Blender is one of the best all-in-one tools for anything related to 3D design, be it character modeling, rigging, animation, UV mapping, or even VFX compositing. On its own, it’s a powerful tool that can handle all your artistic needs, but its usefulness skyrockets when you add five of these incredible plugins.

6 Quick fastening

Turn the Blender UI into an RPG-like Equipment tab

Creating different costumes and accessories for your 3D modeled characters is much easier than you think, but the difficulty level increases many times when you have to add them to the rigged model, as you have to calibrate numerous parameters to ensure that the final model is as flawless as possible.

The Quick Attach plugin can simplify the whole thing by providing a quick way to attach as many objects as you want to your models. While it’s not completely foolproof, the add-on works most of the time. And best of all, it’s available for free in the Blender Market.

5 Archimedes

A solid integrated plugin

As someone who started learning Blender to create cool looking characters, inorganic modeling – especially assets with architectural elements – always gave me some difficulty.

Fortunately, the Archimesh plugin is already pre-installed in Blender. Once you have installed it via the Get extensions under the Settings the Edit you can import pre-created architectural models into your Blender project.

4 Auto Rig Pro

Who says rigging has to be hard work?

Rigging is one of the core aspects of Blender, but adding bones and changing constraints can be quite time-consuming. This is where the Auto Rig Pro add-on comes into play.

True to its name, the plugin simplifies adding bones to all your models, even those with non-human designs. Auto Rig Pro also allows you to export any skeletons you create with the tool to the Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot game engines, making it a useful addition to any game asset designer’s toolkit.

3 Knot Wrangler

Strange name, but still quite useful

If you’re just starting out with Blender, you probably don’t need to worry too much about shader, geometry, and texture nodes, but once you start adding detail to your models, you may need to manage multiple nodes at once.

Similar to Archimesh, Node Wrangler is an add-on integrated into Blender that you can use via the Addons Section of the Settings submenu. But instead of letting you create architectural models, Node Wrangler adds a neat context menu that contains all the options you need to speed up your node-based tasks.

2 RetopoFlow

With regards to Quad Remesher

Even after months, even years of experience with Blender, it is difficult to create a perfectly optimized mesh for your projects, especially when you are creating highly detailed models. Therefore, you need to invest more time to learn retopology and fix the problems with the models…

…Or you can simply use the RetopoFlow plugin to make things much easier. The add-on includes all the tools you need to reduce the time you would otherwise spend fine-tuning your models. While you will need to purchase a license for commercial use, RetopoFlow is also available for free on GitHub if you want to use the plugin in personal projects.

For those who want an even simpler retopology experience, the paid Quad Remesher algorithm is a worthwhile alternative to RetopoFlow.

1 Turn liquids over

For some ultra-realistic fluid simulations

While Blender has top-notch modeling, rigging and animation capabilities, the same cannot be said for its fluid simulation capabilities. Of course, Blender’s built-in fluid simulation tools should be sufficient for simple projects. But the Flip Fluids add-on is simply unmatched when it comes to fluid mechanics simulation.

From minute details like surface tension and viscosity to force fields and other special effects, Flip Fluids is an essential plug-in for anyone looking to add realistic fluid physics to their projects.

Which Blender plugin is your favorite?

These were six of my favorite Blender add-ons, but there are just as many other extensions worth mentioning. If you want to create stop motion videos with Blender, the free Stop-Mo plugin can add extra oomph to your animations. I originally planned to add AutoDepth AI to the list, but the compatibility issues with Blender prevented me from doing so.

For those whose workload involves a lot of rendering, K-Cycles is worth checking out. Technically, it’s a custom version of Blender, not an add-on, but it deserves a mention due to its astronomically high rendering power.