In the past few weeks, Blender Camera Controller by Wanderson M. Pimenta has been gaining recognition in the Blender community for its unique approach to camera animation. Instead of relying on complex rigs or post-processing tricks.
Through the add-on, your phone acts as a live motion input device, transmitting both rotation and positional data to the active camera. This allows you to record authentic, physics-based handheld movement without any external tracking or simulation.
Through the add-on, your phone acts as a live motion input device, transmitting both rotation and positional data to the active camera. This allows you to record authentic, physics-based handheld movement without any external tracking or simulation.
Each motion can be streamed, previewed, and baked as keyframes directly within Blender for cinematic shots, gameplay previews, or motion capture experiments.
Main Features
- Real-Time Motion Capture: Control your Blender camera by moving your phone as if it were a real camera. Rotations and translations are streamed live and can be baked as keyframes.
- World Tracking (Beta 4): Uses your phone’s ARCore or similar tracking tech to provide 6DOF motion, meaning full position and rotation tracking in real-world space.
- Joystick Camera Navigation: Use two on-screen joysticks: one for forward, backward, and sideways movement, and another for height control.
- Advanced Settings: Fine-tune motion scale, filtering smoothness, acceleration, and inertia directly inside Blender’s add-on panel.
- Timeline and Keyframe Controls: Manage playback, insert or delete keyframes, and bake recorded motion directly from the app.
- Network Options: Connect through Wi-Fi 5+ or USB Tethering for low-latency performance.
New in Beta 4
The add-on is currently on Beta 6, but Beta 4 marked one of the biggest jumps in its development, introducing major improvements to motion tracking and workflow. Here are some of the key features that update brought:
- World Tracking System: introduces full 6DOF camera movement using ARCore-style tracking.
- Advanced Filters: new parameters (Min Cutoff and Beta) to control motion smoothing and responsiveness.
- Expanded Timeline Tools: navigation between keyframes, real-time playback sync, and improved baking workflow.
- Version Control and Status Indicators: automatic compatibility checks and connection monitoring.
Usage
- Install the add-on (Link below at the end).
- Launch Blender, open the Camera Controller tab, and click Start Server to generate a QR Code.
- On your Android phone, open the Camera Controller app, scan the QR Code, or manually enter the IP and port.
- Once connected, enable the desired control modes:
- Enable Rotation for sensor-based rotation tracking.
- Enable Walk for joystick movement.
- World Tracking (Beta 4) for full positional tracking.
5. Press Record to capture and bake movements as keyframes.
Here’s a more in-detail tutorial in case you need, made by the author of the add-on.
As of now, the app is Android-only, and not all devices are supported. It requires phones compatible with Android’s SensorManager API for rotation tracking and ARCore or an equivalent system for world tracking. Below are some of the devices tested by the author:
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There are two versions of Blender Camera Controller available on Gumroad. There’s a free demo that includes every feature except recording and baking, making it ideal for testing your phone’s compatibility before purchasing.
Similar Tools
- Blender Auto Focus Camera Addon (By same author): An add-on that automatically controls the camera’s focus based on what’s in view, adjusting DOF and transitions smoothly, and baking focus distances ahead of rendering.
Differences: While the Camera Controller add-on handles camera motion and translation via live input, Auto Focus is more about focus/DOF automation rather than full motion recording.
- Photographer 5 - Blender Add-on: A comprehensive Blender add-on for camera & lighting that adds physical camera properties, autofocus, camera targets, lens/post FX, camera list and render queue.
Differences: Unlike the Camera Controller add-on which emphasises motion capture of camera movement, Photographer 5 emphasises physical camera simulation and shot management (targets, autofocus, lens effects) rather than live input or device-driven motion.
- Quick Camera Fx Addon: This add-on offers a suite of camera-animation tools for Blender, including camera shake, look-animator, zoomer, path-follow, target tracking, and quick view-switching, aimed at creating dynamic camera moves with less manual key-framing.
Differences: While the “Blender | Camera Controller Addon” focuses on live device input (smartphone sensors + joysticks) to generate motion, Quick Camera FX focuses on preset animation tools and path/track utilities within Blender rather than external input.
✨ Blender Camera Controller is now available on Gumroad.
📘 Want to build your own Blender tools? Check out Blender Tool Development Fundamentals, a complete guide to creating custom operators, UI extensions, gizmos, and Qt widgets for advanced add-on development.
📘 Want to build your own Blender tools? Check out Blender Tool Development Fundamentals, a complete guide to creating custom operators, UI extensions, gizmos, and Qt widgets for advanced add-on development.
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