SPEEDLINE FX

Add speedlines to your Blender scene with ease — and give every shot more feel, more emotion, more life.

Speedline FX generates professional anime and manga-style speedlines directly inside your 3D scene. No compositing. No external software. No greenscreens. Everything is driven by Geometry Nodes, so every parameter is fully customizable and animates cleanly on the Timeline.

 1. Overview

Speedline FX is a Blender addon that gives you two distinct speedline modes, a smart focal-point tracking system, 10 built-in emotion presets, and a full preset export / import pipeline everything you need to add punchy, expressive energy to action shots, character moments, and cinematic sequences.

2. Installation

Speedline FX ships as a standard Blender Extension zip and installs in seconds.

1. Open Blender and go to Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.

2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top-right and select Install from Disk.

3. Browse to the downloaded .zip file and confirm.

4. Enable the addon if it is not already toggled on then restart blender

5. Open any 3D Viewport and find the Speedline FX tab in the N-panel (press N if the sidebar is hidden).

3. Quick Workflow

From a fresh scene to rendered speedlines in eight steps.

 4. Speedline Modes

Speedline FX provides two distinct visual modes selectable from an icon picker at the top of the panel. A Style Mix slider lets you transition smoothly between NONE, RADIAL, and LINEAR, and you can keyframe the transition for animated style changes mid-shot.

4.1  Radial Speedlines

The classic anime burst. Lines radiate outward from a focal point toward the edges of the camera frame perfect for impact frames, power moments, and reaction shots.

4.2  Linear Speedlines

Horizontal strips sweep across the camera frame, evoking lateral motion, high-speed flight, or stylised speed-blur. Perfect for chase scenes, racing shots, or background atmosphere.

5. Smart Focal-Point Tracking

Radial speedlines converge on a Focus Point a camera-space empty that you can animate manually or lock to any object in the scene. The tracking system handles even the most complex multi-character rigs.

5.1  Eyedropper Picker

Click the eyedropper icon in the Focal Point section to enter Picker mode. Move your cursor over any object in the viewport the header shows its name in real time. Click to confirm. The speedline focus snaps to exactly where you clicked and a location keyframe is inserted at the current frame.

5.2  Multi-Target Animation

Assign a different target object at any point on the Timeline. The addon stores a per-frame target map, so the focus seamlessly switches from one character to another as your shot cuts or pans. Previous assignments are never overwritten when you pick a new target.

5.3  Release Tracking (Bake)

When you are satisfied with the live tracking result, click Release Tracking to bake the motion to explicit location keyframes on the Focus Point empty. A dialog lets you choose a bake step (every N frames) to keep curves lean. Baked keyframes are set to Constant interpolation by default to match the per-frame target logic.

5.4  Manual Tracking Mode

Toggle Manual Tracking to reveal the Focus Point empty in the viewport and position it by hand, frame by frame. When Manual Tracking is active, all automatic target-following is cleanly detached. Use the Previous Keyframe and Next Keyframe arrows in the panel to jump between saved positions.

5.5  Clear Animation

The Clear Animation button (shown in red when animation data exists) removes all target keyframes and location keyframes from the Focus Point in one click. This resets the empty to its default center position.

6. Color, Glow & Emotion Presets

Every color and material property is animatable. Color, glow, gradient, and fade all drive into the shader via Blender drivers, so you can keyframe the mood of a shot just as easily as the camera move.

6.1  Line Color

Use the Line Color picker to set a flat color for all speedlines. The color is applied to the object's material color slot and is readable by the emission shader.

6.2  Emotion Presets

Select a preset from the dropdown to instantly apply a curated combination of color, glow intensity, extrusion, thickness, animation speed, gradient, and fade. Presets are designed to match common anime storytelling moments.

6.3  Custom Color Ramp

Select Custom from the preset dropdown to reveal a full color ramp editor directly inside the N-panel. Add stops, adjust positions and colors, and build multi-tone gradients that go beyond a single-color look. The ramp drives the per-vertex gradient from base to apex on each speedline.

7. Preset Export / Import

Speedline FX includes a full preset pipeline so you can save looks and reuse them across projects or share them with other artists.

• Export: Click Export in the bottom of the panel. A file browser opens and saves a .json file containing all current parameters for the active style (Radial or Linear).

• Import: Click Import and browse to a previously saved .json preset. The addon validates that the preset style matches the currently active style before applying. Mismatched presets display a clear error message.

8. Reset Parameters

The RESET PARAMETERS button at the bottom of the panel returns all speedline properties to their factory defaults and removes any animation curves attached to those properties from the active action. The button turns red when any parameter has been changed from its default, making it easy to spot a modified state at a glance.

9. Known Limitations

The following limitations arise from the Geometry Nodes architecture and Blender's rendering pipeline. Understanding them will help you plan your compositing and rendering workflow.

1.  Depth of Field

Speedlines are real geometry parented to the camera, so they exist within the scene's depth stack. If Depth of Field is enabled on the camera, lines near the focal plane boundaries will receive blur just like any other mesh object.

Workaround: Disable DoF on the camera, or render speedlines on a separate render layer with DoF turned off and composite them over the main render.

2.  Motion Blur

Because the Geometry Nodes modifier animates vertex positions on every frame, Blender's motion blur system will detect that movement and streak the lines. This is typically undesirable for a stylised 2D effect.

Workaround: Exclude the Speedlines FX collection from motion blur in the Object Properties panel, or render it as a separate pass with motion blur disabled.

3.  Single Camera Only

The addon builds its mesh relative to one active scene camera at build time. Multi-camera setups or shots that switch the active camera mid-sequence require manually rebuilding or re-targeting the speedlines for each camera.

4.  Resolution / Camera Changes Require Rebuild

The mesh topology is baked at the moment you click ADD SPEEDLINES using the camera's current view frame. If you later change the render resolution, sensor size, focal length, or camera aspect ratio, the lines will no longer align correctly to the frame edges. Simply click ADD SPEEDLINES again to rebuild and realign.

5.  EEVEE Transparency Sorting

The material uses Alpha Blend, which can produce z-fighting or incorrect transparency sorting in EEVEE when many overlapping speedline triangles stack on top of each other. Complex grouping patterns with high strip counts are the most likely trigger.

Workaround: Switch the material to Alpha Hashed for baked / final renders, or adjust the object's Render > Pass Index to influence sort order.

For support, updates, and new presets, visit the Blendermarket product page.