3D Resources

Curated catalog of 3D software, assets, tutorials and tools. Search below or browse by section.

Curated by Devanshu Tak · Suggest a resource · Contribute · Explore the graph · Studios directory · Game studios

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Assets & LibrariesEdit

Models, textures, HDRIs, audio, stock. Everything downloadable. Asset-first lookup lives here.

Model Libraries: Free & General

General-purpose 3D model libraries with free downloads.

• 3DExport Free tier. Marketplace for buying and selling 3D models, textures and print-ready files.
• 3Dshaker. Free sample 3D models for Blender from the 3dshaker store.
• 3Dzip. Free 3D models and interior scenes.
• Blend Swap. Open-source .blend file library.
• Blender 3D models License unspecified. 3D models, particle systems, and effects.
• CadNav License unspecified. Architecture, furniture, vehicle models.
• Casual Effects Data. Graphics research datasets and test scenes.
• CGAxis Free tier. Library of 12,000+ royalty-free 3D models, PBR materials and HDRIs with free models, a Blender add-on and the CGAxis Hub import app.
• CGHEVEN. Free CC0 3D and VFX assets.
• CGTrader Free tier. Community model marketplace.
• Chocofur Free. Free section of Chocofur premium 3D model store.
• Free3D. Large free 3D model library with models in OBJ, 3DS, FBX, Blend and other formats.
• Free3D.io. Free 3D model download site with community-uploaded models in common formats.
• Free3DBase License unspecified. Free 3D models of branded consumer products in 3DS, DXF and OBJ formats.
• Funes License unspecified. Online archive of 3D-scanned monuments and cultural heritage, with panoramas and guided stories.
• GrabCAD. Community CAD model library.
• Icosa Gallery. Open-source 3D model hosting site built as a Google Poly replacement, holding Open Brush and Open Blocks creations with a public API.
• Keenan Crane's Model Repository. Clean test meshes for shader and subdivision work.
• Mantissa/resources. Free Blender files and resources.
• MyMiniFactory Scan the World License unspecified. Scan the World collection of scanned heritage objects.
• Open3DModel. Free 3D model archive with downloads in Blend, Max, OBJ, FBX, C4D and other formats.
• OpenTopography/datasets. High-resolution Earth-science topography datasets and related tools. Registration required.
• Oyonale Paid. Sells 3D models for various industries.
• PBRPX License unspecified. Free PBR materials and some 3D models.
• Poly Haven. CC0 models, textures up to 8K+, HDRIs up to 16K.
• Poly Pizza. Low-poly models (Google Poly archive).
• Polycam Explore License unspecified. User-uploaded photogrammetry scans.
• PrintWhat Free tier. Search engine that queries 40 public 3D-printing and CAD model sources at once and links each result to its original listing.
• Quaternius's Ultimate Low-Poly Models. Ultimate low-poly model packs (CC0).
• RigModels Free tier. Free 3D model search engine with rigged and static models in OBJ, FBX, STL, DAE and GLB.
• rileyb3d Library. Free packed .blend files ready to use.
• Sketchfab Free tier. Massive downloadable library.
• Stanford 3D Scanning Repository. Classic academic 3D scans (bunny, dragon, etc.).
• The Base Mesh License unspecified. Base meshes for sculpting and rigging.
• Thingiverse. 3D-printing model community.
• Three D Scans. Free archive of high-resolution 3D scans of museum sculptures and statues.
• TurboSquid Free tier. Professional models with free section.
• XYZed3D (Gumroad). CC0 (non-AI) asset packs: models, props, misc. By artyusufpatel.

Model Libraries: Specialized

Specialty model sources: characters, scans, anatomy, museums.

• 3D MDB License unspecified. Model search database across many sites.
• 3D Scan Store Paid. Ten24 store of HD head, body, hand and pose scans, retopologised models, MetaHuman identities and displacement maps.
• Ameede. Free STL and vector downloads for CNC relief carving, laser cutting and 3D printing.
• Anatomy 360 Paid. Anatomy 3D reference models for artists, including motion packs that show realistic musculature.
• Anatomy For Sculptors Paid. ArtStation page of Anatomy For Sculptors with anatomy reference models and books for sculptors.
• Anything World Gallery Free tier. Animated, game-ready models.
• Artec 3D. Free high-resolution 3D scans. (CC-BY)
• AXYZ design Paid. Library of 3,000+ render-ready scanned 3D and 4D people, paired with the anima crowd animation software for archviz.
• Big Medium Small Paid. Kitbash 3D asset packs for concept artists and game designers, with themed sets like Wild West, Mech Squad, Chiba City and Paranormal.
• British Museum (Sketchfab). British Museum Sketchfab account with 3D scans of objects from its collection.
• Characterz Free tier. 9,000+ customizable diverse 3D character illustrations with Blender source files.
• Cleveland Museum of Art (Sketchfab). Cleveland Museum of Art Sketchfab account with 3D scans of artworks from its collection.
• Digital Production Example Library. ASWF-hosted set of free production assets for testing pipelines, including Netflix ALab USD scene, Intel 4004 Moore Lane and an OpenPBR playground.
• Disney Animation Data Sets Mixed. Production data sets released by Walt Disney Animation Studios for research, including the Moana Island Scene with everything needed to render it.
• DOSCH Design Paid. Shop for HDRI collections, hand-modeled CAD-accurate 3D models and textures; also a KeyShot reseller.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → HDRIs
• EmberGen Free VDB Volumes. CC0 VDB simulation sequences from JangaFX, such as explosions, campfire, chimney smoke and a tornado, each with its EmberGen preset.
• Emojiz Paid. 77+ animated 3D emoji illustrations with Blender source files.
• glTF Sample Assets Mixed. Khronos repository of glTF models that each demonstrate a format feature, used to test viewers, engines and exporters.
• Handz. Free library of 320+ diverse 3D hand illustrations with Blender source files.
• Insect 3D Models. Free insect 3D models by zerokobo, built to show the forms of real insect species.
• Mixamo. Rigged characters, auto-rigger, and free animation library (Adobe).
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap & Animation Libraries
• Models Resource. Archive of 3D models ripped from video games, sorted by platform and game.
• Models Resource (3D). 3D model rips from games. Sister site to Spriters Resource.
• NASA 3D Resources Mixed. Spacecraft, planets, terrain models (mixed CC0 / CC-BY. Check per-asset license; mirror at nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov).
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Textures: Specialized
• NIH 3D. NIH portal for downloading and sharing bioscientific and medical 3D models, exportable as GLB or STL for printing and visualization.
• NVIDIA ORCA. Open Research Content Archive of rendering test scenes such as Amazon Lumberyard Bistro, Emerald Square, UE4 Sun Temple and Beeple Zero-Day.
• OpenVDB Sample Models. Official .vdb volume versions of standard test models such as armadillo and buddha, plus Houdini and Maya example files.
• Quaternius. Free low-poly game assets.
• Renderpeople Free tier. Store of scanned 3D people in posed, animated and 4D variants for archviz and film, with a set of free models.
• Robotz. Free modular 3D cartoon robot with customizable heads, bodies, and hands.
• Sample and Hold. Head, body and FACS scan demo data from a scanning studio. Free on request.
• Scanned Female Head Model by EISKO. Free high-resolution scanned female head model (Louise).
• Smithsonian 3D. 3D digitization site from the Smithsonian with scans of museum objects and historical artifacts.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Photogrammetry & 3D Scanning
• Smithsonian Open Access. Millions of 2D/3D museum assets, CC0.
• Squir Paid. Store of detailed 3D car models, including current production vehicles, sold per model.
• Wire Wheels Club. Library of 3D vehicle models, free for personal and commercial use.

Model Libraries: Architecture & Furniture

Arch-viz, furniture, and BIM asset libraries.

• 3asky License unspecified. 3DS Max and general library.
• 3D Warehouse License unspecified. SketchUp's online library of user-made and manufacturer 3D models, free to download.
• 3ddd License unspecified. Design and architecture models.
• 3DSky License unspecified. Large marketplace of 3D models for architecture and interior visualization, mostly 3ds Max.
• Archibase Planet. Long-running archviz site with free furniture and interior 3D models, textures and a daily-updated model feed.
• BIMobject License unspecified. Library of manufacturer BIM and CAD objects for Revit, ArchiCAD and other architecture tools.
• BIMsmith. Free platform for configuring and downloading manufacturer building products as Revit, AutoCAD and SketchUp files from hundreds of brands.
• CADMAPPER Free tier. Web tool that exports map data for any area as CAD files for AutoCAD, SketchUp, Rhino and Illustrator, with free whole-city road files.
• CG Mood License unspecified. Marketplace for 3D models, materials and scenes aimed at architectural visualization.
• Design Connected License unspecified. Marketplace for high-end 3D models of designer furniture, lighting and decor for archviz.
• Dimensiva License unspecified. Library of 3D models of real designer furniture and decor for archviz.
• Evermotion License unspecified. Archviz publisher selling Archmodels collections of 3D models and ready-made interior scenes.
• Globe Plants Paid. Photoreal 3D plant and tree models sold per species for 3ds Max, SketchUp and other CG tools, with custom model requests.
• Maxtree Paid. Store of 3D plant and tree model collections for archviz, compatible with 3ds Max, Blender, C4D, Unreal, Maya and Twinmotion.
• RevitCity. Community download library of 23,000+ user-made Revit families and objects, with gallery and forums.
• SketchUp Texture Club Free tier. Archviz library of free tileable textures, 3D models and material packs, with an optional supporter membership.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Textures & Materials: Free PBR Libraries
• Syncronia License unspecified. Portal for manufacturer CAD and BIM objects used in architecture and interior design.
• Viz-People License unspecified. Archviz scenes, 3D people, vegetation, HDRIs.
• XfrogPlants Paid. Library of about 8,000 3D plant models for archviz.

Asset Marketplaces

General asset marketplaces across multiple engines and tools.

• ArtStation Marketplace Paid. ArtStation storefront where artists sell 3D models, brushes, tutorials and other assets.
• Blender Market Paid. Blender-specific assets and addons.
• BOOTH Mixed. pixiv's creator marketplace; its 3D section is a major source of VRChat avatars, clothing and VRoid assets.
• Cubebrush Paid. Marketplace for game art assets, brushes, textures and tutorials sold by artists.
• Envato Paid. Subscription with unlimited downloads of stock video, music, sound effects, 3D, graphics, fonts, LUTs and video templates.
• Fab (Epic) Free tier. Unified marketplace (UE, Sketchfab, ArtStation).
• Jinxxy Mixed. Creator marketplace for VR and VTubing goods: avatars, clothing, worlds, scripts and tools.
• Julio Sillet (Gumroad) Free tier. Free and paid PBR texture sets and material packs.
• RenderHub Free Free tier. Daz Content, 3D models, textures and materials.
• Renderosity Mixed. Long-running marketplace and community for 3D models and Poser content, with a Free Stuff section, galleries and forums.
• SplatMart Paid. Marketplace for buying and selling Gaussian splat scenes (PLY, SOGS, SPZ).
• Unity Asset Store Free tier. Unity's official store for 3D models, tools, scripts and other game assets.

Free Asset Giveaways

Recurring free asset drops. Bookmark these.

• Daz 3D Free 3D Models. Daz 3D store category of free 3D models and content, with new free items added weekly.
• Envato Free Files. Free pick of 12 hand-selected Envato Elements files spanning stock video, video templates, music, fonts and graphics.
• Fab Limited-Time Free Mixed. Fab page listing the current batch of paid assets offered free to claim until a stated deadline, then rotated.
• GameFromScratch Free Asset Round-Ups. Game-dev news site that posts recurring round-ups of free Fab, Unity Asset Store and bundle-store asset giveaways with claim windows.
  See also: Game Development → Game Dev: Communities
• Sonniss GDC Bundle. Free SFX bundles (~30GB+) released annually around GDC and Christmas.
• Unity Publisher of the Week Mixed. Weekly Unity Asset Store sale with 50% off one publisher's catalog and a featured asset free via coupon code.

Software-Specific Asset Libraries

Official asset libraries tied to specific DCCs.

• Blender Demo Files. Official Blender demo scenes and splash-screen files for testing and learning.
• Blender Extensions. Official addons and themes repository.
• Chaos Cosmos License unspecified. Free V-Ray/Corona asset library (3D models, materials, HDRIs).
• Clip Studio Assets License unspecified. Brushes, materials, 3D models, auto-actions.
• Figma Community License unspecified. Free templates, plugins, UI kits.
• Krita Resources License unspecified. Official brushes, textures, templates.
• Mari Texture Library. Foundry community library of 120+ free Mari Smart Materials, masks, textures up to 8K, brushes and HDRIs from studio texture artists; BSD-3 licence.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Textures: Specialized
• Maxon Asset Browser Paid. Cinema 4D built-in asset library.
• Maya Content Browser Paid. Official example scenes and assets.
• Poly Haven Asset Browser Paid. Blender add-on that puts Poly Haven's HDRIs, materials and models in the Asset Browser with auto-updates; slated to go free at 5,000 patrons.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Blender: Plugins & Addons
• RenderMan Community License unspecified. Free RenderMan assets, shaders, HDRIs.
• SideFX Content Library. Official SideFX library of Houdini tutorials, example files and assets.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Houdini: Getting Started
• Singularity Production Files (Blender Studio) Paid. Production assets, frames and encodes from Blender Studio's 2026 painterly space short, released under CC BY.
• Substance 3D Assets Paid. Adobe PBR material library. Free tier plus paid library.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Textures & Materials: Free PBR Libraries
• Substance 3D Community Assets. Free user-made Substance materials, filters and tools.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → 3D Communities & Forums
• ZBrush Download Center. Maxon download page for free ZBrush plugins and add-on resources.

HDRIs

HDR environment maps for lighting and reflections.

• Adobe Stock HDRI Paid. Adobe Stock search for paid studio HDRIs used to light product and studio renders.
• CGEES. CC0 HDRI library of skies and 360 environments up to 24K, downloadable without an account. Rebuilt successor to iHDRI.
• DOSCH Design Paid. Shop for HDRI collections, hand-modeled CAD-accurate 3D models and textures; also a KeyShot reseller.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Model Libraries: Specialized
• HDR Maps. Free HDRI packs from HDR Maps, a site that also sells premium HDRIs.
• HDRI Hub Free tier. Professional HDRIs, backplates, textures & 3D people for archviz/CGI. Free commercial samples (HDRIs up to 8K) plus premium.
• HDRI Skies. Free sky HDRIs for lighting and backgrounds in 3D renders.
• Maxime Roz HDRI Pack. Free studio and outdoor HDRIs for product viz.
• No Emotion HDRs. Free high-resolution HDRIs sorted by time of day.
• Noah Witchell Free HDR Bundles. Free HDRI bundles from VFX artist Noah Witchell, usable for any purpose including commercial work, with no attribution required.
• Open HDRI. Small library of free CC0 HDRIs for lighting 3D scenes.
• OpenFootage. Free HDRIs, VFX plates, and backplates.
• Poly Haven HDRIs. Poly Haven's library of free CC0 HDRIs for lighting, available up to 16K.
• RenderMan HDRIs. Pixar's collection of HDRIs provided for lighting with RenderMan.
• zwischendrin HDRIs Paid. Paid HDRI packs in .hdr and .exr at 6K to 11.5K, sold individually or bundled.

Textures & Materials: Free PBR Libraries

Free PBR texture libraries for materials authoring.

• 3D Textures. Free PBR texture library with color, normal, roughness and displacement maps.
• 3DAssets.one. Search engine across the largest free texture sites at once.
• 3DTexel. 1,600+ handmade CC0 assets, incl. 1,000+ seamless PBR materials, HDRIs, decals, IES profiles and 3D models. Free account required to download.
• ambientCG. Library of 2000+ CC0 PBR materials, HDRIs and models, free to download.
• Arroway Textures Free tier. Digital textures for 3D rendering and real-time use.
• C4DCenter Material Library. Free Cinema 4D materials with high-quality texture maps. Personal and commercial use.
• Celestia Motherlode. Repository of Celestia addons: textures, models, and celestial objects.
• CG Bookcase. Free CC0 PBR texture library with downloadable texture map sets.
• Free PBR. Hundreds of free materials.
• FreeStylized. Free library of stylized PBR textures with Substance Designer source files, plus alphas, skyboxes and stylized 3D models.
• Kaimoisch. Scanned PBR textures, now under Texxary and being redeveloped.
• LotPixel. Photogrammetry and PBR textures, 3D models, decals. 1500+ free textures.
• Matcaps. Large matcap texture library in PNG and ZMT, organized by color.
• MaterialX Library. AMD's free MaterialX-based material library. Download materials or upload your own.
• Physically Based. Reference database of real-world PBR values for materials, lights, and cameras.
• PlainTextures. Free high-resolution textures, brushes, and photos.
• PolyScan. Small CC0 library of tileable 4K and 8K PBR textures, decals and 3D models for archviz and games, with a Blender add-on.
• Share Textures. Free CC0 PBR textures, models and HDRIs from Share Textures.
• SketchUp Texture Club Free tier. Archviz library of free tileable textures, 3D models and material packs, with an optional supporter membership.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Model Libraries: Architecture & Furniture
• Substance 3D Assets Paid. Adobe PBR material library. Free tier plus paid library.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Software-Specific Asset Libraries
• Texture Fabrik. Free textures and tileable patterns.
• Texture Labs. Free original textures and tutorials for art and design.
• Texture Supply (Gumroad). Gumroad store from Texture Supply with textures and 3D assets for photoreal rendering.
• Texture.Ninja. Public domain photographic textures, reference images, and cutouts. (CC0)
• TextureCan. Free PBR textures, high scan quality.
• TextureKing. Free material stock textures.
• Textures.com Free tier. Massive professional texture library.
• Texturify. Free high-resolution CG textures for personal and commercial use.
• The Blendersauce Vault Materials. Free material vault covering bricks, concrete, fabric, metal, nature, plaster, stone, tiles, and wood.
• The Pixel Lab Freebies. Free 3D models and textures.

Textures: Specialized

Specialty texture sources: displacement, patterns, sprites, terrain.

• CGI Moon Kit. NASA Scientific Visualization Studio moon kit: high-resolution moon textures and elevation data for rendering.
• Mari Texture Library. Foundry community library of 120+ free Mari Smart Materials, masks, textures up to 8K, brushes and HDRIs from studio texture artists; BSD-3 licence.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Software-Specific Asset Libraries
• NASA 3D Resources Mixed. Spacecraft, planets, terrain models (mixed CC0 / CC-BY. Check per-asset license; mirror at nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov).
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Model Libraries: Specialized
• Pixar One Twenty Eight. Pixar's 1993 library of 128 repeating textures (bricks, fabrics, woods), updated with bump and normal maps and released under CC BY 4.0.
• Screaming Brain Studios. itch.io creator releasing 30,000+ CC0 textures and tiles: tiny low-res texture packs, planet surfaces, space backgrounds and isometric tiles.
• Shaded Relief. Natural Earth data and terrain reference.
• Solar Textures. These textures represent real planetary maps in equirectangular projection. Textures in this pack are based on NASA elevation and imagery data. (CC-BY)
• Spriters Resource. Archive of sprite sheets ripped from video games, sorted by platform and game.
• Subtle Patterns. Library of free tileable background patterns for web and design use.
• Terrain Height Maps. Free heightmap images for terrain displacement.
• Texturing.xyz Paid. MicroSkin displacement maps.
• The Pattern Library. Free tileable background patterns.
• USGS EarthExplorer License unspecified. US Geological Survey portal for searching and downloading satellite scenes and elevation data for terrain and planet textures; login required.

Textures: Premium

Professional paid texture libraries.

