Documentation / v1.5.0

FPV Feed docs

Everything you need to turn a Blender scene or video into FPV drone footage: install, the first shot in five minutes, every panel, the OSD, flight data, rendering and fixes. In Blender the add-on is listed as FPV Camera FX & Telemetry HUD and lives in the FPV sidebar tab.

Blender 5.2+Tested on 5.2.2 LTS / Windows 11Extension zipby LarkLab

Install, update, remove

Download fpv_toolkit-1.5.0.zip from your Superhive downloads. Don't unzip it.
In Blender open Edit › Preferences › Get Extensions, open the small arrow menu at the top right and choose Install from Disk…, then pick the zip. Dragging the zip onto the Blender window works too.
The add-on is enabled straight away. In the 3D Viewport press N and open the FPV tab.

Blender Preferences, Get Extensions, showing FPV Camera FX and Telemetry HUD installed — Installed, in Preferences › Get Extensions

Update: install the new zip the same way. When you open a file made with an older version, the panel shows a red box; press Update / Repair This File. Your settings are kept. The same button repairs a file where FPV parts were deleted by hand.

Remove from a scene: Advanced › Remove FPV From Scene gives the scene back the compositor, view transform and Compositing setting it had before. Uninstall in Preferences; your files keep rendering, because everything is stored in the .blend.

Command line, for example on a render node: blender --command extension install-file -r user_default -e fpv_toolkit-1.5.0.zip. The only permission the add-on asks for is files, to read and write look presets.

Your first FPV shot in 5 minutes

The Getting Started checklist at the top of the FPV tab walks you through these steps and ticks each one off. The next unfinished step always shows its button.

Build. Press Build FPV Toolkit. This creates the effect graph, the OSD and a test chart. A compositor the scene already had is kept and can be restored.
Choose a source. Render uses your 3D scene, File… a video, image or numbered image sequence, Chart the test chart.
Pick a look, for example Mild Analog Warmup, and press Apply.
Set the intensity. Drag Intensity (0 = clean picture).
Choose a HUD layout, for example Betaflight OSD, and press Apply.
Preview renders the current frame.
Render. Press MP4 Output, then Render for the whole frame range.

Real flight numbers: set your take-off battery voltage in Telemetry HUD › Element › Battery › Volt (25.2 for a full 6S), then press Flight Data › Bake Flight from Camera. Speed, altitude, battery and signal now follow your animated camera.

Build FPV Toolkit button — Step 1: one button

Getting Started checklist in the FPV panel — The Getting Started checklist

Blender viewport showing the FPV effects live — Rendered viewport: the effects run live while you work

How it works

Two scenes

Your scene runs through the compositor group FPV_Compositor, which adds the effects. The OSD lives in a second scene, FPV_HUD, rendered automatically and placed on top. You never render it yourself.

One setup per file

Pressing Build in another scene offers Move Setup Here; the first scene then gets its own compositor back.

A readable node graph

Nodes sit in labelled frames: Source, Coordinates, Signal FX, Lens & Colour Split, Sampler, Recording, HUD and Output. Move them freely; Rebuild Node Groups tidies everything again.

Effect strength

Base strength × category slider × Intensity. Lens distortion is the exception, because it changes framing. An effect at 0 is removed from the graph and costs no render time.

Repeatable

Same frame and same seed give the same image on every render. Change Seed for a different, still repeatable variation.

Any resolution

Sizes are relative to the image height, so a look made at 720p looks the same at 4K. The recording effects never touch the OSD unless you turn HUD Artifacts up.

The panel, section by section

Sidebar (N) › FPV, in the 3D Viewport and in the Compositor. Problems such as a missing file or no camera are reported in the status bar, and nothing changes when an action fails.

