MPlayblast — Documentation

Requires Blender 5.0 or later.

1. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.

2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right of the window and choose Install from Disk…

3. Select MPlayblast-1.0.0.zip. Blender asks you to confirm one permission — Files, because the add-on writes your playblasts to disk.

4. The extension installs and enables itself. MPlayblast now appears in the 3D Viewport's View menu.

To update later, install the newer zip the same way — it replaces the previous version. To remove it, find MPlayblast in the Add-ons list and uninstall it; nothing is left behind in your .blend files.

1. Press Numpad 0 to look through the active camera, or set the viewport to the angle you want to capture.

2. Open View > MPlayblast… The dialog holds every setting in one place.

3. Type your version label, pick an output folder, and check the file name preview shown underneath it.

4. Click Render Playblast. The status bar counts the frames; Esc stops at any time.

5. When it finishes, the full path of the file is reported in the status bar and the Info log.

Seven overlays, each can be switched on or off on its own. All are on by default except Comment.

Every overlay has its own position menu with six anchors: top or bottom, combined with left, center or right. These are the defaults.

Overlays sharing an anchor stack on separate lines, always in this order: file name, version, camera, date, frame, frame rate, comment. Line spacing is calculated from the font size, so stacked overlays never overlap at any resolution.

Two pairs are special. When File Name and Version share an anchor they merge onto one line, and so do Frame and Frame Rate — giving File : MyProject | v001 and Frame : 0042 | 24 fps. Put them on different anchors and each takes its own line again.

Output Folder is the destination directory — /tmp by default. A path starting with // is relative to your .blend file and needs the file to have been saved at least once.

You do not name the file. It is built from four parts, joined with dashes:

MyProject-v001-ShotCam-2026-07-22.mp4

That is the .blend file name, your version label, the camera (or Perspective / Orthographic), and the date. The exact result is previewed in the dialog, right under the folder field, so you see it before you commit.

Characters that are illegal in file names are stripped automatically, and parts you left empty are simply dropped. Image sequences get the frame number appended — MyProject-v001-ShotCam-2026-07-22-0001.png.

Quality offers four levels: Perceptually Lossless, High, Medium and Low. PNG is lossless, so the field is greyed out when PNG is selected.

Encoding uses the FFmpeg that ships inside Blender — there is nothing extra to install, and no audio track is written.

Exactly what the viewport shows.

In camera view, MPlayblast uses the exact framing of the active camera, following animated cameras and camera markers frame by frame — a sequence that switches cameras switches with it.

Outside camera view it captures your current viewport angle. The camera overlay then reads Perspective View or Orthographic View.

Shading follows the viewport too. Solid and Material Preview are the usual choices for review; Rendered works as well and draws through your scene's render engine, at the cost of a much slower playblast.

Because it mirrors the viewport, anything the viewport draws is captured — the grid, selection outlines, empties, armatures. Switch Show Overlays off in the viewport header for a clean frame.

Every option in the dialog is stored per scene inside the .blend file, so reopening the dialog brings back exactly what you last used, and different scenes can hold different setups.

These settings are entirely separate from your render settings, so your output path, file format, resolution and metadata are never modified.