• GameTextures Paid. Subscription library of 4K Substance-powered PBR materials and assets for game engines, with download quotas that roll over.
• Poliigon Paid. Paid library of PBR textures, HDRIs and models, with a small free selection.
• Quixel Megascans + Bridge. Scanned materials library and import plugin. Library free on Fab since Nov 2026.
• ScansLibrary Free tier. Subscription library of photoscanned surfaces, 3D assets, atlases, fabrics and large-scale scans, with UE5 PCG systems and some free assets.
• Texture Box Paid. Free and premium tileable PBR textures and materials for Unity and Unreal Engine.

Stock Images & References

Free and public-domain stock images, and 2D references.

• Absurd Design. Free surrealist illustration set.
• All Free Download. Free vectors, photos, PSD files and fonts for design work.
• Biodiversity Heritage Library. 300,000+ botanical and animal illustrations free to download (CC0).
• Black Illustrations Free tier. Illustrations of black people for projects.
• Blush Free tier. Mix and customize illustrations made by artists.
• Control Illustrations Paid. Combo set of 108 customizable illustrations.
• David Rumsey Maps Free, non-commercial. David Rumsey's online collection of digitized historical maps.
• Flowbite Illustrations. Open-source SVG illustrations in 3D style, dark and light mode.
• Freepik Free tier. Free vectors, photos, and mockups.
• Get Illustrations Bundle Paid. Bundle of 34+ vector illustration packs, 2800+ items.
• Humaaans. Mix-and-match illustrations of people with a design library.
• illlustrations. 100 open-source illustrations including COVID and WFH themes.
• Illustration Gallery. Royalty-free illustration collection.
• Illustrationz Free tier. 100+ 3D character illustration packs with 167M+ combinations.
• LACartoons License unspecified. Animation cel and model sheet archive.
• Location Textures Free tier. Reference photo packs that cover whole locations from every angle and light, plus 30K 360 HDRI panoramas at pay-what-you-want.
• Mockupz. Free 3D mockup scenes for showcasing design work.
• Neurascapes. Free surreal/AI-generated reference imagery.
• Pexels. Free stock photos and video.
• Pixabay. Free stock photos, illustrations, vectors, videos and music.
• PNG Images Free, non-commercial. Free transparent-background PNG images sorted by category.
• Public Domain Review. Public-domain image collections.
• Public.work. Search public domain images from museums and libraries.
• Settei Dreams License unspecified. Anime model sheets and settei archive.
• Smash Illustrations Free tier. Library of 250+ illustrations.
• Story Set. Customizable illustrations to edit and animate, free.
• Storytale Free tier. Hundreds of illustrations for web and app projects.
• The Blueprints. Vehicle, aircraft, ship blueprints.
• unDraw Illustrations. MIT-licensed collection of SVG illustrations.
• Unsplash. Free high-resolution stock photos usable without attribution.
• Wikimedia Commons Mixed. Free media repository of 150M+ freely usable images, videos, sounds and 3D models, each file carrying its own license.

Stock Footage

Free and archival video footage sources.

• ActionVFX License unspecified. VFX stock elements (explosions, fire, debris).
• ActionVFX Practice. Free practice VFX footage.
• ARRI Camera Sample Footage. Downloadable ALEXA and AMIRA sample clips in ARRIRAW, ARRICORE and ProRes, plus EXR reference images for workflow and look tests.
• Coverr Free tier. Free HD and 4K stock video, music and image library cleared for commercial use without attribution, plus paid AI tools.
• FootageCrate Free tier. Library of 10,000 VFX stock elements on transparent backgrounds: explosions, fire, smoke, debris, muzzle flashes and lens flares.
• FX Elements Free tier. 4K VFX stock footage of explosions, fire, smoke and other elements shot on black or green screen, sold by subscription with 130+ free clips.
• Hollywood Camera Work Tracking Plates. About 60 free HD plates for practicing planar tracking, matchmoving, object removal, crowd replication and keying.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Matchmoving & Camera Tracking
• Internet Archive / Prelinger. Public-domain archival footage.
• Mixkit. Free stock music, SFX, and video footage.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Audio: SFX & Music Libraries
• NASA Image and Video Library. Searchable NASA archive of images and video, downloadable in multiple resolutions with metadata.
• Netflix Open Content. Free Netflix test titles with HDR masters, EXR and camera-original files, IMF packages and Atmos audio; CC BY 4.0.
• Open Visual FX. Free VFX stock footage elements for compositing.
• Soundstripe Paid. Subscription or per-song licensing for 120k+ human-made music tracks, 100k+ sound effects and stock video.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Audio: SFX & Music Libraries
• Storyblocks Paid. Subscription stock library of 10M+ assets with unlimited downloads: footage, motion-graphics templates, music, sound effects and images.
• Videezy Free tier. Community library of free HD and 4K stock video clips and After Effects templates, with a Pro tier.
• videvo Free tier. Free stock video, motion graphics, and music tracks.

Audio: SFX & Music Libraries

Free and paid SFX and music libraries for games, reels, and film.

• 99Sounds. Independent sound design label releasing free sound effects libraries and VST plugins, such as cinematic texture packs.
• A Sound Effect Paid. Marketplace of 7,000+ sound effects libraries from 600+ independent sound designers for games and film.
• Artlist Paid. Subscription music and SFX.
• BBC Sound Effects. BBC's archive of free SFX.
• BigSoundBank. 3,500+ royalty-free sound effects and ambiences recorded by Joseph Sardin since 2005, under a CC0-like license.
• BOOM Library Paid. Professional sound effects libraries for games, trailers and film, sold as buyouts or by subscription, plus sound design plug-ins.
• ccMixter. Creative Commons remix community.
• ChipTone. Free retro game sound effect generator by SFBGames for browser, Windows and macOS; output sounds are CC0.
• DailySounds. Free sound effects library for games, videos, and podcasts, with commercial use allowed and credit optional.
• Ende. Curated free audio library.
• Epidemic Sound Paid. Subscription catalog of 55,000+ owned music tracks and 250,000+ sound effects for video, with rights included.
• FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library. 4,000+ recorded and designed sound effects as 24-bit 48kHz WAV, royalty-free for commercial use with no credit required.
• Free Music Archive. Free music, varied licenses.
• Free To Use Sounds Paid. Field-recording SFX libraries from 30+ destinations: nature, cities, rain, underwater and binaural ambiences; royalty-free for commercial use.
• Freesound. Collaborative database of CC-licensed sounds.
• Freesound Add-on. Blender VSE addon to browse, preview, and insert sounds from freesound.org.
• incompetech. Kevin MacLeod's royalty-free music catalog, free under Creative Commons with credit or under a paid license without attribution.
• jsfxr. Browser port of the sfxr 8-bit sound effect generator that exports WAV and also works as a JavaScript library for games.
• Knell. Free procedural sound effect synthesizer for games, UI, and prototypes.
• Mixkit. Free stock music, SFX, and video footage.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Stock Footage
• Moby Gratis Free, non-commercial. Free Moby music for indie creators.
• Motion Array SFX. Free sound effects from Motion Array, a paid creator asset subscription.
• Ovani Sound Paid. Royalty-free music packs, sound effects, voice-over packs and audio plugins for indie game developers, sold one-time with no subscription.
• Pro Sound Effects Paid. Licensor of 1.2M+ rights-cleared professional sound effects, with the SoundQ desktop app and shared cloud libraries for editors.
• Shapeforms Audio Free Sound Effects. 180 royalty-free sound effects sampled from Shapeforms Audio's paid libraries, in 24-bit 48kHz WAV, no attribution required.
• Sonniss Paid. SFX library. Releases free SFX bundles annually.
• Soundimage.org. Eric Matyas's library of free original music, sound effects and texture images for games and film, free with attribution.
• Soundsnap Paid. Subscription library of royalty-free sound effects with unlimited downloads for games, film and video.
• Soundstripe Paid. Subscription or per-song licensing for 120k+ human-made music tracks, 100k+ sound effects and stock video.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Stock Footage
• Uppbeat Free tier. Royalty-free music library for creators, with free and paid tiers.
• ZapSplat. Large library of free sound effects, with paid plans for more downloads.

Fonts

Font libraries, pairing tools, and type references.

• Adobe Fonts Paid. Premium font library bundled with Creative Cloud subscription.
• Collletttivo. Open-source type foundry and collective publishing 16 free typefaces such as Ronzino, Absans and Apfel Grotezk.
• Creative Market Fonts Paid. 300k+ premium fonts with worry-free perpetual commercial licenses.
• Departure Mono. Monospaced pixel font by Helena Zhang, released under the SIL Open Font License.
• Font Bundles Free tier. Premium font marketplace with regular freebies; clear commercial license.
• Font Library. Open-source and free fonts.
• Font Squirrel. Directory of free fonts licensed for commercial desktop use, with a webfont generator and font identifier.
• FontPair. Font pairing inspiration.
• Fonts In Use. Independent archive of typography in real design work, searchable by typeface, format and topic.
• Fontshare. Free quality fonts from Indian Type Foundry; Satoshi, General Sans, Clash Display.
• Fontz Free tier. Free and premium 3D fonts with Blender source files.
• Free Faces. Curated directory of free fonts from independent foundries and designers.
• Free Fonts (Awwwards). Curated collection of free fonts.
• Future Fonts Paid. Buy in-progress fonts directly from indie designers at lower early-access prices.
• Google Fonts. Largest free open-source font library; SIL OFL / Apache licensed.
• Indestructible Type. Open-source foundry by Owen Earl; variable font families like Jost, Besley, Bodoni.
• Lilex. Programming font with ligatures.
• Lost Type Co-op Free tier. Pay-what-you-want type foundry running since 2011, with all font sale proceeds going to each typeface's designer.
• MyFonts Paid. Long-running premium font marketplace; perpetual desktop, web, app licenses.
• Open Foundry. Curated showcase of free open-source typefaces that also profiles the designers behind them.
• Pangram Pangram Foundry Free tier. Indie foundry with high-end typefaces; free personal-use trials available.
• The League of Moveable Type. Open-source foundry; well-curated bold typefaces, free for commercial use.
• UNCUT.wtf. 160+ contemporary open-source typefaces, all free for commercial use.
• Usable Google Fonts (Figma). Curated Figma set of usable Google Fonts.
• Velvetyne Type Foundry. Paris-based non-profit foundry releasing open-source experimental typefaces.
• WhatTheFont Free tier. Identify fonts from an image.
• Wordmark.it. Preview text in your installed fonts.

Icons

Icon libraries and animation sets.

• 3dicons. CC0 library of 1,500+ hand-made 3D icon renders, free for commercial use without attribution, with a Figma file.
• Bootstrap Icons. 2000+ official open-source SVG icons from the Bootstrap team.
• Flaticon Free tier. Large library of icons in PNG, SVG and other formats, with free and premium sets.
• Font Awesome Free tier. Classic icon font library.
• Game Icons. Library of 4000+ free SVG game icons under CC BY.
• Heroicons. Hand-crafted SVG icons by Tailwind CSS team; outline and solid.
• Hugeicons Free tier. 36k+ icons in multiple styles; free tier plus premium plans.
• Iconify. Unified framework aggregating 200k+ open-source icons from 150+ icon sets.
• Iconoir. 1600+ open-source SVG icons; React, React Native, Flutter, Vue, Figma support.
• icons8 Free tier. Large icon packs with consistent styles.
• Icons8 Glyph Free tier. Glyph-style icon set from Icons8, available in PNG and SVG.
• Iconz Free tier. 460+ 3D icons in multiple angles and materials.
• Lineicons Free tier. 30k icons (4k free); SVG, JSX, TSX, Figma, PNG; React/Vue/Svelte support.
• Lordicon Free tier. Library of 48,100+ animated icons; 9,700 are free for commercial use and PRO unlocks the full set without attribution.
• Lucide. Open-source icon library.
• Lucide Animated. Animated version of Lucide icons.
• Material design icons. Official Material Design icon set from Google.
• MDI Icons. Material Design Icons, huge set.
• Noun Project Free tier. 5M+ curated icons and photos; subscription unlocks royalty-free use.
• Ouch! Illustrations Free tier. Illustration and icon library for UX from Icons8.
• Phosphor Icons. 9000+ flexible icons in thin, light, regular, bold, fill, duotone styles.
• Pixelarticons Free tier. 5,646 pixel-art icons on a 24x24 grid in four styles; 1,036 base icons are free under MIT, the full set is a one-time purchase.
• Remix Icon. 2800+ neutral-style open-source icons on 24x24 grid; line and fill.
• Shape.so Paid. 4300+ icons and illustrations exportable to SVG, React, and Lottie.
• Simple Icons. CC0 collection of SVG icons for popular brands.
• Streamline Paid. Massive premium icon and illustration library; consistent design systems.
• SVG Repo Mixed. 500k+ free SVG vectors and icons across many styles and packs.
• SVGL. Library of brand and company logos in SVG, free to copy.
• Tabler Icons. Open-source set of SVG icons, MIT licensed, with a consistent stroke style.
• Thridy. 13,000+ free 3D icons in one consistent style; HD transparent PNG downloads, no signup or attribution required.
• typicons.font. 336 pixel-perfect all-purpose vector icons in a web-font kit.
• Use Animations Free tier. Animated icons for web UI.

Game Assets

Free and paid game-ready asset sources. Also listed under Game Development.

• 16x16 DungeonTileset II. CC0 16x16 pixel-art dungeon tileset for roguelikes and top-down games.
• 2D Pixel Art Character Template Asset Pack Paid. 2D character art for sidescrollers, platformers, and metroidvania.
• 2D Pixel Dungeon Asset Pack. 16x16 pixel character and tileset.
• 420 Pixel Art Icons for RPGs. Set of 420 RPG icons, free for commercial use.
• 8000+ Raven Fantasy Icons - RPG Icons, Pixel Art Icons, Textures and Sprites. 8000+ colorful pixel art icons for fantasy and RPG games.
• Ansimuz Legacy Collection. Free 16-bit pixel-art assets.
• Asset Creation Toolset License unspecified. Blender addon bundling tools for game asset creation.
• Brackeys' Platformer Bundle. Pixel-art characters, tiles, sounds, and music for a first game.
• Craftpix Free tier. 2D game assets, free and paid.
• Cup Nooble. Creator of the Sprout Lands pixel art packs, cozy farming style.
• Cute Fantasy RPG - 16x16 top down pixel art asset pack. 16x16 assets for your top-down game.
• Free - Pixel Art Asset Pack - Topdown Tileset - 16x16 Sprites. 500 sprites, 3 heroes, 8 enemies, 50 weapons.
• Free Game Assets. Curated free 2D/3D/audio assets.
• Fx Effects Pixel Art #91 - 64x64 | 32x32 Paid. RPG pixel-art FX effects pack. 64x64 and 32x32.
• GameArt2D. Free 2D game art pack collection.
• GameDev Market Free tier. Game dev asset marketplace.
• GameDeveloperStudio Free tier. 50,000+ hand-drawn 2D game assets in one consistent style: animated sprites, top-down tilesets, props and GUI packs, free and paid under one license.
• Gridwright Studio Free tier. Subscription library of pixel-art game asset packs with Godot, Tiled and RPG Maker files, plus browser tools that have free editions.
• Humble Bundle Game Dev Paid. Periodic game dev bundles.
• itch.io Assets Free tier. Indie game asset marketplace.
• Kay Lousberg. CC0 low-poly game assets.
• KayKit - Character Pack : Adventurers. 3D low-poly rigged and animated character game assets.
• KayKit - Forest Nature Pack. 3D stylized low-poly trees, rocks, and grass.
• Kenney. CC0 game assets ("Asset Jesus").
• Kenney Game Assets All-in-1 Paid. 60,000+ game assets including 2D sprites and 3D models.
• Liberated Pixel Cup assets. Free graphic assets from the Liberated Pixel Cup (LPC) on the OpenGameArt forums.
• Modern Farm - RPG Tileset Paid. Props, animals, and a character generator for a farm RPG.
• Mystic Woods - 16x16 Pixel Art Asset Pack. Playful 16x16 pixel-art asset pack.
• Ninja Adventure - Asset Pack. Assets for a top-down game with a ninja theme.
• Open Game Art. Community hub for free game art.
• Oryx Design Lab Paid. Cheap royalty-free sprite packs.
• Pimen Free tier. itch.io creator of low-cost pixel-art VFX animation packs: spells, slashes, smoke, hit sparks and status effects, some free.
• Pixel Adventure. Assets for a platform adventure game.
• Pixel Art Top Down - Basic. 32x32 sprites and tilesets for top-down games.
• Pixel Frog Free tier. itch.io page of Pixel Frog with free and paid pixel art game asset packs.
• Pixel Planet Generator. Procedural pixel planet generator with Godot shader source.
• polyperfect Paid. Indie studio selling low-poly Unity asset packs such as Low Poly Ultimate Pack, animated animals and animated people.
• Reiner's Tilesets. Free 2D and 3D graphics, classic game assets blog.
• Sprout Lands - Asset Pack. Cute pixel pastel farming asset pack.
• Sprout Lands - UI Pack. Cute pixel pastel UI pack.
• Stylized Nature MegaKit. 110+ stylized 3D nature models for Ghibli-inspired scenes. Projects for UE, Godot, and Unity.
• Super Game Asset Free tier. Store of 2D game art: sprites, RPG icons, isometric buildings, portraits and maps, with several free icon sets.
• Super Pixel Effects Gigapack Free tier. Hand-pixeled 2D effect animations with parsable metadata; free sample, and the full set in all sizes and color themes from $4.99.
• Synty Studios Paid. Stylized low-poly asset packs.
• Tech Dungeon: Roguelite - Asset Pack. Animated top-down assets for a futuristic project.
• Tilemancer. Procedural tile creator for pixel-art games.
• Tiny Farm RPG - Asset Pack. Pixel-art farming RPG asset pack.
• Tiny RPG Character Asset Pack v1.03. 20 animated pixel-art characters for your game.
• Universal Animation Library. 120+ animations ready to retarget in any engine.
• UnluckyStudio. Free game art for 2D games.
• Urizen 1Bit Tileset. CC0 set of 5,500+ one-bit 12x12 tiles for roguelikes and retro games.

Modeling, Sculpting & TexturingEdit

Learning per 3D application, plus texturing and material-authoring tools. Renderer-specific learning is under Lighting, Rendering & Shaders.

Blender: Plugins & Addons

Notable addons extending Blender.

