Render 10,000+ Animated Characters at 60 FPS
One-click skeletal-to-VAT conversion. Full crowd editor. The only vertex animation plugin you need for Unreal Engine 5.
UE 5.5+ | Windows, Android, iOS, VR, Xbox, PlayStation | Download free demo
See It In Action
Watch Vertex Animation Studio in action
Everything You Need for Crowd Animation
A complete toolkit for converting, placing, and controlling vertex animations at massive scale.
GPU-Powered Rendering
Animations baked into Vertex Animation Textures (VAT) and played entirely on the GPU. Zero skeletal mesh overhead per instance.
One-Click Conversion
Convert any skeletal mesh animation to vertex animation with a single click. Automatic material fixes included.
Crowd Paint Tool
Paint thousands of animated characters directly into your level with intuitive brush controls.
Grid Placement
Place characters in precise grid formations. Perfect for stadiums, armies, and organized crowds.
Sequencer Integration
Control vertex animations through Unreal's Sequencer for cinematic crowd scenes.
Blueprint API
Full Blueprint support for runtime animation control, crowd events, and per-instance custom data.
Instanced Rendering
Hierarchical instanced static meshes for minimal draw calls. Thousands of meshes in a single draw call.
Animation Lists
Create custom animation sequences with events, looping, and runtime transitions between animations.
Per-Instance Data
Pass custom data per instance to materials. Unique colors, states, and variations across your crowd.
Crowd Brushes
Save and reuse crowd configurations as brushes. Mix different meshes, animations, and settings.
Performance That Speaks for Itself
200 Skeletal Meshes
15 FPS
10,000 Vertex Animated
60 FPS
Both numbers come from the same stadium scene in the free demo, running on the same machine. It is a packaged Unreal project, so you can download it and read the framerate on your own hardware rather than taking ours.
Tested up to 100,000+ instances with usable framerates. Your numbers will differ with your GPU, character complexity, and what else is in the scene.
Run it yourself on the free demoWhat people who bought it say
Left on the FAB listing, quoted as written.
I originally bought this to use it in UEFN, but there were a few compatibility issues with the workflow. I reached out to the devs and they were super helpful, they even added a new export feature specifically for it. The plugin itself is amazing, it sped up my workflow so much. What used to take me around 20 mins per VAT asset (not including preparation) to the whole batch being done in a few minutes.
the cleanest, quickest and easiest vat solution i've seen, also has incredible support for issues from the developers.
Devs are very responsive on discord, documentation is extensive and well organized, and the plugin does everything it states it can. Highly recommend.
Gallery
How It Works
From skeletal mesh to massive crowd in three steps.
Create Asset Collection
Right-click any skeletal mesh and create a VA Asset Collection. The plugin converts animations into GPU-friendly textures automatically.
Configure Settings
Fine-tune animation settings, mesh options, and material properties in the visual editor. Preview animations in real-time.
Paint Your Crowd
Use the Crowd Editor to paint, grid-place, or manually position thousands of animated characters in your level.
Compatible with Nanite, Lumen, TSR, World Partition
Video Tutorials
Learn everything from setup to advanced crowd systems in our step-by-step tutorial series.
Who Builds Vertex Animation Studio
Vertex Animation Studio is built by Smashing Pixels, a two-person team of senior Unreal Engine developers. We wrote the plugin and we answer the support questions ourselves.
Updates are free for the life of the product. Discord is the fastest way to reach us, and questions before you buy are fine.
Join the Community
Get help, share your creations, and connect with other developers.
Join Discord ServerStop buying multiple VAT plugins hoping one will work.
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