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Niko Vladimirov edited this page Jan 2, 2025 · 11 revisions

MarIOnette is a Blender plugin for controlling Arduino-based microcontrollers over Serial

MarIOnette greatly reduces the time required to create fluid and life-like animations for robotic and animatronic models. Because it leverages Blender's internal IK solver, users do not need to set up matrices or perform tedious calculations in order to get joint positions.

Currently MarIOnette supports Arduino, Teensy, and ESP32 microcontrollers and the following actuators:

  • Servo Motors
  • ON/OFF signals
  • PWM signals
  • Bi-directional PWM (to drive an H-Bridge which in turn drives a motor)
  • Stepper motors (DIR and STEP outputs to most common stepper drivers)
  • Dynamixel Motors (via adapter board)
  • LewanSoul Motors (via adapter board)

MarIOnette also supports LEDs:

  • Neopixels
  • Dotstars
  • Single-channel LEDs via PWM (additional power circuitry required)

Due to the vast amount of varying microcontrollers, actuators, and LEDs available in the world, I cannot guarantee that every setup will work seamlessly. However, with a little bit of tweaking, you should be able to get up and running by modifying a little bit of Arduino code.

This wiki aims to guide users through the setup and usage of all currently supported features. It is meant to be a comprehensive guide of Blender (rigging, animation, or geometry nodes), as there are hundreds of great tutorials that cover these topics far better than I ever could.

Start at Installation Page or navigate to a page with a specific actuator.

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