Related:

• AnimAide. Free animation helper tools for Blender.
• Animatica Marionette Paid. Blender add-on that poses characters by dragging hands, feet or hips while a local pose model moves the body; edits motion with trails and smoothing brushes.
• Anvil Level Design. TrenchBroom-inspired Blender add-on for level blockout with texture application, UV lock, hotspot mapping, box and cut tools, and glTF export.
  See also: Game Development → Game Dev Tools: Level Design
• Array Tools. Create translation, scale and rotation arrays with offset or global parameters in any direction.
• Arsenal. Blender-integrated game engine written in Rust.
• Auto Terrainer Paid. Turns any low-poly mesh into customizable terrain like mountains, valleys and islands in Blender.
• AutoMask. Machine-learning automatic rotoscoping addon for Blender.
• AutoRemesher Blender Bridge. Blender addon that runs AutoRemesher on selected meshes and imports the quad result back into the scene.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Retopology & Mesh Tools
• b3dsdf. Shader node group library of 2D/3D signed distance functions and vector ops for procedural materials in Blender.
• BagaPie. Free Blender extension with scattering, ivy, arrays, booleans and parametric architecture tools.
• Bangingcuts. Cuts audio and video clips on audio peaks, removing silences. On recent Blender, install the install.py file instead of the zip.
• BlendCap. Markerless capture add-on that rebuilds body, hand and face performance from one ordinary video and retargets it onto a Blender rig.
• Blender Addons. Helper addons by Antonio Vazquez.
• Blender Colab. Python script to render Blender scenes on Google Colab. Cycles only.
• Blender Data Visualisation. Loads data into Blender and builds visualisations.
• Blender Debugger For Vscode. Addon for remote-debugging Blender from VS Code or Visual Studio.
• Blender For Unreal Engine. Exports Blender content to Unreal Engine.
• Blender Kitti. Renders large point clouds and voxel grids in Blender.
• Blender Lab MCP Server. Official Blender Lab MCP server and add-on that lets an LLM client inspect scenes and run Python in Blender 5.1+.
• Blender Metaverse Addon. Toolset for creating content for metaverse platforms like High Fidelity.
• Blender NLA Midi Copier. Creates MIDI-driven animations from Blender's Nonlinear Animation view.
• Blender Pyblish. Pyblish publishing-pipeline integration for Blender.
• Blender Sculpt Tools. Base-mesh sculpting tools for Blender, ZSphere-style.
• Blender to Unity FBX. Blender addon that exports FBX files with correct axes and scale for Unity.
• Blender Vscode. VS Code extension for Blender addon development.
• Blender XR. VR and mixed-reality interface for editing Blender scenes with a headset and controllers.
• Blender2Godot. Exports a Blender scene to a Godot Engine project.
• BlenderCAM. Open source CAM toolpath generation for CNC inside Blender.
• BlenderSynth. Blender scripting for generating synthetic datasets at scale.
• BlendyPose. Webcam motion capture inside Blender.
• Blign. Align and distribute objects in Blender with many options.
• Bone Widget. Helps make custom bone shapes for Blender rigs.
• Bonsai. OpenBIM/IFC architectural authoring add-on for Blender. Formerly BlenderBIM.
• BookGen. Generates rows of books on shelves in Blender.
• botaniq Paid. Blender library of 700 tree, grass and plant assets with scatter presets and wind animation.
• Brushstroke Tools. Blender Studio extension that generates painterly 3D brushstrokes with Geometry Nodes, as surface fills or curves drawn on a mesh.
• Building Tools. Building-generation addon for Blender.
• Bystedts Blender Baker Paid. Streamlines texture baking in Blender.
• CAD Sketcher. CAD-style precision sketching with constraints for Blender.
• Camera Shakify. Adds realistic camera shake to Blender cameras.
• Capsule. Export manager for sharing assets between Blender and Unreal/Unity.
• CC/iC Blender Tools. Add-on that imports Character Creator 3-5 and iClone 7-8 characters and sets up their materials in Blender automatically.
• Character Control Rig (Poly Hammer) Paid. Blender add-on that builds IK/FK control rigs for MetaHuman characters, retargets marketplace and mocap clips, and exports body and face animation back to Unreal.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Rigging & Animation Tools
• CharMorph. Open source character creation tool for Blender, a rewrite of the now-unmaintained MB-Lab.
• COA Tools. 2D cutout animation suite for Blender, similar to Spine or Spriter.
• Conform Object Paid. Add-on that projects a smaller object onto a larger surface in one direction, non-destructively, with grid and shrinkwrap modes.
• Crowdrender Free tier. Distributed rendering across machines.
• CurioMesh. Blender addon that auto-retopologizes sculpts and scans into quads part by part, or redoes only a caged region and stitches it back without gaps.
• Curtis Holt Store Paid. Curtis Holt's storefront for Blender addons and learning products.
• Data FX. Loads and visualizes CSV data within Blender.
• Daz to Blender Bridge. Transfers Genesis 8 and 3 characters from Daz Studio into Blender.
• DECALmachine Paid. Blender add-on for mesh decals and trim sheets, adds surface detail without UVs.
• DeepBump. ML add-on that generates normal and height maps from a single photo inside Blender.
• Devil Designer. Blender 5.2+ extension for drafting, sewing and draping garment patterns, a free in-Blender take on pattern-based clothing tools.
• Drag and Drop Support. Add-on that imports FBX, OBJ, Alembic, BVH and other files dropped onto the Blender window.
• DreamUV. Manipulate UVs directly in the 3D viewport.
• Drop It. Drops objects quickly onto the ground or a surface in Blender.
• Easy HDRI. Blender addon for browsing, loading and adjusting HDRI environment lighting.
• Easy Proxy. Creates VSE proxy files easily via FFmpeg.
• EasyBake. One-click texture baking UI in the Blender 3D viewport.
• EdgeFlow. Adds two edge-loop operators for cleaner topology in Blender.
• EDGY Paid. Cinema 4D and Blender plugin that cuts real geometric wear into watertight meshes: chips, cracked corners, craters, fractures and buildup, maskable with Fields or vertex groups.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Cinema 4D: Plugins
• Edit Layers. Blender 5.0+ extension that records mesh edits, including extrude, bevel and subdivide, as a non-destructive layer stack you can toggle, reorder and branch.
• Embark Blender Tools. Game-dev workflow tools for Blender, with standardized import/export and new object types.
• Engraver Paid. Carves decals into 3D models in Blender.
• Export Paper Model from Blender. Add-on for unfolding meshes into printable paper models.
• EZ Baker. Simpler alternative to Blender's default texture-bake system.
• F Spy Blender. Official fSpy Blender importer.
• FaceBuilder Paid. Builds photorealistic 3D face and head models from a few neutral-expression photos in Blender.
• FLIP Fluids Paid. High-quality liquid simulation plugin for Blender.
• Fluent Paid. Hard-surface add-on for boolean cuts plus plate, wire, pipe, grid, screw and cloth panel tools (Power Trip edition).
• FontSelector. Font management inside Blender.
• Fumaris Paid. Vulkan GPU smoke and fire solver for Blender 5.2+ with live viewport preview while simulating, Geometry Nodes emitters and OpenVDB output.
• Fusion to Blender Bridge. Paired Fusion 360 and Blender add-ons that re-sync CAD geometry over a local link while keeping Blender materials, modifiers, light links and marked edges.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Conversion Tools
• Gaffer (Blender addon). Light-management panels for fast lighting setup and tweaking in Blender.
• Game Rig Tools. CGDive Blender addon that builds game-ready deform rigs and exports rigged, animated characters to Unreal, Unity and Godot.
• Gauss Cannon. Blender add-on that places cameras over a helper mesh and exports COLMAP cameras, point clouds, depth and normal maps for training splats from CG scenes.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• Gaussian Splat Patch. Blender 5.3 extension for retouching splat scans with erase, clone stamp and healing brushes, plus mesh-to-splat conversion.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• Geo-Scatter Paid. Blender scattering add-on with a biome system for vegetation, city and debris environments.
• Geometry Nodes Pipes Paid. Geometry Nodes addon for generating complex pipe layouts in Blender.
• Geometry Script. Python scripting API for Blender Geometry Nodes, making node trees easier to build and share.
• Glsl Texture. Create textures from GLSL fragment shaders in Blender.
• GoB. GoZ-style bridge for ZBrush-Blender mesh interchange.
• GreaseWriter. Auto-animates grease pencil strokes to emulate hand-drawn text.
• Hard Ops / BoxCutter Paid. Hard-surface add-on pair for Blender. BoxCutter draws boolean cuts, Hard Ops handles bevels and cleanup.
• HDRI Sun Aligner. Automatically rotates a sun to match the brightest point in an HDRI environment texture.
• Hi Phy Engine Paid. High-fidelity physics engine addon with a unified solver for rigid body, cloth, hair, soft body and MPM snow/sand, with intersection-free continuous collision detection.
• Human Generator Free tier. Blender add-on that builds realistic human characters with hair, outfits, poses and expressions.
• Hurricane (BeFX) Paid. XPBD-based multiphysics solver for Blender 5.1+ that simulates fluids, cloth, soft bodies and granular sand in one coupled system with Geometry Nodes secondaries.
• Ichno. Blender extension that generates technical drawings in one click: orthographic, isometric and section views with dimensions, title block and bill of materials as PDF/SVG.
• Import 3dm. Blender importer for Rhino .3dm files built on McNeel's rhino3dm module.
• INOX. Rust game engine integrated in Blender.
• IOR Reference. Blender addon listing IOR values for materials.
• JARCH Vis. Generates common architectural-visualization objects in Blender.
• Jet Fluids. Jet fluid-engine simulator integration for Blender.
• JewelCraft. Jewelry design toolkit add-on for Blender.
• Kaleidoscope. Adds Spectrum and Intensity nodes to speed up material creation in Blender.
• KeKit. Production modeling toolset for Blender.
• Laser Slicer. Slices a Blender object and exports SVG sections for laser cutting.
• LeoMoon LightStudio Paid. Studio lighting system for Blender.
• Lib SM64 Blender. Integrates libsm64 into Blender, with Fast64 integrations.
• Light Wrangler Paid. Lighting add-on that places lights where you point in the viewport, with scrims, gobos, IES profiles and light textures.
• Lodify. Level-of-detail and proxy system for Blender.
• Loom. Simplifies rendering image sequences and frame ranges, with batch rendering utilities.
• Lumiere. Interactive lighting addon for Blender.
• Magic UV. UV manipulation toolset that fills gaps in Blender's UV tools.
• Maps Models Importer. Imports 3D models from Google Maps into Blender.
• Mat-Baker. Blender extension that reads the node network feeding a Principled BSDF and bakes procedural materials into a PBR texture pack folder with Cycles.
• Maya Scene IO. Add-on that reads and writes Maya ASCII and reads Maya Binary scenes in Blender without Maya installed.
• Maya Workflow Kit for Blender. Extension that brings Maya habits to Blender: hotbox, marking menus, Channel Box, Attribute Editor, menu sets and shelves.
• MB Lab. Character creation (archived, succeeded by CharMorph).
• MDSANIMA RenderTime. Estimates total animation render time from a single frame's render time.
• Meerkat. Blender addon and sync server for real-time, object-level collaborative scene layout between Blender instances over LAN or the internet.
• Mesh Align Plus. Precisely align, move, and measure objects and mesh parts.
• Mesh Heal. Extra Blender operators for healing and repairing surface meshes.
• Mesh Maze. Generates a maze on any mesh in Blender.
• MESHmachine Paid. Blender add-on for hard-surface edits without subdivision: fuse, unfuse, fillets, unbevel.
• MeshSync. Live-link plugin syncing Blender and other DCCs into Unity.
• MetaWrap Paid. Blender add-on suite that wraps scanned, sculpted or AI heads and bodies onto MetaHuman topology, transfers textures, adds grooms and pushes results to Unreal.
  See also: Game Development → Unreal Engine: Resources
• MifthTools. Mesh-exchange tools for 3DCoat, Houdini and Modo.
• Mixamo Converter. Blender Plugin that Converts Mixamo animations to work in Unreal Engine 4 with root motion.
• Mixer by Ubisoft. Real-time collaboration addon for Blender from Ubisoft Animation Studio.
• Modeling Cloth. Real-time cloth-like behavior on meshes in Blender.
• Modeling Toolkit (3DRedBox) Paid. Blender 4.2+ add-on with 3ds Max-style parametric splines, Substance Modeler-like SDF blending, non-destructive cutters, FFD, sweep and conform tools.
• Modifier List. Enhanced modifier UI for Blender, with a sidebar tab and popup.
• MPFB. Open source human generator for Blender, a full rewrite of MakeHuman as an addon.
• Mr Mannequins Tools. Exports animations and weighted meshes compatible with the Unreal third-person mannequin without retargeting.
• Multi User. Real-time collaborative editing inside Blender.
• Nebula Forge for Blender Paid. Blender add-on that generates procedural nebula world skies and exports linear EXR or HDR panoramas.
• Needle Engine Free tier. Builds interactive web apps from Blender scenes.
• NeXus (Insydium) Paid. Vulkan GPU particle and simulation framework for Cinema 4D and Blender: liquids, fire, smoke, grains and a multi-material MPM solver.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Cinema 4D: Plugins
• NijiGPen. Grease Pencil add-on with 2D boolean and offset ops, stroke cleanup and mesh generation from 2D shapes.
• Nitro Retopo Paid. Blender 5.2 add-on that splits, repairs and retopologizes dense sculpt, scan or AI meshes by drawing patches, then auto-unwraps the new mesh.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Retopology & Mesh Tools
• NKZ Retopia Paid. Blender 4.5+ retopology add-on for drawing quad grids, strips, contour rings and tubes directly over sculpts or scans, with a relax brush and sculpt-prep tools for AI meshes.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Retopology & Mesh Tools
• OctaneRender Prime for Blender Free tier. Octane GPU render engine for Blender, free tier.
• OGC 3D Tiles for Blender (Iconem). Blender add-on that streams OGC 3D Tiles into the viewport through cesium-native, including meshes, point clouds and Gaussian splat tilesets.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• Parallel Render. Renders Sequencer output multithreaded from the Render sidebar.
• PBR Texture Mapper. One-click PBR node setup in Blender.
• Phobos. Creates URDF, SDF and SMURF robot models in Blender.
• Physical Atmosphere² Paid. Blender add-on for spectral physically based skies with multiple scattering, ozone, aerosols, volumetric clouds, stars and eclipses in Cycles and Eevee.
• Physics Dropper. Add-on that drops selected objects with rigid body or cloth sims so they settle, then bakes the result to keyframes.
• Pie Menu Editor Paid. UI add-on that builds custom pie menus, popups, side panels and toolbars in Blender without code.
• Point Cloud Visualizer. Display, edit, filter, render and export colored point-cloud PLY files.
• Poliigon Blender Addon. Browse, download and import Poliigon textures, models and HDRs from inside Blender, with material generation from texture sets.
• Poly Haven Asset Browser Paid. Blender add-on that puts Poly Haven's HDRIs, materials and models in the Asset Browser with auto-updates; slated to go free at 5,000 patrons.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Software-Specific Asset Libraries
• Polychase. Free GeoTracker-style add-on that tracks camera or object motion in video inside Blender with optical flow and PnP.
• Power Sequencer. Faster editing tools for Blender's Video Sequence Editor.
• PresetterProfessional. View, visibility, 3D cursor and snap presets for Blender.
• Principled Baker. Bake PBR textures from the Principled BSDF in a few clicks.
• Projectors. Create and modify projector lights in Blender.
• ProSidebar. Adds extra properties and operators to the 3D View Sidebar.
• PSOFT Pencil+ 4 Paid. Pencil+ 4 for Blender, a plugin for NPR line rendering and toon outlines.
• PSX Retro Tools. Blender addon that turns scenes into PS1-style visuals with low-poly, low-res, dithered and unstable retro effects.
• QBlocker. Interactive blockout and object creation tool for Blender.
• Quick Menu. Productivity add-on that puts common modeling operators in one menu and adds missing ones.
• QuickSwitch. Quickly switch workspaces and view the render menu in the viewport.
• Random Flow Paid. Hard-surface add-on that generates random sci-fi panels, greebles, extrusions, cables and scatter detail.
• RandoMesh. Adds randomized geometry to any mesh in Blender.
• RBDLab Paid. Blender add-on for rigid-body destruction: fracturing, debris, dust and metal deformation.
• reflow. Blender addon to change scene fps.
• Render Useful. Command-line tools for Blender renders.
• Rig on the Fly. Dynamic rigging tool that speeds up Blender animation workflow.
• Rigid Body Bones. Adds rigid-body and spring physics to bones in Blender.
• Rigodotify. Rigify feature set and converter that turns Blender rigs into game-engine rigs whose bones Godot, Unity and Unreal retargeters detect automatically.
• Scene Strip Tools. Preview VSE scene strips directly in the 3D View.
• Screencast Keys. On-screen keystroke display for Blender screen recordings.
• Screenwriter. Write screenplays in the Blender Text Editor using Fountain markup, with correct formatting on export.
• Sculpt Alphas Manager. Quickly switch alpha textures for sculpt brushes in Blender.
• Sculptools: Layers. Blender 4.5+ extension that adds a non-destructive layer stack to Sculpt Mode, so sculpt passes can be toggled and blended.
• Search Online References. Search selected text across Blender API/Python docs, Stack Exchange, source code and GitHub.
• Shot Manager by Ubisoft. Adds a true shot entity to Blender scenes for previs and layout.
• Simply Cloth Paid. Blender add-on for fast cloth simulation and garment sewing, with wind and collision presets.
• Sketchfab Blender Addon. Import and export models between Blender and Sketchfab.
• SliceMesh. Automates mesh slicing in Blender.
• Softie Collision System Paid. Geometry Nodes collision and soft deformation setup for Blender 5.1+ with self-collision and variable hardness, plus an experimental XPBD simulation mode.
• Spaceship Generator. Procedurally generates 3D spaceships.
• Splat Stage Paid. Beta Blender 5.3 add-on for Gaussian splat shots: crop captures, keep full-density previews, shape the look and reuse shot backgrounds.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• Spring Bones. Adds springy dynamic motion to bones in Blender.
• Spriteturn Free tier. Blender addon that renders a model from every needed direction frame by frame and packs a pixel-art sprite sheet with JSON and a Godot 4 SpriteFrames file.
• Squishy Volumes. Blender 5 extension that runs Material Point Method (MPM) simulations inside Blender.
• Subsimport. Create and edit subtitles for movies or music in Blender.
• Super IO. Clipboard-driven import and export shortcuts for Blender 5: copy files in the OS file browser and paste them into the scene.
• SuperPoke. Iterative poking tool for Blender meshes.
• SuperSplat for Blender. PlayCanvas extension that imports SuperSplat scenes into Blender 5.3+ by link and publishes your own splats to superspl.at.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• Sverchok. Node-based parametric modeling for Blender, aimed at architects.
• TextCounter. Text-animation addon for counters and GUI simulations in Blender.
• TexTools. Free UV and texturing toolset for Blender.
• The Grove 3D Paid. Grows natural 3D trees for visualisation and film, with seasonal simulation.
• Theme Switcher. Switch the active Blender theme without leaving the 3D View.
• Tilecam. Renders tileable images in Blender.
• Tissue. Computational and parametric design addon for Blender.
• Transform Tools. Transform, crop and fade video strips in Blender's VSE.
• Tree Gen. Procedural tree-model generation in Blender.
• True Terrain Paid. Landscape add-on with terrain presets, hydro/thermal/wind erosion, rivers, lakes, oceans and masked scattering.
• Typewriter. Typewriter text animation for font objects in Blender.
• UcuPaint. Manage texture layers for EEVEE and Cycles in Blender.
• USDZ. Blender addon to export USDZ files.
• UV Flex Paid. Blender UV Editor toolkit for splitting, merging, reshaping and spline-deforming UV islands after unwrapping, with falloff and 2D IK modes.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → UV Tools
• UV Packer. Free automatic UV-packing addon for Blender.
• UVgami. One-click automatic UV unwrapper for Blender with hard-surface and organic modes, batch unwrap and a proxy mode for dense meshes.
• V HACD. Decomposes a 3D surface into near-convex parts for accurate collision meshes.
• Verge3D Paid. Toolkit for building interactive 3D web experiences from Blender.
• VRM Add-on for Blender. Blender add-on for importing, exporting and editing VRM avatars, with a Python API; supports Blender 2.93 to 5.2.
  See also: Game Development → XR, AR & VR: Resources
• VSEQF. Overhauls Blender's VSE for quick keyboard-and-mouse editing with real-time feedback.
• Welder. Generates weld seams between meshes in Blender.
• Wiggle Bones. Jiggle-bone physics for Blender rigs.
• WoT Tank Viewer. Blender plugins to view 3D models from World of Tanks.
• WritingAnimation. Generates writing animation for selected Bezier curves in Blender.

Blender: Tutorials

Blender learning resources, beginner to advanced.

• 📖 User Manual. Official Blender user manual.
• Animation & Rigging Manual. Blender manual section on keyframes, drivers, constraints, shape keys and armature rigging.
• Blender 3D Architect by Allan Brito Paid. Blender books and tutorials for architectural visualization by Allan Brito.
• Blender Python API Documentation. Official Blender Python API Documentation.
• Blender Studio Training Free tier. Courses, workshops and production lessons from the Blender Studio team on rigging, geometry nodes, shading, lighting and animation.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → Paid Tutorial Platforms
• blenderscripting. Blog of Blender Python snippets to get started with scripting.
• Compositing Nodes List. Blender manual section listing every compositor node type and what it does.
• Motion Tracking Manual. Blender manual section on motion tracking and camera solving in the Movie Clip editor.
• Programming Add-ons for Blender 2.8. Free ebook on setting up a Python IDE to write Blender add-ons, worked through a sample plugin.
• Realistic Hair in Blender Paid. Wingfox course on creating realistic hair in Blender.
• Texture Paint Manual. Official Blender manual for the texture paint mode.

