COA tools 2

the Addon of Cutout Animation Tools for Blender, which allows you to create cutout animations in Blender.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Download and Installation
  • Photoshop Exporter
  • GIMP Exporter
  • Blender Addon
• Development

Description

COA Tools 2 is an add-on developed by ndee89 and modified/remade by Aodaruma, which enables 2D rigging and animation within Blender.

The original COA Tools by ndee89 provided a rapid workflow for creating 2D cutout characters/animations in Blender. With COA Tools 2, the goal is to support Blender 3.4 and above, introduce automatic mesh generation, and establish a workflow with minimal features, allowing direct editing without going through proprietary modes.

Currently, the focus for development is on two aspects:

1. Photoshop sprite exporter
2. Blender add-on

The intention is to concentrate on these areas, specifically addressing the necessary improvements.

Since development is a time and resource-intensive process, it's not easy to being solely undertaken by me. However, if there are multiple developers willing to contribute and if the project necessitates scalability, I am considering inviting collaborators to join :)

Download and Installation

Download

You can download coa_tools2 from these sources:

1. releases page (stable)
2. master branch zip (unstable)
3. develop branch zip (very unstable; new feature included)

Installation

Photoshop Exporter

1. Download exporter from releases page or master branch zip and unzip it.
2. Copy Photoshop/BlenderExporter.jsx to the Photoshop scripts folder.
   • Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 20XX\Presets\Scripts
   • MacOS: /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CC 20XX/Presets/Scripts
3. Open Photoshop and psd file you want to export.
4. Run the script from File -> Scripts -> BlenderExporter.jsx to export sprites

GIMP Exporter

Referenced from here

1. Download exporter from releases page or master branch zip and unzip it.
2. Open GIMP and go to Edit -> Preferences -> Folders -> Plugins to find the plugin folder.
3. Copy GIMP/coatools_exporter.py to the GIMP plugin folder.
4. Restart GIMP.
5. Open GIMP and xcf file you want to export.
6. Run the script from File -> Export to CoaTools... to export sprites

Blender Addon

1. Download exporter from releases page or master branch zip and unzip it.
   • if you downloaded from master branch, zip /coa_tools2 folder after unzip master branch zip.
2. Open Blender and go to Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install...
3. Select coa_tools2.zip and click Install Add-on from File... to install.
4. Enable COA Tools 2 add-on.
5. Once the add-on is activated, go to View -> Sidebar -> COA Tools 2 to open the COA Tools 2 panel.

Krita PLugin

Referenced from here

1. Download plugins from releases page or master branch zip and unzip it.
2. Copy all content from the /Krita directory into these directories:
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\krita\pykrita
   • Linux: $HOME/.local/share/krita/pykrita
   • MacOS: $HOME/Library/Application Support/krita/pykrita
3. Open Krita.
4. Go to Settings -> Configure Krita.
5. Access the Python Plugin Manager.
6. Enable the COA Tools Exporter plugin.
7. Once the plugin is activated, go to Settings -> Dockers.
8. Enable the COA Tools Exporter docker.

To use the plugin select all the layers that should be exported, select export path, export name and press Export Selected Sprites button.

Development

The source code for development is in the main branch. coa_tools2 folder is a main body of the add-on. For efficient development, you can create a link to that folder in the Blender addons folder.

# Linux
LATEST_BLENDER_DIR=$(find "$HOME/.config/blender" -d 1 | grep -e "[0-9]\.[0-9]" | sort -rh | head -n 1)
ln -s "$PWD/coa_tools2" "$LATEST_BLENDER_DIR/scripts/addons/coa_tools2"

# macOS
LATEST_BLENDER_DIR=$(find "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Blender" -d 1 | grep -e "[0-9]\.[0-9]" | sort -rh | head -n 1)
ln -s "$PWD/coa_tools2" "$LATEST_BLENDER_DIR/scripts/addons/coa_tools2"

# Windows PowerShell
$LatestBlenderDir = (Get-ChildItem "$env:APPDATA\Blender Foundation\Blender" -Directory | Where-Object { $_.Name -match "[0-9]\.[0-9]" } | Sort-Object -Descending | Select-Object -First 1).FullName
New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "$LatestBlenderDir\scripts\addons\coa_tools2" -Value "$(Get-Location)\coa_tools2"

I'm using pipenv for dependency management. You can install the dependencies with pipenv sync if you have already installed pipenv.

Some extensions of vscode are recommended for development and written in .vscode/extensions.json. Feel free to use them.