What’s new in StykAnimate.

Added

• Layer folders with quick creation and a searchable filter to organize your timeline.
• Playback ranges to loop a chosen section of your animation.
• Automatic updates for the Linux AppImage, with a prompt to save your work before restarting.
• Move a layer up or down from its menu in the timeline.
• Auto key in the Advanced timeline: turn it on (K) and every change you make adds a keyframe at the playhead.
• Camera follow: right-click figures and choose Follow with camera to keep them in frame, with smooth catch-up, look ahead, a dead zone and auto zoom. Projects that use it need this version or newer.

Changed

• Shorter layer menus with related commands grouped into submenus.
• Easier timeline navigation: zooming stays on the playhead, the view follows it, and there is room below the last layer.
• Layer focus stays active until you turn it off, with support for multiple layers and Focus and lock to protect other artwork while you work.
• Zooming the canvas with the mouse wheel is smooth and easier to control. Compatibility mode zooms in quick steps by default, and Settings › Canvas › Smooth zooming lets you choose.
• Complete interface translations for all 26 supported non-English languages, with right-to-left layouts and clearer text in narrow windows.
• Onion skin is enabled when the app starts.
• While joining figures, movable nodes are shown in red and static nodes in white.
• A simpler Motion tab for camera moves, with a gallery that explains each preset and plain sliders for the settings that matter most.
• Dragging layers in the timeline shows where they will land, moves several layers or a whole folder at once, and drops them into or out of folders.
• Camera motions share one compact timeline row, color-coded by type, that only grows where motions overlap. Hover a motion to see its name and frames.
• Redesigned onion skin markers on the timeline: drag them straight to the frame you want, without catching the playhead. You can hide them in onion skin settings.

Fixed

• Repeated Save commands no longer start overlapping writes, and newer edits keep the project open when closing.
• Successful saves no longer show a failure if an old recovery copy cannot be removed.
• Imported Pivot originals stay available after other imports, and saving stops if an original cannot be retrieved.
• Recovery copies are scheduled more reliably during frequent editing.
• Fixed multiple layer selections and searches being lost during editing.
• Fixed figures and text staying blurry when zooming far into the canvas.
• Fixed long freezes when zooming or panning animations that use effects or onion skins.
• Fixed blur, glow, and shadow effects shifting or failing at certain positions.
• Fixed drawings disappearing with VFX enabled or changing layer position after the first stroke.
• Fixed onion skins disappearing behind lower layers or skipping nearby drawings in animations with many layers.
• Fixed repeated captions in controls and panels when changing the interface language.
• Fixed Settings running off the edge of very narrow windows.
• Browser downloads now keep your work recoverable until a file save is confirmed.
• Browser recovery keeps each tab's unsaved project separately and pauses playback when the tab is hidden.
• Double-clicking a static node now selects its branch, just like other nodes.
• Clicking a frame in the Simple timeline keeps your current selection instead of selecting every figure.
• Copying, pasting or duplicating a figure now keeps its effects.
• Bending a connector now follows your pointer smoothly, and also works with Move joint in Build.
• Adding parts to a figure in an imported Stick Nodes project no longer stops the saved project from opening.

Performance

• Smoother scrolling through long layer lists in the timeline.
• Quicker repeated saves for small projects and smaller exported movieclips.
• Smoother zooming and panning, fewer pauses, and more responsive joints and selection when editing complex animations in Compatibility mode.
• Much smoother playback of busy animations and scenes with effects, with fewer pauses, especially on laptops without a dedicated graphics card and in Compatibility mode.
• Complex STK figures open faster, including figures with long chains of joints.
• Faster color adjustments on large drawings, especially when painted areas are far apart.
• Faster keyframe edits and figure posing in long animations with many layers.
• Large personal libraries open faster, with more responsive selection.
• Quicker preparation for playback and exports.
• APNG and PNG sequence exports use less memory.

Added

• StykAnimate for Linux, with an AppImage you can download and run.
• Animate in your browser, with project saving, recovery, your own library and offline use after the first visit.
• Community library: browse free figures and movieclips shared by other animators and insert them straight into your scene.
• Particle effects: add explosions, auras, beams, smoke and steam, design your own particles, and save reusable presets.
• Custom layouts: dock, group or float panels wherever you like, and switch between layouts from View → Layout.
• Command palette: press Ctrl+P or F1 to find any command, setting, layer, figure or frame.
• Keyboard navigation: F6 moves between editor areas, Ctrl+\ switches to Focus mode, and Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+4 toggle the main panels.
• Color palettes in every color picker: keep your project's colors, reuse recent ones, and create named palettes for any project.
• Richer drawing brushes, with tapered strokes, textured tips, steadier lines and adjustable tablet pressure.
• Moving parts for 3D props, like a pistol's slide or trigger; projects using them need this version or newer.
• Reshape a whole arc of motion by right-dragging a point on its motion path.
• Hold Alt and drag a figure to duplicate it, or hold Shift while dragging its origin to move its pinned joints too.
• Press A while dragging a joint or figure to add frames without letting go.
• Right-drag to bend lines in Build and Animate.
• Choose whether pasted figures keep their original layering or appear in front in Canvas settings.
• Pinch with two fingers to zoom and pan the canvas on a touch screen.

