VR Puppetry, addon for Blender

VR Puppetry

v1 - Early Adopter Edition

Animate objects in Blender using VR Controllers! Works directly inside Blender 3.0+, does not require any additional software. Works with objects and bones.

Experiment with new styles of animations easily in Blender, like virtual puppetry, by attaching objects to VR Controllers and the VR headset. Or you can prototype your animation ideas quickly, by just moving the objects/bones around with your hands and recording them.

It records keyframes directly to the Blender animation timeline. So you can always rewind, edit and record different objects one by one.

Programmable Buttons! You can also program the buttons on the VR controllers to run custom actions, for e.g. you can make the "trigger" button control one shapekey, and the "A" button control a different shapekey etc. You can also make the buttons run custom Python functions written by you.

This is the first version of the plugin, meant for Early Adopters. I'd love to improve this based on your feedback. Please join our friendly Discord community to share your ideas or report issues - https://discord.gg/X6B4ZYEWSS

VR headsets supported: Oculus Rift / Oculus Quest (with Link or AirLink) / HTC Vive / Valve Index / HTC Vive Cosmos / HTC Vive Focus 3 / Windows MR / HP Reverb G2.

What is this useful for?

Hand Puppets

String Puppets

Animation Prototyping

Character Animation

Scroll down this page to see more creations made by users!

Installation

Please ensure that you have Blender 3.0 or newer. You can download Blender from https://www.blender.org/download/

1. Please purchase and download the "VR Puppetry" addon (i.e. the page you're looking at)

2. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons, and click Install... and select the downloaded zip file. Please enable the "VR Puppetry" addon.

This will also automatically install and enable "Freebird XR", which is necessary for "VR Puppetry" to work.

For Reverb G2, Vive Focus and Vive Cosmos:

In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons, and expand the "Freebird XR" entry. Then enable your headset in the "Experimental Headsets" section.

How to use?

1. Please open the "VR Puppetry" tab in Blender. It will be visible next to the colorful XYZ gizmo.

2. Open the section named "Step 1", and click "Set in VR". You will see the instructions for how to set your starting position and zoom-level in VR.

3. Next, open the "Step 2" section, and select a controller or headset. Then select the object or bone to attach to that device.

4. Finally, press the "Start VR Capture" button. To start/stop recording, please press the "A" button on the right controller.

You can rewind and play back the animation from Blender's Animation Timeline.

Tip: You can customize the attachment angle to make it easier to hold an object.

Custom Scripting

To run custom Python functions when controller buttons are pressed:

1. Please create a python file with your functions, for e.g.

def my_function1(event_name, event):
    print("called my_function1", event_name, event, event.value)

2. Next, open the "Advanced Settings" panel, and choose your Python file.

3. Finally, add a "Button Action" and choose "Custom Function" as the action type. And then select your function name from the drop-down.

The event object contains the following fields:

• value - float - 0 or 1 (for push buttons), and a float between 0 and 1 (for trigger, squeeze and joystick buttons)
• position - Vector - world position of the controller
• rotation - Quaternion - world rotation of the controller
• hand - string - "main" or "alt", depending on the hand configuration in Freebird's settings
• button_name - string - the name of the button pressed, like `trigger_main`, `button_a_alt` etc

Creations made by users

Matt Estela (@cgwiki)

Watch the video at https://x.com/thecgwiki/status/1794632509625598225

Design by Shafi Ahi

YONK (@yonkonline)

Watch the video at https://x.com/yonkonline/status/1775199905029501295

Behind-the-scenes demo: https://x.com/yonkonline/status/1777739171420848268

Note: Please share any creations made by you, if you'd like them featured here! You can share them on our Discord server, or tag @freebirdxr on X (Twitter) or Instagram.