!!!   Some variations are dependent on Filemanager, kindly read the info before purchase. !!! 

Powerline

Project motto:

Production grade 3D pipeline focusing on all aspects of content creation made affordable to anyone, individual or a company.

Where we are right now:

Tools:

Filemanger: A solution for tracking workfile contents, systematic increment saves, Export, imports, segment saving (for saving parts of files)

Connection manager: A tool focused but not limited in retargeting motion-capture, It's also used to drive a deform rig via blender made rigs, Thus user gets all freedom to animate in blender if desired and also ready to export to unreal whenever required.

Mocap:

Taskforger: An automation solution, Example use case: In different phases of asset building, an employee might be asked to provide viewport renders of a turntable in modes 'wireframe', 'solid no texture', 'with texture' etc. And after getting feedback and making changes, he is expected to send them again. In such cases we can create an automation scheme. The Filemanager and Taskforger work in sync, so any increment saves are recognized by Taskforger and without changing the Taskforger scheme the updated renders are made. Similarly user can create any automation scheme and even share with other powerline users. 

Action Coding system: The concept is well known, but what we made is an approach to make the coding, intuitive. Using this we can connect complex deformations to single transformation channel. Example Use case: 1) Connecting blender made rigs to Metahuman faceboard, thus harnessing Unreal facial solve in blender. 2) Making rigs like the movie Transformers.

Future: Create any character, biped, or a creature and make it metahuman faceboard compatible, so to create content like Lionking in unreal.

Workflows:

Custom metahuman creation: We had this idea before the release of unreal 5.6 and stuck with it even after the release. Proportion changes with deforming a template rig, sculpt, extract the conform templates and use them in unreal.

Adding ARkit blendshapes: We will not need high level face rigs all the time, some times just 52 blendshapes might be enough and this is a workflow to add them using powerline.

Scene Optimizing: All animators need not work with high rez rigs, ones with low system specs, Users create low rez rigs and with powerline The switching between them is just few clicks away.

Example: 1) In this case, the proxy is from cascadeur 

 2)

Unique features:

• Action coding system, we just added a systematic approach, using this users can create characters (bipeds, creatures or anything) similar to metahuman and even export to unreal and make it work with Metahuman faceboard (no restrictions on topology). Example rig:  Future: Users will be able to make rigs in blender and create content like Lionking in unreal.

• Automation where applicable.

• Motion capture retargeting.

• A collaborative system. Multiple departments working parallel without waiting for previous department to finish.

• A system to save schemes for multiple and instant future use for, action coding system, motion capture, automation etc. Thus enabling users to be creative rather than confining to what's provided by developer.

Powerline's Filemanager is a production grade solution for managing project files effortlessly. While saving it automatically saves as a different version and keeps previous files accessible. Users can add any notes linked to the files, making it extremely helpful to track the progress of the file without even opening.

Features like save UI's current state added to improve user experience, Once saved, it opens where you left it last and every time you open blender it will open from there.

It also has linking and appending options not limiting to save and open options.

Change Log: (Follow this link)

• =============================================27 - may -25
• Save thumbnail on file save/ exports, displays them on version selection. (UX improvement)
• Import / export in FBX, blend, OBJ and alembic now via filemanager.
• Import / export animation on to selected armature.
• Double clicking now opens file explorer (UX improvement)
• ============================================= previous
• Double clicking "Asset" opens the "Context" frame (UX improvement).
• Added checkbox to create default sub folders for project and assets.
• Made installation easier.
• Make the addon recognize as an extension.

• Bug fix:

• =============================================27 - may -25
• Resizing windows hides buttons (UI fix)
• File indexing issue.
• ============================================= previous
• Added alternate method to export and import fbx files via "N- panel".
  

Future updates:

• Update a version of file as recommended for render.