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Marble Studio

Marble Studio is a Blender add-on that turns a MIDI file into a marble music animation: a marble that bounces from key to key, striking one key on each note of the song, on the note's frame. After the last note the marble flies back to the first key, so the animation loops.

What it does

  • Generate builds the scene from a MIDI file: marble, keys, key bases, wall, camera rig, and lighting, in a new .blend or an existing one. No template file is needed.
  • One key per note. Each key is placed and angled to create a marble strike on the frame of its note.
  • The animation is a loop. The frame range runs from the first note to just before the loop note; the marble, its spin, the camera, and the wall match across the cut. See The perfect loop, and the Glossary for the words these pages use.
  • You edit keys with Blender's own tools. Rotate a key with R or change its Bounce, and the keys around it move so every strike stays on its note. See Course Editor, and Hotkeys for when Rotate Key (Ctrl+Shift+R) is the better turn.
  • The motion is keyframed, not simulated. Everything is ordinary Blender animation: nothing to bake, and the file plays the same every time. See Authored, not simulated.
  • One place for every warning. The Course Check section at the bottom of the tab lists anything that needs a look, and the tab's header shows the count even with every section folded. See Course Check.

Free and Pro

Marble Studio comes in two editions:

  • Marble Studio Free makes a complete course for a song of any length: the glass Hero Marble, key editing, the whole perfect-loop toolset (Seam Mirror and Z-Hop included), the looping camera with one angle for the whole loop, a plain-color wall, your own key colors, Key Bases, Key Shape, Song Reference, Render Loop, and Course Check. There is no song length or note limit.
  • Marble Studio Pro adds tracks, the Camera Director, key materials and palettes with strike lighting, wall images and materials with Straighten, Seam Decor, Marble Replacement, your own models as keys and bases, and your own library.

Sections marked Pro are exclusive to Marble Studio Pro. They are not in Marble Studio Free at all: nothing is shown grayed out or locked. See Free and Pro compared for the full list.

Supported Blender versions

Marble Studio runs on Blender 4.2 and newer, from one install file. It is tested on 4.2, 4.5, and 5.2.

Where to start

In Blender, the Marble Studio tab opens with one line, "Sections below (click a header to fold)", and the sections under it: Generate open, the others folded until you need them. Each section's header has a small ? button that opens its page of this guide (its tooltip: "Open this panel's page in the Marble Studio guide (marblestudio.pro/docs/panels/camera/#build-camera)").

  1. Install and activate.
  2. Follow the Quickstart: a MIDI to a looping render in minutes.
  3. Read The perfect loop to understand the one idea everything else is built on. New words along the way are in the Glossary.