Houdini: Getting Started

Beginner-friendly Houdini intros.

Related:

• Hipflask Free tier. Structured Houdini courses by Fraser Shiers, from a free Core Essentials collection to paid Geometry Essentials modules.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Houdini: Courses & Free Content
• Houdini Crash Course (ikrima). Fast Houdini fundamentals primer.
• Houdini Donut in Any Shape. Procedural donut by Lewis Orton.
• Houdini in Five Minutes. Short Entagma video introducing Houdini's procedural node-based workflow.
• SideFX Content Library. Official SideFX library of Houdini tutorials, example files and assets.
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Software-Specific Asset Libraries
• SideFX Getting Started. Official Houdini getting-started learning path.
• SideFX Learn. Official curated learning hub.
• SideFX Learning Paths. Hub of curated SideFX lesson sequences grouped by discipline, starting with the Foundations path for new Houdini users.

Houdini: Essential Learning Resources

Long-form Houdini learning hubs.

• Applied Houdini Paid. Stephen Knipping's FX-focused course series (ILM).
• Assorted Houdini Demos (jakericedesigns). Assorted Houdini demo scenes and setups.
• CGWiki (tokeru.com). Matt Estela's CGWiki, the deepest Houdini reference (Joy of VEX, LOPS, particles).
• educational-hips (pedohorse). Educational Houdini .hip files explaining techniques.
• Entagma (site) Free tier. Advanced design and mograph tutorials. Also Unreal and Blender.
• example_hips (dchow1992). Collection of example Houdini .hip files.
• Farmfield (Vimeo). Setups and hip files from Johnny Farmfield.
• hip-files (lightReachers). Shared collection of Houdini .hip files.
• Houdini Escapades (3Dmattias). Example .hip files from the 3Dmattias tutorial series.
• Houdini Gubbins. Blog of Houdini tips and workflow notes.
• Houdini Hive. SideFX presentation recordings from artists and studios.
• Houdini Kitchen. Tutorials and articles, including L-systems and procedural setups.
• houdini-sandbox (K240). Sandbox collection of Houdini scene files.
• HoudiniHowtos (jhorikawa). Example .hip files and how-to setups.
• John Kunz (site). John Kunz's site linking his weekly Twitch and YouTube streams on Houdini FX, coding and Redshift.
• OdForce Tutorial .hip Library. Community thread collecting tutorial .hip files.
• SideFX Tutorials. SideFX learning library of official Houdini tutorials, sorted by topic and skill level.
• SOP Quick Reference. Quick-reference index of Houdini SOP nodes.

Houdini: VEX & Coding

VEX, Python, OpenCL, and scripting in Houdini.

• 1 Minute VEX. Short lessons teaching Houdini VEX one small snippet at a time.
• Houdini OpenCL (MysteryPancake). Guide to writing OpenCL kernels in Houdini.
• HouPy Wiki. Houdini Python wiki. Packages, shelf scripts, menu customization, node graph hooks.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → 3D Communities & Forums
• Learning VEX via Bees and Bombs. OdForce thread recreating Bees and Bombs animations in VEX.
• Mantra LPE Cookbook (alexwheezy). Light Path Expression recipes for Mantra rendering.
• OpenCL in Houdini. OpenCL notes for Houdini.
• Python Snippets for Houdini. Wiki page of Python snippets for scripting Houdini, part of kiryha's Houdini learning repo.
• Python Startup Scripts. Houdini Tricks guide to writing Python startup scripts that run when Houdini launches.
• VEX Manager Paid. VEX snippet/code manager HDA by Shir Manor.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Houdini: Plugins & Tools
• VEX Wrangle Cheat Sheet. Quick VEX reference by Mr Kunz.
• vex_tutorial (jtomori). Practical introduction to VEX in Houdini with examples.
• VFXBrain VEX. Blog with VEX tutorials and code snippets for Houdini.

Houdini: FX & Simulations

Vellum, FLIP, Pyro, and other simulation workflows.

• Custom Smoke Solver. Custom smoke solver walkthrough.
• Smart Crown Splash FLIP. Vimeo demo of a small-scale Houdini FLIP sim using a mean curvature flow surface tension method.

Houdini: Rigging & Animation (KineFX)

KineFX rigging, animation, and crowds.

• Secondary Motion in H19. Paul Esteves. Secondary motion workflows.
• Space Girl Rigging. Older SideFX tutorial series on rigging a character in Houdini.

Houdini: Miscellaneous Tutorials

Additional Houdini tutorials across topics.

• AI For Artists. AI techniques applied to Houdini.
• Art Directing Paint Splashes. Houdini video tutorial by What I Found on art-directing paint splash simulations.
• Building Growth Animation. Building growth animation technique.
• Cloner Object. SideFX tutorial on rebuilding the Cinema 4D MoGraph Cloner object in Houdini.
• Extracting Transform Matrices. How to extract transform matrices.
• For Loops Tutorial. For loops and animated subdivisions.
• Houdini for Astronomy. Astronomy and scientific viz in Houdini.
• Muscles Masterclass. Advanced muscles masterclass.
• MysteryPancake Houdini Fun. Fun experimental Houdini repo.
• Node Studies. Google Slides deck that studies individual Houdini nodes and how they work.
• Point Cloud to Mesh (Microsoft). Point cloud to mesh guide.
• Procegen by Konstantin Magnus. Konstantin Magnus tutorials on procedural modeling, texturing, and tool building in Houdini.
• USD Basics with Solaris. Official tutorial on USD basics in Solaris.
• Writing Your Own Polywire. Jake Rice on custom polywire.

Houdini: Plugins & Tools

Toolkits, pipeline tools, and HDAs.

• .hips. GitHub repo of assorted Houdini experiments and example files by lcrs.
• AElib. Free tools by Nick Taylor (ManVsMachine).
• Axiom Paid. Sparse fluid solver by Matthew Puchala.
• CamRig Pro Paid. Camera rigging tool HDA by Shir Manor.
• cb-houdini-tools (conlen-b). Collection of Houdini utility tools and HDAs.
• EarthMesh Houdini. Real-world meshes via Google API.
• egMatLib. Material library panel for Houdini that stores and loads Karma, Mantra, Redshift, Arnold and Octane shader networks.
• Ffmpeg. Command-line tool for converting video and audio, often used to turn Houdini flipbooks into MP4.
• Fibric Toolset Paid. Curve-based procedural clothing system for Houdini that builds knitted and woven fabric with stitches, fuzz and damage, plus a Husk procedural that tears and burns cloth at render time.
• FXHoudiniMCP. MCP server for Houdini with 215 tools that build node networks, set up simulations, inspect USD stages and render.
• Gaussian Splat Cleanup HDA (NodeConnector). Free Houdini SOP that cleans raw 3D Gaussian splats before baking by removing duplicates, floaters, low-alpha noise and orientation outliers.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• GeoTracker for Houdini (KeenTools) Paid. Houdini SOP plugin for geometry-based object and camera tracking: fits 3D models or LiDAR scans to footage, works in OBJ and Solaris, outputs colliders for FX.
  See also: Software Reference → Matchmoving & Camera Tracking Software, Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Matchmoving & Camera Tracking
• Golaem for Houdini. Autodesk plugin that loads Golaem crowd simulation caches procedurally in Houdini without baking geometry; open-sourced in 2026.
• GSOPs. Gaussian Splatting Operators for Houdini that import, edit, relight and render 3D Gaussian splats as SOP geometry.
• Houdini Attributes Cheatsheet. Quick reference of common Houdini geometry attributes.
• Houdini Engine for Unreal (AdrianPan optimized fork). Rebuilt Houdini Engine for UE, 2x-15x faster.
• Houdini Tech Art Challenge Winners 2021. Winning tech-art tools: HPaint, Polyline Creator, Poly Slice Tool.
• Houdini VBD. OpenCL port of Vertex Block Descent and Augmented VBD soft body solvers that runs natively in Houdini.
• Houdini-scripts (JoseZalez). Python scripts and utilities for Houdini.
• HoudiniMCP. Houdini Python plugin plus MCP bridge that lets Claude create and modify nodes and run code in a live Houdini session.
• HPaint. Viewport drawing tool for Houdini that paints UV'd 3D stroke cards on any geometry, similar to Grease Pencil.
• hpaste. Houdini tool that copies node networks as plain-text snippets you can paste through any messenger.
• JDB Houdini Toolkit. Set of Houdini tools and utilities shared on Bitbucket by jcdeblok.
• Microbot VDB Painter Paid. Interactive painting and manipulation of OpenVDB SDF volumes in Houdini.
• Modeler for Houdini Paid. Interactive polygon, subdivision and retopology toolkit that makes Houdini model like a conventional DCC; PolyPen, Booleans, Bezier Deform and tool search.
• MOPS. Motion graphics toolkit by Toadstorm.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → 3D Communities & Forums
• MotionCOPs. Free toolkit of Copernicus HDAs for motion design in Houdini, with batch media paste, LUT grading and animation tools.
• NodebookMD. Free offline desktop app that indexes the docs of your installed Houdini version and shows them in a fast searchable viewer.
• ODTools Paid. Pipeline tools by Oliver Hotz.
• Procedural Canvas for Houdini Paid. Reference board inside Houdini 20.5+ that stores images, notes, sketches, VEX snippets and viewport snapshots in the .hip file, with frames and F5 slides.
• qLib. Open-source library of Houdini digital assets for modeling, FX and pipeline tasks.
• Rich Lord's Tools. Tools from ex-Valve animator.
• SideFX Labs. Extended official toolset.
• Tighe Rzankowski's Tools Paid. Gumroad store of Tighe Rzankowski with Houdini tools, including feather grooming setups.
• TrembleFX Paid. Procedural noise generator HDA by Shir Manor.
• VEX Manager Paid. VEX snippet/code manager HDA by Shir Manor.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Houdini: VEX & Coding
• VFX Fractal Toolkit. Set of tools for generating fractal and generative art.
• Wormhole Content Browser Paid. Custom Houdini UI for browsing, previewing, and importing content.
• ZENO. Node-based 3D system for cinematic physics effects. Standalone open-source Houdini alternative.
• ZENV. CC0 collection of Houdini HDAs for procedural environment modeling.

Houdini: Courses & Free Content

Structured courses for Houdini.

• Hipflask Free tier. Structured Houdini courses by Fraser Shiers, from a free Core Essentials collection to paid Geometry Essentials modules.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Houdini: Getting Started
• Rebelway Free tier. FX, procedural modeling, VEX, pyro, destruction, fluid, fur, muscle, lighting, ML courses. Many free tutorials.
• VFX Campus (The VFX School). Closed online VFX school whose Houdini FX course library is free to stream or torrent with no account until 2027-03-01.

Houdini: Communities

Forums, Discords, and tip archives.

• Awesome Houdini (wyhinton). Curated list of Houdini resources, tools, and learning.
• Daily Hip. Houdini tips archive by Eetu Martola.
• Houdini Nerd Discord. Christopher Rutledge's Houdini community.
• Houdini Tricks. Tumblr archive of short Houdini tips and tricks.
• John Kunz Discord. Community Discord for Houdini FX and coding.
• OdForce. Most active Houdini forum.
• r/Houdini. Reddit community for Houdini users to share work and ask questions.
• SideFX Houdini on Bilibili. Chinese Houdini tutorials.
• Think Procedural Discord. Procedural-focused Houdini Discord.
• VFX Arabia Houdini Tools. VFX Arabia blog posts sharing tools built in Houdini.

Cinema 4D: Learning

C4D tutorials and learning hubs.

• Cineversity. Official Maxon tutorials.
• Noseman (Athanasios Pozantzis). Cinema 4D tips on MoGraph, Scene Nodes and advanced distributions.
• Rocket Lasso (YouTube). Cinema 4D channel with Rocket Lasso Live problem-solving streams and release feature breakdowns.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → YouTube Channels: Motion Graphics & Cinema 4D
• School of Motion (site) Paid. C4D, motion graphics, animation, After Effects, design courses.

Cinema 4D: Plugins

C4D addons and bridges.

Related:

• 3D Printer Simulator (C4D). Free Cinema 4D 2023+ plugin that turns polygon models into layer-by-layer FDM print animations with print lines, infill, supports and a moving print head rig.
• AEC4D Paid. After Effects ↔ Cinema 4D bridge.
• Aturtur's Cinema 4D Scripts. Free collection of commented Python scripts for Cinema 4D's Script Manager, useful for learning C4D scripting.
• C4Dzone Plugins Paid. Shop of low-cost parametric archviz plugins for Cinema 4D: Ceiling Builder, FloorGen 2, TileWall Pro, Stair Builder, Rail and Fence, Interior Builder, Easy Ivy.
• CameraMatch AutoSetup Paid. Photomontage camera matcher for Cinema 4D, Blender, SketchUp and 3ds Max that detects vanishing lines in a photo and builds an aligned physical camera with matched resolution.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Matchmoving & Camera Tracking
• Cinema4D MCP. Cinema 4D plugin and MCP server that connects the app to Claude for prompt-driven modeling and scene edits.
• EDGY Paid. Cinema 4D and Blender plugin that cuts real geometric wear into watertight meshes: chips, cracked corners, craters, fractures and buildup, maskable with Fields or vertex groups.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Blender: Plugins & Addons
• Forester Paid. Cinema 4D plugin that generates trees, plants and rocks and scatters them over terrain.
• Gausser Paid. Cinema 4D 2026+ plugin to import, relight, animate and render Gaussian splats with Fields, effectors, deformers and cloners; can emit native C4D particles.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Gaussian Splatting & NeRF
• KeyTool Pro (Animoore). Free Cinema 4D keyframe utility with bounce, elastic and ease presets, copy/paste ease, reverse, align, offset and randomize tools for selected keys.
• NeXus (Insydium) Paid. Vulkan GPU particle and simulation framework for Cinema 4D and Blender: liquids, fire, smoke, grains and a multi-material MPM solver.
  See also: Modeling, Sculpting & Texturing → Blender: Plugins & Addons
• Nitro4D Paid. Cinema 4D plugin store with 30 tools such as NitroBake, NitroSplineModel and NitroMoFracture for baking, modeling and fracturing.
• Plugins 4D Paid. Cinema 4D plugin store with HOT4D oceans, Flow Graph node animation, UDIM import, Jet Fluids and paint tools, built for R20 to 2027.
• Video Copilot Free tier. VFX tutorials, Element 3D, Optical Flares.
• WireTools (Cataclysm VFX) Paid. Gesture-based wiring for the Cinema 4D Redshift node editor: draw connections, fan outputs, cut wires with a stroke; sold alongside Smart Split, Redshift SMC and XCommander.
• X-Particles Paid. Cinema 4D particle and VFX system for smoke, fire, fluids, grains and cloth.

Cinema 4D: Tips & Workflows

Productivity blogs and shader workflow tricks.

• Rolando Barry (Gumroad) Free tier. Gumroad store of Rolando Barry with Cinema 4D assets, presets and small projects.
• Rolando Barry Blog. C4D tips, shader switch workflows, productivity tricks.

3ds Max: Plugins

3ds Max plugins.

Related:

• 3dsmax-mcp. MCP server with 161 tools that lets AI agents read scenes, model, edit materials and capture viewports in 3ds Max 2023-2027.
• ColorEdge (iToo). Free procedural 3ds Max texture map from iToo that draws a two-color gradient along mesh edges to blend materials where surfaces meet, such as roads and terrain.
• FloorGenerator Free tier. 3ds Max plugin that builds floors from individual boards in many patterns for archviz.
• FoldFlow Paid. 3ds Max plugin for painting procedural cloth folds, wrinkles and stitching interactively in the viewport without simulation; transfers folds between meshes.
• Forest Pack Free tier. 3ds Max scattering plugin for vegetation and objects, with ForestIvy for climbing plants.
• FumeFX Paid. Fluid solver for fire, smoke and explosions in 3ds Max, Maya and Cinema 4D, with GPU solving in v7.
• Ghost Pencil Pro Paid. Grease Pencil-style 2D/3D drawing and frame-by-frame animation object for 3ds Max 2024-2027, with layers, tablet pressure and 13 stroke modifiers.
• glTF 3ds Max Plugin (Khronos). Khronos-sponsored glTF 2.0 and GLB importer/exporter for 3ds Max 2020-2027 with PBR material, animation, light and instancing extensions; formerly an $80 plugin.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Conversion Tools
• GrowFX Paid. 3ds Max plugin for procedural modeling and animation of trees, grass and ivy, with growth and wind and Unreal export.
• MarkingForge Paid. Maya-style marking menus, gesture dials and hotbox for 3ds Max 2025-2027, with a menu editor, custom MAXScript commands and studio deploy script.
• Max Teapot. Independent curated catalog of about 590 3ds Max plugins and scripts with tags, compatibility notes and development status; developers can submit tools.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Plugin & Addon Marketplaces
• MaxPkg. Free in-app package manager for 3ds Max 2022+ that finds, installs, updates and removes free and paid scripts from a curated catalog.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Plugin & Addon Marketplaces
• PBR Generator (3ds Max) Paid. 3ds Max 2020+ script that bakes procedural V-Ray or Physical Material node networks into texture packs and rebuilds them as render-ready PBR shaders.
• Project Manager (Kstudio) Paid. On-device asset browser for 3ds Max that auto-classifies models, materials, textures, IES lights and proxies, with text and image similarity search.
• Pulldownit Paid. Voronoi shattering and rigid body dynamics plugin for 3ds Max and Maya, aimed at destruction effects and large rigid body simulations.
• RailClone Free tier. 3ds Max parametric modeler that assembles geometry segments along splines by rules.
• Ripple Pro Paid. Water-surface modifier for 3ds Max 2024-2027 with deterministic procedural ripples and a height-field wave solver for wakes and rain from points, splines or particles.
• Sculpt Mesh (3ds Max) Paid. Multiresolution sculpting and texture painting object for 3ds Max with 26 brushes, masks, layers, voxel remesh, quad retopology and map baking.
• TenPix Cloth Paid. GPU cloth simulator for 3ds Max 2024-2027 built as modifiers: layered garments, pins, seams, tearing, weight maps and Alembic caching on NVIDIA RTX cards.
• Thinkbox MX Community Builds. Free community builds of Krakatoa MX, Frost MX, XMesh MX and Stoke MX for 3ds Max 2018-2027, compiled from source code AWS Thinkbox published.
• TyFlow Free tier. Advanced particle/dynamics system. Destruction, cloth, fluids.
• UV Unfoldr Paid. Maya-style UV editor for 3ds Max 2022-2027 on top of Unwrap UVW: unfold and optimize brushes, straighten shells, shape-aware packer and texel density tools.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → UV Tools
• ValTerra Free tier. 3ds Max plugin that imports Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles or OpenStreetMap city and terrain context, places the sun by date and location, and matches cameras to drone photos.

Fusion 360: Learning

Fusion 360 courses.

• Autodesk Fusion (YouTube). Official Autodesk Fusion channel with monthly what's-new updates, tutorials and design-to-build project series.
• Fusion for Designers. Autodesk Academy course for designers.
• NYC CNC. Fusion CAM and CNC machining channel: toolpaths, fixturing, shop automation and CAD-to-part workflows.
• Product Design Online. Kevin Kennedy's Autodesk Fusion tutorials for beginners, including a yearly Learn Fusion in 30 Days series.
• Product Design Online (Patreon) Paid. Kevin Kennedy's Patreon with Autodesk Fusion tutorial files and extras for hobbyists.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → Patreon Creators

Material Creation Tools

Texture authoring, procedural materials, and baking tools.

