For those who don’t know the tool: Drivers is a Blender rigging and animation add-on that builds driver setups for shape keys, adds viewport control panels, and manages action constraints, all from one sidebar so you can stop spelunking in editors.

What Drivers 2.0 is actually shipping

Drivers 2.0 is a paid Blender add-on that groups three ideas into one place: shape key drivers, viewport control panels, and action constraint management. The pitch stays practical. You pick a mesh, select a bone, set min and max, then wire a shape key to a bone transform with one click. The product explicitly calls out “No graph editor, no scripting.” That alone will make some riggers cheer and others quietly back up their files.

Drivers also frames itself as a workflow organizer for animators and riggers, with a focus on keeping controls in a clean N-panel interface. That is the part that usually gets messy first once a rig grows beyond a face and two hands.

Shape keys without the ceremony

The Drivers tab centers on instant shape key automation. Shape key values can follow bone rotation, location, or scale in real time, and the listing includes support claims for Rigify, Auto-Rig Pro, and custom rigs.

That makes it a tool for people who build facial systems, create corrective shapes, or apply quick pose-based deformations and want the setup to feel less like a spreadsheet and more like an actual rigging task. The appeal is speed, and also staying orgnaized once there are dozens of relationships to maintain.

Drivers 2.0 also bundles bone highlighting and bone colour management into the same UI, so the rig can communicate what is what without relying on naming discipline alone.

Viewport panels that behave like controllers

The Panels tab focuses on in-viewport control panels. It can spawn custom-shape bone panels in the viewport, with square, horizontal, and vertical control styles, and the idea is simple: drag a controller to blend shape keys without leaving the 3D view.

Text labels can be attached to panel bones via font objects, with type, scale, and offset controls exposed in the N-panel. That makes the UI layer explicit, which matters when a rig gets handed off to someone who did not build it.

There is also a master control option that adds a master bone to reposition every panel as one group, with offsets baking automatically when you hit Done. On top of that, a global lock can freeze panels to prevent accidental movement or edits before delivery.

If you have ever watched a control panel drift two pixels per shot because someone grabbed the wrong thing, you already know why that lock button exists.

Actions get their own manager

Drivers 2.0 includes an Action Constraint Manager in an Actions tab. It can assign directional action constraints to any control bone and uses a viewport glow highlight to show which bone is being edited live. The product page also lists compatibility notes that mention Blender 5.x layered actions alongside rig systems like Rigify and Auto-Rig Pro. In the same listing, the details section lists a Blender version range of 5.0 to 5.1, while another compatibility line states Blender 5.1+.

Pricing, license, and where it lives

Drivers 2.0 sells for $30 on Superhive, on a GPL license. The add-on is developed by Weybec,and remember: New tools should earn their keep the boring way: install, stress test, version-check, and only then let them near production rigs.

https://superhivemarket.com/products/drivers
https://weybec.com/

The post Drivers 2.0 cleans up Blender rigs first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The Blender add-on CamKeys, developed by BeyondDev (Tyler Walker), automates ShapeKeys according to camera or viewport angles. It enables an object to deform differently depending on how it is viewed, a method commonly used in stylised animation, anime-inspired facial rigs, or forced-perspective effects. Formerly known as CamShapeMatic, CamKeys 3.0 introduces a redesigned interface, multilingual documentation, and expanded animation baking tools.

ShapeKeys with eyes

CamKeys connects one or more ShapeKeys (Blender’s morph targets) to the relative angle between a camera and an object. When the camera moves, the mesh interpolates between ShapeKeys based on the configured angular falloff. Each “CamKey” entry defines a camera angle, target ShapeKey, and blending range. Updates occur in real time during playback, scrubbing, or rendering. For rigged characters, the effect can also be driven by bone rotation instead of the entire object’s orientation, allowing deformation of specific body parts such as heads or torsos.

What’s new in version 3.0

Version 3.0 adds refined bone tracking, improved multi-object handling, and support for linked assets. sers can employ CamKeys to imitate per-object field-of-view (FOV) shifts, producing perspective distortion variations between characters or props. However, the official Beyond-3 documentation does not describe any FOV modification feature. Technically, CamKeys does not alter Blender’s projection system. It drives ShapeKeys by camera angle, which can visually approximate FOV changes but does not constitute a real optical override. Artists may creatively repurpose it for such effects, but this behaviour is not documented or officially supported.

Inside the interface

The CamKeys panel is divided into three areas:

• Select Camera – Defines the active camera or viewport. Baking requires an actual camera.
• Mesh Objects – Lists meshes affected by CamKeys, each optionally tied to a bone.
• Camera Angles & ShapeKeys – Captures current view angles, assigns ShapeKeys, sets blending width, enables or disables entries, and bakes driven animation curves into keyframes.

All parameters update live, and tooltips in multiple languages (English, Japanese, Spanish) are provided throughout the interface.

Pricing and licensing

CamKeys is sold via Gumroad with three pricing tiers: Indie (1 user) at 19.99 USD, Studio (3–5 users) at 69.99 USD, and Studio (6+ users) at 199.99 USD. Purchases include lifetime updates. Redistribution or modification of the add-on is prohibited, but commercial use is permitted with credit to the creator.

Typical use cases

According to the official documentation, CamKeys is suited for:

• 2D/3D hybrid animation and stylised facial deformation
• Perspective “cheat” effects without rig scaling
• Real-time mesh updates during playback
• Automatic deformation across camera switches
• Baking ShapeKey-driven animation for export

BeyondDev’s examples show anime-style characters that morph smoothly between front and side views, preserving proportions through angular interpolation.

Production caveats

No independent tests have yet confirmed how CamKeys behaves with advanced setups such as depth-of-field, motion blur, or multi-camera rigs. Blender’s dependency graph can behave unpredictably when properties depend on camera-driven transformations. While users label CamKeys 3.0 as enabling “per-object FOV,” BeyondDev’s own documentation explicitly describes ShapeKey automation by camera angle only. This difference is important when planning for camera-matched compositing or depth-based rendering workflows. Artists should run small validation tests before deploying the add-on in production pipelines or automated rigging setups.

Final frame

CamKeys remains a technically clear, niche utility: it automates mesh deformation relative to viewing direction, offering stylised animators precise control over how geometry reads from different angles. Whether it truly supports “per-object FOV” depends entirely on user interpretation, not on the add-on’s code.

For those seeking controlled, angle-driven morphs without complex rig logic, CamKeys provides a practical and well-documented solution that Blender still lacks natively. As always: test before production.

The post Shapekeys: The angle on your mesh first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.