Release notes

Newest first. The version is shown in Help › About Ikimotion Studio.

Ikimotion Studio imports and exports Live2D® Cubism model files (.cmo3, .can3, .moc3) and runtime packages (model3.json, physics3.json, motion3.json and related files).

0.5.0: A complete editing toolset

Ikimotion project files (.iki): Export › Project file (.iki)… (and File › Save project to file (.iki)…) saves the whole project as one signed file, optionally encrypted with a password or for your account. Opening one shows who signed it (your verified account, or an unverified browser key) and warns when it was modified after it was signed. Older .rigproj backups still open. See The Ikimotion file container and .iki projects.
Protected models (.ikm): Export › Ikimotion protected model (.ikm)… writes an encrypted runtime model for Ikimotion’s player; sellers upload it, issue licenses to buyer accounts and revoke them, and each buyer’s copy carries an invisible per-license watermark in its textures. Buyers play licensed models in the viewer without the decrypted files ever being saved. See Protected models and The .ikm protected model.
Start page and menus: the start page is a hub of large tiles: Start from a PSD, Bring a Cubism project (a .cmo3 or .can3 straight into a new project), View a runtime model, Blank project and Try the sample character (Ibuki, the Ikimotion mascot, as a layered PSD ready to rig, with closed eyes and an open mouth in a hidden Variations folder); .cmo3 and .can3 files dropped on it open as new projects, and Use familiar keys switches to the Cubism-compatible shortcuts. An empty project shows the same tiles in its viewport plus Insert a template. New Import and Export menus in the top bar list every import and export, with the reason as hover help where one cannot apply; the File menu keeps the project-level commands. The top bar starts with the Ikimotion logo and name (the logo alone on a phone), which return to the start page. Imports into an empty project no longer ask for confirmation; a project with content asks in one sentence and lists what will be added.
Stages: one layout organized by the work instead of two presets. The stage bar in the top bar switches between Prepare (art, structure and meshes), Rig (deformers, parameters, keyforms, physics), Animate (scenes, timeline, curves, parameters) and Ship (runtime preview, expressions, pose, hit areas, user data, export); each stage shows at most eight panels, and every panel stays in the Panels menu. A project started from a PSD opens in Prepare, a .cmo3 in Rig and a .can3 in Animate. Panels opened from the Panels menu or the palette never cover Parameters, the Outliner, the Inspector, Tool Options or the Timeline, and Show panel in the palette also brings a panel waiting behind another tab to the front. Timeline sculpting is no longer a separate workspace: Start sculpting opens its Sculpt panel inside Animate. Custom workspaces keep working and show after the stages. Layouts from the Classic / Flow presets move over on first start (custom workspaces kept, attached to the closest stage).
Shortcut sets: keyboard shortcuts no longer depend on the layout. Preferences › Keyboard (and the shortcut editor) chooses between the Ikimotion keys (default) and Cubism-compatible keys; each set keeps its own changes, and file export / import works on the active set. Changes made to the Flow and Classic keys carry over to the Ikimotion and Cubism-compatible sets; whoever used the Classic preset keeps the Cubism-compatible keys.
Help: a user manual with tutorials, a searchable help viewer (Help panel or full window), a keyboard shortcuts reference generated from your current keys, these release notes and About Ikimotion Studio with version, build and third-party notices.
Application shell: Preferences (language: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Korean; UI scale; tool, view and keyboard settings; dialogs), workspace management (rename and reorder stages; add, duplicate and delete custom workspaces; use a layout as the reset point), the Log and Project panels, the input overlay.
Themes and app icon: Preferences › Appearance picks the colour theme of the whole interface (panels, dialogs, menus, tooltips, timeline, graph editor and the viewport’s selection colours), with a preview of each palette: Ikimotion (the new default: dark ink with a lime accent), Slate (the earlier look), Light, Sakura and High contrast; all keep text at WCAG AA contrast. The command palette switches themes too (type theme), and the theme applies before the page first paints. The browser tab, home-screen and install icons show the Ikimotion mark.
Hover help: tooltips drawn in the app’s theme instead of the browser’s: they appear after a short hover, at once when moving between controls, on keyboard focus and on disabled controls (saying why), follow the UI scale and work in floating and pop-out panels; screen readers get the text as the control’s description.
Tool strip: the viewport’s tool strip shows the six core tools plus the tools of the current context (hit areas, guide images or Auto angle while their panel is on screen, the Controllers tool while you animate); every other tool, and any tool that does not fit a narrow viewport, is one click away in More tools with its name and shortcut. The active tool always stays on the strip, every tool has its own icon, and Tool Options shows the active tool’s name and settings instead of a second copy of the strip.
In our own words: every label, message and translation that matched another editor’s wording has been rewritten, and the Parameter menu is grouped by task (Keyforms, Keys, Symmetry, Automation, Parameter, Groups, Clean-up and IDs). Renamed features: Timeline sculpting (the Sculpt panel, sculpt keys, Follow parent rotation / Keep canvas position), Input overlay, the Controllers tool, Trace ArtPaths, Atlas editor, Mesh from stroke, Paste keyform with options, Mix in copied keyform, Fill corner keyforms, Mirror keyforms to the other side, Mirror motion, Generate sway keyforms, Edit keyforms together, Check deformers, Bake deformer into its children, Swap source and Change ID style. Automatically generated deformers get descriptive names (for example Torso lean, Head tilt, Right gaze), and skinning puts its generated parameters in a group named Rotation parameters.
Modeling: outliner bulk show / hide / lock, find and rename, object copy / cut / paste between projects, parameter settings and group tables, combined 2D parameter pads, editing keyforms together, fill corner keyforms, mix in copied keyform, paste keyform with options, mirroring keyforms to the other side and mirroring motion, key tools (edit key values, adjust, move, reverse), default keyform lock, random pose.
Deformers: Bezier warp editing with edit levels, warp-shaping brush, original shapes, check / expand / bake deformers, automatic deformer generation, skinning, sway generation, temporary deform tool (transform, warp and path handles).
Meshes and view: mesh-edit eraser and deform brush, presets for automatic meshes, grid, guides, quick snapshots, view rotation and mirroring, layer-depth view, render resolution, texture-atlas display, vertex numbers and folded-triangle flagging.
