One click from an assembly to an exploded view. Select the parts of a product, click Animate Explode, and Blender keyframes them flying apart layer by layer, holding, and reassembling, as a seamless loop.
Free and open source. Blender 4.2+.
Most explode tools push every part straight out from the center, so inner parts fly through outer ones. Auto Explode works out what covers what:
- The top shell covers the screen, which covers the circuit board, so the shell travels farther than the screen.
- Outer parts leave first and come back last, the way you'd actually take a product apart.
- Screws come out before anything else (parts named screw, bolt, nut, rivet, washer, fastener).
- Parented parts move together, so chips stay on their circuit board.
- The active object stays put. Click the part that should anchor the view last.
For the demo remote it finds 21 parts in 4 layers:
| Moves | Parts |
|---|---|
| ↑ 3 | glass, D-pad, buttons, LED strip |
| ↑ 2 | top shell |
| ↑ 1 | OLED display, IR lens |
| stays | circuit board (active object), with its chips |
| ↓ 1 | battery |
| ↓ 2 | bottom shell |
| ↓ 3 | rubber feet |
| ↓ 4, first out | 4 screws |
- Download
auto_explode-<version>.zipfrom Releases, or build it withpython build.py. - Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions → ⌄ → Install from Disk… and pick the zip.
- Select every part of the assembly. Click the part that should stay still last, so it's the active object.
- Open the Explode tab in the 3D viewport sidebar (
N). - Click Animate Explode and press play.
| Button / setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Animate Explode | Keyframes explode → hold → reassemble and sets the scene's frame range. Loops seamlessly. |
| Explode Pose | Spreads the parts apart without keyframes, for still renders. Amount controls how far. |
| Reassemble | Removes Auto Explode's offsets and keyframes. Your own animation is left alone. |
| Axis | Auto uses the assembly's thinnest direction, which is how most products stack. Or force X, Y or Z. |
| Spacing | Gap between layers, relative to the assembly's thickness. |
| Move Frames / Stagger / Hold | How long each part travels, the delay between layers, and how long the exploded view holds. |
The panel lives in the sidebar's Explode tab.
Non-destructive: parts are moved with Blender's delta transforms, so their real location and any animation you've made stay untouched. Hidden helpers, such as boolean cutters, are ignored and ride along with their parent.
The remote controller is built entirely by examples/remote_controller.py, at real-world size (170 × 48 × 21 mm), with bevels, real materials and parented internals. Build it yourself:
blender -P examples/remote_controller.py
blender -b --factory-startup -P tests/test_auto_explode.py
python build.py
The images and GIFs are rendered, not mocked up. docs/images/render.py builds the remote, runs Auto Explode on it and renders the frames; it fails if the explode order isn't the expected stack. docs/images/compose.py turns the frames into GIFs.
blender -b --factory-startup -P docs/images/render.py
python docs/images/compose.py
Built with Blender and its Python API by the Blender Foundation. The README images are laid out with Pillow.
MIT