The "Animation 2025" project, announced last year and launched in January, represents an ambitious three-year plan to modernize rigging and character animation tools in Blender.

The latest blog post reports on the results of a seminar conducted last month by the Blender animation and rigging module development team. The main focus is on necessary structural changes: a new Animation data block is proposed to be used as the primary container for animation data in Blender, replacing the Action data block that has been used for the past two decades.

However, the article also discusses some of the possibilities that will arise due to the new data structure. Among them is a new animation layer system, replacing the current workflow in the NLA editor, which, according to the author of the post, makes working with animation layers "technically possible but not enjoyable."

There is also updated information about one of the first development targets announced for the Animation 2025 project: the development of the 3D onion skinning system.

In this system, simple animation is visualized in the viewport as a series of "ghosts," showing the position and state of the animated object in sequential animation frames. The system is designed to support any type of objects, making the "ghosts" editable and movable. Additionally, users will be able to navigate to a specific animation frame by clicking on the corresponding "ghost."

Although the blog post mentions that it is "still too early to talk about detailed timelines," it proposes a preliminary roadmap for releases. The new features may appear as experimental functions in Blender 4.0, scheduled for release in November 2023, but they will undoubtedly be integrated and expanded throughout the entire Blender 4.x release cycle.

In Blender 5.0, which is planned for release in 2025, the old animation system will be removed from Blender's user interface, and automatic conversion of old animation data into the new format will be implemented.