Questions, answered.

BlendMotion turns your iPhone into a real-time 6DoF (6 Degrees of Freedom) camera controller for Blender. Hold your phone, move it around, and the Blender camera follows your motion instantly over Wi-Fi.

• iPhone XS or newer (ARKit-capable, iOS 17.6+)
• Blender 4.2+ on your computer
• Same Wi-Fi network for both devices
• The free BlendMotion Blender addon (from GitHub Releases)

1. Download the free addon zip from GitHub Releases
2. In Blender, go to Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Install
3. Select the zip file and enable it
4. Find the panel in View3D → Sidebar → BlendMotion tab
5. The Preflight Checklist will appear, showing your IP, camera status, port, and scene FPS

The easiest way: the Preflight Checklist in the BlendMotion panel shows your IP automatically. Click the copy button, then paste it into the iPhone app.

Alternatively, you can find it manually:

• Mac: System Settings → Wi-Fi → Details → IP Address
• Windows: Open CMD, type ipconfig, look for “IPv4 Address”
• Linux: Open terminal, type ip addr or hostname -I

It will look something like 192.168.1.xxx

1. In Blender, open the BlendMotion panel — the Preflight Checklist will verify your IP, camera, port, and FPS
2. Copy your IP from the checklist
3. On your iPhone, paste the IP address and tap Connect
4. Click Start in the Blender panel
5. The panel will show “Connected” with your phone’s IP

Hold it like a camera. BlendMotion supports both landscape and portrait orientation — choose whichever fits your shot in the app’s Settings. Landscape matches the classic cinematic framing; portrait is great for vertical content.

Sensitivity controls how much the Blender camera rotates relative to your phone movement. A value of 1.0 means 1:1 tracking. Higher values amplify rotation — useful for small desk movements. Lower values make it smoother for large movements.

Position Scale multiplies your physical movement distance in Blender. The default is 1.0, which is true real-world scale — moving your phone 1 meter moves the camera 1 meter in Blender. Increase it for large scenes (up to 12×), decrease it for tabletop work.

Smoothing reduces hand shake and creates more cinematic camera motion. 0.0 means no smoothing (direct tracking). 0.3–0.5 is recommended for most use cases. Higher values add more lag but smoother results.

Tap the Record button on your iPhone. BlendMotion will automatically insert keyframes on every frame in Blender. Tap Stop when done. Your animation will be saved on the Blender timeline.

Clicking Recalibrate in the Blender panel resets the origin point. After recalibration, your current phone position becomes the new “zero” — the camera stays where it is, and all future movements are relative to this new position.

First, check the Preflight Checklist in the BlendMotion panel — it will flag most issues automatically. If everything shows ✓, also verify:

• Both devices must be on the same Wi-Fi network
• Make sure you entered the correct IP address
• Check that your firewall isn’t blocking the UDP port
• Verify the Blender panel shows “Connected”

If tracking works but the preview never appears and you’re on Blender 5.x, check your scene’s Output settings: when the File Format is a video format (FFmpeg), add-on versions before 3.3.2 could not encode preview frames on Blender 5. Update the add-on to 3.3.2 or newer — or, as a quick workaround, switch the Output File Format to PNG.

If you’re not on Blender 5, the usual cause is the preview port (9091) being blocked: check iPhone Settings → Privacy → Local Network (toggle BlendMotion off and on if it looks enabled but doesn’t work), and disable any VPN on either device.

ARKit needs visual features to track your position. Try:

• Make sure the room has good lighting
• Point the camera at areas with texture and contrast (not blank walls)
• Move the phone slowly at first to let ARKit initialize
• Avoid very reflective surfaces

Make sure the orientation you’re holding the phone in matches the orientation selected in the app’s Settings (landscape or portrait). If the camera drifts over time, click Recalibrate in Blender to reset the origin.

Some lag is normal over Wi-Fi. To minimize it:

• Use a 5 GHz Wi-Fi network (not 2.4 GHz)
• Reduce Smoothing to 0.0–0.2
• Keep both devices close to the router
• Avoid network congestion (streaming, downloads)

Yes. The port is configurable directly in the BlendMotion panel. Change the port number in both the Blender panel and the iPhone app. Use any port between 1024 and 65535. The Preflight Checklist will verify that your chosen port is available. Make sure your firewall allows UDP traffic on that port.

Currently BlendMotion is iPhone only. We’re always looking to improve — stay tuned for updates.

Currently BlendMotion only supports Blender 4.2+. We’re focused on making the Blender experience as good as possible first.

The iOS app is a one-time paid purchase on the App Store. The Blender addon is completely free and open source, available on GitHub Releases.

No. BlendMotion does not collect, store, or transmit any personal data. Camera tracking data stays entirely on your local network. Read our full Privacy Policy for details.

Email us at skettchdev@gmail.com