Sunday, May 4th, 2025 Posted by Jim Thacker Free tool: Lens Cap 2 for Blender html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Originally posted on 16 March 2025. Scroll down for the Lens Cap 2 update. VFX artist Rob Dickinson (Decoded) has released Lens Cap for Blender, a handy free add-on that adds new features to the open-source 3D app’s camera system. Time-saving add-on streamlines animating object visibility and depth of field Lens Cap has a number of features, but perhaps the most frustration-saving is the Camera Sync mode, which matches the visibility of objects in the 3D Viewport to their render settings. It makes it possible to properly playblast scenes in which objects are keyframed to appear or disappear, like destruction shots, rather than having to do a final render to test the effect. Other features include DOF Finder, for quickly adding depth of field effects to shots. Users can set the focal point to the 3D Cursor, making it possible to position focus simply by clicking in the 3D Viewport: in the video above, you can see it in use to create a quick focus pull. The final feature, an active camera list, displays all of the cameras in a scene in one place in the interface, making it easier to switch between them, or keyframe camera switches. Updated 30 April: Rob Dickinson has released Lens Cap 2, adding a new Auto Focus option. It mimics the auto-focus system of a camera or a manual focus pull, automatically refocusing the viewport render on the object at the center of the view. Users can control how quickly focus changes, and can bake the focus keyframes for final-quality rendering. Price and system requirements Lens Cap for Blender is compatible with Blender 4.3+. It’s a free download. Download the free Lens Cap for Blender add-on from Gumroad (Enter a figure of $0 to download it for free, or make a voluntary donation) Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects. Latest News SPECviewperf 15 adds Blender and UE5 tests to the benchmark New version of the veteran graphics benchmark for testing workstations reflects recent changes to CG software and industry pipelines. Monday, May 5th, 2025 Download Figment's free UDIM Globe toolset Free set of Photoshop scripts convert high-res planetary textures to UDIMs for use in VFX and animation, in apps like 3ds Max, Blender and Maya. Sunday, May 4th, 2025 Free tool: Lens Cap 2 for Blender Decoded's frustration-saving add-on adds new features to Blender's camera system, now including a new auto-focus system for renders. Sunday, May 4th, 2025 Boris FX adds AI-powered masking to Sapphire 2025.5 Big update to the effects plugins for video editing and compositing apps adds AI matte generation and GPU acceleration on AMD hardware. Friday, May 2nd, 2025 Nevercenter releases Silo 2025.1 and Milo 2025.0 Check out the new features in the lightweight 3D modeling software, and its Unreal Engine-based real-time renderer. Friday, May 2nd, 2025 Open Brush 2.10 adds 'multiplayer' VR painting Free VR sketching and concept art tool now lets you create designs collaboratively with other artists. Check out the other new features. Thursday, May 1st, 2025 More News Lumion releases Lumion 2025.0 Lumion releases Lumion View for SketchUp Kiri Engine 3.14 adds AI-enhanced Lidar scanning CLO Virtual Fashion releases Marvelous Designer 2025.0 Chaos releases Vantage 2.8 Ziva VFX and OIDN creators win Sci-Tech Academy Awards Sparseal adds SDF modeling to Uniform 1.4 EZ-Tree is a lightweight free open-source tree generator Substance 3D creator Sébastien Deguy to leave Adobe Download free Houdini tools from SideFX's Project Grot Master FACS Rigging for Facial Motion Capture Unity 6.1: discover 5 key features for CG artists Older Posts