Drag this image onto the Blender interface. If it asks to create a repo, accept, and you may have to drag the image again.
If you are updating, you can drag the image or check for updates in the Blender preferences.
- Download
tracking_toolkit-latest.zipfrom the latest release - Open Blender, use
Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions > (Arrow in top right corner) > Install from disk, and select the downloaded zip.
After enabling the extension, you will find a new panel in the sidebar tabs.
Begin by clicking the Start OpenVR button. This will open SteamVR if it isn't open already, but I find less issues if I open it manually beforehand.
Then you should see the trackers populated in the dropdown. The rest of the menu will also appear.
Note, this image may be outdated. The UI changes often.
This will create pairs of objects for each tracked device.
- One is the 'target'. The 'target' will track exactly to the provided data from OpenVR. Any movements of it will be reset.
- The other is the 'joint'. The 'joint' is child of the 'target' and can be offset to correct alignment issues. See the calibration instructions.
This operation is generally undo-able, but be careful nonetheless.
There are two stages to the calibration. They can be cycled through with the Start Calibration button (its label will change depending on the stage).
In the first step, you need to move the target (opaque) models to where the character would be holding them:
In some rigs, the controls have weird transforms that make constraints behave weirdly.
You can move the joint (wireframe) models until the character's pose matches the rest pose. (This may eventually be automatic)
I find usually the rotations are in increments of 90 or 180 degrees.
Then you can press the Complete Calibration button.
Note that I already set up constraints in this image. You may need to make a few more adjustments.
Even if you aren't in calibration mode, you can still move the joint (wireframe) models to fix offsets.
You can scale the OVR Root empty to fix most scale issues. Location and Rotation are not yet supported.
You can press the Start Recording button to start writing keyframes to the object. It will clear the existing ones for the current action!
The data is recorded in sub-frames and won't necessarily match your framerate. It is saved as fast as OpenVR provides it. The viewport will max out at 60fps, but the data is recorded and applied at OpenVR's precision.
When you press the space bar, the realtime tracking will temporarily pause and the recorded take will play.
It is encouraged to save each successful take to an NLA track, so it doesn't get overwritten.
You can use the Default Armature, Override Armature, and Bound Bone property fields to bind bones to trackers:
-
Default Armatureis the main armature the bones are a part of. You will set this to the armature you want to control. -
Override Armatureis a per-tracker armature that can be set when you want to control multiple armatures at the same time. Usually, you will leave this blank. -
Bound Boneis the bone you want to bind the tracker joint to. This will add aCopy Transformsconstraint.
Do not rename the crated constraint, otherwise it will fail to remove itself when you select a different bone.
You will probably experience some sort of issue as this extension is being refined.
Usually, reloading the trackers will solve the issue. You may sometimes need to reset them. Those usually happen when a new device is connected.
Sometimes, stopping and starting OpenVR with the first button will solve some things.
If in doubt, open up the console window with Window > Toggle System Console and open an issue on GitHub with any error messages and context.
If your steam installation is in a different directory than C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR, you will need to manually set the path in the addon preferences.
Q: Can I offset location and rotation?
A: Not yet. Very soon, probably. For now, it's just scale.
Q: Will other controller models show besides the generic HMD, OG Vive Controller, And Vive Tracker 3.0? What about Oculus Controllers?
A: Not currently. This may be implemented in the future.
Q: Will my scene animations play during recording?
A: No. That may change in the future if needed.
Huge credits to shteeve and toyxyz at blenderartists.org for the research and basis of this extension.
This code was rewritten by me, but shares many design choices, naming, etc. from their prototypes.
Because the Blender Extensions platform requires GPL licenses for code, and since the actual code in this repo is written by me, I feel I have the right to licence this repo under the GPL 3.0 or later.
That isn't to say that the aforementioned developers had a huge impact on this project, as well as other users in the thread.
This extension is licensed under GPL 3.0 or later.
Logos and images under /images are in the Public Domain (CC0).
Copyright (C) 2025 Ethan Porcaro
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