Related:

• Agisoft De-Lighter. Standalone tool to remove baked shadows from model textures.
• Architextures - Create Free tier. Web app for creating textures, bump maps, and CAD hatches.
• Imogen. GPU Texture generator using dear imgui for UI.
• Normal Map Bench. Browser tool that turns a height texture into a tangent-space normal map with live relighting and OpenGL or DirectX output. Runs locally, no upload.
• NormalMap-Online. GPU browser tool that creates normal, displacement, AO and specular maps from a height map, with all processing local.
• NormalMap.io. Browser tool that turns a photo or texture into normal, height, roughness and AO maps, with a movable-light 3D preview and a tileable option.
• NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporter. Creates compressed texture files from image sources via CUDA-accelerated compression.
• Physics Scatter Paid. Substance 3D Designer node that drops your OBJ/FBX meshes into a Jolt rigid-body pile and bakes it into tileable height, normal, color and ID maps up to 8K.
• RGBA Texture Packer (ShareTextures). Browser tool that packs any grayscale maps (AO, roughness, metallic, opacity) into the R, G, B and A channels of one texture, detecting map types from filenames.
• ShaderExpo. Browser shader editor with inline error logs, autocompletion, and model/texture loading.
• SmartNormal 2.0. Normal map generation from images.
• TexGraph. Procedural texture creation by connecting nodes in a graph.

CAD Software

Also in Software Reference → CAD Software

Material & Texture Creation Software

Also in Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software

Photogrammetry & Scanning Software

Also in Software Reference → Photogrammetry & Scanning Software

Retopology & UV Software

Also in Software Reference → Retopology & UV Software

Animation & RiggingEdit

Technical animation, rigging, motion capture. Animation principles and theory are under Art, Design & Visual Storytelling.

Animation: Channels & Tutorials

Channels, courses and tutorials on 2D, motion and interactive animation.

• Adding Animation to Buttons in Flutter using Rive. Simple Animated Menu Toggle Button in Rive.
• AJ Picard. Complex background animations using SwiftUI & Rive.App.
• Alan Becker Tutorials. Animation tutorials by stick-figure animator.
• Alex Grigg. Animation for Anyone series.
• Alex Kunchevsky. YouTube channel of Alex Kunchevsky with motion design and Procreate animation tutorials.
• AnimSchool Paid. Accredited online school with live classes in 3D character animation and a character program covering modeling and rigging.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → Paid Tutorial Platforms
• Build an animated app. Free course that teaches you how to design and code an iOS/SwiftUI app with Rive animated assets, icon animations, custom layouts, and interactions.
• Create animated UI in Unity using Rive and Noesis. Tutorial on how to add Rive to your Unity games using Noesis.
• Create Rive-ting Animations. "Rive reduces the time it takes to make complex animation, making some motion items easier and faster to build."
• Flutter Community. Demonstrating Rive on the Flutter Community live stream for the 2022 Flutter Puzzle Hack.
• Flutter SVG Animations with Rive (Reso Coder). - Sprinkling some beautiful animations across your app.
• Flutter Web and Rive Animation Tutorial. Beginner to intermediate tutorial for setting up a Flutter web app with Rive animations.
• iAnimate Paid. Online animation workshops in 11-week terms with live sessions: a 6-stage feature track and a games track with Unreal cinematics.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → Paid Tutorial Platforms
• Josh Toonen. Unreal Engine cinematics: animated decals, cinematic environments, faster filmmaking.
• Olof Storm. YouTube channel of Olof Storm with videos about animation and art.
• Optimization techniques. Techniques to optimize Rive animations in React apps.
• Plant Blog. NextJS blog template with Rive to show animated blog thumbnails and syncing scroll to Rive animations deployed on Vercel. Code.
• Pointer Tracking Animation Implemented in Webflow. How to set up a Rive file with pointer tracking for Webflow implementation.
• Rive Flutter Animation. Best approach for animation in 2023.
• Riveflow. Learn how to create next-level interactive animations for Webflow websites with Rive.
• School of Motion (YouTube). School of Motion YouTube channel with motion design tutorials and talks.
• SwiftUI Animated Login Screen using Rive. Teddy Bear Animation, create an animated and interactive Login screen.
• The Power of Rive: A New Standard for Interactive Animations. "We've been playing around with this awesome interactive animation tool called Rive, and it's blown us away!".
• The Principles of Animation: Interactive Edition. Interactive web explainer of the 12 principles of animation.
• Toniko Pantoja. Animation industry and technique.

AI Motion Capture & Animation

AI-powered mocap and character animation tools.

Related:

• AccuFACE 2 (Reallusion) Paid. iClone 8 plugin that tracks facial performance from a webcam or video clip with an AI model and retargets it to CC5 HD characters, with lip tracking and expression curves.
  See also: Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software
• AnimateDiff + ControlNet. Open-source controlled video animation from poses.
• Animatica Choreographer Free tier. Free plugin for Blender, MotionBuilder and 3ds Max that generates editable in-between keyframes on your rig from text, key poses or waypoints, using NVIDIA Kimodo.
  See also: Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software
• ARDY (NVIDIA). SIGGRAPH 2026 autoregressive motion diffusion model for interactive character animation with live text prompts, waypoints and keyframe constraints.
  See also: Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software
• CapturyLive Paid. Turnkey markerless multi-camera mocap system that tracks body, fingers and face of several performers live and streams to Unity and Unreal.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• GEM (NVIDIA, formerly GENMO) Free, non-commercial. NVIDIA research model that both estimates SMPL body motion from monocular video or webcam and generates motion from text, audio or music; outputs world-space SMPL parameters.
  See also: Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software
• GEM-X (NVIDIA). NVIDIA whole-body monocular capture: body and hand pose from images plus camera- and world-space body motion from video, on the SOMA body model.
  See also: Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software
• Kimodo (NVIDIA). Kinematic motion diffusion model trained on 700 hours of optical mocap that generates human and robot animation from text plus keyframe and path constraints.
  See also: Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software
• Mixamo LLM Mocap. Pipeline that turns locked-camera video, filmed or AI-generated, into FK animation on Mixamo characters in Blender using GVHMR pose estimation and retargeting.
• MOVIN TRACIN Paid. Single-device LiDAR markerless mocap unit with on-device AI that streams live 3D motion through MOVIN Studio; Stage version tracks multiple performers.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• Noitom Perception Neuron Paid. Inertial mocap lineup with anti-magnetic sensors: wireless PN 3 and PN Studio with finger capture, wired PN Link, and optical-inertial PN Hybrid.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• Qualisys Paid. Optical mocap cameras (Arqus, Miqus) and Qualisys Track Manager, with markerless tracking in QTM and plugins for Maya, MotionBuilder, Unity and Unreal.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• RigMo: Unifying Rig and Motion Learning for Generative Animation Free, non-commercial. CVPR 2026 paper with training code that learns Gaussian-bone rigs and motion jointly from raw deforming mesh sequences, no ground-truth skeletons needed.
  See also: AI & Machine Learning for CG → Research Papers
• Rokoko Headrig Paid. Adjustable head mount that holds a TrueDepth iPhone for face capture with Rokoko Face Capture or Live Link Face and MetaHuman Animator.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• Rokoko Smartgloves Paid. Wireless finger and wrist mocap gloves (Smartgloves II) using IMU plus EMF sensor fusion at 250 Hz; plugins for Blender, Maya, Unreal, Unity and Houdini.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• SAM 3D Body (Meta). Promptable model for full-body 3D human mesh recovery from a single image, part of Meta's SAM 3D release.
• SlimeVR Paid. Open-source IMU full-body trackers that need no base stations; stream to SteamVR, VRChat, OSC and VMC, and record BVH for Blender.
  See also: Game Development → XR, AR & VR: Resources, Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• TRAM. Research code that recovers global trajectory and 3D body motion of people from in-the-wild video, solving the camera with a masked DROID-SLAM.
• WHAM. PyTorch model that reconstructs world-grounded 3D human motion from monocular video, a common backbone for open video-to-mocap pipelines.

Mocap & Animation Libraries

Downloadable motion-capture and game animation clips: stores, free packs, engine samples, animal mocap.

• ACCAD Open Motion Project. Ohio State ACCAD Vicon mocap library of walking, running, martial arts, gestures, and dance, in BVH, C3D, and ASF/AMC.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap Datasets
• ActorCore Free tier. Motion-capture library from Reallusion.
• Anderson Rohr Free Mocap Packs. Free mocap packs on Gumroad from a UE artist. Everyday actions, crowd reactions, fitness, soccer and MetaHuman-ready clips.
• Animation Starter Pack. Epic free pack of 62 animations for the classic UE Mannequin: locomotion, crouch, rifle aim, jumps, and deaths for prototyping.
• AnimationShopee Paid. Per-clip mocap store with 2,700+ FBX animations (combat, zombie, dance, sports, daily life) at $1 each plus bundled motion packs.
• Awesome Dog Mocap Paid. Dog motion capture animation packs sold as FBX and on Unity Asset Store, Fab, and the iClone marketplace.
• Carnegie-Mellon University Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database BVH conversions. 2500 free human motion-capture clips in BVH format.
• cMonkeys Huge FBX Mocap Library. 2,534 CMU mocap clips converted to grouped FBX files for Unity, mirrored on Internet Archive.
• Explosive Free tier. Game animation packs for Unity, Unreal, and Godot/Blender, incl. RPG Character pack (1,437 clips), Crafting, and Warrior sets, with free versions.
• Free Motion Pack 1. 21 free mocap FBX animations on the Mixamo Exo Gray armature with T-pose on frame 1 for retargeting.
• Game Animation Sample Project. Epic sample with 500+ mocap locomotion and traversal clips driven by Motion Matching, compatible with all UE Mannequins and MetaHumans.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Other Apps
• Game MoCap Paid. Mocap dance, emote, and locomotion packs for Unity and Unreal, incl. hip hop, club, and Arabian dance sets.
• HEAT Free tier. Online library of 1,000+ root-motion mocap clips with on-the-fly retargeting and plugins for Blender, Daz Studio, Unity, and UE5.
• KayKit - Character Animations. CC0 humanoid animation sets for KayKit character rigs, grouped by category and supplied as FBX and glTF.
• Kevin Iglesias Free tier. Humanoid game animation packs (Basic Motions, Melee, Archer, Spellcasting, Crafting, Soldier) with free versions of most packs and Blender source files.
• Kinetic Impulse Horse Mocap Paid. Licensed horse mocap data: treadmill gait set (walk, trot, canter, gallop, transitions) plus a freestyle stunt library (rearing, bucking, turns).
• Kubold Paid. Mocap animset vendor: Movement, Sword, Longsword, Spear and Halberd, Pistol, and FPP Melee sets built from real fencing and combat capture.
• Lyra Starter Game. Epic UE5 sample shooter with 300+ Mannequin animations (locomotion and actions) reusable via retargeting.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Other Apps
• Mesh2Motion. FREE & open-source web application to animate your 3D models. Supports humanoid, four-legged, and bird creatures.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Rigging & Animation Tools
• MetaHuman Cinema Pack Paid. Fab pack of 562 Xsens-captured MetaHuman clips (talking, acting, office work, locomotion) plus face and hand pose libraries for UE 5.7/5.8.
• Mixamo. Rigged characters, auto-rigger, and free animation library (Adobe).
  See also: Assets & Libraries → Model Libraries: Specialized
• Mocap ATLAS Free tier. Swiss studio mocap store: 120fps Vicon locomotion, idles, turns, and jumps in UE5, Unity, FBX, and BVH, with a free clip collection.
• MoCap Central Free tier. Mocap animation packs (Core Motion 447 clips, Longsword, Village Life, Seated) delivered as UE5 MetaHuman and Unity Humanoid projects.
• MoCap Online Paid. Mocap animation store with 2,500+ clips in 30+ themed packs (locomotion, rifle, pistol, zombie) shipped as FBX, BVH, BIP, UE, Unity, Blender, and iClone.
• MocapClub Free, non-commercial. Motion Capture Society library of 500+ marker-data motions (fights, acrobatics, game moves) plus two dog packs, in C3D and TRC.
• mocapdata.com Free tier. Eyes, JAPAN mocap library with 4,671 free and 933 paid Vicon-captured motions (fighting, sports, dance, daily actions) in FBX, BVH, and C3D.
• Movement Animset Pro Paid. Kubold mocap pack of 180+ unarmed third-person clips (walk, run, crouch, jump, fist fight, interactions) in in-place and root-motion versions.
• Paragon Animations Retargeted to Manny. Community pack of 5,300 humanoid animations from Epic's free Paragon heroes, retargeted to the UE5 Manny skeleton.
• PoserMocap Paid. Mocap move packs (Everyday, Spy, Zombie, Swordplay, Sci-Fi) for Daz Genesis and Poser figures as PZ2, aniBlocks, and BVH.
• RamsterZ Animations Free tier. Game animation packs (hand-to-hand combat, melee, horror) in FBX for UE and Unity, with free sample sets incl. Free Anims Vol 1 (44 clips).
• RancidMilk Free Character Animations. 2,000+ CMU mocap clips converted to FBX and glTF and retargeted in Blender with Auto-Rig Pro, plus a control-rig Blender file and index.
• Rokoko Motion Library Free tier. Mocap marketplace inside Rokoko Studio with thousands of clips from studios and stunt performers, retargetable to Mixamo, UE, and HumanIK rigs as FBX.
• The Motion Capture Library Paid. Centroid's per-clip mocap store from Pinewood Studios: locomotion, combat, crowd, sword, and horse packs as 120fps MotionBuilder FBX.
• Truebones iClone Zoo. Free animal pack: 75+ animated animals (insects, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs) with motions in iAvatar and iMotion format for iClone.
• Truebones Studios Free tier. Gumroad store for Truebones mocap libraries in FBX and BVH, incl. free UE complete mocap library and animal Zoo packs.
• Unity Starter Assets. Unity first- and third-person controllers with a rigged humanoid armature and locomotion animations, built on Cinemachine and Input System.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Other Apps
• Universal Animation Library 2. CC0 pack of 130+ game animations from Quaternius, with root-motion versions and fixes for Unity and Godot.
• Xsens Free Mocap Assets. Free Xsens inertial mocap clips: 5 walk/run, 10 sports, and 7 dance animations as HD-reprocessed FBX with an MVN T-pose puppet.
• XSTAGE Mixed. Mocap library of K-pop dance, VTuber, emote, idle, and locomotion clips in FBX, BVH, ANIM, and MMD formats.

Mocap Datasets

Research and open motion-capture datasets in BVH, FBX and SMPL. Most are non-commercial.

• 100STYLE. Ian Mason's Xsens BVH locomotion set covering 100 walking and running styles, about 4M frames at 60 fps.
• 3DPW Free, non-commercial. MPI 3D Poses in the Wild: 60 outdoor video sequences with SMPL poses recovered from IMUs and a handheld camera.
• ACCAD Open Motion Project. Ohio State ACCAD Vicon mocap library of walking, running, martial arts, gestures, and dance, in BVH, C3D, and ASF/AMC.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap & Animation Libraries
• AIST++ Dance Motion Dataset. Google 3D dance dataset reconstructed from multi-view AIST video, 5.2 hours and 1,408 sequences across 10 genres with music.
• AMASS Free, non-commercial. Max Planck archive unifying 15+ optical mocap datasets into SMPL/SMPL-X body parameters, 40+ hours and 300+ subjects.
• ARCTIC Free, non-commercial. ETH and MPI dataset of two hands manipulating articulated objects, 2.1M frames with MANO hands, SMPL-X bodies, and 9 views.
• BABEL Free, non-commercial. MPI action label layer over AMASS: 43 hours of mocap with frame-level and sequence-level English action labels.
• Bandai Namco Research Motiondataset. Free motion-capture dataset from Bandai Namco R&D for research and personal use.
• BEAT Free, non-commercial. Body-Expression-Audio-Text dataset of 76 hours of speech gesture mocap from 30 speakers, with audio, text, and emotion labels.
• BEAT2 (EMAGE) Free, non-commercial. BEAT2 dataset from the EMAGE project: 60 hours of SMPL-X body, hand, and FLAME face mocap for co-speech gesture.
• CHI3D Free, non-commercial. IMAR close-interaction mocap of pairs hugging, pushing, and fighting, with contact annotations and GHUM/SMPL-X fits.
• CMU Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database. Carnegie Mellon optical mocap archive of 2,600+ clips across 140+ subjects, searchable by subject and category, in ASF/AMC and C3D.
• CMU Panoptic Studio Dataset Free, non-commercial. Carnegie Mellon dome captures from 480 VGA and 31 HD cameras, with 3D body, hand, and face keypoints of social interactions.
• DIP-IMU Free, non-commercial. MPI Deep Inertial Poser dataset of 10 subjects wearing 17 Xsens IMUs, about 90 minutes with SMPL pose ground truth.
• EgoBody Free, non-commercial. ETH egocentric dataset of social interactions captured with HoloLens 2 and Kinects, with SMPL-X fits for both people.
• FaceScape Free, non-commercial. Nanjing University 3D face dataset of 938 subjects with 20 expressions each, topology-unified meshes and 4K textures.
• FineDance Free, non-commercial. Tsinghua dance mocap dataset of 14.6 hours across 22 genres with paired music, SMPL-H body and finger motion.
• Fit3D Free, non-commercial. IMAR fitness mocap dataset of 3M+ frames covering 47 exercises, with marker mocap, GHUM/SMPL-X fits, and multi-view video.
• GENEA Challenge 2023 Dataset Free, non-commercial. GENEA challenge dyadic speech-gesture data based on Talking With Hands, with BVH body motion and audio for both speakers.
• GRAB Free, non-commercial. MPI whole-body grasping mocap of 10 subjects with 51 objects, giving SMPL-X body, MANO hands, and object meshes.
• HDM05 Motion Capture Database Free, non-commercial. Uni Bonn and MPI database of 3+ hours of mocap from 5 actors in 130 action classes, with short labeled clips, in C3D and ASF/AMC.
• Human3.6M Free, non-commercial. IMAR benchmark of 3.6M 3D human poses from 11 actors in 17 scenarios, with synced 4-view video, mocap, and depth scans.
• HumanAct12 Free, non-commercial. Action-to-Motion project dataset of 1,191 Kinect-captured clips in 12 action categories with fine sub-labels, as SMPL poses.
• HumanEva Free, non-commercial. Brown University benchmark syncing multi-camera video with 3D mocap of subjects walking, jogging, and gesturing.
• HumanML3D Free, non-commercial. Text-motion dataset of 14,616 motions from AMASS and HumanAct12 paired with 44,970 English descriptions, 28.6 hours.
• HuMMan Free, non-commercial. SenseTime and NTU multimodal 4D human dataset of 1,000 subjects and 500 actions with color, depth, point clouds, and SMPL fits.
• InterHand2.6M Free, non-commercial. Meta Reality Labs dataset of 2.6M frames of single and interacting hands with 3D joint and MANO annotations from multi-view capture.
• InterHuman (InterGen) Free, non-commercial. Two-person interaction mocap dataset of 7,779 motions and 6.56 hours with text descriptions, from the InterGen project.
• KIT Motion-Language Dataset Free, non-commercial. KIT text-annotated mocap set of 3,911 motions with 6,278 natural-language descriptions, drawn from KIT and CMU databases.
• KIT Whole-Body Human Motion Database Free, non-commercial. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology mocap database of whole-body human and object motion, normalized to the MMM reference model.
• LAFAN1 (Ubisoft La Forge) Free, non-commercial. Ubisoft La Forge BVH mocap set of 77 sequences from 5 subjects, about 4.6 hours of locomotion, fights, dance, and obstacles.
• MANN Dog Motion Capture (AI4Animation) Free, non-commercial. Edinburgh quadruped mocap of a dog walking, trotting, sitting, and jumping, from the Mode-Adaptive Neural Networks paper.
• Motion-X Free, non-commercial. IDEA Research whole-body SMPL-X motion dataset with face and hands, 81.1K clips and 15.6M frames, with text labels.
• Motorica Dance Dataset Free, non-commercial. KTH and Motorica optical mocap of 6 hours of dance in 8 styles, retargeted to one BVH skeleton, with music.
• MPI-INF-3DHP Free, non-commercial. MPI markerless multi-camera 3D pose dataset of 8 actors, 14 views, with green-screen footage for augmentation.
• NUS Motion Capture Database Free, non-commercial. National University of Singapore Vicon mocap clips of locomotion, dance, and martial arts, hosted by SFU, in BVH and C3D.
• Nymeria Free, non-commercial. Meta Reality Labs dataset of 300 hours of daily-life Xsens full-body mocap paired with Project Aria egocentric video and narrations.
• RICH Free, non-commercial. MPI Real scenes, Interaction, Contact and Humans dataset: markerless multi-view capture with SMPL-X bodies, scene scans, and contact labels.
• SFU Motion Capture Database Free, non-commercial. Simon Fraser University mocap clips of dance, martial arts, and locomotion, in BVH, C3D, and ASF/AMC with preview videos.
• SURREAL Free, non-commercial. Inria synthetic dataset of 6M frames rendering SMPL bodies driven by CMU mocap, with depth, normals, and segmentation.
• TED Gesture Dataset Free, non-commercial. ETRI pipeline and prebuilt dataset of 3D upper-body gesture poses extracted from 1,766 TED talk videos with transcripts.
• TotalCapture Free, non-commercial. University of Surrey CVSSP dataset syncing 8-view video, 13 IMUs, and Vicon mocap for 5 subjects performing actions.
• Trinity Speech-Gesture Dataset Free, non-commercial. Trinity College Dublin mocap of spontaneous speech with synced audio and BVH body motion for gesture generation.
• ZEGGS Dataset (Ubisoft ZeroEGGS) Free, non-commercial. Ubisoft La Forge speech gesture set of 67 monologue takes in 19 styles, BVH plus WAV, with FBX characters.

