Quick Start

Thirty minutes from a fresh import to a clip you edited yourself.

1. Give it a character to animate

Almost everything visual - thumbnails, previews, pose editing - needs a rig to play clips on. This is the one setup step you cannot skip.

1. Tools → Animation Workbench → Characters (Ctrl+Shift+C)
2. Wait for the project scan. Humanoid and generic characters are listed as it finds them.
3. Mark one as Default Character.

That applies an AWDefaultCharacter label to the prefab, which is why the choice syncs across the project and survives being shared with your team. Details and per-pipeline variants: Character Setup.

2. Open the browser and find something

Tools → Animation Workbench → Open (Ctrl+Shift+A)

The first scan runs asynchronously - you can start browsing while it fills in. Thumbnails render one at a time in the background and are cached to disk, so the second visit to a folder is instant.

Try these in order:

• Type into the search box and watch the list narrow
• Toggle between grid and list, and drag the size slider
• Click a clip to open the inspector panel beside the list
• Double-click for the single-clip view with an orbit preview
• Right-click for the context menu - reveal, compare, open in the editor

More: Animation Browser.

3. Edit a clip

Open a clip in the Keyframe Editor (Ctrl+Shift+K), from the browser context menu, or by right-clicking an .anim asset → Animation Workbench → New Keyframe Editor.

You can open as many editor windows as you like - one per clip is a normal way to work.

Two things worth knowing on day one:

• Ctrl+S saves a version, it does not just write the file. Versions are how you get back to Tuesday's timing on Friday.
• Ctrl+L enters Pose Edit - a stage character appears in the Scene view and you pose it with handles. Your prefabs are never touched; the result is keyed into the clip.

4. Create a clip from scratch

• Assets → Animation Workbench → New Animation Clip with a prefab or folder selected in the Project window, or
• Right-click a prefab instance in the Hierarchy → Animation Workbench → New Animation Clip

The new clip opens directly in the Keyframe Editor.

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Menu reference

Everything lives under Tools → Animation Workbench, grouped by non-clickable section headers.

General

Item	Shortcut	What it does
Open	Ctrl+Shift+A	The main animation browser
Keyframe Editor	Ctrl+Shift+K	Standalone timeline & curve editor
Settings	-	All Workbench settings
Characters	Ctrl+Shift+C	Character database & default characters

Support

Item	What it does
Documentation	Opens this site
Join Discord	Opens the community Discord
Report a Bug	The in-editor Feedback Hub
Support this Project → Buy me a coffee	Tip jar
Support this Project → Upgrade to Pro	Shown in Lite only

Helpers

Item	What it does
Show Welcome Window	Re-opens the welcome/setup window
Show Release Notes	What changed in this version
Character Diagnostics	Tracks down avatar and rig problems
Export Humanoid Bone Mapping	Exports the humanoid muscle/bone map

Performance

Item	What it does
Profiler	The Workbench's own performance profiler

SFX

Item	Shortcut	What it does
Audio Library	Ctrl+Shift+X	Cues, variations and channels
Audio Clip Browser	-	Audition project clips and turn them into cues
Bake Runtime Audio Database	-	Forces a rebake - runs automatically before builds

Project window context menu

Right-click in the Project window → Animation Workbench:

Item	Applies to
New Animation Clip	A prefab or a folder
Reveal	Clips - locates them in the browser
New Keyframe Editor	Clips - opens them in a fresh editor window
Export Skeleton Definition	A character prefab - writes a skeleton-only FBX

The same New Animation Clip entry exists on the GameObject context menu in the Hierarchy.