For studios
One pipeline.
Free for every seat.
Rigby2D is a complete 2D skeletal animation pipeline, editor and runtimes, open source under MIT or Apache-2.0. Every animator, programmer and contractor on your team uses it for free, in every project, at any revenue.
What changes for your studio
No seats to count
No per-user licenses for the editor or the runtimes, no revenue tiers, no audits. Add a contractor for a month, onboard a whole team, ship ten games: the cost stays zero.
No version lock
One runtime reads skeleton JSON from 3.8 to 4.3 and binary .skel 4.3. Upgrading the editor never means re-exporting the back catalogue or swapping runtimes mid-production.
Your characters come with you
Rigby2D opens existing skeleton exports and DragonBones projects as they are: bones, meshes, weights, constraints, skins and animations. DragonBones import is checked against its own runtime.
No vendor risk
The editor and every runtime are public source. Read it, patch it, fork it. Your pipeline never depends on one company's roadmap, pricing or survival.
The same animation everywhere
Seven runtimes match the editor frame by frame, checked in public CI on every commit, so what the animator approved is what ships, on every engine and platform.
Faster character production
AutoRig turns a layered PSD into a rigged character in one step, Python scripts automate the rest, and an MCP server lets AI assistants work on real projects. Reviews happen in the browser, no install.
Runtimes for the engines you ship on
Free and open source, for commercial games too. Engine coverage and status are on the Runtimes page.
How studios switch
Start with one character. Nothing about the rest of the project has to change until you decide.
- Pick a character from a current or past project, with its skeleton export (.json or .skel) or DragonBones project.
- Open it in Rigby2D. The animators keep working in a familiar bones-and-slots workflow: dopesheet, graph editor, meshes, IK, skins.
- Swap the runtime in one scene of your game, and compare it side by side with what you ship today.
- Roll out project by project, at your pace.
We'll help with your first character
Send us one character and tell us your engine. We'll bring it into Rigby2D, play it in your runtime and report anything that doesn't carry over, free.
Questions studios ask
Is it really free for commercial games?
Yes. The editor and the runtimes are open source under MIT or Apache-2.0, with no revenue limit, no per-seat fee and no royalties. Studios of any size can use them in any number of games.
Who maintains it, and what if development stops?
Rigby2D ships often, with every release built in public CI, and it is funded by its supporters. Because everything is open source, your studio keeps the full source of the editor and runtimes whatever happens: nothing can be taken away or relicensed under you.
Will our existing characters work?
Skeleton exports in JSON 3.8 to 4.3 and binary .skel 4.3 open as they are, and DragonBones projects import with their nested armatures. The migration guides list exactly what carries over. Older files can be exported again from the tool that made them.
How fast are the runtimes?
The Rust runtime poses a 143-bone character with 21 constraints in about 22 µs; the Unity runtime animates 200 characters in 5 ms a frame on a 4-core laptop. The Runtimes page has the numbers and a live test you can run in your browser.
Does it send our work anywhere?
No. The desktop app and the browser editor work on your files locally; nothing about you or your projects is sent. The privacy statement lists every network request the app makes.
Can we get support?
Write to [email protected], open an issue on GitHub, or ask on r/rigby2d. Studios trying Rigby2D get direct help with their first characters.
Try it on one character this week.
Open the browser editor, drop in an export, and see it play. No install, no account.