Section	What's in it
FPV Camera FX	Build FPV Toolkit, Move Setup Here, Update / Repair This File, the Getting Started checklist, Intensity, Preview and Render Animation.
Look	Preset list + Apply; the Signal FX, Pixelation, RGB Split and Recording sliders scale each family of effects; Speed sets how fast effects move (the OSD clock keeps real time); Seed.
Signal FX	Stepped Jitter, Horizontal Tearing, Signal Wobble. Each has an on/off mark, a strength, and ▸ for every setting.
Image Quality	Pixelation (with Screen / Source order), Colour (RGB Channel Split) and the seven Recording effects.
Telemetry HUD	Layout + Apply, Font, Visible, Opacity, Crisp / Shared / Hybrid mode, Distortion, Artifacts, elements on/off, and an editor for any of the 21 elements.
Flight Data	Bake Flight from Camera with a summary, Top Speed, Clear Flight Bake, Telemetry Values (keyframe them yourself) and Telemetry Simulation.
Source & Output	Chart / File… / Render, resolution, Preview Scale, view transform, frame range and fps, output path, Use MP4, Render Animation.
Presets	Apply, Save by name, Save to Custom Slot, Reset to Default, open the presets folder.
Advanced	Lens Distortion & Overscan, Debug View (Signals, Pixel Mask, UV), compositor device and precision, Rebuild Node Groups, Sync HUD, Show Getting Started, Remove FPV From Scene, version.

Looks and the 13 effects

A preset always starts from the defaults, so nothing from the previous look remains. All built-in looks keep the OSD clean.

Clean Digital FPV

Barely touched digital feed, light grain, slight wide-angle lens.

Mild Analog Warmup

Gentle wobble, rare tears, colour bleed, soft image, faint scanlines.

Unstable Signal

Weak link: strong wobble, frequent tearing, jitter, glitches and dropouts.

Uneven Digital Pixels

A digital link breaking into uneven blocks.

Tactical Telemetry

Calm, desaturated picture with fine scanlines.

Severe Recording Failure

Everything failing at once.

Effect	What it does	Section
Stepped Jitter	The picture jumps in held steps, with occasional bigger glitches.	Signal FX
Horizontal Tearing	Uneven bands slide sideways, sometimes a big tear event.	Signal FX
Signal Wobble	Smooth sideways waviness, like an unstable sync signal.	Signal FX
Uneven Pixelation	Blocky patches with separate block width and height; Screen or Source order.	Image Quality
RGB Channel Split	Colour fringes, radial towards the edges, driven by tearing and wobble.	Image Quality
Softness / Sharpen	Recorder blur and edge sharpening.	Recording
Colour Bleed	Colour smears sideways.	Recording
Tone / Contrast	Contrast, black lift, white level, saturation.	Recording
Brightness Flicker	Flicker, stepped flicker and a rolling bar.	Recording
Line Dropouts	Broken lines, more where the picture tears, with sparkle.	Recording
Luma / Chroma Noise	Grain in brightness and colour, stronger in shadows.	Recording
Scanlines	Visible, optionally scrolling lines.	Recording
Lens Distortion & Overscan	Barrel or pincushion with automatic fit. Not scaled by Intensity.	Advanced

Telemetry OSD

21 elements built in Geometry Nodes. Pick a layout to start from, then edit any element in Telemetry HUD › Element.

Rendered frame with the full FPV OSD — Render result with the OSD composited on top

Layout	Contents
Default	Standard OSD with frame brackets and heading tape.
Betaflight OSD	White pixel text with outline: attitude, altitude and speed on the left, battery and power on the right, throttle and RSSI bottom left.
Tactical Green	Green OSD with REC timecode, range ring and dense scales.
Clean Mono	Smooth font with a drop shadow.

Mode	Effect on the OSD
Crisp	Clean OSD on top of the picture (default).
Shared	The OSD tears and wobbles with the picture, like an analog OSD.
Hybrid	Partly shared, set by Distortion.
Artifacts	Shared / Hybrid only: how much blur, noise and scanlines reach the OSD.

Element	Shows
Battery / Cell Voltage	Battery icon with pack or average cell voltage. Volt is your take-off voltage.
Throttle	Throttle bar and value.
Current / Power / Consumed	Amps, watts and mAh used.
Timer / Recorder	Flight time; REC dot and timecode.
Flight Mode / Callsign	Text you type (ACRO, your craft name…).
Signal	RSSI bars and value.
Altitude / Speed	Readouts with your own format.
Roll / Pitch / Horizon	Attitude readouts, artificial horizon and pitch ladder.
Heading	Compass tape.
Crosshair / Frame	Centre cross; corner brackets and edge scales.
Battery / Signal Warning	LOW BATTERY below 3.5 V per cell; LOW SIGNAL when RSSI drops.

