Blender proposes starting the Dope Sheet channel list with the Action

Blender's Animation & Rigging module is rewriting the system that decides which animation channels are visible in the Dope Sheet, Graph Editor and Action Editor, and which data the tools work on. That system was written 17 years ago for Blender 2.50. Until it is replaced, layered animation inside a single Action is impossible. The developers published the results of the workshop held just before Blender Conference 2026 on the code.blender.org blog. The main proposal: the channel list should start with the Action, and objects will move off the top level.

For an animator this means a different look for the left-hand column of the Dope Sheet. Right now it repeats the scene hierarchy; the new version should show how the animation is structured. In the participants' view, animation editors should not mirror the Outliner.

What's wrong with the Dope Sheet in 5.2

To break down the problems, the participants took a simple scene. Three cubes use the same mesh and are animated by a single Action, while their shared material is animated by a separate Action. In the Dope Sheet of Blender 5.2, a scene like this revealed the following shortcomings:

• the mesh is shown under every object that uses it, so the same keys are visible several times;
• the material is also repeated under every cube;
• the Action name is labelled only on the object, even though the mesh and the material can have their own Action;
• summary channels take up vertical space and duplicate the keys yet again.

The developers themselves call this list “nothing shocking”, but consider it useful to state it explicitly.

The Action on top and Minimal Grouping

In the new scheme the top level of the list is taken by the Action. The objects, mesh, material and other data-blocks animated by that Action sit below it on the same level. Each block appears in the list once, rather than under every one of its users. This logic grew out of Slotted Actions: since Blender 4.4 a single Action can animate several data-blocks at once. Usually this links an object with its data, or a character with a prop. The editors do not show that link at the moment; in the new scheme it should become visible in the channel list.

The second new feature is the Minimal Grouping filter option. It removes all summaries and groups that contain only one item. If the scene has a single Action, the row with its name will disappear. If an object has one group of curves, for example Object Transforms, that will go too, and the Location X/Y/Z channels will end up directly under the object. When working with a single object, this can cut several levels of nesting from the list.

One more detail concerns the future layers. A new Action layer will not appear in the Dope Sheet until it contains keys, so empty layers will not take up space in the list. All layers will nevertheless remain visible in the side panel for layer management.

“Animators are interested in the structure of the rig, not in the structure of Blender's data.”

The workshop participants reached this conclusion while discussing custom channel groups, covered below.

Graph Editor, pinning and assigning Actions

The Graph Editor should get modes like the Dope Sheet's. Then it will be possible to switch between the two editors while keeping the same set of channels. For layered animation the Graph Editor should be able to stack the layers' graphs one above another vertically. Showing derivative curves was discussed too, but according to the developers it is unclear whether and when it will appear.

Channel pinning has been redefined. A pinned channel should be visible with any filter settings, and pinning should apply within a specific editor. The project's working notes make clear why pinning works badly today: the old system takes low-level data such as object and bone selection as its basis, and after that it can only remove channels, not add them. Because of how the old system is built, it is also impossible to configure the look of the list separately for each editor. Another idea from the workshop is custom channel groups: a rigger could, for instance, gather all the controllers of an arm into a group in advance, so that the animator sees them together right away.

Among the animation editors, only the Action Editor can currently assign an Action; otherwise you have to go to the Properties. The module wants to move the choice of Action and slot into the side N-panel of all animation editors. In the mockup, selecting an object channel in the Dope Sheet brings up the familiar Action and Slot dropdowns on the right.

If you select the channel of the Action itself, the panel will show an interface for managing the data-blocks it animates, including for assigning the Action to blocks that are not animated yet.

The developers propose making the Action Editor itself an editor for viewing and editing any Action, regardless of whether it is assigned to anything. A side panel for viewing and managing an Action's layers was already proposed at the 2025 workshop. It will be needed once there is more than one layer.

Why layers run up against filtering

Blender's data model is already designed for layers: an Action has layers, and layers have strips, roughly like tracks and clips in the VSE. But, as stated in the developer documentation, one layer and one strip per Action are allowed at the moment. For multi-layer work, the old NLA, which operates outside the Action, remains for now. In the module's plan, replacing the filtering code is named a major piece of technical debt and a mandatory prerequisite for layers. In addition, many operators will have to be reworked for layered animation; the Breakdowner is given there as an example of the problem.

The workshop participants were: Beorn Leonard, Brad Clark, Christoph Lendenfeld, Falk David, Luciano Muñoz, Nacho de Andrés, Nathan Vegdahl, Pierrick Picaut, Rik Schutte and Sybren Stüvel. The results were shown at Blender Conference 2026. Progress can be followed in the Layered Actions task and in the module meeting notes.

What to expect and what is not there yet

There are no deadlines for the new filtering. The animation section of the Blender 5.2 LTS release notes does not mention it: there are only targeted improvements there, such as selecting keys by type in the Dope Sheet. The module's plan states outright that this is not a promise of a specific result, nor even a fixed order of work. The changes will be introduced in stages: the first step will be replacing the filtering system, and the remaining features will be built on top of it.

Apparently, the change will be felt most by those whose scenes contain many linked data-blocks: a character with props in a single Action, objects sharing a mesh, animated materials. Such scenes have the most duplication today. Anyone animating a single object with one group of curves will mainly see a shorter list thanks to Minimal Grouping. The main practical consequence concerns layers: until filtering is replaced, an Action will have one layer, and layered work will still have to be done through the NLA. How the new layers will relate to the NLA is not described in the published materials.

Which change in the Dope Sheet matters more to you?

• The Action at the start of the list
• No duplicate mesh and material entries