How to Animate EVERYTHING with Absolute Shapes Keys 

I think this style of animation is super expressive and dramatic. I would love to see more AAA movies taking this approach.

The Blender community is so creative 😍 love the art style and animation!

This is a game changer for people who like to animate traditionally. I really have to think to start using grease pencil and you're way to forget the rig.

Feels very natural, it's like modeling every frame

this is so cool, i love how many different solutions there are to any given problem. the process is almost like going way back to the 90s and doing vertex animation. this would be so useful for small objects that only need to animate once or twice in a piece.

a very interesting approach. Would it be possible to show a sped up version of the entire process from start to finished animation? I think it would be quite interesting to see.

This is how I did my very first animation. It was in some old game engine and I didn't know about bones yet so I animated a run cycle, hit, and death animation for my character by pushing verts 😅

Thank you so much for this! A friend and I were discussing the exciting idea of using shape keys as the source of animation frames, but we were facing some puzzling aspects. Then you essentially posted a video that for me could have been called "Hey you, do this to get what you want!" I've passed your video on to my friend and I am sure he's going to love it as much as I. I was not even aware of the option of using absolute shape keys so this is a real revelation.

Would "Absolutely" love to see a full process video with a more tutorial based approach, this is an incredible technique!

I’ve always had this style of animation in my mind, I always wondered if it’s possible and if it’s used but this proved it to me

You can achieve the same effect even with Relative Shapekeys but it takes a few more clicks. The advantage of that is that you can combine Relative and "Absolute" Shapekeys on one Mesh: If you want to go from Key1 to Key2 you can simply change the "Relative To" property of Key2 from Basis to Key1 Then if you want to have a thing similar to the Evaluation Time that Absolute Shapekeys have, you can use a driver on Key1 and Key2 values (however keep in mind that this way, editing shapekey that comes before others (in this case it's Key1 because Key2 is based on it) will also edit Key2 shapekey; in case you don't want that it can be solved probably by multiple ways but the one that comes into my mind right now is duplicating the object and after making changes to the original, joining it back as shape and changing the new shapekey's "Relative To" value again) From the 2 min. of googling I just did, there seems to be addon named "BsMax" that helps you with setting this Relative/Absolute shapekeys combination. If you want a showcase of how to set it up once installed, RU-vid video named "Blender BsMax Multi Target Shape Key" shows it clearly.

This is an interesting approach. It works well for shots like the ones you used but if I think about very dynamic shots it would be a real struggle... additionally there's no adjusting arcs like this. The biggest + of CG animation is in my opinion it's flexibility to adjust animation at any point. Changing arcs, retime, layered animation... all these things get lost with an approach like this.

Looks hella hard but can't deny the results. Very cool style.

Your animation looks fantastic. What I love is that the movement is very faithful to the original shows, not just a stop-motion look.

I never would've considered this level of fidelity on shape keys alone even possible. You have an incredible style and beautiful animations! Excellent work!

This is great! I was looking for a way to animate like this for a long time. Thanks for the tutorial!

So inspiring! Thanks for this!

Wow. Awesome video and great animations my man! Subscribed immediately after viewing. Cant wait to see more of you!

This is so creative, holy smokes 😮 The CG equivalent to claymation is here!!

That was one of the most informative, short form pieces of content I've seen! I've seen relative shape keys a ton, but not absolute. Definitely going to be adding this to the workflow. Thank you!

"Is this a rigged animation?" "NO! THIS IS SHAPE KEYED!"

This is such a great idea!😍I have experimented a couple times with using a "Displace" modifier to create simulated claymation boil, but it was always just an idea; I never had anything to apply it to. This is the perfect animation workflow to play with that again.

Seems like using absolute shape keys for the face and a rig for the limbs would be a nice middle ground. Cool video.

Truly inspiring stuff, thanks for sharing!

Great animation! Thanks for sharing the process.

Good stuff. I've needed this in the past.

That looks so great. Im very thankful for this technique and I would love to see a (full) tutorial on stuff like this

This is seriously amazing!!! Please keep the great work!

