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Engin EROL
Engin EROL

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Building Chorono: an open-source AI-assisted animation editor for the web

I recently published Chorono Editor on GitHub.

Chorono is a free and open-source animation/editor project that runs directly in the browser.

The idea started with a simple question:

Can we build a browser-based, extensible, AI-assisted animation tool that can gradually evolve into a professional creative platform?

This project is still in a very early stage, but the foundation is already taking shape.

What is Chorono?

Chorono Editor is a web-based creative tool focused on animation, timeline editing, visual workflows, and runtime playback.

It is not only intended to be an editor where animations are created and previewed.

The longer-term goal is to make animations portable so they can be used in real websites, product interfaces, mobile applications, and eventually different platforms through SDKs.

Current Features

The current version already includes the foundation for many important parts of an animation system:

  • AI-assisted animation creation
  • Timeline, layer, track, and keyframe system
  • GPU-accelerated particle rendering
  • WebGL2-based rendering architecture
  • Spline object system
  • Smart selection tools
  • Clone and array tools
  • Parameter wiring
  • Visual state machine / FSM
  • JavaScript scripting
  • Web Runtime support
  • Android SDK support
  • iOS SDK planned

There are still many missing parts, bugs, and areas that need to be redesigned, but the project is now public and open for feedback.

Runtime and SDK Support

One of the most important goals of Chorono is to make animations usable outside the editor.

Animations created in Chorono should not stay locked inside the editor UI.

They should be exportable and usable in real applications.

For web projects, the runtime can be installed with:

npm i @chorono/runtime

For Android projects, the SDK can be added with:

implementation("com.grntsoftware:chorono-android-sdk:1.0.0")

This means that the same animation workflow can gradually become useful across multiple platforms.

Why Runtime Matters

Many animation tools are focused only on editing.
But for Chorono, the runtime side is just as important as the editor.

The goal is to create an ecosystem where:

animations are designed in the editor,
exported as structured data,
played through a lightweight runtime,
and eventually distributed through platform-specific SDKs.

This makes Chorono more than a browser editor.
It becomes the beginning of a creative toolchain.

Long-Term Vision

I do not want Chorono to remain only an animation editor.

The long-term goal is to grow it into a larger AI-assisted creative platform.

The next major directions are:

Game Engine
2D Drawing / Illustration Tool
Video Editor
3D Modeling Program
AI-assisted creation, editing, and automation across all tools

The idea is to build a creative ecosystem where animation, games, video, drawing, and 3D workflows can share a common foundation.

Why Open Source?

The project is still early.

There are missing features, rough edges, bugs, and probably many things that will need to be redesigned.

But this is exactly why I wanted to publish it as open source.

I believe feedback from developers, designers, animators, and people interested in creative tools can help shape the project in a much better direction.

Repositories

Editor repository:

https://github.com/codie1982/chorono-editor

Runtime repository:

https://github.com/codie1982/chorono-runtime

Feedback

I would really appreciate feedback on:

the editor architecture,
the runtime and SDK direction,
the animation workflow,
the WebGL2 rendering approach,
and the long-term platform vision.

Chorono is still at the beginning, but I’m excited to keep building it in the open.


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Chorono is an open-source AI-assisted animation editor for the web, with timeline/keyframes, WebGL2 rendering, GPU particles, scripting, Web Runtime, Android SDK support, and a long-term vision toward a full creative platform.

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Engin EROL