Character Rigs: Maya

Free and paid Maya animation rigs, rig directories and creator stores.

• 11 Second Club Rigs Free, non-commercial. Recommended rig list for the 11 Second Club competition: Norman, Eleven, Moom, Max, Mery, Azri plus Blender rigs.
• Alorema Rigs Free tier. Stylized AdvancedSkeleton-based Maya rigs: free Franky, paid Megoo, Mia and Mailo, Jody.
• Andy Rig. Free SCAD student rig by John Doublestein with IK/FK matching, space switching, squash and stretch, facial setup.
• Animation Mentor Free Rigs Free, non-commercial. Free Animation Mentor Maya rigs Stewart (heavy body-mechanics character) and Squirrels (squash, stretch, tail), email signup.
• Animation Methods Maya Rigs Mixed. Archived directory of 150+ free and paid Maya character, creature, vehicle and prop rigs, linking to each creator's download page.
• Animator's Resource Kit Rigs Mixed. Blog cataloging free and paid animation rigs, tools and learning resources for Maya and Blender, one post per rig.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Other Apps
• AnimProps Mixed. Marketplace of 390+ 3D rigs for Maya and Blender plus 2D Moho rigs and animation tools from many sellers.
• AnimSchool Malcolm Free, non-commercial. Free AnimSchool Maya character with wardrobe and hair options, facial controls and the AnimSchool Picker, downloaded 150k+ times.
• AnimStarter Rig Directory Mixed. Curated directory of 40+ Maya and Blender animation rigs with demo videos, filterable by software and price.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Other Apps
• Animworks Free Maya Rigs Free, non-commercial. Hub of 60+ free Maya rigs from game and film animators, many built on mGear, covering characters, creatures and vehicles.
• Artem Dubyna Rigs Free tier. Cartoon Maya rigs by Artem Dubyna (TemaRoots): free Tomas cat, Amanda, Mikey and paid Jerry, Tom, Yu-Lon.
• Azri Rig Free, non-commercial. Free game-style Maya rig with dual scythes, IK/FK hands and skirt auto-follow, built for fast playback; Maya 2018+.
• Built By Colossus Free tier. Maya character rigs: free Ninja and Azula, paid Brawler, Liz, Harlow, Rex, Steggy at $24 or as an 8-rig bundle.
• Character Rigs Shop Paid. Store of paid realistic and stylized Maya character rigs (Nina, Liam, Brad, Elephant) sold singly or in combos, plus custom rigging.
• Christoph Schoch Rigs Free, non-commercial. Free fan-art Maya rigs by Christoph Schoch: Link, Ruby Rose, Liger, Shinobi, Efi Oladele, game-character style.
• Eleven Rig. Open-source 11 Second Club rig with adjustable gender and body type, IK/FK limbs and hand poses; Maya 2014 and earlier.
• Emilio Serrano Rigs Free, non-commercial. Free mGear-built Maya rigs by Act III animator Emilio Serrano: robots, creatures, quadrupeds and fan-art characters.
• fRigging Awesome Studios Free tier. Josh Sobel's Maya rig shop: Bonnie 2, Kayla Unlimited, Ricardo Unlimited, Mecha-Mechs, with free Kayla-Bot.
• GetRigs Mixed. Maya asset store from Animation Methods where creators give away or sell rigs, props, environments and scripts, sorted by character, animal, creature, robot and vehicle.
• Joe Daniels Rigs Free tier. Joe Daniels' Maya practice rigs: free flour sack and juicebox for weight drills plus paid character rigs.
• Kiel Figgins Rigs Free tier. Kiel Figgins' Maya rig store: 50+ paid game-ready rigs via TurboSquid plus about 12 free rigs (TMNT, Deadpool, Xenomorph) and MEL tools.
• Long Winter Studios Paid. Membership library of 30+ Maya rigs on one unified control system with blendshape faces and bendy limbs, plus BLINK manager plugin.
• Lord Luigi Rigs Free tier. Freelance rigger Lord Luigi's Maya rigs and prop-rigging tutorials, incl. Baby rig and Priestess rig.
• M-Rigs (Ramon Arango) Paid. Paid stylized Maya rigs by Ramon Arango with painterly 2D-look facial animation, Mazu and Mukuru, sold singly or as bundle.
• MegaBuBu Rigs Free tier. Anime-style Maya rigs by MegaBuBu with cloth and skirt rigs and toon viewport shader: free Reimu, paid Sanae and Sakuya.
• Mery Project Free, non-commercial. Free stylized female Maya rig with detailed facial controls, for practice and demo reel use only.
• Moom Rig. Free cartoon Maya rig by Ramtin Ahmadi with IK/FK arms and feet, stretchy spine and neck, facial control panel.
• Perry Leijten Rigs Free, non-commercial. Free Maya creature rigs Skaarj and Blurgha plus character rigs and skinning tools by rigger Perry Leijten.
• ProRigs Paid. Subscription library of 35+ feature-film-style Maya characters and 20+ props from DreamWorks, Disney and Pixar riggers, Arnold-ready.
• Puppeteer Lounge Rigs Paid. Indian animation academy selling rigged Maya puppets ($5 to $200) incl. realistic quadruped tiger, ape and orc.
• Ray (CGTarian) Free, non-commercial. Free Maya character built with DreamWorks rig specialists, full facial rig for acting and dialogue, no plugins or picker needed.
• Roly HL Free Rigs Free, non-commercial. Free Maya rigs by Roly HL for practice and challenges: Woody, Buzz, Andy's Room set, DeLorean, station wagon.
• Rusty Animator Free Maya Rigs Mixed. Curated guide to free Maya rigs grouped by skill: basics, body mechanics, acting, creatures, props and vehicles.
• Shalaby Rigs Free tier. Ahmed Shalaby's Maya rigs: free educational X-Rig, paid Dude 2.0 with three variations, Box-Men body rigs.
• Squiggly Rigs Free tier. Lightweight cartoon Maya rigs with bendy limbs, smear controls and full face: Thep mummy, Grey Matter Gary, Lee.
• Tre Vital Rigs Free, non-commercial. Free Maya creature rigs by Tre Vital: Wraith, Anthro Tiger, Argonian, Hekaton, Dragon, with IK tails.
• Truong CG Artist Rigs Free, non-commercial. Truong's Gumroad of mostly free Maya creature and character rigs: dragons, lizards, Hydralisk, elephant, Boxy walker.

Character Rigs: Other Apps

Animation rigs for Blender, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Unreal, Unity, Daz and 2D apps.

• Ace5 Studios Rig Shop (Cinema 4D) Paid. Shop of animation-ready Cinema 4D character rigs (Meldon, Missy and others) with IK/FK and face controls.
• anima.to Rigs. Community index of animation rigs filterable by software (Blender, Maya and others) with links to free and paid sources.
• Animation Guides Free Puppets (Character Animator). Free rigged Adobe Character Animator puppets with walk cycles, head turns, lip sync and gesture triggers.
• Animator's Resource Kit Rigs Mixed. Blog cataloging free and paid animation rigs, tools and learning resources for Maya and Blender, one post per rig.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Maya
• AnimStarter Rig Directory Mixed. Curated directory of 40+ Maya and Blender animation rigs with demo videos, filterable by software and price.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Character Rigs: Maya
• Autumn Rig (Blender). Spring open movie rig for Blender: the shepherd dog Autumn, with production body and face controls.
• Beefy4D (Cinema 4D). Free bulky character rig for Cinema 4D converted from the Maya Beefy rig, for body mechanics practice.
• Blender Studio Character Library Mixed. Blender Studio library of production character rigs from open movies, free CC-BY rigs plus subscriber-only archive.
• Bony4D (Cinema 4D). Free mannequin character rig for Cinema 4D by Ace5 Studios for body mechanics practice.
• Cartoon Animator Content Store (Cartoon Animator) Mixed. Reallusion store of rigged G3 2D characters and motions for Cartoon Animator, with free resources in-app.
• Cascadeur Scenes (RenderHub) Mixed. RenderHub section of ready-rigged Cascadeur .casc character scenes, free and paid.
• Character Object (Cinema 4D) Paid. Cinema 4D template rig builder with biped, quadruped, bird and fish presets for fast character rigs.
• Characters Content Pack (Moho) Paid. Eight rigged, animated Moho characters with bone IK and Smart Bones examples.
• Cookie Flex Rig (Blender). CG Cookie's customizable Blender character rig with body shape, face and clothing controls, released Creative Commons.
• Dave Character Rig (Blender) Paid. Cartoon Blender character built on CloudRig with full face rig and face and finger pose libraries.
• Einar Rig (Blender). Old man character rig from Blender Studio's Charge film, with production body and face rig.
• Electra Rig (Houdini). SideFX APEX character rig for Houdini 20.5 with full body IK, IK/FK blend, reverse foot, blend shapes and delta mush.
• Ellie Rig (Blender). Sprite Fright teen character rig for Blender with full body and face controls, production-tested.
• Erik Rig (Houdini). Rigged human character FBX from the SideFX content library for testing KineFX retargeting and animation.
• Free Girl Character Rig (Cinema 4D). Free stylized girl character for Cinema 4D, rigged and ready for motion design animation.
• Free Skeleton Rig (Blender) Free, non-commercial. Stylized skeleton warrior rig for Blender 4.4+ with equipment toggles, cloth physics and shader controls.
• Game Animation Sample Project. Epic sample with 500+ mocap locomotion and traversal clips driven by Motion Matching, compatible with all UE Mannequins and MetaHumans.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap & Animation Libraries
• Genesis 9 Starter Essentials (Daz Studio). Free rigged Genesis 9 base figure with character presets, clothing, hair and poses, exportable via Daz bridges.
• Keeper of the Lighthouse (3ds Max) Free, non-commercial. Free stylized old sailor character for 3ds Max rigged from scratch with CAT, ready to animate.
• KineFX APEX Rigging & ML Skinning (Houdini). Houdini 20 scene with horse quadruped and humanoid rigs built in APEX, using ML deformation for skinning.
• Luchador & Chicken (Houdini). Two annotated APEX character rigs for Houdini by Od Studios covering autorig components and procedural skinning.
• Lyra Starter Game. Epic UE5 sample shooter with 300+ Mannequin animations (locomotion and actions) reusable via retargeting.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap & Animation Libraries
• Mannequins Asset Pack (Unreal). Manny and Quinn UE5 mannequins with Control Rigs for keyframing in Sequencer, sharing the MetaHuman skeleton.
• MetaHuman Creator (Unreal). Epic's free realistic human generator inside UE 5.6+, outputs fully rigged body and face characters, exportable to Maya.
• P2Design Free Rigs (Blender). Pierrick Picaut's free Blender rigs: Trident, Mannequin, Crimson Ronin, P2DBOT, Trex, Mech and a 2D camera rig.
• Paragon Characters (Unreal). Epic's free Paragon hero characters on Fab: rigged game characters with skins and animation sets.
• Rain Rig (Blender). Free stylized female Blender rig from Blender Studio with IK/FK snapping, face controls and pose library, no add-ons needed.
• Rex Rig (Blender). Sprite Fright teen character rig for Blender with body and facial controls from the production.
• RigsArena (3ds Max). Blog index of 400+ free 3ds Max character, animal and prop rigs sorted by category.
• Robot Kyle (Unity). Free Unity robot character with humanoid rig, a common test model for Mecanim retargeting.
• Shalabology Free Rigs (3ds Max). Free 3ds Max rigs by Shalabology: biped, Cute Box, horse quadruped and Shiko character rigs.
• Simple Character Rig (Blender). Joey Carlino's lightweight Blender character rig with IK/FK limbs, heel and toe foot pivots and optional face rig.
• Sir Owl Rig (Toon Boom Harmony) Free, non-commercial. Free Toon Boom Harmony cut-out owl rig for animation practice and demo reels.
• Snow Rig (Blender). Free stylized male Blender rig from Blender Studio built on the Sprite Fright rig system, with IK/FK, layered face controls and pose library.
• Spineboy Example (Spine). Official Spine 2D example project showing meshes, IK, transform constraints and clipping on a rigged character.
• Sprite Rig (Blender). Sprite Fright creature rig for Blender with facial poses and animation loops from the film.
• Storm Rig (Blender) Paid. Blender Studio production rig for Blender 5 with body, hand and face pose libraries for fast blocking.
• Template-Chan (Toon Boom Harmony). Toon Boom Harmony cut-out character rig template for practice or reskinning into your own character.
• Toon Rig (Cinema 4D) Paid. Built-in Cinema 4D Character Object preset for cartoon rigs with stretch, squash and bendy limbs.
• UE5 Mannequin Blender Rig (Blender). Free Blender control rig for the UE5 Manny skeleton with root motion, FK/IK snapping and finger controls.
• UE5-Blender-Rig (Blender). Open Blender rig for UE5 Manny and Quinn skeletons with soft IK, IK/FK switch UI, finger rig and FBX export guide.
• Unity Starter Assets. Unity first- and third-person controllers with a rigged humanoid armature and locomotion animations, built on Cinemachine and Input System.
  See also: Animation & Rigging → Mocap & Animation Libraries
• Unity-Chan (Unity). Unity Technologies Japan's free anime character with humanoid rig, animations, facial blendshapes and voices.
• Vincent Rig (Blender) Paid. Classic Blender Institute cartoon character rig with squash and stretch body and expressive face controls.

AI Motion Capture Software

Also in Software Reference → AI Motion Capture Software

Lighting, Rendering & ShadersEdit

3D lighting, rendering theory, shader theory, and renderer-specific learning. Render engine software is listed under Software Reference.

3D Lighting: Fundamentals

Core lighting tutorials for beginners and generalists.

• 10 Tips for Better Lighting. Helloluxx tutorial with 10 tips for improving lighting in 3D renders.
• Creative Shrimp. Blender CG art and lighting tutorials by Gleb Alexandrov and Aidy Burrows.
• Get Better Lighting in C4D. YouTube channel of motion designer Lukas Thorup with Cinema 4D lighting tutorials and breakdowns.
• School of Motion Lighting Blog. Shadows, volumetrics, HDRI, and area light techniques.
• The Digital Revolution. YouTube channel, formerly Motion Designers Community, with beginner Cinema 4D lighting tutorials.

3D Lighting: Redshift-Specific

Redshift lighting tutorials, primarily in C4D.

• Creative Product Lighting with Redshift & C4D. Jarred van de Voort, NAB 2023.
• How to Art Direct Lights in a Cloner. Art-directing lights across cloners.
• Redshift Interior Materials & Lighting. Interior materials and lighting.
• Redshift Lighting Techniques (Essential MoGraph). Redshift lighting techniques.
• You And Me Academy. YouTube channel of You And Me Academy with Cinema 4D and Redshift tutorials, including light groups.

3D Lighting: Production

Production-focused lighting talks.

Related:

• ARRI LUKA License unspecified. Unreal Engine plugin for lighting and camera previs with virtual ARRI fixtures and cameras, lens controls and LiveLink twinning with physical ARRI cameras for LED walls.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software, VFX, Compositing & Virtual Production → Virtual Production
• CNDL Free tier. Web tool to create custom IES light profiles.
• Open Light. Standalone app that generates procedural 32-bit HDR light textures (softboxes, Kino Flos, gobos, Lee/Rosco gels) and exports EXR in ACEScg or sRGB Linear.
• UE5 Product Viz. IPhone Lighting Breakdown. YouTube channel of ali.3d with 3D tutorials, including a UE5 iPhone product lighting breakdown.

Rendering & Shader Theory

Foundational rendering and shader theory references.

