PaperCut

At a glance

PaperCut is an editor for 2D puppets in the INP1 format (.inp, .inx), the format of Inochi2D 0.8, nijilive, nijigenerate and Mannequin Character Generator. You see a puppet exactly as a game draws it with the PaperDoll runtime, build it from layered art, fix its rigging, animate it, and keep a game’s characters consistent with each other.

The aim is ease of flow with power under the hood: the common path is direct work in the viewport, and every detail the format allows is still within reach.

Screenshot

A workflow, not a wall of panels

The workflow bar runs along the top: View, Build, AutoRig, Rig, Animate, Check, Export, Compile. Each stage is a workspace with its own layout and tools, and a ribbon of labelled groups changes with the stage. A next-step strip says what the puppet still needs. Every action is a named command with undo, reachable from the command palette.

Build

Start a puppet from a layered Photoshop or Krita file, or from images. Auto-mesh Parts from their alpha, mesh along feature lines, copy a mesh from another Part, and re-import changed art as one undoable step.

View

The viewport draws through the same evaluation the PaperDoll runtime uses, so what you see is what a game draws. Drag parameters, play animations, solo and hide nodes, and see what a parameter touches.

AutoRig

Rig a puppet built from layered art in one run: roles guessed and correctable, a head turn, blinks, gaze, brows and mouth, a body turn, breath, sway, arm swings, Move controls for tails and ears, and physics for hair, tails, ears and skirts. It is one undo step made of ordinary parts you can adjust in Rig, and Verify checks every pose.

Rig

Create parameters, arm a point and pose to key it, with a keyform grid, fill, copy, paste and mirroring. Edit mesh topology without breaking the rig, author SimplePhysics with a live preview, and link parameters.

Animate

A timeline workspace with curves, key editing and record mode. Clips play on any puppet whose parameters fit them.

Check

Rig Doctor explains what is wrong with a rig and offers the fix, from unset keyforms to physics nodes that drive nothing.

Export

INX and INP that other INP1 tools open, and a lean INP for games with an atlas, folded links and baked MeshGroups. A report lists what the export changed.

Compile

Compile a character into a .doll for games: named outfits over one rig, poses and expressions, clip roles, sounds and GPU-ready texture pages, with a preview of the result.

And more

Consistent characters

Rig profiles describe the parameters a game expects. Conform puppets to a profile, import clips onto them and check them in batches, from the editor or the command line.

A command line tool

The papercut command checks, conforms, auto-rigs, exports, compiles and batch-processes puppets with no window.

Optional AI agent support

An opt-in Model Context Protocol server lets an AI agent inspect, pose, rig and animate a puppet while you watch each change in the viewport and undo it like your own. Rules set what it may save and export.

Nothing is lost

Nodes and data PaperCut does not understand are kept and written back, and an unchanged puppet exports byte for byte as it came in. Saves are atomic, overwrites keep a backup, and autosave recovers a crash.

The .doll game format

One compact file per character for games: outfits, poses, expressions, clips, sounds and texture pages, made to load fast. A .doll opens back into PaperCut as a new project.

Newer node types

GridDeformer, PathDeformer, DynamicComposite and Camera nodes, plus nijigenerate’s depth bones and depth-based head and body turns.

Planned

These are not built yet, and plans can change.

INP2 support

Open and save Inochi2D 0.9 puppets, with INP2 as an export choice.

Requirements

Windows 10 or 11 on x64, with a graphics card and current drivers. macOS and Linux are not supported yet. PaperCut will be released under the BSD 2-Clause licence.

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