Frame By Plane — Blender 5.2 Image Sequence & Grease Pencil Add-on

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

What's new in 7.1.18 LTS

• Fixed persistent ownership for all 27 native Grease Pencil effect backends on Blender 5.2.
• Prevented unmanaged duplicate Shader Effects and Grease Pencil modifiers.
• Restored reliable add, remove, reorder, reset and duplicate-repair actions.
• Added Expand All and Collapse All controls for the Grease Pencil Effect Stack.
• Fixed Compositor Safe Repair snapshots for Blender 5.2 color, vector and rotation socket values.
• Passed native Blender 5.2.0 background tests and a 300-redraw interactive UI stress test.

See the complete 7.1.18 release notes.

Core features

Image sequences and frame-by-frame animation

• 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.

Layered artwork and 2.5D multiplane scenes

• 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.

Grease Pencil, masks and effects

• Create Drawing Planes linked to image layers or use independent Grease Pencil canvases.
• Apply native Blender Grease Pencil modifiers and Shader Effects from one compact stack.
• Build shape, color, luminance, channel, gradient, noise, imported and Grease Pencil masks.
• Use non-destructive distortion, blur, color, light, stylization and compositing effects.

Compositing, camera and rendering

• 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.

Requirements

• Blender 5.2.x LTS
• Windows x64 or ARM64, macOS Intel or Apple Silicon, or Linux x64

Install Frame By Plane

1. Open the latest GitHub release.
2. Download the ZIP matching your computer.
3. In Blender, open Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions.
4. Open the menu in the top-right corner and choose Install from Disk.
5. Select the downloaded ZIP without extracting it.

Computer	Release asset
Most Windows PCs	frame_by_plane-7.1.18-windows_x64.zip
Windows on ARM	frame_by_plane-7.1.18-windows_arm64.zip
Apple Silicon Mac	frame_by_plane-7.1.18-macos_arm64.zip
Intel Mac	frame_by_plane-7.1.18-macos_x64.zip
64-bit Linux	frame_by_plane-7.1.18-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.

For a clean update or architecture details, read the installation guide.

Quick start

1. Open the Frame By Plane tab in Blender's 3D View sidebar.
2. Choose a single image, sequence, folder, PSD, Procreate file or video.
3. Set timing and playback, then create the layer or multiplane project.
4. Use Layers, Effects, Grease Pencil, Camera and Render to refine the scene.
5. If a project needs inspection, open Project Health and copy the diagnostic report before filing an issue.

Documentation and support

• 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.

Repository structure

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 and test locally

Build optimized packages for every declared platform:

blender --command extension build \
  --source-dir ./frame_by_plane \
  --output-dir ./dist \
  --split-platforms

Run the native Blender 5.2 regression suites:

python frame_by_plane/tests/run_blender_lts.py \
  --blender /path/to/blender \
  --all

Windows users can run tools/build_release.ps1; macOS and Linux users can run tools/build_release.sh.

Contributing and license

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.