Cascadeur, a character animation tool from Nekki, has been released for early access

Publisher Nekki announced the release of the Cascadeur program in early access format. The company also announced exactly how it plans to monetize the service.

Recall that Cascadeur is a tool for physically correct character animation in games and movies without motion capture. Initially, it was created exclusively for internal tasks. His story began with the first part of Shadow Fight, which was released in 2011.

The high level of animation quickly became one of the “chips” of Nekki. Therefore, over time, third-party developers began to show interest in the solution. This led to the creation of Cascadeur as a separate tool.

The program went into early access after two years of beta testing. However, the Cascadeur open beta test for third-party teams has been running only since July last year. In total, 70 thousand developers managed to familiarize themselves with the project during testing.

The OBT version of the program could be used for free, including for commercial projects. The situation with the current version of Cascadeur is different. The product has a detailed licensing scheme:

• amateur animators, freelancers, as well as companies with an annual income not exceeding $ 100 thousand, have the opportunity to use a Basic license in their projects for free (there are a number of functional limitations);
• Nekki offers larger companies to purchase Pro subscriptions for $300 per year (there are restrictions related to support);
• for $1000 a year, Nekki offers a Business license without any restrictions;
• the tool also has an Enterprise version, its cost is not negotiated, within its framework Nekki is ready to refine the product for the specific needs of individual companies.

Important: the purchase of an annual license gives permanent access to all previous versions of the program, as well as those that will appear within a year from the start of the subscription. At the start of sales, the cost of Pro and Business licenses is half as much.

By the way, Nekki tries to minimize the “entry threshold” of Cascadeur. The company is actively engaged in the preparation of educational videos (more than 50 videos are already available for familiarization with the program). And in general, it positions its solution as easy to master.