PXLtools — Tool guide

Animatic Builder — shot list to Sequencer

Drop in a shot list and get a built animatic. Animatic Builder reads a JSON or CSV breakdown and constructs the whole thing inside Maya's Sequencer — a camera and a group per shot, placeholders, frame ranges, FPS and resolution, all named to your convention and wired into the sequencer ready to previs. Pairs naturally with PXLbid's script breakdown for a full script-to-Maya pipeline.

Maya v1.8.0
Animatic Builder interface preview

The interface

01

Overview

Animatic Builder turns a shot list into a working Maya animatic. Feed it a JSON or CSV breakdown and it builds an ANIMATIC_MASTER hierarchy: one camera and one group per shot, a placeholder object (or your own selected object), the timeline frame range, FPS and resolution, and shot nodes wired into Maya's Sequencer so the shots play back in order.

Each camera is positioned and keyframed from the shot's type and duration, so you get a roughed-in animatic to previs against in minutes instead of building it shot by shot. A one-click Clean Scene removes everything it generated and leaves your own objects untouched. It shares the same UI kit as the rest of PXLtools and auto-updates from GitHub on launch.

02

Requirements

  • Autodesk Maya 2025
  • A shot list as JSON (full animatic) or CSV (simple placeholder) — e.g. exported from PXLbid
  • Python 3

Maya 2025 already includes PySide6. You do not install it, you do not pip anything, you do not touch your Python environment.

03

Availability

Animatic Builder is part of Cristian's PXLtools production toolkit and isn't publicly downloadable yet. The TurnTable tool is the first public PXLtools release; the rest of the suite is rolling out gradually. Want early access, or to be notified when it ships? Get in touch.

04

Using Animatic Builder

Load a shot list, analyze it, set your conventions, then build — Clean Scene resets when you want to start over.

Animatic Builder interface: Load Shot List (CSV/JSON), Naming Conventions, Project Settings (start frame, FPS, resolution), Scene Object Setup, Analyze Shot List, and a Create Animatic button with Clean Scene
Animatic Builder — the full interface

How the gated steps work

Green — done

The action spine is 1 Load → 2 Analyze → 3 Build; each turns green with a check once complete.

Orange — do this next

The active step is highlighted orange — that is the button to press now. Naming / project / scene settings stay freely editable throughout.

Grey — locked

Analyze is locked until a list is loaded; Create Animatic is locked until you have analyzed.

  1. Load the shot list. Pick CSV (Simple Placeholder) or JSON (Full Animatic), press Browse…, and select the file.
  2. Analyze. Press Analyze Shot List to see the project name, total shots, duration, source FPS and a per-shot breakdown — confirm it read correctly before building.
  3. Set conventions & project settings. Naming prefixes (CAM_ / LGT_ / GRP_), Start Frame, Frame Rate (24/30/60/120/custom), and resolution preset. Choose a placeholder (Cube / Sphere / Cylinder) or tick Use existing scene object + Get Selected.
  4. Create the animatic. Press CREATE ANIMATIC. It builds the ANIMATIC_MASTER group, per-shot cameras + groups, the placeholder, the Sequencer shots, and sets the timeline. The status line confirms success.
  5. Clean up. Clean Scene (Remove Animatic) removes everything it generated — your own objects stay.

Tip: JSON gives a full animatic (camera moves per shot); CSV is the quick placeholder path. If your source FPS differs from the project FPS, the tool converts the frame counts — analyze first to sanity-check the durations.

05

Troubleshooting

My CSV didn't load (or shots were skipped).

The CSV needs a header row with a Shot ID column and valid in/out timecode. Rows with invalid timecode are skipped and logged in the Script Editor. Supported formats include MM:SS:FR, HH:MM:SS:FR, and bare frame counts.

Frame counts look off.

If the shot list's source FPS differs from your project FPS, durations are converted. Run Analyze Shot List first and check the reported durations before building.

"Use existing scene object" is greyed out.

It's mutually exclusive with "Create placeholder object" — untick the placeholder to enable it, then select your object and press Get Selected.

I want to start over.

Clean Scene (Remove Animatic) deletes the generated cameras, groups, placeholders and Sequencer shots, leaving your own scene objects in place. Then rebuild.