A big part of Blender`s success is of course the community behind Blender. Blender is a excellent tool to create 3D configurators.
The open source nature of Blender encourages enthusiasts and professionals alike to devote their time and expertise to improving the software.
The number of addons and plugins for Blender is also increasing. These plugins expand the program and improve its capabilities, and it seems that new plugins are appearing every day.
In this article we have compiled a list of the best plugins in 2018. Use these scripts to improve your workflow and radically improve your Blender creations.
BLAM.
BLAM is a powerful plugin for calibrating the Blender 3D camera.
Using a photo, BLAM can interpret the orientation and focal length of the camera with which the photo was taken. From there it is easy to calibrate the camera in Blender accordingly.
This technique has a variety of applications, including projection mapping, special effects in film and animation, and the creation of simulations in a real environment.
BLAM is also easy to set up.
The plugin prompts the user to specify alignment lines based on a reference photo. BLAM can then automatically reconstruct the geometry. This makes it easy to reproduce real architecture such as a room or staircase in Blender with just one photo.
Amaranth.
One of the best things about Blender is the wide range of customization options.
Those who take their time with Blender will benefit from studying and experimenting with the many options and system settings that can be used to add or remove features.
Amaranth is a plugin developed with this aspect of Blender in mind.
Amaranth is designed to accelerate workflows for dedicated users and offers a variety of tools that improve Blender’s workflow and simplify certain actions within the software.
Amaranth introduces shortcuts and enhancements to some of Blender’s key features. There are too many to list, but you can find a list on the Main Plugin page.
Most are designed to save time by making Blender easier to use.
One of Amaranth’s best shortcuts is the “Camera to Render Border” option, which prevents Blender from rendering options that aren’t even included in the last shot, saving valuable rendering time.
Ragdoll Tools.
Ragdoll Tools is an easy-to-use plugin for creating hitboxes from bones.
These non-destructive tools allow you to easily edit your armature and rigid body settings to achieve realistic Ragdoll physics.
Also included are tools for copying your Ragdoll simulations into animated keyframes for easy export and playback.
This plugin is ideal for Blender artists who want to add Ragdoll physics to their characters or simulations.
The Ragdoll tools are easy to set up and well documented advanced users can also take advantage of the custom options.
Gaffer.
Gaffer is a must for anyone who wants to have good lighting in their scenes.
This tool not only helps you organize multiple lights, but also provides the necessary lighting settings in convenient control panels for easier access.
For the artist, this simply means better lighting.
Working in complex scenes with multiple lights can be difficult with Blender’s default settings.
Gaffer provides all the important lighting settings so you can focus on better lighting without being distracted by searching for the right settings and buttons.
Once installed, Gaffer allows you to fine-tune individual luminaires without being distracted by the other luminaires in the scene.
There’s also an HDRI handler that organizes your HDRIs and allows you to run through them without the hassle of the node editor.
Artists who are serious about achieving beautiful lighting in Blender will love this plugin.
RetopoFlow.
Blender comes with a powerful set of sculpting tools for creating finely detailed 3D models.
To animate these high-resolution objects, an artist must create another simpler model using a process called retopology.
This is where RetopoFlow comes in. It combines a number of tools specifically designed to help artists retopologize their work.
With RetopoFlow, you can draw new contours across the surface of an object in an intuitive process, giving you full control over the geometry. A clean mesh is created in no time at all, automatically following the surface of the old model.
RetopoFlow also ensures square geometry, which means your model is perfect for animation.
Image Background Transform.
Many Blender artists base their work on reference pictures.
Drawing model sheets often contain a front, side and rear view of the drawing design. Vehicles and architectural designs are often even more detailed.
Blender provides rudimentary tools for moving and scaling their reference images. And the Image Background Transform plugin provides better control over your reference images.
With the Image Background Transform installed, you can scale all your reference images at once or switch to integer values for quick and easy alignment, saving you setup time.
Magic UV.
Magic UV is a must-have for artists who want greater control over their UV workflow.
It includes a wide range of tools to manipulate their UV’s that lack blender.
Working with UVs can be frustrating and this problem is exacerbated by Blender’s minimal standard tools. Magic UV solves these problems.
Magic UV is so popular that it has been added to Blender 2.7 as standard. You can turn it on in the User Preferences menu by searching for it in the Addons tab.
TexTools.
A suitable UV layout is essential to obtain beautiful structured models.
Unfortunately Blender doesn’t offer much more than the basics in this respect.
TexTools offers professional UV and texture tools for Blender.
There are several tools in this set to align your UV layouts and smooth your topology.
There are also more than 18 back modes to choose from, making it easier to find the perfect textures for your projects.
BookGen.
BookGen is a great example of the wide variety of plugins developed by the Blender community.
After installation, this free script generates books on command, so you can fill 3D bowls and cupboards with all the books you want.