ArtPath: vector strokes drawn with brushes (the ArtPath tool with its modes, pen pressure, ArtPath brushes with .cabr import / export, start / end tips and fixed-width borders), tracing ArtPaths from art meshes, line information sampled from textures (colour, opacity, width, centring on the drawn line or the fill), following art meshes and baking their deformation, deform paths (including Shift+drag and box editing in the Points tool) and mesh from stroke; ArtPaths and brushes import from .cmo3, copy / paste and travel in templates.
Files: canvas settings and model resize, project duplicate and .rigproj bundles, saving .cmo3 / .can3, export options for images, sequences, GIF, video and PSD, physics presets.
File dialogs: opening and saving use the app’s own dialogs: folders you add once (Chrome and Edge), recent files, sorting, filtering and multi-select, drop onto the dialog, the system dialog as a fallback, and saving into a folder (replacing asks first) or the browser’s downloads, with the last destination remembered.
PSD import: drop a PSD anywhere to import it, ready to rig: on the start page it opens as a new project named after the file; in a project with art meshes it opens the re-import review. A progress popup lists the import’s steps, from reading the PSD to loading the last texture, with the time spent and an estimate of the time left that learns the computer’s speed; it closes once the model is ready to work with, can be sent to the background, and keeps an error on screen until closed. Every imported file is recorded as a PSD source; re-import settings: update the ticked sources only (multi-select), add all layers as new meshes, or register the file without adding meshes; a setting selects the blend modes used for new models.
Next steps: a live checklist panel from artwork to export (import the PSD, fit the meshes, add the standard parameters, generate deformers, turn the head, tag blinking and lip sync, physics, optional expressions, motions and hit areas, then export with a summary of what the package contains). Steps tick themselves off from the project, done steps fold away, and each step has one button that does the fix or opens the feature. Add standard parameters… creates the common runtime parameter ids (head turn, eyes, brows, mouth, body and breathing, hair sway) with their ranges, defaults and blink / lip-sync tags, skipping ids that exist, as one undoable change.
Animation: timeline navigation and at-playhead commands, timeline options, shy rows, freeze, frame steps, onion skin (animation and modeling views) with markers, trajectory display and the coupled XY path, moving / scaling / rotating tracks on the scene canvas, tilt (shear), guide image tracks, eye-blink / lip-sync modes, bookmark labels with parameter pop-ups, per-parameter fades and copying fades to other scenes, scenes from sound files, swapping a track’s source, duplicate track, runtime-model tracks of other characters, scene blends with fades, precompute and playback speed, curve editing options and neighbouring-loop display; .can3 import / export keeps the track and scene options (not runtime-model tracks or bookmark labels).
Animation settings, redesigned: the onion skin settings are a popover from a new ghost button in the timeline toolbar, with a live strip previewing the ghosts before and after the playhead, per-context settings (scene timeline, rig parameters, sculpt mode), Revert and Defaults. Timeline options became a popover of switches grouped by task (playback, following the selection, working with keys, shading, curve editing) with plainer names. Trajectory display picks what to see (path shape, spacing, or both) with small drawings and lists each drawn layer with its colour, opacity and outline. Fades is one form with a curve that previews the motion’s weight as you type; Copy fades to other scenes sums up what is copied and how many scenes are ticked. The bookmark label dialog previews the label chip and offers colour swatches, and only reports a missing name once you leave the field; Label display shows where labels go as drawings. Controller overlay groups its switches under a master switch and applies them live (Cancel restores). Change ID style offers modern or legacy cards with a sample ID and a before / after table. Every stored setting carries over unchanged.
Working together: people in a project have names (their account names), which you can change in the people list, the Session panel or Account settings. The top bar shows everyone’s avatar in their colour, with their name and selection on hover; names also label pointers, selections and locks. Projects belong to accounts: the person who creates a project owns it and invites others with an editor or viewer invite link from Share, where the owner also changes roles and removes members (projects from before accounts let every signed-in person with the project link edit until the owner makes them members-only). Share also offers the project link, a view-only review link and the backup download. View-only links (/r/…) open the preview player without an account and without revealing the project’s address, and the room refuses every change, lock and upload made through them; Copy preview link for reviewers now copies this link. Closing or reloading the tab asks first while changes have not reached the room. The room protocol is now version 4: reload tabs that were open before the update.
Help improve Ikimotion: an opt-in setting per project in the Share panel, off by default. When it is on, the project shares its edits (with the values before and after, the person’s name in the project and an anonymous browser id), the PSD files imported meanwhile, snapshots of the project and tool usage, and everyone in the project sees a banner saying so. We use it to find and fix bugs, understand how the app is used, improve features, and develop new ones, including rigging assistance that learns from how rigs are built (machine learning). Anyone editing the project can turn it off at once, and Delete shared data removes everything shared from the project.
Accounts: sign in to use the editor, with a passkey (also from the email field’s suggestions), Google, Discord, an emailed sign-in link or email and password; after signing in you continue where you were going, and view-only review links still open without an account. Your name in projects is your account’s name. Account settings (the account menu at the top right) changes that name, manages your email, password, linked Google / Discord accounts and passkeys, lists where you are signed in with Sign out per device and Sign out everywhere, and deletes the account. After signing in, Ikimotion offers to add a passkey. See Accounts and sign-in.
Fixes: art meshes with clipping masks were invisible in browsers that draw with WebGL 2 instead of WebGPU; they show through their masks again. Pictures in the app (the help’s screenshots, atlas pages, the image import preview, template thumbnails and brush textures) can no longer be dragged out: dropped on the editor, they were imported.