Changed

• A fresh look, with the StykAnimate typeface, brighter colors and matching panels, menus and dialogs.
• More room for your animation, with floating canvas tools and panels that adapt to smaller windows.
• The top bar keeps workspaces, Undo, Redo, Save and Export together and shows whether your project is saved.
• Redesigned timelines, with stretchable frame cards in Simple mode and clearer pose bars in Advanced mode.
• Redesigned motion paths, with multiple trails, speed colors and pose previews as you point along them.
• Easier 3D posing, with on-screen joint dragging, depth adjustment and IK for arms and legs.
• Drag along a line segment to pose it without having to grab its node precisely.
• A clearer Export window with live preview, trimming, size options and presets for popular video platforms.
• Simpler Properties and VFX panels, with common actions close to the selection and individual effect switches.
• A clearer Build workspace, with simpler part properties and a compact toolbar for splitting, duplicating, flipping and deleting parts.
• A cleaner Library panel with search, filters and larger previews.
• Easier-to-find settings and commands, with searchable Settings, grouped menus and shortcut hints.
• The app chooses a comfortable interface size for your screen, with manual adjustment in Settings.
• Short hints guide joining figures, placing images, drawing shapes and using the Tweener.
• A clearer What's new screen that matches the website.
• New projects start with Blue, a simple stick figure with hand and foot IK for easy posing.
• The small playback FPS counter is back, and the low-FPS warning has been removed.

Fixed

• Fixed empty windows on Linux Wayland desktops.
• Fixed browser update notices being delayed after an export.
• Fixed selecting figures on the canvas while using the Tweener.
• Fixed patchy onion skins where parts of a figure overlap.
• Fixed Feedback sometimes opening on the wrong report type.
• Fixed the timeline and effect list jumping while selecting several frames.
• Selecting artwork no longer accidentally moves its figure.
• Fixed leaving Draw sometimes losing your previous layer and selection.
• Fixed errors appearing behind dialogs, and added confirmation before closing an active export.
• Fixed typing in a menu switching tools, and the Properties ⋯ menu not opening.
• Fixed What's new and the privacy prompt overlapping at startup.
• Fixed Enter not confirming a new project name.
• Fixed StykAnimate staying open in the background after an unexpected close.
• Fixed adding figures being refused in some Pivot animations.

Performance

• Fewer pauses when first adding particle effects or opening their previews.
• Faster property adjustments in long animations and smoother editing in scenes with many images.
• 3D figures pose, scrub and play more smoothly, use less memory and save to smaller files.
• Older Pivot animations open faster, and large ones scrub and zoom more smoothly.
• Smoother playback and editing in busy scenes, especially on laptops and in Compatibility mode.

Added

• Draw and animate on dedicated drawing layers backed by a sparse tiled raster engine timeline

Changed

• Work more naturally with a drawing tablet: tapping a joint or figure with the pen no longer nudges it, holding the pen still no longer pops up the context menu (the barrel button still does), and Ctrl+Space or Shift+Space with a pen drag zooms, or rotates the Draw view, without a scroll wheel. Settings → Shortcuts lists the pen gestures.
• Avoid rebuilding unchanged image textures when revisiting animation frames.
• Reduce the delay before first playback of large, freshly imported Pivot animations.
• Reduce playback memory for large animations by adjusting background preparation to available memory and releasing cancelled work during editing.
• Avoid repeatedly repainting unchanged Advanced timeline frames while posing figures.
• Reduce delays before the next file operation after cancelling an import or export.
• Reduce the time needed to prepare images when opening a project.
• Scale and rotate a multi-figure selection around the dragged figure's pivot like Pivot: Alt-drag now moves every selected figure's position toward or around the shared origin instead of resizing each figure in place, and Ctrl+Alt keeps rotating the group without scaling.
• Make frame counts agree between the Simple timeline, the Advanced timeline and Export
• Make onion skin settings compact
• Make the audio timeline clearer
• Add and edit effects more easily in the VFX panel
• Show a ⇔ marker on scrubbable property labels and a hint in Transform sections that dragging a label adjusts its value, with Shift or Alt for finer steps.

Fixed

• Reduce lag and memory pressure when posing dense figures
• Offer recovery and reopening when the desktop editor stops unexpectedly, instead of leaving a black window that cannot save or close normally.
• Restore right-click bending on the canvas
• Keep connected figures joined when using Break apart frame or Bake animation on a movieclip, so expanded figures stay attached to their parents instead of separating.
• Apply movieclip Transform edits from the inspector: Scale, Angle, Opacity and Z-index fields now update the placed instance instead of leaving it unchanged.