With options to customize the dimensions of books, BookGen can create books in different shapes and sizes so that your scene has a certain variety.
This may seem strangely specific and unnecessary until you are confronted with a scene that requires some background detail.
BookGen would be a useful plugin for interior designers or artists working mainly with interiors and architecture. Use BookGen to breathe life and detail into any indoor scene.
Sculpt Tools is designed to make the sculpting process more intuitive and creative.
If you want Blender to feel and behave more like other sculpting programs, this is the addon of your choice.
Sculpt tools combine complex Boolean and modifying actions to make Blender easier and faster to use.
With Sculpt Tools, for example, artists can use the Grease Pencil Tool to shape an object faster.
This saves time and streamlines the otherwise tedious sculpting workflow in Blender.
FPS Setup.
Some of them may not be aware, but Blender has its own integrated game engine for creating interactive software.
Although not widely used in the gaming industry, the Blender Game Engine provides everything you need to build your own games.
The FPS Setup Addon makes it easier to start creating your own games in Blender by providing a simple first-person shooter style controller.
With this addon you can create an FPS object in your world that allows you to control ego, jump and collision.
This is a great introduction to game development with Blender. Now you can easily add an FPS controller to your world and discover your very own creations.
Asset Management.
The Asset Management Addon is a practical tool that saves you a lot of time in almost every project.
It introduces a new control panel that lets you create a custom library of the materials, scenes, HDRIs, and other objects you create.
These can also be used in your Blender projects.
The Asset Management plugin comes with a thumbnail generation tool that lets you easily create custom thumbnails for all your individual assets. Organizing complex scenes and sharing assets has never been easier.
You can also use this plugin to create libraries of your HDRI maps. Experimenting with your scenes and tracking your assets is important to achieve consistent results with Blender, and this plugin is a big step forward in this area.
FLIP Fluids.
With Blender you can easily create simulations of complex surfaces such as liquid.
These simulation tools are very powerful, although sometimes it can be difficult to achieve the desired results.
With Flip Fluids it is much easier to create high quality filmic liquid effects in Blender.
The FLIP Fluids simulator is designed to improve many aspects of Blender’s internal simulation tools. You get controls for speed, performance and adaptability for everything you generate with this addon.
For example, FLIP offers an exciting whitewater simulator that generates millions of spray and bubble particles. Use it to add realism and detail to any scene with oceans, lakes or even a bubble bath.
BPainter.
BPainter is a gift from heaven when it comes to creating textures.
While Blender comes with a high-quality set of painting tools, it can be difficult to find a good setup for painting because the user interface is particularly annoying in this respect.
BPainter is designed to help you ensure a smooth workflow when painting in Blender.
It adds a layer system that you know from 2D painting programs. It also cleans up the user interface and comes with its own set of brushes and textures.
To top it all off, BPainter also offers a popular blend mode for your texture layers. Advanced users will recognize filters such as overlay, multiply and subtract.
There is an improved color selection dialog that gives you control over which layer you try from.
BPainter is a big improvement over the standard Blender Painting setup. The price of about 40 € may seem a bit high at first, but professionals think it’s a good investment because BPainter can save you a lot of time and frustration.
Material Pipeline.
The Material Pipeline plugin is designed to simplify the creation of materials in Blender.
Once installed, you can say goodbye to node-based material setups that can be complex and cumbersome.
Material Pipeline also comes with over 100 different PBR materials that deliver so much directly from the box. You can also create your own unique PBR-based materials using the included node group.
Inspired by Disney’s Principled Shader, the Node Group can simulate almost any imaginable material.
ONELVXE, the studio that developed this material pipeline addon, also offers material packages of your choice for those looking for a specific set.
MESHmachine.
MESHmachine is a modeling add-on designed to improve the standard behavior of Blender’s modeling tools.
Especially for rounded surfaces like chamfers it offers more flexibility.
MESHmachine was developed to enable a modeling workflow that was previously not possible in Blender. Use it to obtain a range of options for difficult curved surfaces.
This addon is a great improvement over Blender’s standard replacement of fiber tools, so it’s worth the price if you would use it frequently.
Asset Sketcher.
If you’re a level designer or someone who needs to create complex scenes with many assets, you’ll love Asset Sketcher.
Placing objects in your scene is a lot of work. Creating such complex scenes can also be very tedious.
Although Blender gives you a few tools to make this task easier, it has nothing to do with Asset Sketcher.
With this plugin, you can easily drag assets directly into your scene.
There are so many options for customizing and randomizing how these objects are placed that you have a lot of control in the process.
Assets can be automatically aligned to a baseplate or clicked into a grid. You can even use simple physical calculations to arrange objects yourself.
We hope we were able to give them a good overview of useful plugins for Blender.
Thank you for visiting.