What area is Blender in need of good addons the most? (Poll)

If someone had it in their ability to create some addons in one of the following categories, which would you choose?


You can also comment specific ideas in the comments.

  • Curve Related
  • Mesh Editing
  • Animation
  • Camera
  • Development
  • Import-Export
  • Interface
  • Lighting
  • Material
  • Nodes
  • Painting
  • Render
  • Rigging
  • Sequencer
  • UV
  • User Interface
  • Video Tools

0 voters

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Often addons complement Blender with functions/tools that are popular/existing in other programs.
Many people would probably think of some examples that they still miss. Whether these are implementable in Blender and fast enough despite Python must assess the developer.

If the case above does not apply then these are addons of which you did not know before that you will need them. Of course it is hard to say what this should be.

Besides that there are also the ā€˜increased quality of lifeā€™ addons that simplify existing possibilities or make them more pleasant.

Therefore, I find the survey a bit awkwardly asked.
Depending on your intentions I would choose other starting points.

Since I donā€™t like Blenders UV Editor at all I choose this. But since there are already some good addons for it I would guess that you wonā€™t get far with Python.

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I agree- I donā€™t generally think of add-ons in these broad categories, rather I think of a specific function they implement or should implement. For example, I find Blender highly lacking in shape-key editing (especially on multiple objects), shape-key previewing, and shape-key key-framing. I wrote an add-on to fix this a couple of years ago and keep it regularly updated. It doesnā€™t fit into any of these categories, but itā€™s clearly something people find useful, since I get dozens of downloads a month.

Iā€™ve also made add-ons for tracking time spent in Blender, render notifications, and Iā€™m currently working on one that allows for artistically directable dynamic cel-shading without normal editing. I could probably squeeze each of those into one of the above categories, but not really. I think itā€™s better to approach add-on development from a ā€œhere is the problem Iā€™m solvingā€ rather than a ā€œhereā€™s the area of Blender Iā€™m enhancingā€ standpoint. Thatā€™s just me, though :slight_smile:

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UV
I currently used UV toolkit because I remember I was shocked at how ā€œemptyā€ Blender UV management toolset is.

Iā€™d love to see what a Camera Tracker add-on would be able to bring to the table. For instance adding the ability to use a witness cam would be pretty awesome. Perhaps some better ways to bring in anamorphic footage and account for the distortions etc. Basically Iā€™d love for someone to check out all of the sweet advanced tracking features that Syntheyes and PF Track have and figure out a way to bring some of those into Blender.

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For me a better question is: ā€˜What addons should be part of Blender native?

My answer would be the animation layers add-on
and Autorig pro,HOPSCUTTER&Random flow.

I consider it a huge omission that there are very few addons in blender that are dedicated to CAD
The ability to work with dimensions and drawings is very lacking (Solutions certainly exist, but they are not very well implemented) I think that blender has enough features to compete in basic Revit tools, but at the moment it is difficult and not intuitive

Honestly, thereā€™s a lot of things thatā€™d need to get Blender to be one of the greats. For me personally, Iā€™d say the ability to import stuff from or export stuff to Maya without relying on FBX would be nice.

Second choice would be UV, part of this is due to my own lack of understanding of the feature, but at the same time, Iā€™m not a fan at the lack of features within the editor itself, and the add-ons I do have only muddy things further when I want to make clean (or clean-ish) mapping.

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