This is an animation tool I wrote for Maya that provides a different approach to ghosting/onion-skinning in 3D.

I was watching a recording of a live lecture with Jason Ryan (Dreamworks/iAnimate) when a student asked him if he used ghosting when animating in 3D. He mentioned a couple of reasons why he usually doesn't, even though he uses the lightbox feature all the time when animating in 2D.

I realised I feel the same way about any 3D ghosting solutions I've tried. One problem is that they slow the scene down usually, and another is that they are not that easy to see in the viewport, usually being a faded version of the mesh or a wireframe of it which doesn't read very clearly.

Then the penny dropped for me - 2D animators don't see the fully shaded character in the lightbox when animating, they see only the lines they've drawn, so the spacing is a lot easier to see. So I set about writing a tool that will give an outline of the character rather than a fully shaded one when ghosted. It's also a little different in that the animator just ghosts specific frames rather than having something heavy that's constantly updating in the scene, for my workflow at least this is preferable.

I showed this initially in a 30 second video here and was amazed by the amount of response from animators around the world. Many thanks to everyone for their comments and emails about it.

Please watch the video above so that you know how best to use it. I hope people find it useful, I know for me it's helping me see the spacing in my animation in a whole new light since I've started using it in my animation workflow. Happy animating!

Update 1.05 - 10102012 :



I got an email from Sean McLaughlin (formerly an animator at DreamWorks, currently teaching at Ringling College, Florida) saying that he really likes the the tool and asking if it was possible to incorporate multiple frame ghosting all at once. For example, the animator selects a range of keys in the time slider by shift+dragging and then when they press the Ghost button the tool creates ghosts for every frame of that range.

I thought it was a great suggestion and it was pretty straightforward to implement so I've added it in. (See it here)

So now if there isn't a range of keys selected the tool works the same as before, if there is a selected range though each frame will get a ghost.

Update 1.06 - 17122012 :

I've now added a new function to the tool which makes it much faster when working with multiple characters in a scene. Please watch the video here for more details.

Update 1.08 - 080513 :

I've added a new function where it will ghost only the keys in a selected range if a controller is selected. Please watch the video here for more details.

Update 1.09 - 160114 :

Added new 'replace' mode. With this enabled only one ghost exists at a time and each new one replaces the old one. Handy for polishing animation.

Update 1.10 - 301114 :

Added Create Tracker function - see video here to see how best to use this.

Update 1.11 -230415 :

Minor tweak to code to suit UI changes in Maya 2016.

Update 1.25 -300815

Added alternate colour option and smooth mode. Video demo here.

Update 1.26 -171015

Added the ability to ghost only selected parts of a mesh. Video on that here.

Update 1.27 -190216

Added 'Hide on Playback' option (Maya 2016+ only). Video on that here.

Update 1.28 - 110416

Added '10X' mode for thicker outlines

Update 1.29 - 150616

Code tweak to ensure the 'Hide on Playback' check box is enabled when a hide ghosts layer already exists in the Maya scene.

Update 1.32 -240817

Bug fix update to stop crashes when using Create Tracker function in Maya 2017/2018

Update 23 May 2017 - I made a new video that demonstrates all current features.. this is the ideal one to start with now -

https://vimeo.com/218632770

The older video is still online which covers things like installation in more detail here.

Update 1-42 - 03 March 2019 - I've added two new features - attach to camera mode and reduce detail mode. See this video for more details.

Updated 1-55 18th December 2019 - new outline thickness settings, new tracker options and improved create shelf button command.

Download bhGhost _1_55