this addoun could be used inappropriately to render smear effects and doubles.
theres another one calld “autosmear” that only creates lines, but this addon has a larger potential because its creatng doubles that follow the body.
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Duplicate the animated object.
The copy with the Onion Skin has a different mesh.
In this example everything is deleted except the arms.
The mesh without Onion Skin is the complete body.
During rendering the object with Onion Skin must be selected.
The BAD news is it only renders individual frames (in my case Render Animation didn´t render the Onion Skin).
A possible workaround: working with a copy of the “Mesh Onion Skins” Collection (hard work without scripting i fear).
Or render manually frame by frame
I wrote this add-on recently which duplicates object on every frame and applies animation, but it is designed to work with shape key animation data instead of regular. This is quite interesting discussion and I think my add-on will be able to do that if I change it to use regular animation data instead of shape keys, which should be easy.
But the challenging part is duplicating it WHILE animation is being played. I guess the operator will have to also keyframe each duplicated objects visibility so that they only appear once their frame number has been hit. Upside of this method would be that objects will retain everything from the original, including materials.
It’s quite an interesting challenge. I’ll try to tackle it once I have time
This is a quick test duplicating the “Mesh Onion Skins” Collection.
The objects became independent of the addon so Render Animation is finally possible.
Done with a simple visibility animation and the help of this script.
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Hi, simply apply provided preset file (put it in c:\Users%username%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.5\config\mesh_onion_skins\presets). You have to make sure that backward frames value of the preview range set to the end frame as the length of your animation and forward frames value to 0. Also method should be ‘In Range’ with the active playback range, set it to each frame.
in_range_1_view_b_80_f_0.json (1.8 KB)
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I’ve just noticed some issues with alpha values being ignored in render, so I fixed them. Please, wait for the new release with the recent fixes very soon.
P.S. Done
Oh my friend, that looks like it brought some light!! Wow, thank you so much.
With that, I managed to make the copies appear only after the main movement, and they don’t disappear.
But I still have two problems:
- the viewport is extremely slow as the animation runs and the copies appear; Is your example video a viewport or a finished render? It’s so fast.
- I can’t render, because the copies appear all at once in the render.
My friend, how fantastic!
Could you help me with a step-by-step guide for beginners? I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “duplicating the collection”, “visibility animation” and how to run the script?
I know it’s asking a lot, but I’m very interested in this technique. If you can help me, I really appreciate it!
Glad to see some progress on that matter 
- Can’t do much about it right now, maybe later.
- Does View Range turned On?
I do render it as the viewport animation and no problem with the traditional rendering also. Is there any errors you might find in the console?
No, no error. Just very slow the viewport as the animation progresses. Is it hardware failure only? I find it curious because I do heavier projects and I don’t have this kind of problem.
Regarding the render, now everything is gone and the copies don’t even appear in the render.
Sample video below.
Indeed it is slow when mesh is too detailed, this add-on was not designed for that particular feature in mind. Animated mesh has to be selected in order to preview onion skins. You always can use GPU skins for preview, then switch to Mesh, update skins and render.
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Make sure that you use check box ‘In Renders’ in Options section.
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If you still struggling to render skins, try to type in console window these two commands (result should contain the names of those functions):
That option doesn´t work on Render Animation, there are no visibility keyframes in the geometry generated by the addon, its visibility is controlled by the addon when scrubbing the timeline.
In brief how I did it:
You have to make a copy of the collection “Mesh Onion Skins” generated by the addon (right click>Duplicate Collection) and work with that objects (that are now independent).
At this point you don´t need the addon anymore.
Delete the frame 0 mannequin in the copied collection.
Keyframe the visibility of mannequin 1 (eg frame 0 hidden, frame 1 visible).
Ctrl+L to copy (link) the animation to the other objects.
Then make all independent (unlink) with Object>Relations>Make_Single User>Object Animation.
Use the script to offset the animation of the selected objects. Read the script to have an idea of usage, it is pretty easy. You can also use addons like Commotion instead of the script if it feels easier.
Change materials, animate the camera and any evil you may imagine to the scene.
Render with Render Animation.
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Actually, it does work on Render Animation, as it was done in the gif of the first post and in the recent 2 videos. Personally, I don’t have any issues to render them in the recent Blender release 3.5. I suspect that problem might be in the missed handlers that are required to render them properly. The reason could be an another add-on or something similar.
I´ll check it.
I have a tendency to look for workarounds when something doesn´t work at first attempt.
Thank you for your quick support.
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Hey guys, thanks so much for all your time and attention in helping with this. Really, I can’t keep up with you, it’s too technical for the level of my knowledge in Blender. I’m a dance artist, and I use Blender to create 3D dance pieces. I’m not an expert on the software. Little by little I’m trying! I hope that one day I can apply this technique in Blender, I have many choreography ideas for this. Thank you, my friends, I will continue to follow the topic.
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Implementing the use of 3D in other art areas like dancing is a good excuse for an exciting new thread.
Don´t give up, keep learning and share your experiments.
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