Frame By Plane is a Blender 5.2 LTS add-on for image-sequence animation, Grease Pencil, layered PSD and Procreate artwork, 2.5D multiplane scenes, compositing and non-destructive effects.
It works like Blender's native Images as Planes, but adds production controls for timing, layers, masks, camera depth, rendering and frame-by-frame animation workflows.
Download from Blender Extensions · Download the latest GitHub release · Read the GitHub Wiki
Grease Pencil Gap Off/On icons, improved color-control spacing and consistent Scrub Bar placement. See the 7.2.1 release notes. This source update includes the final high-contrast Gap icons; the public GitHub release is still 7.2.0.
- Separate Grease Pencil Stroke and Fill colors in Draw, Vertex Paint and Edit modes, including Both mode and mixed-selection swatches.
Xswaps Stroke/Fill,Shift+Xsamples Stroke, and Draw-modeGtoggles Close Gap without replacing Edit-mode Grab.- Dedicated Undo steps keep color changes, newly drawn strokes and Close Gap in Blender's expected history order.
- Camera aspect shapes, SD–8K/Custom resolution, linked Width/Height pixels, orientation swap and saved format presets.
- Explicit compositor render opt-in: managed nodes can be edited without silently changing F12 output.
- Cleaner Object Data and Tool panels, selectable image/GP effect lists, grouped icon menus and synchronized time editors.
- All 7.1.19 import, Scrub Bar, bookmark, Generic Mesh, performance and Blender 5.2 stability fixes remain included.
The update splash uses the final 7.2 artwork and waits until you leave or close Preferences after updating.
See the complete 7.2.0 release notes.
- Import still images, numbered image sequences, folders and video as controllable planes.
- Use Loop, Ping-Pong and One Shot playback with timeline and frame-offset controls.
- Scrub and edit Grease Pencil timing from the Viewport with bookmarks, preview range and onion-skin controls.
- Import layered PSD and Procreate projects while preserving transparency and layer structure.
- Arrange artwork in camera depth for parallax, multiplane animation and motion-comic workflows.
- Manage layer visibility, folders, blend modes, clipping, holdouts and alpha-aware cutouts.
- Create Drawing Planes linked to image layers or use independent Grease Pencil canvases.
- Apply native Blender Grease Pencil modifiers and Shader Effects from a reorderable list and grouped icon menu.
- Build shape, color, luminance, channel, gradient, noise, imported and Grease Pencil masks.
- Use non-destructive distortion, blur, color, light, stylization and compositing effects.
- Build Blender-native compositor layer packages while preserving artist-created nodes and links.
- Use Safe Repair, diagnostics and rollback-aware project health tools.
- Control camera-facing planes, projectors, render output and image-sequence delivery inside Blender.
- Blender 5.2.x LTS
- Windows x64 or ARM64, macOS Intel or Apple Silicon, or Linux x64
- Open the latest GitHub release.
- Download the ZIP matching your computer.
- In Blender, open Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions.
- Open the menu in the top-right corner and choose Install from Disk.
- Select the downloaded ZIP without extracting it.
| Computer | Release asset |
|---|---|
| Most Windows PCs | frame_by_plane-7.2.0-windows_x64.zip |
| Windows on ARM | frame_by_plane-7.2.0-windows_arm64.zip |
| Apple Silicon Mac | frame_by_plane-7.2.0-macos_arm64.zip |
| Intel Mac | frame_by_plane-7.2.0-macos_x64.zip |
| 64-bit Linux | frame_by_plane-7.2.0-linux_x64.zip |
Important
Do not install GitHub's automatically generated Source code (zip) archive. Install one of the Frame By Plane release assets listed above.
The macos_x64 package is provided for Intel Blender 5.2 installations. Because Blender's official 5.2.0 release checksum list currently contains only the Apple Silicon image, this package receives structural validation rather than an official-distribution runtime smoke test.
For a clean update or architecture details, read the installation guide.
- Open the Frame By Plane tab in Blender's 3D View sidebar.
- Choose a single image, sequence, folder, PSD, Procreate file or video.
- Set timing and playback, then create the layer or multiplane project.
- Use Layers, Effects, Grease Pencil, Camera and Render to refine the scene.
- If a project needs inspection, open Project Health and copy the diagnostic report before filing an issue.
- Feature guide
- Installation and updates
- Blender 5.2 troubleshooting
- Release process
- GitHub Wiki
- Bug reports and feature requests
Bug reports should include Blender version, operating system, reproduction steps and the Frame By Plane diagnostic report when available. Frame By Plane does not send telemetry or project data.
frame_by_plane/ Blender extension source, tests, assets and bundled wheels
.github/ Issue templates and validation workflow
docs/ Installation, features, troubleshooting and release docs
tools/ Repository validation and platform build scripts
release-notes/ Copy-ready GitHub release notes
Build optimized packages for every declared platform:
blender --command extension build \
--source-dir ./frame_by_plane \
--output-dir ./dist \
--split-platformsRun the native Blender 5.2 regression suites:
python frame_by_plane/tests/run_blender_lts.py \
--blender /path/to/blender \
--allWindows users can run tools/build_release.ps1; macOS and Linux users can run tools/build_release.sh.
Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request.
Frame By Plane is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. Bundled third-party components retain their original licenses; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.