Cascadeur

No. Cascadeur is standalone desktop software from Nekki Limited for 3D character animation: you pose a rigged character, edit keyframes or clean motion capture, and export the animation to a game engine or another 3D program. It sits in the video category here because it produces moving characters, not because it renders a video from a prompt.

The licence says its AI features do not autonomously create animations or make final decisions and instead suggest intermediate poses or motion data that stay under the user’s control. Treat it as an animator’s assistant, and look at generative video tools if a text or image prompt is your starting point.

Version 2026.1 moved the viewport to the Filament rendering engine, added an Unreal Engine Live Link and introduced a Root Motion tool that uses a diffusion model to transfer motion style. Version 2026.2 arrived on August 6, 2026, and the download page lists 2026.2.2 from September 9, 2026 as the current build.

The 2026.2 post lists these main changes:

• Additive animation layers, released as an alpha with more functions planned.
• Easing controls that change how frames are spread along an interpolated path.
• Chinese, Japanese and Korean interface language packs.
• BVH animation import and support for several materials on one mesh.
• Motion Generation, the new name for the Root Motion tool, trained on larger datasets.

Free has no time limit and includes the animation, rigging, physics-based and inbetweening tools plus animation unbaking. Two limits matter in practice: export is restricted to the .casc format, and commercial use is not allowed. An account and a download are still required, and the licence gives Free users no additional authorised users.

The licence defines commercial use broadly, but it excludes reasonably limited promotional posts on free channels such as YouTube, at the vendor’s discretion. A studio delivery, a paid client job or a game that earns revenue falls outside Free, so use it for learning and for tests before choosing a paid plan.

The plans differ mainly by export formats, revenue limit and support level. Indie exports FBX, DAE, USD and glTF and allows commercial use only while the licensee’s gross revenue or funding from any source stays under $100,000 a year. Pro removes that ceiling and adds the retargeting, environment interaction and scene linking tools.

The licence caps Indie at three authorised users, while Pro is one licence per individual and Teams is meant for distributing seats. Editorial assessment: a solo developer under the ceiling can start on Indie, but anyone delivering work for a funded studio should read the revenue definition first.

• Indie: export formats, priority support, revenue or funding under $100,000 a year.
• Pro: unlimited commercial use, dedicated chat support and the advanced animation tools.
• Teams: Pro plus admin dashboard, roles and a team Discord chat; onboarding calls for teams above 4 seats.
• Educational: Pro features for confirmed students and teachers, non-commercial and renewed each year.

Every yearly Indie or Pro licence converts to a perpetual licence after the 12-month minimum term. If you cancel, you keep the last version released during your paid period, but updates and personal support need an active subscription. Monthly billing and Teams do not convert, and the plans page says the perpetual licence does not apply to Cascadeur Mobile.

An expired Educational licence falls back to the Free licence type under the terms. Because the yearly price is far below twelve monthly payments, the perpetual fallback mostly matters to freelancers who work on one version for a long project.

The vendor lists four AI tools: AutoPosing, Inbetweening, AutoInterpolation and Video Mocap. AutoPhysics, Ragdoll, Animation Unbaking and Fulcrum Motion Cleaning are described as non-AI. The AI tools run on your machine; only the large Video Mocap component is downloaded from Cascadeur servers, then computes locally.

Nekki says the posing and inbetweening models were trained on its own animation data and purchased third-party packs certified for AI use, and that user animations are not collected for training. Video Mocap extracts poses of an actor from imported video, so import footage only of people who agreed to that use. You keep ownership of the animations you create under the licence.

1. Record the plan, version and the frame numbers where a foot slides.
2. Run animation unbaking on the clip, then apply Fulcrum Motion Cleaning or AutoPhysics foot contact fixes.
3. Count the frames that still slide and check for new pops in knees or hips.
4. Save the scene as .casc and reopen it.
5. Try to export FBX and note any message or per-scene frame or joint limit the app reports.

Accept fewer sliding frames, no new pops and a .casc file that reopens, with FBX export blocked as the plans table states. Reject distorted poses or an unexplained export limit. No cleanup result is reported until the clip is actually processed.

For video from a text or image prompt, compare Runway. Decide first whether you need an editable rigged animation or a rendered clip, because the two tools solve different jobs.