Instant-Life: one-click idle animation for Blender rigs.
A Blender addon I designed and programmed. It generates breathing and idle motion procedurally through F-Curve modifiers, so there is no keyframing and the character’s original pose stays untouched.
From a still rig to a living character
The animator picks a preset and clicks Generate, and the character breathes, blinks and shifts weight. The demo shows it running in Blender.
Before and after
The same shot of Storm twice: on the left with keyframes only, on the right with Instant-Life added on top.
The interface
I built the panels to stay out of the animator’s way: presets first, sliders after. Use the arrows to browse, and click the front image to enlarge it.
Face animation
Blinks, eye darts and head follow are all generated from a handful of poses that are recorded once per character.
- BlinksFrom one eyes-open and one eyes-closed pose on the eyelid bones, the addon writes the blink keyframes.
- Eye dartsGaze poses are recorded for center, up, down and one side. The other side is mirrored automatically, and the eyes dart between them.
- Head followWith a head bone assigned, the head turns along with the eyes.
- Tune or undoBlink and dart settings can be changed and regenerated. Everything is written as keyframes that clear in one click.
The recorded poses: eyes open and closed for blinks, plus the gaze directions for eye darts.
Works with
Released on Gumroad
Instant-Life is out as a free demo and a full version.