Related:

• (2014) Ray tracing with OpenGL Compute Shaders. Detailed ray tracing tutorial series using OpenGL (LWJGL) by Kai Burjack.
• 3D Game Shaders (source). Open-source project with resources on learning 3D game shaders.
• 3D Game Shaders for Beginners. Clear breakdowns of SSAO, bloom, SSR.
• 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development. Book covering the 3D math foundations for graphics and game programming.
• 3D Programming Weekly Articles. Collection of shader and math related resources.
• A Gentle Introduction to Shaders in Unity3D. Series of posts introducing shader coding, oriented to developers with little to no knowledge of shaders.
• A Pixel is not a Little Square!. Classic paper debunking "a pixel is a little square." Also an intro to sampling.
• A Rapid Hierarchical Rendering Technique for Translucent Materials. Jensen & Buhler. SIGGRAPH 2002.
• A Survey on Participating Media Rendering Techniques. Cerezo et al. Visual Computer 2005.
• A Trip Through The Graphics Pipeline. Book version of Fabian Giesen's blog series on how the GPU graphics pipeline works.
• Advanced Cel Shader (Pitchfork Academy). Advanced cel shader material breakdown.
• Advanced Creative Coding with WebGL & Shaders Paid. Workshop by Matt DesLauriers going deeper into graphics programming, math, and shaders.
• Advanced Materials in Blender - Shader Editor Tutorial. Blender shader editor material tutorials.
• Alan Zucconi's Blog. Shaders and maths. Well explained and very interesting.
• An introduction to Shader Art Coding. Video tutorial on the basics of creating art with shaders.
• Anatole Drupat (XT95). Shader artist (ShaderToy XT95).
• Anime/Toon/Cel Shading Model (Envieous, UE5). Custom UE5 anime/toon/cel shading model. Works with launcher engine versions.
• apitrace. Tools for tracing OpenGL, Direct3D, and other graphics APIs.
• Appleseed. Physically-based global illumination rendering engine.
• Babylon.js Node Material Editor. Browser node graph editor for building shader-based materials for Babylon.js with a live preview.
• Bart Wronski's blog. Real-time rendering, post-processing effects, and advanced graphics techniques.
• bgfx. Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library.
• Blender & ACES. Setup Blender to work with ACES using OpenColorIO.
• Blender Addon PBR. Blender addon adding a material panel that builds Metallic/Roughness or Specular/Gloss node setups on the Principled BSDF.
• Blender Interplanety Storage (BIS) Free tier. Online material/shader storage add-on for Blender. Save node groups to a personal library and search/upload from inside Blender.
• BNPR Shaders. Collection of NPR shaders for Blender (EEVEE Comics Shader, Erisdraw3D, EEVEEToon).
• Bonzomatic. Live-coding editor for OpenGL pixel shaders, where the results appear on background as you edit the code.
• Brandon Fogerty's blog. Blog on real-time rendering, shader programming, and game engine development.
• Canvas Debugger. Tutorial on using Firefox developer tools to debug WebGL shaders.
• Casual effects by Morgan McGuire. Morgan McGuire's site with real-time rendering articles, research papers, and graphics data.
• Catlike Coding. C# and shader tutorials for Unity.
• Cel-Shader Playlist (Your Sandbox). Cel-shading playlist (17 videos), UE with Lumen.
• CelShader. Cel shader project for Unreal Engine 4.
• Cesium. Open-source library for 3D globes and maps.
• CineShader. Real-time 3D shader visualiser. Uses the Shadertoy API to bring thousands of existing shader artworks into a cinematic 3D environment.
• Circular Color Picker Unity. Shader and script for a circular color picker.
• CodeXL. AMD tool suite with a debugger, profiler, and frame/shader analysis.
• Compact YCoCg Frame Buffer. Paper on compact YCoCg frame buffer for small IBL buffers.
• ComputeToys. WebGPU compute shader editor for experimenting with GPU graphics in the browser.
• CppCon 2018: Valentin Galea “Rapid Prototyping of Graphics Shaders in Modern C++”. CppCon 2018 talk on rapid prototyping of graphics shaders in modern C++.
• Cracked Ice Shader. Cracked Ice material tutorial.
• Creative Coding with Canvas & WebGL Paid. Workshop by Matt DesLauriers on generative art, interactive animations, 3D graphics, and shaders.
• Custom shaders with Three.JS. Introduction to custom shaders, uniforms, textures, and lighting in three.js.
• Cyanilux. Unity shader tutorials (URP focus). Intro to Shader Graph, HLSL, depth, vertex displacement, dissolve, portals, water, fire. Beginner to advanced.
• Cyos. Babylon.js Create Your Own Shader editor for writing and previewing shaders in the browser.
• Daniel Ilett. Unity Shader Graph and Godot visual shader tutorials, game-effect recreations and tech art breakdowns, plus shader assets for sale.
  See also: VFX, Compositing & Virtual Production → Tech Art
• Dr.Jit. Just-in-time compiler for ordinary and differentiable array code, built as the foundation of Mitsuba 3; emits fused CUDA, Metal or LLVM CPU kernels.
  See also: AI & Machine Learning for CG → Machine Learning for CG
• Efficient Gradient-Domain Compositing Using Quadtrees. Agarwala, ACM Trans. Graph. 2007. Speeds up gradient-domain image compositing with quadtrees.
• Embree. High-performance ray tracing kernels that help engineers improve photorealistic rendering performance.
• Everything (or most things) wrong with learnopengl.com/PBR/Theory. Detailed corrections to the PBR theory page on learnopengl.com.
• Experimental analysis of BRDF models. Ngan et al. Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2005.
• Extra Lights. Blender addon adding physically based, photometric lighting presets to the Add menu.
• Fabian 'ryg' Giesen's Blog. Blog on rendering, optimization, and low-level graphics programming with a focus on practical techniques.
• Fast Filter-Width Estimates with Texture Maps. GPU Gems chapter on estimating filter widths with texture maps for antialiased procedural shaders.
• Fast Terrain Rendering Using Geometrical MipMapping. Paper on fast terrain rendering with geometrical mipmapping, a level-of-detail method for heightmaps.
• Fast Volume Rendering Using a Shear-Warp Factorization of the Viewing Transformation. Lacroute & Levoy. SIGGRAPH 1994.
• Fft Ocean. Fast Fourier Transform ocean rendering for Three.js.
• Filament. PBR engine, available on all platforms (desktop, mobile).
• Flow Map Shader. Flow Map Shader for Unity3D. Used with sprites.
• FogSprites. Modification of Unity's sprite shaders supporting Fog.
• Fragment Foundry. Interactive fragment shader tutorial.
• Fragmentarium. Program to edit and visualize GLSL shaders, mainly focused on fractals and generative systems.
• Framer Motion. Animation library for React, usable with react-three-fiber via the framer-motion-3d package.
• fSync. Unofficial fSpy/Maya bridge which also creates projection shaders.
• Glass for EEVEE. Shader that lets you make realistic glass with EEVEE.
• Global illumination using photon maps. Jensen, H. W. Rendering Techniques 1996.
• Glow. Unity Shader Graph glow effect test.
• GLSL Optimizer. GLSL optimizer based on Mesa's GLSL compiler. Used in Unity for mobile shader optimization.
• GLSL Sandbox. Online live editor for fragment shaders.
• GlslEditor. Simple WebGL fragment shader editor.
• glslViewer (GitHub). Console-based GLSL sandbox for 2D/3D shaders, for a creative pipeline agnostic to the target platform.
• glslViewer (write-up). Write-up on glslViewer, a live-coding console tool that renders GLSL shaders.
• GPU Zen Blog. Blog on GPU programming and advanced rendering techniques, often featuring excerpts from the GPU Zen book series.
• Graphics for Games. Introduction to 3D graphics programming covering shaders, math, and post-processing, from Newcastle University.
• Graphics Programming Resources. Papers, talks, implementations aggregated by community.
• GrassBending. Replacement for Unity's terrain grass shader with alpha-blended rendering and touch bending.
• gsap Free tier. Animation library for CSS and JavaScript, framework agnostic and usable with three.js, backed by plugins like ScrollTrigger and Flip.
• Houdini Gaussian Splatting Viewport Renderer. HDK/GLSL implementation of Gaussian Splatting in Houdini.
• How does a GPU Shader work?. Academy slides on how a GPU shader works.
• How to Create a Fake 3D Image Effect with WebGL. Tutorial on faking a 3D depth effect in WebGL with displacement maps.
• How to read shader assembly. Guide to reading compiled shader assembly.
• ibreakdownshaders. Explore the math behind shaders.
• Inigo Quilez. Articles on SDFs, shader math and procedural graphics by Inigo Quilez, co-creator of Shadertoy.
• Instanced Line Rendering Part II: Alpha blending. Covers alpha-blending with triangulated instanced lines.
• Intel Open Image Denoise. Open-source library of high-performance, high-quality denoising filters for ray-traced images.
• Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach with Shader-Based OpenGL, 6/E Paid. Textbook on interactive computer graphics with shader-based OpenGL (6th ed.).
• Intro Three.js. Introduction to pixel shaders in three.js.
• Introduction to shaders. Part 1 of an introduction to shaders using three.js.
• IOR List. Index of Refraction values list for use with 3D applications.
• Jendrik Illner's blog. Ubisoft 3D programmer posts a weekly summary of articles on 3D graphics. Shader tutorials, real-time rendering papers, etc.
• Khronos: Streamlining Render Passes. Introduces the VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering Vulkan extension.
• Learn OpenGL. Deep rendering concepts from scratch (lighting, shadows, PBR, SSAO).
• Learn OpenGL: Skeletal Animation. Learn OpenGL guest article on skeletal animation.
• Learn OpenGL: Text Rendering. Learn OpenGL chapter on text rendering.
• Let's remove Quaternions from every 3D Engine. Introduces Rotors in Geometric Algebra.
• Light field rendering. Levoy & Hanrahan. SIGGRAPH 1996.
• Light House 3D. GLSL core tutorial series by Lighthouse3D.
• Lightning Boy Studio. Toon and NPR shading for Blender.
• Lily Surface Scrapper. Blender addon that imports materials and shaders from a single URL.
• Lygia. Multi-language shader library of reusable functions.
• Lygia (GitHub). Granular, multi-language shader library built for performance and flexibility.
• Magnum (GitHub). 2D/3D graphics engine for modern OpenGL.
• Makin' Stuff Look Good. YouTube channel with shader case studies.
• Manga/Outline Shader Playlist (Hepner Kamil). Manga/outline shader playlist (18 videos): outlines and toon shaders.
• Marmoset Resources. Baking guides, PBR theory, technical articles.
• Matcap - Spherical Environment Mapping Shader. Matcap - creating a spherical reflection/environment mapping shader.
• Memory Management section on Pbrt. Memory management chapter from the PBR Book (pbrt).
• Microfacet Models for Refraction through Rough Surfaces. Walter et al. Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2007.
• Mitsuba. A research-oriented retargetable rendering system, written in portable C++17 on top of the Enoki library.
• Moebius-style 3D Rendering (Useless Game Dev). Moebius-style rendering: Sobel filter on depth map, crosshatch, fades.
• Multitexturing using a Blendmap. How to use a blendmap to multitexture a terrain.
• NEORT. Digital art platform for creative coders (fragment shaders, JavaScript Canvas).
• NeRF-Tex: Neural Reflectance Field Textures. Baatz et al., EGSR 2021. Neural reflectance field textures for rendering fur, grass and fabric.
• Node To Python. Blender addon that converts Geometry, Shader, and Compositing node trees into legible Python scripts and add-ons.
• OpenGL 3D Game Tutorials. Beginner tutorial series on creating 3D games with OpenGL.
• OpenGL 4 Shaders. Short introduction to OpenGL shaders by Anton Gerdelan.
• OpenPBR BSDF (Adobe). Adobe's single-header reference implementation of the OpenPBR 1.1.1 BSDF from its Eclair renderer, with evaluate/sample/PDF code that targets C++, GLSL, CUDA, MSL or Slang.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Pipeline Standards
• Optimally Combining Sampling Techniques for Monte Carlo Rendering. Veach & Guibas. SIGGRAPH 1995.
• Path tracing fractals. Path tracing 3D fractals in a fragment shader, by Mikael Hvidtfeldt Christensen.
• Patricio Gonzales Vivo. Shader artist and educator, main contributor to The Book of Shaders.
• PBRT v3. Source code for pbrt, the renderer from the third edition of "Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation".
• PBRT v4. Ray tracer from "Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation" book.
• Physically Based Rendering (3rd ed online). Third edition of the PBR book online, with the ray tracer implementation.
• Physically Based Rendering (PBR Book). Full book free online. Definitive PBR reference.
• Physics-Based Animation. Learning resources and papers on physics-based animation.
• PicoGL.js. Minimal WebGL 2-only rendering library.
• Pixel Shaders. Interactive introduction to graphics programming.
• PixelSpirit Elements Deck. Tarot-style deck for learning GLSL shaders, each card pairing a visual element with its shader code, ordered simplest to most complex.
• PixelSpirit GitHub. Code library for the PixelSpirit Elements deck of GLSL shader cards.
• Practical Rendering of Multiple Scattering Effects in Participating Media. Premoze et al. Rendering Techniques 2004: 15th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering.
• Procedural Stochastic Texturing. Modified Unity Standard shader implementing procedural stochastic texturing.
• Ptex. Texture mapping system developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios for production-quality rendering.
• Pyro Shader (Redshift, Arnold, RenderMan) Paid. Pyro and fire shader presets for Redshift, Arnold, and RenderMan.
• Ray Tracey's blog. Sam Lapere's blog, leads the scientific team at EPFL Blue Brain Project. Lots of post about real time rendering.
• Ray Tracing Gems. Book of standalone chapters on various ray tracing topics.
• Ray Tracing Gems II. Second volume of standalone chapters on ray tracing topics.
• Ray Tracing in One Weekend. Peter Shirley's free book to get you implementing a basic ray tracer in C++ in about 40 pages.
• Ray Tracing in One Weekend series. Three short books explaining path tracing concepts and building a software renderer from scratch.
• Ray Tracing: The Next Week. By Peter Shirley, builds on the first book by adding effects like textures and motion blur.
• Ray Tracing: The Rest of Your Life. Peter Shirley's last book in the series, covering more mathematical themes for complete renderers.
• Raymarching On Unity 5. GitHub repo with a raymarching renderer for Unity 5.
• Real-Time Rendering. Companion site to the book, massive curated link collection.
• Real-Time Rendering Blog. Blog tied to the Real-Time Rendering book series, with rendering techniques, industry news, and research.
• Real-Time Rendering recommended books. List of recommended books on the Real-Time Rendering site.
• Realistic water shader. Realistic ocean and water shader for Three.js with notes on the approach.
• Reddit Two Triangles. General discussion and showcase for shaders.
• RenderDoc. Free open-source graphics debugger that captures and analyzes frames from DirectX, Vulkan, and OpenGL applications.
• Rendering Resources - Benedikt Bitterli. Test scenes in Tungsten, Mitsuba, and pbrt-v3 formats.
• Resources for Writing Shaders in Unity. Companion resources for the UNITE Boston 2015 talk Writing Shaders: YOU can do it!
• ReSTCV: Spatio-Temporal Control Variates with ReSTIR for Real-Time Rendering. SIGGRAPH 2026 paper with code that combines ReSTIR sample reuse with spatio-temporal control variates to cut noise and color flicker in real-time path tracing.
  See also: AI & Machine Learning for CG → Research Papers
• Ronja's Tutorials. Written Unity HLSL shader tutorials from basics to noise, signed distance fields, outlines, post-processing and compute shaders.
  See also: VFX, Compositing & Virtual Production → Tech Art
• RTX Neural Shading SDK License unspecified. NVIDIA SDK with Slang samples for training small neural networks and running them inside shaders through DirectX or Vulkan cooperative vectors.
  See also: AI & Machine Learning for CG → Machine Learning for CG
• RTX Neural Texture Compression SDK. NVIDIA beta SDK that compresses a material's full PBR texture set into latents plus a small neural decoder that runs on the GPU at render time.
  See also: AI & Machine Learning for CG → Machine Learning for CG
• Scene.js. Extensible WebGL-based engine for high-detail 3D visualisation.
• Scratchapixel. Ray tracing, rasterization, math foundations from first principles.
• Shader Derivative Functions. Shader derivative functions (ddx/ddy), useful for normals.
• Shader Designer. TyphoonLabs OpenGL shader designer.
• Shader Displacement for EEVEE Paid. Using a few modifiers and a nodegroup, realtime shader displacement in EEVEE is now possible.
• Shader Editor. Tutorial on live-editing WebGL shaders with Firefox developer tools.
• Shader Effects. GitHub repo with a set of shader effects for Unity.
• Shader Graph Tutorials. Project files for the Brackeys Shader Graph tutorials in Unity.
• Shader Lab Lab. System using T4 Templates to generate Unity ShaderLab code in the editor.
• Shader Park. JavaScript library for interactive procedural 2D/3D shaders, with a built-in raymarcher, SDFs, and boolean operations.
• SHADERed. Lightweight tool for creating and testing HLSL and GLSL shaders.
• ShaderForge. Node-based Unity shader editor, no coding required. Open source and unmaintained.
• ShaderFrog. Online shader editor and asset manager that exports shaders for Three.js, Unity, and other engines, with visual shader editing.
• ShaderGif. Open source home for art made with code (WebGL1/2, JavaScript Canvas, P5.js).
• Shaderific for OpenGL. Reference documentation for GLSL built-in functions and variables in OpenGL.
• Shaderific GLSL. OpenGL ES shading language reference.
• ShaderProject. Container for a range of handy Unity shaders.
• Shaders Laboratory. YouTube channel about shaders.
• ShaderShop editor. Visual editor for building shaders by composing shaping functions.
• ShaderShop videos. Videos about Shadershop, Toby Schachman's visual tool for building shader functions.
• ShaderTool Paid. Modern shader IDE for programmers and FX artists.
• ShadowDrawer. Shadow matte shader for Unity.
• Shadowing by Non-Gaussian Random Surfaces. Garry S. Brown. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation 1980.
• Shaping functions. Set of shaping functions for shaders.
• SHDR Editor. Live GLSL shader editor, viewer, and validator.
• Slang Shading Language. Khronos-hosted shading language with modules, generics and automatic differentiation that compiles to D3D12, Vulkan, Metal and CUDA targets.
  See also: AI & Machine Learning for CG → Machine Learning for CG
• Stack.gl. Modular WebGL shader and graphics tools.
• Stanford Bunny Fur With Unity. Geometry shader generating fur on the GPU.
• Static Object Intersections - Real Time Rendering Resource Page. Collection of intersection algorithms.
• Stylized Comic Book Shader (Chris Folea Makes Things). Stylized comic book shading in UE without post-processing.
• Substance Academy. Free official Substance Painter/Designer tutorials.
• Synthclipse. GLSL shader prototyping tool.
• Temporal light field reconstruction for rendering distribution effects. Lehtinen et al. SIGGRAPH 2011.
• Terrain Rendering Using GPU-Based Geometry Clipmaps. GPU Gems 2 chapter on rendering large terrains on the GPU with geometry clipmaps.
• The Art of Code (channel). Tutorials on shaders using ShaderToy, mostly videos on procedural generation.
• The Book of Shaders. Interactive intro to GLSL fragment shaders.
• The Book of Shaders Glossary. Shader glossary by theme.
• The Interactive Shader Format (ISF) Editor. Online tool for creating and editing GLSL shaders in the ISF format, used in VJ software, live performance, and interactive installations.
• The Shader Permutation Problem - Part 1: How Did We Get Here?. Article on why shader permutations explode in real-time engines.
• The Shader Permutation Problem - Part 2: How Do We Fix It?. Article on strategies for managing shader permutation explosion.
• Three Blender. Blender tool that converts Blender files directly to Three.js.
• TSL Graph. Node editor for Three.js Shading Language with live 3D preview, code nodes, subgraphs and one-click export to TSL JavaScript.
• Tungsten. High performance physically based renderer in C++11.
• Twigl. Free online shader editor.
• Unity Compute Shader Ray Tracing Practice. Ray tracing compute shader tutorial for Unity.
• Unity Fluid Simulation 2D. Extended camera renders particles, then metaball processing via shader.
• Unity Outline Shader. Source code for an Outline Shader tutorial. Detects edges using the depth and normals buffers.
• Unity Raymarching Collision. Raymarching and rigidbody interaction example.
• Unity Shader Cheatsheet. Collection of Unity shader snippets and gotchas.
• Unity Shader Sketches. Sketches made with ShaderLab in Unity.
• Unity Shader Tutorials. Full project and code for a set of Unity shader tutorials.
• Unity Shaders. Unity project researching shaders and particle systems.
• Unity3D Shaders Learning. Unity3D shader learning examples.
• UnityGPUNoise. Shaders for various noise functions on the GPU.
• USD Arnold. USD Schemas and tools for exchanging Arnold shader information between multiple 3rd party packages.
• Vertex Shader Art. Platform for creating and sharing vertex shaders, with a focus on artistic and experimental uses.
• Vertexshaderart (YouTube). YouTube playlist about vertex shaders.
• VerticalDissolve. Procedural vertical dissolve shader. Tweak edge color, noisiness, waviness, rim light, emission scrolling.
• VFX good night reading. Curated collection of good reading about VFX and CG.
• VilarVRC. Vilar's shaders for VRChat.
• Virtual ray lights for rendering scenes with participating media. Novák et al. SIGGRAPH 2012.
• Virtual Terrain Project. Tools for constructing real-world terrain in interactive 3D form.
• WebGL 2 Basics. Blog post on getting started with WebGL 2.
• WebGL 2 New Features. Blog post on what is new in WebGL 2.
• WebGL Fundamentals. In-depth WebGL resource covering 3D rendering, lighting, and 2D transforms from first principles.
• WebGl Playground. Editor for working on JavaScript code and GLSL vertex/fragment shaders side by side, with organized formatting and highlighting.
• Whitestorm.js (site). Framework for developing 3D web apps with physics.
• Wind Waker Shader. Cel shading of two thresholds with a blur/gradient between them for Unity.
• Writing an efficient Vulkan renderer. Deep dive on writing an efficient Vulkan renderer.
• xeokit. Web graphics SDK for AEC/BIM applications with 3D tiles, real-world coordinates, and double precision.