0.4.0: Cubism files, effects and animation

Import of Live2D® Cubism model (.cmo3) and animation (.can3) projects.
Expressions, pose, hit areas, user data and eye-blink / lip-sync tags.
Animation: scenes, timeline, curves, track effects (eye blink, lip sync, breath), controllers, physics and controller bakes, event markers, motion3 import and export.
Media export: images, image sequences, GIF, MP4 / WebM / MOV with audio, layered PSD.
Lip-sync analysis from audio and microphone; motionsync3 settings.
Runtime preview and a share link for reviewers.
Live input: webcam face tracking, VTube Studio link, the Live API.
Smooth (spline) interpolation, auto angle, templates and rig transfer, CSV import / export.
Lower CPU use: limits on background work.

0.3.0: Collaborative rigging

Real-time collaborative editing of a shared project, with presence, leases and per-user undo.
PSD import with automatic meshes and a project asset store.
Rendering with blend modes and offscreen parts on WebGL 2 and WebGPU renderers.
Editing tools: select, points, mesh edit, deform brush, warp and rotation deformers, clipping masks, attachments.
Blend shapes, one-way attachments, physics (runtime and in documents).
Runtime package export (.moc3, model3.json, texture atlases, physics3.json, cdi3.json).
Large projects: bulk storage on the server, shared-memory frame transport; reduced per-frame allocation.

0.2.0: Engine and web client

A rig engine that evaluates models in the browser.
The sync protocol and the project room on the server.
.moc3 import and export (glue converted to attachments), the browser engine, and the web client with docking panels and layout presets.

0.1.0: Foundations

The document model and its operations (server-authoritative, keyform grids, undo through inverse operations).
A .moc3 reader and writer for format versions 1 to 6.

Live2D and Live2D Cubism are trademarks or registered trademarks of Live2D Inc. This product is not affiliated with or endorsed by Live2D Inc.