Animator Choreographer – plan space choreographies and export them for the Animator

johannes.schuett@zhdk.ch (Johannes Schuett) — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 10:30:00 +0100

Level: Intermediate | Audience: Composer, sound designer | Works with: ICST Animator

The Animator Choreographer is a desktop app for planning how groups of sources move through space over time. You describe the choreography in listening terms (direction, distance, height, gesture) and the app generates the scene XML that the Animator in the ICST AmbiEncoder_64 imports and plays.

Warning

In development, unsigned. The app is not yet code-signed and the documentation follows the current state of development. On macOS, open it the first time with right-click › Open, or remove the quarantine flag in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "Animator Choreographer.app".

What it does

Builds scene XML for the Animator of the ICST AmbiEncoder_64.
Guides you through five steps, with a top view and a side view of the sources, a timeline with sections and a transport (space bar = start/stop).
Takes the sections of the piece from REAPER regions or markers.
Can draft a plan from a description with a local language model.
Saves plans as .choreo.json and opens existing Animator exports for viewing or further editing.

Requirements

Item	Details
System	macOS and Windows
Plug-ins	ICST Ambisonics Plugins with the Animator (AmbiEncoder_64) in REAPER
Optional	Ollama for the draft from a description
Licence	GPL3

Where to get it

The Animator Choreographer is part of the preconfigured ICST Ambi Reaper folder: the app lives in the Animator folder, and toolbar button 13 (Open Animator) starts it. The illustrated documentation of that folder (Docs/index.html, toolbar button Documentation) covers installation and the first steps. A separate release on GitHub follows.

Workflow

Optionally export the regions or markers of your REAPER project as CSV.
Plan the choreography in the app, import the sections, adjust groups and gestures.
Export the scene as XML.
Import the XML in the Animator and play it.

The five steps

The steps follow one another; the app jumps to step 5 if the plan has errors on export.

Form — title, duration and sections of the piece. Sections can be imported from REAPER (see below).
Groups — the groups of sources that move together.
Gestures — the movement of each group in each section, described in listening terms: direction, distance, height, gesture and curve.
Relations — how groups relate to each other.
Review & Export — check the plan and write the XML.

Import REAPER regions

The sections of your piece usually already exist as regions in REAPER.

In REAPER, run Animator_export_regions_markers.lua (Actions › Load ReaScript). It writes Animator_<project>_regions_markers.csv (times in seconds) next to the project. The ICST Ambi Reaper folder offers the same function as the action Animator_Export_Regions_CSV.
In the app, open step Form and choose Import regions (CSV).
Regions become sections. Gaps between regions become sections named (gap). If the project has no regions, consecutive markers delimit the sections.

The app reports the start time of the first section. In the Animator, import the scene with Insert at Cursor at exactly that position.

Plan from a description

Describe in the header bar opens a window where you describe the choreography in your own words, for example the build-up of a threatening sound cluster that implodes at the end.

A local language model drafts a plan, not the XML directly. The model answers in listening terms, and a schema restricts the answer to valid values.
The app reviews the draft (plan review, group count, one cell per section, total duration) and sends findings back to the model for correction, up to two times.
Apply loads the result like an opened plan. Afterwards everything remains editable in the five steps.
Without AI (rules) builds a draft with the built-in rule planner instead, using English and German keywords and no language model.
Options: number of groups and total duration (or automatic), the model among the installed ones, and Think, which enables the model’s thinking phase (more thorough, roughly five to ten times slower).

The description never leaves your computer; the app talks to the local Ollama server at 127.0.0.1:11434. Cloud models are not offered.

Setup: install and start Ollama, then ollama pull gemma4:12b (about 8 GB, suitable for 16 GB RAM). A smaller alternative is gemma4:e4b.

Example: Tidal Canon

The following description produces a 90-second plan with four voices. Paste it into Describe, set Groups to 4 and Duration to automatic, then press Draft. With gemma4:12b the draft takes about two minutes.

Title: Tidal Canon.
1. Four voices start in the four corners at ear level, far away, and rest for 8 seconds.
2. For 12 seconds they move straight toward the centre and gather on a small circle (near).
3. For 20 seconds they circle the listener clockwise, two full turns, each voice offset by one quarter of a turn.
4. For 15 seconds the circle opens into a spiral that rises upward like a helix, ending high above the listener.
5. For 15 seconds they swing like pendulums from left to right, slowly slowing down.
6. For 12 seconds they drift randomly and softly, with gentle jitter.
7. For the last 8 seconds they move straight back to their starting corners and rest.

Figure: animated GIF (plays automatically, loops). The Tidal Canon plan after Draft: preview with four voices, side view and timeline.

Tips: give every section a duration and one gesture from the menu (Rest, Move straight, Move in an arc, Circle, Spiral, Rising helix, Pendulum, Rose, Lissajous figure, Random drift, Path via stations). Numbered sections with seconds are followed most reliably. The draft remains fully editable afterwards.

Export and use in the Animator

In step 5, choose Export XML. The file dialog suggests ~/Documents/<title>.xml. After saving, a confirmation shows the path with Show in Finder.
In the Animator, load the scene via the XML import (Import Scene…, with the options Replace and Rescale) and play it. See the Animator documentation.

Use Open XML to load an existing Animator export for viewing or further editing.

Limitations

The direction of rotation of orbits is schematic in the preview. Playback in the Animator is authoritative.
Plan files keep internal German keys for compatibility with files from the web version of the tool.

Licence

The code is licensed under GPL3, because headers of the ICST Ambisonics Plugins (GPL3) are included. The fonts Inter and JetBrains Mono are licensed under the SIL Open Font License.

Animator on ICST Ambisonics

Animator Choreographer – plan space choreographies and export them for the Animator

What it does

Requirements

Where to get it

Workflow

The five steps

Import REAPER regions

Plan from a description

Example: Tidal Canon

Export and use in the Animator

Limitations

Licence

See also