Renderer-Specific Learning

Deep-dives for specific render engines.

• Ariev Visuals Resources. Octane tutorials and assets.
• Arnold Resources. Official shaders, docs, tutorials.
• Redshift Community. Forums, shaders, resources.
• Takua Renderer. Karl Li's hobbyist physically-based renderer project page with technical write-ups.
• Veach Thesis (Stanford). Light transport theory. Foundational PBR thesis.

Render Engines

Also in Software Reference → Render Engines

VFX, Compositing & Virtual ProductionEdit

VFX tools learning, compositing, virtual production stacks, and tech art channels. Software tables are under Software Reference.

Virtual Production

Real-time engines and hardware stacks for virtual production.

Related:

• Antilatency Paid. Inside-out IMU plus optical tracking system for VR, virtual production camera tracking and mocap, with multi-target tracking over areas up to 100x100 m.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software
• ARRI LUKA License unspecified. Unreal Engine plugin for lighting and camera previs with virtual ARRI fixtures and cameras, lens controls and LiveLink twinning with physical ARRI cameras for LED walls.
  See also: Software Reference → Virtual Production Software, Lighting, Rendering & Shaders → 3D Lighting: Production
• ASC StEM3 (LED Volume Test Material). Free test kit from the ASC for evaluating LED volumes before an ICVFX shoot: Unreal Engine environments, 2D driving plates, test elements and a reference short.
• Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive Paid. Stereo 180° cinema camera for Apple Immersive Video: dual 8K sensors at 8160x7200 per eye, 90 fps, Blackmagic RAW, finished in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
  See also: Game Development → XR, AR & VR: Resources
• CasparCG. Layer-based real-time compositor that plays out professional graphics, audio, and video to multiple broadcast outputs.
• NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprints. Omniverse blueprints and reference pipelines.
• Vizibeat Free tier. Unreal Engine 5 plugin that drives lights, cameras, materials and particles from audio, MIDI, OSC or DMX through a procedural motion graph; aimed at concert and music-video visuals.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → Motion Graphics: Tools & Utilities

Tech Art

Tech art breakdowns, procedural art, and tutorials.

Related:

• AFX. Everyday compositing plugins for Nuke.
• Daniel Ilett. Unity Shader Graph and Godot visual shader tutorials, game-effect recreations and tech art breakdowns, plus shader assets for sale.
  See also: Lighting, Rendering & Shaders → Rendering & Shader Theory
• Harry Alisavakis (Technically Art). Tech artist blog with shader breakdowns (Shaderquest, Shader bits) and the Technically Art newsletter archive of real-time tech art finds.
• Jam2go. Procedural art and creative coding.
• max rose. Tech art breakdowns on YouTube.
• No More Manual Retime (Nuke). Free Nuke tool that matches an editorial retime to its plate from picture or burned-in timecode and rebuilds it as TimeWarp, Reformat and Transform nodes with a QC branch.
• Node Mailer (Nuke) License unspecified. Nuke plugin for sending nodes to other artists on the local network with automatic discovery and a received-node history; no server or shared drive needed.
• Nuke Tools (VS Code). VS Code extension for Nuke Python/BlinkScript development.
• Nuke Tools ST. Sublime Text package to send Python/BlinkScript code into Nuke.
• NXT. Layered, code-driven graph editor for building reusable rigging and pipeline logic.
• Open Test Patterns. Open-source generator of colour-accurate test patterns (SMPTE bars, ColorChecker, PQ steps, zone plates) exported as EXR, DPX, TIFF or PNG; web app, CLI or Docker.
• OpenWalter. USD plugins for Arnold, Houdini, Katana, and Maya.
• Ronja's Tutorials. Written Unity HLSL shader tutorials from basics to noise, signed distance fields, outlines, post-processing and compute shaders.
  See also: Lighting, Rendering & Shaders → Rendering & Shader Theory
• Simon Schreibt. Game Art Tricks and Workflow Tricks. Technical breakdowns of how games achieve effects (mirrors, fog, rendering tricks).
• Tech-Artists.Org. Long-running forum for technical artists with boards for rigging, coding, tools, VFX, Maya and pipelines, plus job listings.
• Visual Tech Art. YouTube channel with technical art tutorials, mostly Unreal Engine shaders and materials.
• Volumetric Noise (Compositing Academy) Paid. Nuke plugin that raymarches procedural 3D noise into fog, smoke and cloud volumes with a directional light, depth or P-pass occlusion and motion blur.
  See also: Software Reference → VFX & Compositing Software
• xComp. Viewer for comparing rendered image versions side by side.
• ZibraGDS Paid. Unreal Engine plugin that compresses animated geometry caches (destruction, cloth, liquids) by roughly 80 to 92% and plays them back in real time.
  See also: Game Development → Unreal Engine: Resources

Compositing Learning, Books & Industry

Nuke creators, comp theory books, VFX breakdown sites, and industry magazines.

• 8-bit to Half Float CopyCat (Moving Image Arts). Free Nuke CopyCat ML model plus tutorial. Recovers clamped highlights and reduces 8-bit color banding. Downloadable .cat file.
• Befores & Afters. Ian Failes. Shot breakdowns and artist Q&As across VFX features.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → 3D Inspiration & Showcase
• Book: Compositing Visual Effects (Lee Lanier) Paid. Lee Lanier. Applied, project-based comp instruction.
• Book: Digital Compositing for Film and Video (Steve Wright, 4th ed.) Paid. Standard text on digital compositing. Math + practical workflow.
• Book: The Art and Science of Digital Compositing (Brinkmann, 2nd ed.) Paid. Ron Brinkmann's theoretical canon for digital compositing.
• Cinefex (archive). Legacy VFX-making journal archives.
• Compositing Academy Paid. Paid Nuke compositing courses and career training from working VFX compositors.
• CompositingMentor Paid. Tobias Wiesner's paid mentorship-style Nuke courses. Deep compositing focus.
• Digital Production. VFX, post and animation trade magazine (English and German) with daily news on compositing plugins, Resolve/Fusion tools, Nuke releases and production breakdowns.
• Fixed in Post. On-demand VFX and compositing lessons for film and TV, focused on Fusion, with downloadable project assets and free Fusion macros.
• Foundry Learn (Nuke). Official Foundry training. Free tutorials plus certification tracks.
• Hugo's Desk (Hugo Guerra) Mixed. Pro Nuke compositing tutorials and breakdowns from CG Supe Hugo Guerra.
• NukePedia. Canonical Nuke community library. Gizmos, scripts, tutorials, plugins.
  See also: Software Reference → VFX & Compositing Software
• Steve Wright Training Paid. Steve Wright (author of the standard Nuke text) structured comp course series.
• The Art of VFX. VFX supervisor interviews per film.
• VES On-Set VFX Data Collection and Usage Guide. Visual Effects Society guide to on-set VFX data: capture methods for each data set, who uses it, directory structure and reference docs; free PDF and web version.
• VFX Apprentice (Allan McKay) Paid. Paid VFX career courses. Nuke + Houdini overlap.
• VFX Voice Free tier. Visual Effects Society magazine covering VFX in film, TV, games and commercials; quarterly issues plus web-only articles.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → 3D Communities & Forums

VFX & Compositing Software

Also in Software Reference → VFX & Compositing Software

Matchmoving & Camera Tracking Software

Also in Software Reference → Matchmoving & Camera Tracking Software

Virtual Production Software

Also in Software Reference → Virtual Production Software

Motion Graphics & VideoEdit

Motion graphics tools, inspiration, AE / Fusion learning, and video editing. Stock footage is under Assets & Libraries.

Motion Graphics: YouTube Channels

Motion design learning channels.

• Ben Marriott. After Effects and motion design.
• Jake In Motion (Jake Bartlett). Motion design channel by educator Jake Bartlett: After Effects, Rive and Figma animation tutorials, with free presets, rigs and sample projects on his site.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → After Effects: Learning & Templates

After Effects: Learning & Templates

AE expressions, templates, and workflow resources.

• After Effects Command IDs. Interactive viewer and JSON files listing After Effects menu Command IDs across versions, for use in scripts.
• After Effects Expression Reference (docsforadobe). Community-maintained reference of After Effects expression methods, objects and attributes.
• After Effects Scripting Guide (docsforadobe). Community-maintained reference for the After Effects ExtendScript scripting API, part of the docsforadobe.dev directory.
• Code Runner 2 (Jake In Motion). Free After Effects panel of custom buttons that run scripts, expressions, presets, menu commands and eases, organised in shareable collections.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → Motion Graphics: Tools & Utilities
• Expression Alchemist License unspecified. After Effects extension for building expressions as a node graph that compiles to native JavaScript expressions.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → Motion Graphics: Tools & Utilities
• Jake In Motion (Jake Bartlett). Motion design channel by educator Jake Bartlett: After Effects, Rive and Figma animation tutorials, with free presets, rigs and sample projects on his site.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → Motion Graphics: YouTube Channels
• Jitter Templates. Free motion graphics templates.
• MotionVFX Paid. Plugin and template vendor mainly for Final Cut Pro (also Resolve, Premiere, After Effects): AI roto, 3D tracking, film looks, titles and transitions; joining Apple Creator Studio.
  See also: Tools, Pipeline & Utilities → Plugin & Addon Marketplaces
• ProVideo Coalition. Video production and post news site: Premiere and Resolve tips, a monthly After Effects Portal roundup of new plugins and scripts, camera and Mac hardware reviews.
  See also: Learning, Community & Industry → 3D Communities & Forums
• Top 5 Expressions (graymachine). Essential AE expressions.

Fusion (DaVinci Resolve): Learning

Fusion references and EXR workflow.

• FFmpeg Encoder Plugin for DaVinci Resolve. Encoder plugin that exports H.264, H.265 and AV1 from DaVinci Resolve Studio through FFmpeg, with VAAPI, Vulkan and NVENC GPU encoding on Linux.
• InPaint Fusion Macro (Fixed in Post). Free Fusion macro for paint-outs that fills a matted area from surrounding edge pixels and restores grain and texture from the plate; also on Reactor.
• Instancer 2D (noVFX) Paid. GPU OFX plugin for Resolve and Fusion that scatters thousands of image, text or footage instances with 12 distribution modes, per-instance fields, motion blur and bokeh.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → Motion Graphics: Tools & Utilities
• Krokodove License unspecified. Long-running toolset of procedural Fusion and Resolve nodes: image processing, warps, shape and pattern generators, 3D instancing and modifiers; bundled with Resolve 21.
• Mononodes Paid. Paid DCTLs, OFX plugins and apps for DaVinci Resolve colorists, including film print emulation, texture and node utilities.
• Multichannel EXR (Fusion forum). Multichannel EXR workflow in Fusion.
• Open Display Transform. Picture formation tools, including OpenDRT, that render scene-linear wide-gamut images for SDR or HDR displays, shipped as Resolve DCTLs and Nuke nodes.
• Paperwolf Plugins Paid. Nine stylised OFX effects for DaVinci Resolve (datamosh, glyph rebuild, dithering, camcorder looks, tracking overlays, depth graphics, handheld shake).
• PixelTools Paid. OFX and DCTL plugins plus PowerGrades for DaVinci Resolve, made by working colorists.
• Puppet Pin (Tangenten) License unspecified. Fusion node for Resolve that builds a mesh from a cutout and poses it with up to 48 pins, IK/FK chains and wind, wiggle and spring deformers.
• Rembg-Fuse. Fusion Fuse that runs the rembg U-2-Net model to remove backgrounds from footage inside DaVinci Resolve.
• Resolve OpenCaptions. Tools that use the Resolve API to build Text+ caption tracks from SRT files and Text+ templates, and export Text+ tracks back to SRT.
• Shaderfuse Free, non-commercial. Shadertoy WebGL shaders converted to DCTL Fuses for use in DaVinci Resolve and Fusion.
• Split EXR in Fusion. Xuan Prada guide to splitting multichannel EXR files into separate passes in Fusion.
• Utility DCTLs (Thatcher Freeman). Collection of DaVinci Resolve DCTLs and Fuses for film grain, halation, gamut compression, tone mapping, lens distortion and LUT analysis.

Motion Graphics: Inspiration

Showcases, style frames, title sequences, ad references.

Related:

• Ads of the World. Archive of advertising campaigns from around the world for creative reference.
• AEJuice Free tier. Free and premium motion presets, transitions, and effects packs installable directly via a panel inside After Effects.
• After Effects Facebook Group. Join the After Effects community on Facebook.
• Animation Nodes (GitHub). A node-based visual scripting system designed for motion graphics in Blender.
• Animation Nodes (site). A node-based visual scripting system designed for motion graphics in Blender.
• Art of Style Frame. Showcase of style frames from motion design and animation projects.
• Art of the Title. Title sequence deep dives.
  See also: Art, Design & Visual Storytelling → Pre-Production, Storyboarding & Script Tools
• Behance Motion. Behance gallery of motion design projects.
• Commotion (Blender add-on). Blender add-on for motion graphics.
• Eyecannndy. Visual effects and motion inspiration.
• FilmGrab. Curated film stills archive. Free.
  See also: Art, Design & Visual Storytelling → Pre-Production, Storyboarding & Script Tools
• Flim AI Free tier. Film frame search engine.
  See also: Art, Design & Visual Storytelling → Pre-Production, Storyboarding & Script Tools
• FrameRate Free tier. Video hosting and portfolio platform for motion designers and filmmakers, with client review and a curated community. Vimeo alternative.
• Hall of Frame. Community-submitted archive of motion design, typography, 3D, and VFX references, filterable by category and format.
• Houdini 2 AE. Tool for exporting camera and locators from Houdini to After Effects.
• John Berube. Motion design portfolio and resources.
• Mobox Graphics. In-depth After Effects tutorials focused on motion design.
• Motionographer. Site that showcases motion design work and covers the industry.
• nexrender. Data-driven render automation for After Effects.
• Opening Titles (Vimeo). Title sequence collection.
• PlayPhrase.me Free tier. Phrase-based film clip search.
• RailCut Paid. Multi-track clip editing directly in After Effects with NLE-style tools like ripple edit, rolling edit, slip, and slide.
• React UMG. A React renderer for Unreal Motion Graphics with Unreal.js.
• Reddit - r/AfterEffects. The After Effects subreddit for community discussions and sharing.
• Rubberhose 2 Paid. Shape-layer-based IK limb rigging system for fast character animation with one-click rig creation.
• ShotDeck Paid. Searchable film still library for storyboards and references.
  See also: Art, Design & Visual Storytelling → Pre-Production, Storyboarding & Script Tools
• Stash Magazine Free tier. Motion design and animation showcase.

Motion Graphics: Tools & Utilities

MG-specific tools and utilities.

Related:

• 3dsvg. Browser tool that turns SVG logos and icons into lit, animated 3D objects and exports 4K images or video.
• Bolt CEP. Vite and TypeScript boilerplate for building Adobe CEP extensions in Svelte, React or Vue, with hot reload and type-safe ExtendScript.
• Caddis Paid. Motion design app with layer timeline and node compositing.
• Choreo. Free browser design tool for UI micro-interactions where hover, press, focus and drag states are built on a live canvas and handed off as code.
• Citron (Animator NOW) Paid. Maya-style graph editor panel for After Effects: edit many property curves at once with tangent handles, lattice cage, speed graph and exact value entry.
• Code Runner 2 (Jake In Motion). Free After Effects panel of custom buttons that run scripts, expressions, presets, menu commands and eases, organised in shareable collections.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → After Effects: Learning & Templates
• DitherFactory Paid. After Effects effect with 27 dithering algorithms (error diffusion, Bayer, halftone) and keyframeable colour reduction, no Photoshop round trip.
• Duik. Free After Effects rigging and animation toolkit with IK, walk cycles and automation.
• DuME. Free, open-source desktop media encoder for rendering and transcoding video.
• Easing Functions. Visual reference of common easing curves with code snippets.
• Element 3D Paid. A 3D plugin for After Effects that allows you to import and animate 3D models.
• Excalimate. Browser tool that turns Excalidraw diagrams into keyframe animations and exports MP4, WebM, GIF, animated SVG and dotLottie, with an MCP server.
• Expression Alchemist License unspecified. After Effects extension for building expressions as a node graph that compiles to native JavaScript expressions.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → After Effects: Learning & Templates
• HyperFrames. Open-source framework from HeyGen that renders HTML compositions to video, built for AI agents to author motion graphics as code.
• Instancer 2D (noVFX) Paid. GPU OFX plugin for Resolve and Fusion that scatters thousands of image, text or footage instances with 12 distribution modes, per-instance fields, motion blur and bokeh.
  See also: Motion Graphics & Video → Fusion (DaVinci Resolve): Learning
• Jitter Free tier. Browser-based collaborative motion design tool.
• Kilnframe. Premiere Pro and Resolve Studio plugin that listens to speech in a marked range and renders matching animated inserts with sound effects locally via HyperFrames.
• Lottielab Free tier. Editor for Lottie animations targeting apps and websites.
• Lowkey Studio. Browser keyframe compositor that layers video, images and audio on a timeline with GPU shader effects, running on WebGPU.
• Manim Community. Python library for mathematical animations, a community fork of 3Blue1Brown's Manim.
• MatterAE Free tier. Real-time 2D physics panel for After Effects: tweak gravity, bounce and weight during playback, add animated colliders, then bake to editable keyframes.
• Motion Canvas. TypeScript library and editor for code-driven explainer animations synced to audio.
• Motion Dock (Motion Fun). Free After Effects panel that docks 28 Motion Fun tools (Petals, AEbar, Picky and 20 utilities for renaming, parenting, keyframes, counters and renders) in one layout.
• Motion Studio (Mt. Mograph) Paid. Extension with 80+ tools for easing, anchor points, layer management and color, running inside After Effects, Premiere Pro, Illustrator and DaVinci Resolve.
• Motionity. Open-source browser motion graphics editor with keyframing, masking, filters and text animations.
• Newton 4 Paid. 2D physics engine for After Effects that turns 2D layers into physics simulations.
• Nukepedia Lens Engine. Lens simulation gizmo for Nuke.
• Nw Wrld. Experimental motion tool.
• Overlord Paid. Bridge that sends Figma, Photoshop and Illustrator layers to After Effects in one click, keeping gradients, live text and shape names.
• Periodic Table of Motion. Reference chart of motion design principles and techniques.
• PixelCrash Paid. Creative motion and visual tools.
• Plainly Paid. Cloud service that turns After Effects templates into data-driven video: marks dynamic layers, pulls rows from CSV, API or integrations and renders variations in the cloud.
• Plate Paid. WebGPU motion design tool running in the browser, with macOS and Windows builds.
• Plexus Paid. After Effects plugin that connects generated particles with lines and triangles.
• React Spring. Library for physically accurate animations, works with react-three-fiber.
• Remotion Free tier. React framework for building and rendering videos in code.
• Shader Lab. Browser WebGPU editor that stacks and keyframes shader effects on images, video, text and 3D models, with video export.
• SVGator Free tier. Browser SVG animation editor for keyframing vector illustrations into animated SVG for web and apps.
• Theatre.js. JavaScript animation library with a visual keyframe editor for animating Three.js scenes, WebGPU setups and UI on the web.
• ThorVG. Open-source C++ vector graphics engine that renders SVG and Lottie animations, with WebGPU and other GPU backends.
• Vizibeat Free tier. Unreal Engine 5 plugin that drives lights, cameras, materials and particles from audio, MIDI, OSC or DMX through a procedural motion graph; aimed at concert and music-video visuals.
  See also: VFX, Compositing & Virtual Production → Virtual Production
• VKO Shader (VKO1) Paid. Native After Effects effect with 91 GPU shaders, a thumbnail browser and custom GLSL support; parameters keyframe or react to comp audio and BPM.

2D & Animation Software

Also in Software Reference → 2D & Animation Software

Video Editing Software

Also in Software Reference → Video Editing Software

Audio Software

Also in Software Reference → Audio Software