Blender + Unreal | Mr Mannequins Tools | Totally Free, Super Easy & Ultra Compatible

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Mr Mannequins Tools [v1.4]

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Mr Mannequin has raised his standards! Don’t believe me? Watch this export video!

Watch that in 2k or 4k though as Blender footage gets murdered by YouTubes downscaling.

So… I got a MegaGrant late last year and set my mind to making the most amazing animation controls, retargeting and export/import that Mr Mannequin has ever seen.

Now, please humour me while i peddle my wares a little bit…

I’ve spent months upon months perfecting and stupid proofing everything i was doing in the last update of this add-on and the result has turned into more than 15 Blender add-ons that work with and without each other and are being tested by a variety of professionals. This is the only the first of several releases that is going to turn some heads with the functionality it provides…

You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date with what i’m doing and where things are headed. (Just do a twitter though… i hardly use the other two)

First let me tell you where to get the add-on… Then lets go through the new things, some planned things and the reason why i’m still bothering with this considering how many Blender to Unreal add-ons there are on top of Epics own BlenderTools.

Get the things…

  • Get it for free on Gumroad (donations appreciated).
  • And from the GitHub Repository (read the readme installation if you go here).
  • As well as Blender Market (10% of proceeds go straight to Blender).
  • You can sign up on Patreon to get priority support and early access to things!

The newest things…

  • Modular and easy to edit rigging that works on ANY armature with advanced features that other rigging add-ons can only dream of supporting such as automatic IK to FK and FK to IK, spline based controls and a much improved head tracking system. (Much more to come on this front too… RIP Rigify lol)

  • Intuitive skeletal compatibility that enables you to edit existing assets as quickly and easily as possible without messing around with bone axes.

  • The export has never been so smooth, you select what you want to export, tweak a couple of settings and my scripts do the rest to provide you with .FBX files that will work with whatever asset you got them from. I even managed to speed up the batch exporting around ten times over!

  • I added a mannequin themed sword and shield, as well as Epics own Female mannequin that got added to the third person template.

  • A much better pipeline to push updates, meaning i can implement changes and fixes very easily so there will be more of them than before.

Things still to come…

  • An import guide video as well as some further improvements for importing existing assets to be edited within Blender. (I ran out of time to squeeze those into this update)

  • A full “Any Humanoid Retargeted to The Mannequin” course, for a while i’ve been doing a put-my-character-on-the-mannequins-skeleton service and all my scripts for that work so well i’ll be putting them into their own add-on and making it a built-in part of Mr Mannequins just like the rigging.

  • A whole host of mannequin themed templates like my Sword, Shield, Bow and Femmequin, i’m talking cats, dogs, fish, birds, horses etc, there’s even plans to do a mannequin dragon!

  • Support for my rigging and templates to use Epics own Send To Unreal add-on. (Seriously James and Kaye and everyone who has helped them have done a fantastic job with it! Much love <3)

Why this thing and not the other thing?

  • This iteration of my rigging is probably more advanced and easier to work with than anything you have ever seen. I can rig the mannequin from just deforming bones to animation ready in less than ten minutes with it, so any semi-experienced rigger could achieve this on their characters as well!

  • I’m working with the developers of character creation suites as well as other add-ons to provide compatibility with my rigging, the mannequins skeleton and Unreal Engine on a larger scale.

  • To join Mr Mannequins Army a thriving and helpful Discord community of Blender > Unreal developers with a huge range in experience and the dankest taste in memes. Add-on support is currently in the process of being moved elsewhere but is currently going on there as well.

  • The ease of use Mr Mannequins Tools provides compared to all it’s competitors, except a couple of add-ons that are easy to use but do not provide nearly as much support and/or content.

If it wasn’t for that discord server and the continued support many people in there have given me i might of given up ages ago… but i didn’t and so i owe them a massive thank you!

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An amazing plugin made by an amazing guy.
I recommend this plugin to anyone who want to make animations in Blender, it’s super easy and super fast to have great results.

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Cool! Happy to see this is still being updated :slight_smile:

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I just found this tool last week and I have to say it’s awesome. Works like a charm, easy to use. High quality, great job!

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Amazing addon, has saved me ton of time. :slight_smile:

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The more useful add-on I’ve used in a long time. Absolute game-changer!

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Critics of Unreal Engine say that it’s depth is lacking despite taking over a quarter of a century to make, no such critics exist for Mr Mannequins Tools, it was completed in less than a quarter of a century, and is perfect and satisfying in all manners.

But in terms of depth and scope, Mr Mannequins Tools eclipses Unreal Engine in both scope and depth.
It’s truly a milestone in human achievement, it’ll be remembered alongside the moon landing and Ulysses S Grant.

While the moon landing and Ulysses S Grant were but mere flawed ventures of man, Mr Mannequins Tools is the realm of the gods themselves, it transcends time and space and is timeless and without limit in the pure enjoyment it will force into you.

In all seriousness, give this addon a try! It’s future expansions will further increase the functionality and I truly believe that Jim has created this out of a passion for improving the process as a whole, not just patch holes in the process.

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Like Tina Turner used to sing: “simply the best, better than all the rest…”

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Looking for someone to assist with something I am working on. I have a rigged model but importing from blender I loose a lot of stuff.

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@RayBurge What stuff do you seem to be losing?

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I just uploaded a short guide video on how to use the armature compatibility component of the add-on, should help out with other rigs than my own :slight_smile:

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I uploaded a short guide for the rigging module of Mr Mannequins Tools last night so people can finally have some idea of how it works :sweat_smile:

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You’re a ■■■■■■■ genius
Please don’t stop, DON’T STOP PLEASE!!!

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Fear not! I have a massive update coming for January.

Everything got delayed again that’s all, i got taken on as the Technical Artist for a very ambitious project a few months ago and i’m now moving house… tomorrow!

But yeah i have rigging improvements and additions, example animations and all sorts coming very soon along with fixes for Blender 3.0 :slight_smile:

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I am very happy for you, I congratulate you on your new job, I wish you success in your new place

I will look forward to updates

Thank you for your efforts

rigify must die!)))

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Hello, I seem to be struggling with the import functionality of your add-on. I wish to use a simple animation on your custom rig to use as a starting point, but the “Import Mr Mannequin FBX” tool apparently cannot do this. I tried importing the animation, adding the custom rig, and then applying the action, but the mesh still appears quite distorted. Your add-on is excellent, but I will struggle to use it if I cannot use existing mannequin animations. :confused:

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The process would be:

Add the mannequin template to Blender scene
Import animation with “Mr Mannequins FBX” on to it
Then bake the animation to the control armature, one way or another

The import script i literally wrote the day before i did the 1.4 update, it was a last minute addition so it’s a bit janky and experimental. I have all the kinks worked out now but i haven’t had the time to do a 1.5 update yet… I keep getting promoted and given more work haha

1 Like