LIM – Unofficial Animation Toolkit for Human Generator & Blender

LIM – Life in Motion
is a lightweight, user-friendly add-on that lets you animate Blender characters in seconds.

It includes nearly 360 ready-to-use animations, split into:

• 196 facial animations (shape keys, eyes, head, neck), 10 categories (happy, sad, others, angry etc)
• 166 full-body animations across 9 categories (idle, walk, talk, forge, workout, etc.)

All animations are designed exclusively for Human Generator rigs(RIGIFY)

You don’t need Human Generator to use LIM —
but when combined, the two form a powerful and intuitive animation pipeline, perfect for rapid content creation, prototyping, and posing.

LIM also features a few original tools to speed up animation workflows – including the Dynamic Timeline,Dynamic Viewport, Mirroring Full Actions, designed to make Blender feel smoother and more enjoyable for animators.

There’s no manual rigging, no technical setup.
Just plug, play, and animate.

This is a practical tool made for creators — not studios.
It’s meant to get the job done, not get in your way.

LIM was created and tested using Blender 4.2.3 LTS. Compatibility with newer Blender versions (4.4.x and beyond) will be addressed within one month after release – stay tuned for updates.
The add-on was also built and tested with Human Generator v4.0.21, and should work with any HG version that uses Rigify rigs and ARKit-based shape keys.

🧩 Add-on Feature List

🔹 Animation Browser

• Comes with 166 body animations and 196 facial animations (shape keys, head, eyes, neck). Mocap Data, fixed manually.
• All animations are stored in an external .blend library, so they’re available globally across projects.
• Supports saving your own animations, including mesh/object actions — you can even create custom categories.
• Features two display modes, plus preview playback without applying to your rig.
• Sort animations by clip name or duration.

🔹 Workflow Boosters

• Dynamic Timeline
  Scroll your timeline by holding D + F and moving your mouse.
  Works in both the 3D Viewport and Graph Editor.
  No more hunting for the timeline cursor — it follows your hand.
• Dynamic Viewport
  Automatically switches between Pose Mode and Object Mode based on your selection.
  Just click the rig or mesh — LIM does the rest.
  (Note: this feature currently supports one character per scene.)

🔹 Character Animation Tools

• Mirror Full Actions
  Mirror complete actions for both Armature and Mesh with a single click.
  (Yes, full-body and shape key actions too.
  Mirror speed depends on your PC performance and animation length.
  Shape key mirroring is lightning fast, but armature actions (especially long mocap animations) can take significantly more time.)
• Action Detach
  Instantly unassign current actions from Armature or Object.
• Shape Key Reset / Transform Reset
  Clean up and zero out current shape keys or transforms.
• Quick Send to NLA
  Push current actions (mesh or rig) to the NLA editor — no digging through menus.
• Shape Key Power
  Dynamically amplify or reduce shape key curves globally — across the entire action or selected keys.
  Choose between global influence or per-key control.
• Extra Options
  • Toggle Head/Neck Channels
    Quickly mute/unmute those channels — great when mixing face + body animations in NLA.
  • Toggle Finger Channels
    Mute/unmute all finger bones (IK/FK) — super useful when you want custom finger poses.

🔹 Error Logging System

• Every major function has built-in error logging to a .json file.
• Easier support: users can send logs directly without touching the console.
• Designed for collaboration and smooth debugging.

🔹 Additional Options

• Set Shape Key min/max limits globally.
• Regenerate Rigify bones to allow manual eye control.
• Fine-tune eye bone offsets if default values don’t match your model.

🎞️ Animation Packs included in the Add-on Library

• 196 Facial Animations (Shape keys + Eyes + Head + Neck). 10 Categories
  
• 166 Body Animations (Working with Human Generator Rigify). 9 Categories.
  

🎓 Tutorials + Workarounds(Very usefull tips)

(This section is focused on how to use the add-on itself — installation, functions, and smart fixes for special cases.)

Tutorial Part 1 Getting Started – Install & Use the Addon (basics)
Tutorial Part 2 How to Extend Existing Walk CYCLE
Tutorial Part 3 Fixing Head/Neck Follow Offsets in NLA when COMBINE Mix + Body actions.
(abt part 3 - everything works out of the box — you don’t need to tweak anything for LIM to function properly.
But if you know what’s going on under the hood, you can fine-tune things even further for cleaner results.It’s more of a workaround than a full tutorial, but it shows you why head/neck motion might seem misaligned when combining facial and full-body animations — even though technically, nothing is broken. This is one of the very few edge-cases where NLA mixing may look off in preview, but export/render will still behave correctly. I’m planning to find a smarter workaround for this in future updates — and I’m open to cool suggestions from the community.
If you’ve got a trick, I’d love to hear it.

(Workarounds for Rigify Base Differences)
These workarounds cover small differences between Human Generator rigs and HG after RIGIFY rigs based setup.
They’re minor — but useful when you notice awkward translations, offsets or limb behavior.

Workaround Part 1 Universal Fix for most case.
Workaround Part 2 Fixing IK Behavior Deadlift Animation Example Bad IK Translation
Workaround Part 3 Universal FIX , push-ups example, 2 ways to fix.
Workaround Part 4 Universal Fix bad rotations and translations , example Crunches
Workaround Part 5 FIX for FK type, Mesh Intersection, Bad Translations, crouch example

📜 License (What You Can and Can’t Do):

✔ What’s allowed:

• Use this add-on and animation pack in your personal and commercial projects (Blender renders, YouTube videos, games, cinematics, trailers, etc.).
• Integrate and bake the animations into your characters.
• Render, publish, and share your finished projects that use these animations.

❌ What’s not allowed:

• Do not resell, share, redistribute, or repackage this add-on or the included animations.
• Do not sell the animations as part of any other asset library, marketplace pack, rig collection, or similar (e.g., Unreal Marketplace, Unity Asset Store, Gumroad, etc.).
• Do not upload or distribute the raw animation files in any form.

In short:
👉 Use the animations in your projects.
👉 Don’t resell or share the source files.

📅 Milestones

Here’s what’s planned for future updates of LIM.
These features will be based on our ideas - yours, mine.

• Improve Animation Browser UI
• Add auto-duration estimation for custom library clips (currently Custom Library section dosnt have calculate logic)
• Expand animation packs (more categories, more variety)
• Improve Head/Neck offset sync (maybe via toggle or refined logic)
• Extend Dynamic Viewport to support multiple rigs properly
  

🌟 Final words

Thanks for stopping by and checking out LIM!
This project was built with a lot of heart, over 8 months of solo work, late nights, and a love for animation workflows.

I hope it brings real speed, fun, and flexibility to your Blender projects –
whether you're creating cinematic shots, quick prototyping, or just having fun with Human Generator characters.

Feel free to reach out with feedback, suggestions, or just to say hi.
There’s always room for improvement and cool ideas from the community.

Happy animating –
and thanks for your support!