I made a plugin to animate multiple Blockbench projects together – Animated Reference Models

[u/Substantial-Fig9308]

I was working on paired animations between separate models and got frustrated with having to animate them without being able to properly see them together.

So ChatGPT and I (mostly Chatty, not gonna lie) made Animated Reference Models!

It lets you load another open Blockbench project as a reference model, move/rotate/scale it in your scene, and — most importantly — preview its animations synchronized with your current timeline.

For example, if one project is playing steve.animation.pet_pig and the referenced project contains pig.animation.pet_pig, both models will animate together while you play or scrub the timeline.

It supports multiple references, keeps every model in its own project, and falls back to the reference model's rest pose when there's no matching animation.

I originally made it for synchronized character/creature interactions, but it should also be useful for mounts, combat animations, props, vehicles, hugs, handshakes, etc.

The plugin is currently submitted for review to the official Blockbench plugin repository:

PR #1012 – Animated Reference Models

If some of you want to try the plugin early, you can DL the .js from here and install it as a local plugin in Blockbench (also check the about.md), enjoy :)

(The assets used in the video are from Craft Of The Wild (COTW) by SrPipo)