New Add-On for Blender: FurryVNE Expression Manager is on the way!

Hey everyone, Blacky here!

I've been working on a little helper tool for blender which will manage your shape keys and get you started with creating expressions for your characters.

Video demo here.

So, without further ado, I proudly present the FurryVNE Expression Manager to you:

You can find it on the right side of your outliner and it's divided in four sections.

"Add Presets"

This one let's you add various presets via buttons to your character (or all of them).

Please note, that those come without a value though.

They are meant to save you time typing down all those keys or to give you inspiration for what kinds of emotes you could create.

"Smart Operators"

This section contains the core functions:

The two "Split" operators automatically create left and right shape keys out of either all your present "ue_" keys or just the selected one, depending on which button you use. The new keys will automatically be named based on your initial key plus the L or R respectively.

The "Create R/L Counterparts" operator searches your entire outliner for shape keys with either L or R in it and creates the missing counterpart.

The "Combine R & L to Main Key" operator then can be used to automatically create the unified version from two matching pairs of R and L keys, naming it based on the initial shapes.

That means, if your character is not symmetrical or struggles with blenders mirror functions, you can simply create shape keys for one side and let those two operations handle the rest for you. You're only two clicks away from a full set of emotes!

Finally, the "Combine Selected Keys" operation opens up a menu from where you can choose any of your present shape keys. By selecting their boxes, pick a name for your new shape key and pressing the OK button, it combines all those selected shapes into a new key.

“Utilities”

The “Sort Shape Keys” function sorts your entire outliner so that all the presets land in a predetermined order. The main key always comes first, then the R version, then the L version.

If you add your own keys, those will also be sorted in their respective section as long as you keep the spelling consistent. Otherwise it will simply sort alphabetically.

The other two buttons are adding either the R” or “L” to your present keys. Those are coming in handy if you, like mentioned earlier, struggle with blenders mirror function and rather want to go for the one-sided approach.

Mirror Shape Key (vertex)

Finally, the last section is dedicated to mirroring the current shape key you are currently working on.

You can either choose to mirror all deformations from (your POV's) right side to the left or the other way around.

Again, this is meant to be the silver bullet against all faces and body types which don't work with blenders mirror functions well. Please beware that this function is running on vertex basis and is taking blenders X-Axis as middle point. That means, if your e.g. are having teeth models on your characters head that are technically on the right hand side but reach over to the left and across the X-Axis, those vertices will get mushed together while mirroring, giving wrong mirror results.

I hope you all like this and it will help you out getting started with creating emotes for your characters.

This add-on will be included on the next upcoming release in April.

Till then, have a good week!

-Blacky