Shape key editor · Now available
SHAPES brings creating, sculpting, combining, driving and organising shape keys into a single toolset, so the technical setup stays out of the way of the work.
From 20 €. Blender 4.2 LTS and later.
What is SHAPES
One workflow for sculpting, combining, organising and driving shape-key targets in Blender, with the manual node and driver wrangling handled for you.
Create, edit, combine, drive and organise targets from one place, instead of stitching the workflow together by hand.
Built so quick results stay quick, and complex facial or muscle setups stay manageable as they grow.
A mature toolset with years of production use behind it, now built natively for Blender.
The foundation
SHAPES works inside Blender's native architecture: standard shape keys, drivers and modifiers. Your setups stay readable, and nothing proprietary sits underneath them.
It handles the technical complexity so the work stays creative, from a single corrective shape to hundreds of facial targets on one character.
Standard Blender data you can open and inspect. No black boxes.
Tools and finished setups move with you between Blender versions.
Finished setups play back and render on a standard Blender install, with no SHAPES licence needed at runtime.
Install as a standard Blender extension and start working in seconds.
Key features
See it in action. Each feature comes with a short tutorial, so you can see how it works before you buy.
Preview
Organise & filter
Sort hundreds of shapes into groups, colour-label them by purpose, then filter the list down to exactly what you need.
Preview
Symmetry Map
SHAPES maps which vertex on the left belongs to which on the right when the mesh is loaded for the first time. Mirroring then works on one island or several, more reliably than with the default tools.
Preview
Influence Map
A sculpted expression moves lips, eyelids and brows at once. Paint the regions, and each one becomes a shape of its own, to edit and drive separately.
Preview
Blend Preview
Edit a corrective shape and watch it blend with the animation at the same time, so stretching and sliding show up before the driver is in place.
Preview
Conform Shape
Vertices that move too far or not far enough are easy to miss. Conform Shape moves them back towards the flow of the original mesh, right while editing.
RBF Nodes
Turn a set of corrective shapes into a complete RBF setup in a few clicks, pose by pose or straight from a range of motion animation. RBF Nodes is included with the Commercial licence.
Combos & propagation
A combo corrective depends on its driving shapes. When one of them changes, propagation carries the edit over, so the correction stays as intended.
Shot Fix
Sculpt a correction on top of the already deformed mesh, then blend it across the few frames where it is needed. Works on animated meshes, including Alembic caches.
Preview
Synchronised Edit
Edit the matching shapes of several meshes at once, so body, clothing and accessories deform together.
Also in the toolkit
The rest of the workflow and important to the work.
Author and adjust shapes in the deformed pose, with Blend Preview to check the result live.
Set up and edit drivers, including range and curve, without digging into Blender's driver editor.
Move entire setups onto new or changed topology when the model updates.
Key shapes and apply per-shot deformation fixes, including post-deformation shapes.
Extended weight-map editing, mirroring and import/export.
Add new target shapes without the manual setup steps.
Move shapes, weights and complete setups in and out.
Clean shape-key data and keep setups tidy.
Create, copy and mirror RBF Nodes setups directly. RBF Nodes is included with the Commercial licence.
Pricing
Both licences contain the complete SHAPES toolset. Commercial adds RBF Nodes for pose-based drivers.
Private
20 €
$23.99 on Superhive
For personal learning, education and non-commercial projects.
Commercial
60 €
$71.99 on Superhive
For professional and studio work. One licence per seat.
SHAPES is released under the GPL and has no licence check. Please choose the licence that fits your work.
A Commercial licence covers one artist. For a team, one licence per seat.
All 1.x updates are included with both licences.
If SHAPES doesn't work for you, get in touch within 14 days for a refund.
Commercial includes RBF Nodes. If you already bought it, get in touch for a discount.
Need Commercial later? Get in touch and pay only the difference.
Learning & support
Short video tutorials, the complete user guide, and a direct line if you need one.
Short videos, one topic each, from the basics to RBF setups. New episodes are added regularly.
Watch the tutorials →
The complete SHAPES guide, from installation through to the advanced workflows.
Read the docs →
A question while you're working? Get in touch.
Contact →
Common questions about SHAPES. Tap to open.
Yes. SHAPES works with existing Blender shape keys and can be used on characters that already contain shape key setups. Existing shape keys can be loaded, organized, edited, mirrored, driven, and extended using SHAPES.
No. Shape key setups created with SHAPES use Blender's native shape key system and remain fully functional without the add-on installed.
The only exception is when optional RBF Nodes solvers are used. In that case, RBF Nodes must be available for the solver to evaluate during animation and rendering.
Yes. SHAPES is designed to work with existing rigs and deformation systems. It can be used to create corrective shapes, facial shapes, pose-space deformations, and animation fixes without requiring a rig to be rebuilt.
SHAPES maintains additional information such as grouping, organization, relationships, synchronized shapes, drivers, and other setup data that Blender's native Shape Keys panel is not aware of.
Using both systems simultaneously may lead to inconsistencies. For best results, shape key management should be performed through SHAPES once an object has been loaded.
Blender currently imposes limitations on custom list interfaces that prevent certain behaviors commonly found in standalone applications.
To work around these restrictions, SHAPES uses selection checkboxes and dedicated organization tools. While the workflow differs slightly from traditional drag-and-drop interfaces, it provides reliable management of large shape key setups within Blender's API constraints.
Partially. Blender restricts direct editing of linked mesh data. Existing shape keys can still be managed and animated, but creating new shape keys on a linked mesh must be done in the source file.
SHAPES uses a Symmetry Map system that stores vertex relationships. This allows many symmetry operations to work even when the mesh is not perfectly symmetrical in world space.
Yes. SHAPES includes import and export functionality for setup data, shape data, and weight maps. This makes it easier to reuse work across characters, scenes, or production files.
Yes. SHAPES provides grouping, filtering, selection tools, hierarchy support, and organizational workflows designed specifically for productions with large numbers of shape keys.
Yes. SHAPES operates on Blender's native shape key system and can be used for creating blend shape setups intended for export to game engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine, subject to the capabilities of the chosen export pipeline.
Conform Shape is a shape refinement tool that helps preserve the original surface flow of a mesh while editing shape keys.
It can be used to reduce unwanted stretching, compression, and irregular vertex movement, helping create cleaner deformations with less manual cleanup.
SHAPES intentionally separates its workflow from Blender's context-sensitive selection system.
Once an object is loaded, all operations act on that object regardless of scene selection changes. This reduces accidental edits and provides a more predictable workflow, especially in complex production scenes.
SHAPES requires Blender 4.2 or later. Older Blender versions are not supported.
Yes. SHAPES is based on workflows developed for the production-proven SHAPES tool for Autodesk Maya and is designed to support both individual artists and larger production environments.
Private License — 20 €
For personal learning, educational use, and non-commercial projects.
Commercial License — 60 €
For professional and commercial work, one license per seat. Includes RBF Nodes and the RBF Nodes Runtime.
See Pricing for details.
No. SHAPES works on its own. RBF Nodes is only needed for RBF solvers, which drive shapes from several poses at once. It is included with the Commercial license and also available on its own.
Yes. Get in touch with your order details and you will receive a discount code.