Added

• Add saved Normal, Medium, Low, Draft and Automatic playback quality options in Animation settings, with Normal as the default and full-resolution editing restored on pause.
• Add private bug-report and feedback conversations in the app and on the website, with attachments and developer replies.
• Add a saved Animation setting to fit the view when playback starts, enabled by default; turn it off to preserve zoom and pan.
• Add Ctrl+Shift+V to paste figures in their original position, alongside Ctrl+V with its existing offset.

Fixed

• Preserve the edited pose and appearance when importing builder changes as a new figure, keeping original instances unchanged after deleting parts.
• Reduce dense-animation stalls and image allocations.
• Retain the selected VFX clip when using frame-navigation shortcuts in the timeline.
• Reduce long-project editing overhead by transferring only changed thumbnail poses, retaining unchanged inspector icons, and avoiding redundant timeline layout work.
• Render the artwork surrounding the camera before applying scene VFX, preventing black shockwave bands and clipped filter edges in exports, playback, and thumbnails; preserve bounded sampling surfaces and tiny-blur guards.
• Preserve original sprite image colors and transparency on import instead of automatically erasing pixels matching the bottom-left corner.
• Show a checkerboard behind transparent scene areas during editing and playback.

Added

• Add builder appearance copy and paste for selected segments and branches.

Changed

• Make Build-mode Duplicate and Flip shortcuts respect segment/branch scope, and add configurable S to split and B to toggle Branch.
• Add a saved Canvas setting for Scroll to zoom or Ctrl + scroll to zoom, keeping Ctrl + scroll as the default.
• Default previous/next frame shortcuts to comma/period and add configurable Shift+comma/period keyframe jumps, preserving custom assignments.
• Add a configurable Extend keyframe shortcut, defaulting to Shift+A.
• Add persistent VFX clips with independent timing, parameter keys and fades, so effects can be animated without changing pose frames.
• Apply effects across connected figures while preserving their drawing order and editable parts.
• Make color picker canvas sampling opt-in through an Eyedropper button, allowing ordinary outside clicks to dismiss the panel.

Fixed

• Prevent dragging selected empty timeline cells from creating blank frames.
• Allow dragged layer keyframes to replace destination keys, including Alt-drag copies and overlapping selections, with one-step undo and a saved Animation setting enabled by default.
• Make new builder lines and chain links inherit their parent segment’s colour and thickness, including per-instance style edits.
• Import Pivot projects with padded JPEG resources or recoverable missing image records, preserving animation and original-source exports while reporting absent artwork.
• Keep figures sharp when invisible construction segments extend far beyond their visible artwork, without enlarging raster memory budgets.
• Extend image background edges during camera motion to prevent exposed white or black margins in previews, playback, and exports.

Changed

• Move the figure color palette to a compact, collapsed section at the bottom of Properties and show parallax only for selected layers.
• Simplify the welcome screen with Donate at the top, grouped changes in a scrollable reading area, and recent release changelogs in the same window.

