Silhouette Thumbnail — Live Shape Preview for Blender

Silhouette Thumbnail adds a live, viewport-independent silhouette preview to Blender, giving you a small realtime thumbnail window for checking shape, pose, and readability while you work.

Inspired by the classic silhouette-check workflow used by sculptors, modelers, and animators, this add-on helps you judge whether your character, prop, creature, or pose reads clearly at a glance.

Why use it?

A strong silhouette is one of the fastest ways to check whether a design or pose is working. Instead of constantly changing materials, lighting, camera views, or viewport settings, Silhouette Thumbnail gives you a clean black-and-white shape preview directly in the 3D View.

It is especially useful for:

• Character modeling
• Sculpting
• Pose readability
• Animation blocking
• Costume and prop shape checking
• Thumbnail-style composition review
• Fast shape language checks while working

Key Features

• Live realtime silhouette thumbnail inside the Blender viewport
• Viewport-independent preview that does not alter your scene
• Works while modeling, posing, sculpting, and animating
• Supports mesh objects and armature-driven characters
• Keeps the last valid character/object visible when clicking cameras, lights, or empties
• Fixed view modes: Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, and Bottom
• Current View mode with optional live viewport zoom and pan matching
• Adjustable thumbnail size, position, padding, zoom, and margin
• Custom silhouette and background colors
• Solid-fill silhouette drawing for clean shape readability
• Designed for Blender 5+

Viewport Independent

Silhouette Thumbnail does not change your camera, render settings, materials, lighting, object transforms, or viewport shading. It simply draws a separate live preview overlay so you can keep working normally while checking the overall shape of your model.

Basic Usage

1. Install and enable the add-on.
2. Open the 3D View sidebar with N.
3. Go to the Silhouette Thumbnail tab.
4. Select your mesh or character armature.
5. Click Start Silhouette Thumbnail.
6. Adjust the size, view, zoom, and placement as needed.

Great For Artists Who Need Fast Visual Feedback

Whether you are building a stylized character, checking a creature design, blocking an animation pose, or testing the readability of clothing and props, Silhouette Thumbnail gives you a fast way to see the shape without distractions.

Included

• Blender 5+ add-on
• Quick start guide
• Product documentation
• Version history
• GPL license text

Compatibility

Designed for Blender 5+.
Tested as a viewport overlay workflow tool for realtime modeling, posing, and animation preview.

License

Released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.