Animation Overview

An introduction to ShapeBox's animation system — timeline-based keyframe animation, object-level clips, and playback control.

Animation Overview

ShapeBox has a built-in animation system that lets you create, edit, and play back smooth animations for any object in your scene — no code required. Animations are timeline-based, using keyframes to define states at specific points in time.

What you can animate

Almost every property of an object can be keyframed:

  • Transform — position, rotation, and scale
  • Material — colour, opacity, emissive intensity, roughness, metalness
  • Light — intensity, colour, shadow strength
  • Physics — toggling physics on/off mid-animation
  • Custom properties — any plugin or script-exposed numeric or colour value

The animation system at a glance

ShapeBox uses a clip-based workflow:

ConceptDescription
ClipA named animation (e.g. "idle", "open-door"). An object can have multiple clips.
KeyframeA recorded value for a property at a specific time.
TimelineThe visual editor where you create, move, and adjust keyframes.
PlaybackClips play back in real time in Preview mode or when triggered by a plugin or script.

Opening the Animation panel

  1. Select any object in the scene.
  2. In the Inspector, scroll to the Animation section.
  3. Click Open Timeline — the Timeline panel expands at the bottom of the editor (above the Asset Panel).

Or press T with an object selected to toggle the Timeline.

Creating your first animation

  1. Select the object you want to animate.
  2. Open the Timeline.
  3. Click + New Clip and name it (e.g. spin).
  4. Set the cursor to frame 0, adjust the object's position or rotation, then click Add Keyframe (or press K).
  5. Move the cursor to frame 30, change the rotation, and add another keyframe.
  6. Press Play in the Timeline toolbar to preview the animation.

Playback control

Animations do not play automatically at startup by default. To trigger them:

  • In Preview mode — use the Timeline play button to preview during editing.
  • Auto-play — enable Auto Play on Load in the clip settings to start automatically when the scene loads.
  • Via script — call getObject('MyObject').animation.play('clip-name') from a scene script.
  • Via plugin — plugins can trigger, pause, and scrub clips on any event.

Animation types

TypeDescription
KeyframeManual keyframing via the Timeline editor
ProceduralContinuous, maths-driven motion applied via scripts (e.g. continuous rotation)
Physics-drivenObjects with dynamic physics simulate their own motion
ImportedAnimations embedded in GLTF or FBX model files

Next steps