About Onion Skin Tools

Onion Skin Tools brings traditional onion‑skinning to Blender’s 3D viewport, rendering mesh objects in both EEVEE and Cycles. It can generate skinning for any mesh‑able object, including whole character rigs, across arbitrary frames or a user‑defined range. The add‑on provides Character Sets for grouping objects, independent control of generation and visibility, and auto‑updating that watches a designated Updater object (e.g., a rig armature) to refresh skins as the rig changes. Transparency Range limits display to frames around the current one, with Absolute or Relative modes, while toggles let you show skins on the current frame only or on keyframes. Linked rigs are supported provided they are not duplicated in the scene. Frame numbers can be drawn above onion‑skinned frames for clearer reference.

Features

• Generates onion skinning for any mesh-able objects, including entire multiple-object characters or creatures, on arbitrary frames or over a user-defined frame range
• Viewport rendering in both EEVEE and Cycles
• Character Sets to onion skin objects together via a scene-wide list, or individually and in user-defined groups, each with independent generation, removal, and viewport settings
• Auto Updating watches an Updater object, such as a character rig armature, and updates onion skinning as changes occur
• Transparency Range control with Absolute and Relative modes to limit display to a range around the current frame
• Current Frame Only and On Keyframes Only toggles, plus Frame Display that draws frame numbers above onion-skinned frames
• Support for linked rigs, assuming the linked rig has not been duplicated in the scene

Best for

Blender animators who need visual reference of surrounding poses while working on characters, creatures, vehicles, text, or motion graphics.