Modes · Keyframe · Region · View · Settings) and gained the Region tools (Move · Trim · Cut · Clear). The screenshot above predates that regroup — an updated capture is on the way; the table below is current.

Left to right:

Control	What it does
⏮ ▶ ⏭ ⏹	First frame (Home), Play/Pause (Space), next frame, Stop & reset to 0 (Shift+Space)
FRAME / TIME	Where the playhead sits — frame number and seconds
● REC	Auto-key mode (R): release a gizmo and a keyframe is recorded automatically — pose → release → keyed
〰 SOFT	Soft Edit: while REC is on, a gizmo release blends the edit into neighboring frames instead of keying one frame — fix a bad stretch without going frame-by-frame
Linear ▾	Interpolation mode for keys (Linear / Step / Bezier / Squad)
+ Key	Add a pose keyframe at the playhead (K or F)
🔍 + − ⤢ 100%	Timeline zoom in / out (Ctrl + / Ctrl −), reset (Ctrl+0)
COPY / PASTE	Copy and paste keyframes (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V). Contextual since v1.3 — with a Region marked they copy/paste the whole stretch, and a violet paste-ghost shows where it lands
✥ ALL	Select all keyframes (Ctrl+A) — becomes DESELECT when something is selected. Ctrl+A then Delete clears the lot
Move · Trim · Cut · Clear (Region group — new in v1.3)	Act on the marked Region right on the timeline — slide it (Move), keep only it (Trim), ripple-delete it (Cut), or wipe it (Clear). See the Timeline guide
LOOP + Set Start / Set End	Loop playback and define the Region — the frame range the Region tools, Range, Smooth, and Loop Fixer all target
TOTAL FRAMES / FPS / 1.0x	Clip length, frame rate, and playback speed

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
G	Move (Translate)
R	Rotate
S	Scale
K	Add Keyframe
Space	Play/Pause
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Y	Redo
Ctrl+I	Import File
Ctrl+Shift+I	Kinetiq Import (Retarget)
Ctrl+L	Open Library
Ctrl+M	Mirror Animation
Ctrl+Shift+L	Loop Fixer
Ctrl+G	Toggle Onion Skinning
F1	Help
Escape	Cancel Transform

Tools & Features

IK (Inverse Kinematics)

Drag limbs and entire chains follow automatically.

To create an IK chain:

1. Load an avatar (File → Add Avatar or File → Import File)
2. Select a hand/foot bone
3. Run Rig → Create IK Chain
4. Drag the magenta IK target to pose

Onion Skinning

Visualize motion arcs with ghost frames:

• Cyan ghosts - Past frames
• Magenta ghosts - Future frames

How to use:

• Toggle via Ctrl+G or the 👻 button in the Timeline toolbar.
• Right-click the 👻 button to cycle the ghost count (1–5).
• Automatically hides during playback for performance.

Foot Locking

Prevent sliding artifacts during locomotion:

• Red circles - Locked feet (grounded)
• Green circles - Unlocked feet

Center of Mass + Support Polygon

Center of Mass (CoM) visualization with the Support Polygon ground projection helps diagnose balance issues. The Balance Pill HUD overlay shows green/yellow/red status at a glance — green means CoM is over the support polygon (stable), red means the avatar is falling. Professional-grade balance feedback in the browser.

Quaternion Interpolation Modes

Four interpolation modes available per quaternion track:

• Linear — fastest, default for most motion (uses NLERP under the hood)
• Step — instant snap, no interpolation between keyframes (for stop-motion / mechanical poses)
• Bezier — custom tangent curves for animator-controlled easing
• Squad — Spherical Quadrangle Interpolation, the gold standard for smooth tumbling rotations

Position tracks always interpolate linearly (vector lerp).

Mirror Animation v2 (free for all tiers)

Mirror left ↔ right with clipData mutation that survives playback. Three modes:

• L → R — left side dictates, right copies mirrored
• R → L — right dictates
• SWAP — classic mirror, both sides swap

Features: live scrub on strength slider (drag and watch the avatar transition in real time), projetor direcional viewport viz (YZ plane + L/R floor tints + direction arrows), bone-pair highlight (hover a row in the Detection card → spheres pulse on the bones), bone-pair detection covering every major naming convention — including Second Life Bento center bones (fixed in v1.1, so Mirror now works on every rig). Apply is undo-able with Ctrl+Z.

Shortcut: Ctrl+M.

Loop Fixer v2

Eliminate the "pop" at the loop seam. Two modes:

• Snap — frame N becomes identical to frame 0 (hard cut, perfect loop)
• Blend — smoothstep ramp the last N frames toward frame 0 (soft transition)

Sample-on-demand — does NOT require pre-existing keyframes at frame 0 or frame N. Live preview, undo-able apply, polished modal UI.

Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+L.

Smooth (new in v1.1)

One slider melts mocap jitter and softens arcs while keeping the performance. Whole clip or Region, all bones or selected only, stackable, undo-able. Pairs beautifully with Trajectory View — watch the motion path turn green as you drag.

Polish → Smooth.

Trajectory View (new in v1.1)

Toggle from the right-side toolbar. Draws the selected bone's world-space motion path, color-coded by smoothness: green = silky, red = jagged. Updates live during Smooth preview.

Foot Align (new in v1.1)

The 👣 button in the right-side toolbar drops the avatar so its lowest foot rests exactly on the grid. One click — no manual root adjustment.

Import Formats

Format	Extension	Description
GLB/GLTF	.glb, .gltf	Standard web 3D format
FBX	.fbx	Autodesk interchange format
BVH	.bvh	Motion capture data

Export Formats

Format	Target Platform	Tier	Status
GLB / glTF 2.0	Unity, Unreal, Roblox, Web, AR/VR	Starter+	✅ Live
BVH	Second Life Bento, MotionBuilder, Maya	Starter+	✅ Live
.anim (Second Life)	Linden Lab in-world upload	Starter+	✅ Live
FBX	Maya, Blender, MotionBuilder, Unity, Unreal	Starter+	✅ Live

Free tier

Free Style users can edit and preview in the browser but cannot export any format. Upgrade to Starter ($4.99/mo) to unlock export.

FBX Export

FBX export is live — binary FBX 7.4, generated 100% client-side (no uploads), with per-DCC axis/unit presets for Blender, Maya, Unity, Unreal, and Three.js so files import directly with no re-orienting. Includes the animation clip, optional embedded textures, and FPS control. See the Export guide.

Kinetiq Vision

AI-powered motion capture from webcam or video files:

1. Record or upload video
2. AI extracts pose data
3. Apply to 3D skeleton

Access via the Capture menu:

• Capture → Vision (Webcam)
• Capture → Video Mocap

Tips for Best Results

1. Start with the right avatar - Match your target platform from the beginning
2. Use IK for limbs - Faster posing than manual bone rotation
3. Check foot contact - Enable foot locking for locomotion
4. Preview at target FPS - Match your game engine's frame rate
5. Test loops early - Use Loop Fixer before final export

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Try the editor: app.thirdrez.com/kinetiq