Usefull sdd-ons, scripts for animation Need short list on what to focus.

Hi,

I am migrating to Blender. I’ve done all my work/learning in Maya so far. I searched for a blog/video that would
point out most used/useful tools for animation.
I would love to hear what you are using to speed up workflow and make animation more pleasant.

Thank you in advance for answers :slight_smile:

Nobody is animating?!

Thanks, I was wondering yesterday should I invest my time into that. I don’t know if the knowledge could be used on other platforms like
Maya or Max or any other 3d program.

Some things that could be useful:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Animation/AnimAll
http://polycount.com/discussion/72805/blender-mega-thread/p96 (animscrubber.py)
https://sites.google.com/site/pointatstuffweb/

Not an addon but I like this too:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Squashwell

Do you want to do charactr animation or motion graphics?

I am into character animation. Anything that could ease my life there is more than welcome.

Anyways any tools that are used in both areas are great choice.

What is the learning curve in motion graphics anyways?

Hey tnx for the answer @Cyaoeu :slight_smile:

AnimAll I don’t have a clue where I could use that one. Will need to steal other people’s ideas
PolyCount: It looks like a community. A nice one. I love that about Blender :slight_smile:

Real time animation: I am using that one. I can only use it on one part of the body and then move keyframes to make it and action of
2-3 body parts. It is a great starting point for timing and spacing, I needed to clean a lot after it in a graph editor. I wonder if mouse is the best tool to use it or should I buy pen if I get hooked on it?

I use add on as a loose term since I do not know a difference between add on plug in and whatever else exists.
Bepuik - a work of an evil genius :slight_smile:

@maxmagnus777 I hope that link can help you:
Animation Addons:


Maya in Blender:

Thx @floo the list is awsome :smiley: Also I will check the rest of the site, it looks like a great one :slight_smile:

The thing you want is this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1693140/myscipts/r/animscrubber.py
“Install and assign anim.scrubber to a hotkey in the 3d view, shift alt lmb works for me. Then click and drag and it scrubs frames in the 3d view!” (from the thread)
Pretty useful for scrubbing, having to go to the timeline for that feels annoying to me.

Real time animation: I am using that one. I can only use it on one part of the body and then move keyframes to make it and action of
2-3 body parts. It is a great starting point for timing and spacing, I needed to clean a lot after it in a graph editor. I wonder if mouse is the best tool to use it or should I buy pen if I get hooked on it?

Maybe, you can probably make nicer arcs with a tablet. Also it feels way better than using a mouse, as in it feels more ergonomical. I don’t even have a mouse anymore. :cool:

Anyway, I forgot some addons:
https://github.com/ndee85/Driver-Constraint-Addon for making face rigs and corrective shape key stuff
http://pablovazquez.org/amaranth/ for the frame jump settings and jump to half-in-between keyframe feature.

I am rethinking that whole phone thing as I thought that the only way to animate was locked up inside cubicle. Google search is not helpfull on this one. Can you install it on phone?

Anyways another question, I’ve noticed that the rigs from different versions of blender do not behave very well. Any rig you could recommend me for facial animation, or for combat scenes, acting? I did not have much success there.

Do python scripts behave well on different versions of blender? There must be some catch there also