Animate lets you give an object movement over time. You can key the whole object, build a native skeleton for a supported mesh, or inspect an imported character's existing animation and add supported pose adjustments.
Actions Give Movement a Home
Select an unlocked object and enter Animate. Poly creates or selects a default action with Position, Rotation, and Scale tracks at frame zero. The initial action is five seconds long at 30 FPS, with looping enabled.
The timeline opens below the viewport. Use its action selector to switch movements, and create separate named actions when an object needs alternatives. Actions can be renamed, duplicated, retimed, looped, and deleted.
An action keeps its keys together. It is more useful to name an action after a movement, such as Turn or Lift, than to create unrelated keys without a clear result in mind.
Key a Pose, Then Play It
Move the playhead to a frame, enable Auto-key, and complete a Move, Rotate, or Scale gesture. Poly records the transform at that frame. You can also add a key, move selected keys to other frames, or remove them.
Auto-key changes the meaning of a transform. With it enabled in Animate, you author the movement at the current frame. With it off, an ordinary object transform changes the object's base placement instead. Check the toggle before adjusting a pose.
Play, pause, stop, step, or scrub to inspect the action. Stop returns to frame zero. Playback and scrubbing do not create new keys or fill History with frames.
Current direct authoring uses linear interpolation. Poly is useful for clear transform animation, but does not provide a graph editor, nonlinear action mixing, inverse kinematics, or retargeting.
Give a Native Mesh a Skeleton
Open Rig / Bones from Animate for the joint hierarchy and transform controls. A native armature belongs to one supported mesh. Create root and child joints, position them, and use hierarchy actions to rename, reparent, or delete them.
The distinction between Rest and Pose matters:
Inspect deformation with a small test pose before building a long action. Automatic weights are a starting result, and the current Bones panel does not expose a full weight-painting workflow. A native armature cannot be reused as the rig of another object; deleting its owner also removes the owned rig.
Joint helpers make the skeleton visible over the model without adding exportable objects. Rig, Bone, and Joint selection choose the scope of manipulation, and selecting a rig element pauses playback so you can adjust a fixed frame.
Respect Imported Source Animation
Imported clips appear as Source Β· Read-only actions. Their existing hierarchy, skin, weights, and source curves stay protected. You can inspect the movement and author supported position, rotation, or scale adjustments on imported joints as separate pose keys.
Those adjustments do not convert the source rig into a native Poly armature. Full structural editing, replacing its skin, and retargeting its animation are not available.
This distinction also affects export: supported Poly object animation and native rigs can be included, while imported source curves and imported-joint pose overlays have export limitations. Read the export report instead of assuming a played preview will transfer intact.
Common Questions
Why did moving my object change its starting position?
Check Auto-key. Without it, an ordinary transform changes the base placement rather than adding a pose at the current frame.
Can I edit the bones in an imported character?
You can inspect and add supported pose keys, but cannot replace the protected source hierarchy, skin, or source curves.
Does playing an action save every frame?
No. Authored actions and keys save; playing or scrubbing only evaluates them for viewing.
Can two objects share one native armature?
No. A native armature belongs to the mesh for which it was created.
Try Animate an Object for a first movement, then Rig and Pose a Mesh for joint-based deformation.