Videotutorials

Build Your First Blender Add-on: A Complete Beginner Walkthrough

Michael Bridges ·

“Hey Claude, make me an add-on, no mistakes.” Catchy line, but it raises a real question for anyone learning Blender Python today: is leaning on LLMs every day quietly eroding the coding muscle you actually need?

This is a complete beginner Python add-on tutorial, built from scratch with no AI shortcuts and no copy-pasted scripts. It starts at `import bpy` inside Blender’s scripting workspace and ends on a fully installable add-on that drops in a Suzanne, a camera, and a three-point lighting rig with one hotkey, all following whatever you’ve selected.

Along the way the video covers where Python actually lives inside Blender, using the Info Editor to discover the commands behind every button, and the operator framework (`bpy.types.Operator`, `bl_idname`, `bl_label`, `execute()`, register/unregister). From there it walks through turning a script into a real add-on with `bl_info`, then upgrading to the modern TOML manifest and the Extensions system, including SPDX licence guidance and a custom hotkey assignment.

The second half builds the lighting rig in code: spawning camera and lights, adding Track-To constraints so the lights follow the subject, and storing those constraints with rotation offsets so the setup feels intentional rather than random. It then layers on a proper N-panel UI, polishes operator output with `self.report` and guard clauses, and refactors the lights into a clean data structure with lists, dicts and loops.

By the end you’ll have a working add-on you can actually install, plus a clear mental model of how Blender’s Python API, operators, manifests, hotkeys and UI panels all fit together. It’s a long one (around 2.5 hours), but it’s the complete journey from “what is bpy?” to “I built that.”

Author Michael Bridges
I am a self confessed technology geek, and love teaching people new things.I think it is a real shame that so many people carry around such wonderfully capable devices yet do nothing but the basics on them. Computers, laptops tablets and smart phones can do much more than most people know. I would like to guide, reassure and educate people in using their technology to add to their livesI have been playing, yes playing, with technology for as long as I can remember and I still do that today! Admittedly these days with other commitments I do have to watch what I spend as technology can burn a very deep hole and quickly!As my parents will testify, I have always been inquisitive! even if it meant taking something apart to see how it worked. Of course not knowing how to put it back together again! To this day I love learning new things and developing myself as a person.Despite my techy background I remain firmly grounded and talk to people using every day language, unnecessary techno-babble drives me bonkers. This allows me to chat with people with limited knowledge on a subject and help them understand more.By day (and sometimes night) I run a successful local technology support company in Nottingham (UK).
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