• Add a selected-figure color palette with segment counts and bulk color replacement; fix conflicts between figure and node colors in legacy Pivot files, preserving gradients, undo, saving and native export.
• Add automatic canvas eyedropper sampling while the color picker is open, with a magnified pixel preview
• Add Pivot-style J join/unjoin from figure, node and branch selections, shared canvas-menu and inspector actions, static-node click/Shift-click/double-click selection, valid parent-handle highlighting, cancellation and sparse range undo; move handle visibility to Shift+J while preserving custom shortcuts.
• Preserve figure colors when copying between projects and app instances using different Pivot versions, including legacy black and modern multicolor figures.
• Extend Alt-drag rotation and scaling to all selected figures, preserving each origin and joined descendants, modifier locks, cancellation, and one-step undo.
• Add native two-anchor connectors with sliding attachment joints and Smart Stretch with automatic branch setup
• Refine both timelines with a direct mode switch, layer search/focus and saved colors, contextual easing and Simple sidebar easing, rebuilt onion controls with fixed Before/After distances and ruler handles that follow the playhead
• Add a remembered desktop UI scale slider (75%–200%) with live native scaling and one-click reset
• Add a colored toolbar Tweener with Breakdown, Blend to Neighbor, Push and Relax, direct canvas dragging, Shift precision, Escape/right-click cancellation, independent layer neighbors and one-step undo.
• Add a configurable canvas grid and vertical/horizontal guides with a compact icon-based panel, slidable numeric fields with fine adjustment and click-to-type editing
• Add editable camera shake, handheld motion, wobble, impact punches and zoom pulses with draggable inspector values and live motion graphs.
• Add layer parallax values
• Add editable audio through an optional timeline Audio tab, with integrated Advanced lanes sharing its ruler, scrolling and zoom, direct dragging between tracks, waveforms, trimming, splitting, volume and fade controls.
• Add animatable per-effect strength and turbulent displacement, with bounded GPU filters, canvas controls, and matching playback/export paths.
• Rework Figure builder. Now contextual, what you select is what you edit, if you don't select anything you create a new feature. Contextual controls and new tools added with better interface
• Add editable motion paths with compact range and scope settings, uncluttered trails and frame labels
• Refine Properties UI
• Improve dense-scene playback, scrubbing and node editing performance
• Simplify and improve canvas controls
• Speed up high-resolution exports
• Widen canvas zoom to 0.1%–10,000% and display fractional percentages at low zoom.
• Redesign movieclip Properties with live frame and duration values, compact controls, and keyframe-add feedback; retain stacking across added frames and create independent instances when pasting onto an existing clip.
• Improve the asset library with adaptive thumbnail contrast, animated movieclip hover previews, right-click actions, and drag-to-folder organization.
• Speed up native project save and open: .styk/.stkz/.stykmov
• Remove the duplicated figure Outline section from the Design inspector; outline authoring lives in the VFX panel.
• Smooth rounded VFX outlines
• Scale memory allowances and export limits
• Stream large exports straight to disk
• Reduce idle resource use
• Make horizontal and vertical flips respect selected figure segments and branches, including timeline ranges; selecting the root still flips the whole figure.
• Reduce movieclip creation time and undo memory
• Fix simple timeline thumbnail previews
• Fix recurring multi-second freezes while editing dense scenes, including figure/movieclip copy, paste and drag/drop
• Fix Add Frame in the Advanced timeline: pressing A off a keyframe inserts a key at the playhead instead of the following frame
• Open associated files on launch: double-clicking a .styk, .stkz, .stykmov, .piv, .stk, .stknds, .nodes, or .nodemc file now loads it in the desktop app
• Speed up camera playback and preview
• Speed up playback and editing on low-end hardware
• Make oversized embedded images lightweight
• Recover from repeated GPU device disconnections and keep disconnected rendering inert before reading scene data, so independent software exports can continue through recovery.

• Add editable VFX stacks for nodes, figures, movieclips and the camera view, with 16 effects, gradient colors, centered searchable effect and preset popups, draggable cards, canvas controls, preview bypass, GPU rendering, and native save/export support.
• Implement dark mode, defaulting to System to follow the operating system’s appearance.
• Add a movieclip to the next X existing keyframes at the same position, preserving other content and frame timing.
• Improve playback and editing with shared glyph masks, bounded vector-command reuse, workload-based worker rasterization, and foreground interaction priority.
• Tint selected nodes and branches a lighter red so they stand out within a figure.
• Fit the scene to the viewport when playback starts, while allowing zoom and pan during playback.
• Keep the camera boundary visible above the scene with a subtle dotted red outline, including when unselected and during playback.
• Start the app and new projects with one frame containing jonh styk.
• Fix severe playback slowdowns after preview memory pressure by retaining vector rendering and using the available texture budget; reuse prepared frames for overlays and reconnect acceleration after a transient GPU reset.
• Correct regression fixtures to request linear interpolation explicitly and distinguish native exposures from authored Hold easing during export.
• Fix toolbar stacking for single-segment figures and selected branches with attached figures, preserving the selection's relative order and undo/redo.
• Keep compatibility rendering on a software-oriented canvas and repaint the scene after Canvas context restoration, preventing an idle viewport from staying blank after a graphics reset.
• Prevent a blank canvas when replaying after edits, including movieclip insertion, by keeping cached playback backgrounds alive across pauses and camera changes within the GPU cache budget.
• Make Advanced timeline drags select unselected keys, preserve selected ranges on click, and delete keys without shifting later animation.
• Improve PIV importer stability.
• Simplify export controls with automatic video quality and frame progress, speed up dense high-resolution rendering, and bound encoder memory use.
• Fix miscellaneous bugs.

• Have fun! If you encounter any bugs, let me know on Discord or through the feedback modal in Help or Settings.
• Send bug reports and ideas from Help → Send feedback / Report a bug or Settings → Feedback.

• Meet Gesture, the new StykAnimate identity throughout the app and welcome screen.
• Sharper app, Setup, Portable and uninstaller icons, with transparent edges and matching file icons.
• Read the complete privacy notice directly inside Privacy & diagnostics.

• A more compact welcome screen with a clearer layout.
• A wider donation button with more room to support development.
• Automatic update checks now run hourly after the startup check.

• Installed Windows copies now download updates in the background and let you restart when you’re ready.
• A new welcome screen shows what’s changed in your installed release, even when you’re offline.
• Support StykAnimate’s development from the welcome screen or the export window.