Aku is my favorite character of all!! I did loved your job, keep up!

This is brilliant, cant wait to try this

dude, ive watched this video like a hundred times, and i still dont get how you got the patrick and aku too look so accurate xD you are amazing!!!!

This is an incredible approach, thank you for the introduction to it.

love the style!

This was...actually amazing. Thanks for teaching!👍

Looks incredible

Aaaahhh, this is what I was looking for😭😭❤️❤️

this helped me a ton thanks so much!!

from approving your fantastic post in fb group to seeing it in my youtube feed is absolutely amazing and i am feeling quite good seeing such creativity nice job Arslan really apreciate your work.

love this. used to animate like this all the time in Maya, through a slightly different method, but basically the same thing

and i was worried of not knowing how to rig, this is how i animate stuff and it suits me, great video btw! love how you made that patrick

That's a beautiful 3D rendition of those characters!

The quality and knowledge in this tutorial is insane!

Ive animated with relative shapekeys, you can totally go from key 1 to key 2 without going to basis, just make it so key 1 goes to 0 on the same frame as key goes to 1, if thats too snappy you can also combine states of key 1 and key 2 so that the transitions are smoother However knowing about absolut keyframes can make this easier in the future

youre animation got the real feeling ! superb work !

Super cool man!

Great work Bro! luved it!! Blender is getting better day by day.

Super Cool! Thanks for sharing

That's incredible, so many possibilities thanks for video

Wow. Perfect result!

Very cool video. Never thought of that 👏

This is just amazing! Thanks for sharing this wonderful technique

ok this is a really cool use of shape keys!!

Amazing insights! In concept, the technique is intuitive and seems to need less set up than rigging. Will definitely try it out. Thanks for sharing!

Really NICE!!

Wow, this is great. Can't wait to play around!

I NEED a full breakdown! You are incredible!

So cool! Thanks for the tutorial! :)

Saweet! This opens the door to traditional animation with todays tech Thanks for sharing, this will be a hoot!

I love this style!

Really Helpful tutorial ! Learned nice tips. :)

This is insane!

this is good for specific cases like these. i cant imagine making a minute of animation using this method, making hundreds of shape keys each time feels like a nightmare.

This is an insanely fun and cool way to approach 3D animation. Kind of brings me back to the old Flash animation days.

Its like frame by frame, Great Video Arssalan. Awesome!

Amazing, thank you!

Nice job!

Very informative! Thanks!

This is so cool I didn't even know this was possible.

Wow, I was looking for a way to do this a few months back but didn’t think to uncheck relative. So cool!

Thanks for this great tutorial !

love this! def need to learn this

Really awesome and cleaver, at last another way around traditional rigs!

This tutorial is my rig solution, thanks man.

This is amazing

This is freaking glorious

Because Quake 1 was truly the peak of technological innovation.

Such a cool idea, thanks for sharing. You should do a tutorial on your materials/shading!

Very useful! thanks!

That was very inspiring!

Thanks for the tutorial 👍

Good stuff!

Wew nice approach 😊

This looks so good!

this looks cool

Saw this on reddit, really dynamic!

This opened my eyes to the power of shape keys, thanks so much!

I’m just learning Blender today. This is useful. Thank you! I was going to practice more but I am seeing Fast And Furious 10 (Fast X) today, but I’ll watch more videos like these until I’m ready to animate.

wow that is very cool, if there is full animation like that it would be so funny

Knowing about absolute shapekeys is perfect for stylized VFX animation. Thanks for sharing

amazing! thank you :)

Thanks dude, this was interesting!

Brilliant 🔥🔥🔥

you're goated in my eyes. i loved both of these shows growing up

This is cool!

awesome!

Absolute genius!

I LOVE YOU, MAN. ❤ Never heard of “absolute” shape keys, but I love the power & control of shape keys…until they get in each other’s way. This is an alternative approach to all kinds of things. Thanks 🙏 BTW. As you pointed out, if you create your shape keys with a super-low poly framework for subD, life will be much easier. ✊🌏🕊🍷🎩

This is so cool.

Love this! u did great! I'd love to try this

Thank you!