Battery element settings in the Telemetry HUD panel — Editing the Battery element

Every element has Visible, Anchor X/Y, Offset, Scale, Rotation, Color, Opacity, Outline, Shadow, Blink, Font Size, Line Width and Safe Margin. Format strings use Python syntax, for example {v:.1f}V → 16.8V or ALT {v:.1f}m.

Flight data: three ways

The OSD numbers (altitude, speed, voltage, amps, throttle, flight time, mAh, RSSI, heading, roll, pitch) can come from your camera, from your own keyframes, or from a simulation.

A. Bake from your camera (recommended)

Animate the camera like a drone: keyframes, a path or motion tracking.
Set Battery › Volt, and Top Speed if your scene isn't at real scale.
Press Flight Data › Bake Flight from Camera, set Signal Range (about 300–500 m for analog) and press OK.

Value	Comes from
ALT	Height above the first-frame position.
SPD	The camera's real speed, or scaled to Top Speed.
ROL / PIT	The camera's real tilt; the horizon lies on the real horizon.
THR	The thrust a quad needs for that motion; 0 % on the ground.
V / A / mAh	Voltage starts at your Volt, sags under throttle and drops as the pack drains.
RSSI	Drops with distance and when geometry hides the drone.

Options: Terrain Blocks Signal (walls and hills weaken the signal) and Signal-Driven Look. Change the camera and bake again; the trash icon clears the bake.

Flight Bake box with bake summary — Bake summary after one click

B. Your own numbers

Open Telemetry Values, tick a value (for example Altitude), type a number, hover and press I to keyframe it. Keys win over typed values. Untick to hand the value back to the simulation. You can mix: bake first, then keyframe one value yourself.

C. Leave it simulated

With nothing ticked, the numbers come from a smooth, repeatable simulation, good for background shots. Tune it in Telemetry Simulation: throttle style, current, RSSI dips, attitude, heading drift, warning thresholds.

You type in Volt	The OSD treats it as
12.6	A full 3S pack
16.8	A full 4S pack
16.0	A 4S pack flown before (icon about 70 %)
22.2	6S at nominal voltage
25.2	A full 6S pack

Signal-driven look

With Signal-Driven Look on, the baked RSSI blends four looks as the signal weakens: Clean Digital FPV → Mild Analog Warmup → Unstable Signal → Severe Recording Failure. The blend is keyframed every 5 frames, so the picture degrades and recovers smoothly.

Applying a preset removes the signal-driven look so you can see the preset. Bake again to bring it back.

Rendering

Video: Source & Output › Use MP4 sets H.264 at high quality, then Render Animation (or Ctrl+F12). If the output path is still Blender's default /tmp/ and the file is saved, frames go to a render folder next to the .blend. For long renders a PNG sequence is safer.
Quick tests: lower Preview Scale; the look stays the same.
GPU compositing (Advanced) is much faster than CPU.
View transform: keep Standard so footage keeps its colours. Build sets it; Remove puts the old one back.
Without the add-on: saved files render on machines that don't have it installed. After changing resolution or fps, press Sync HUD (Advanced) before saving.

Source and Output panel with Use MP4 and Render Animation — Use MP4, then Render Animation

Presets

Save: type a name and press Save. Saving an existing name updates it. Built-in names and empty names are refused.
Save to Custom Slot stores the look as Custom User Preset.
Reset to Default puts every effect, control and OSD element back (Preview Scale is kept).

Presets are JSON files in the add-on's presets folder (folder button in Presets). Copy them to share looks.
They store the look, OSD element settings including Volt, Top Speed and font. They don't store keyframes.
A damaged preset file is reported and leaves your look unchanged.

Recipes

Make real footage analog

Build › File… (Match Resolution on) › Mild Analog Warmup › Betaflight OSD. Keyframe the numbers or leave them simulated.

3D scene, animated camera

Build › Render › set Volt › Bake Flight from Camera with Signal-Driven Look › Betaflight OSD › render.

Digital feed

Clean Digital FPV or Uneven Digital Pixels, font Clean Mono, mode Crisp.

Analog OSD that breaks up

Mode Shared, or Hybrid with Distortion 0.3; HUD Artifacts 0.2–0.5.

Green tactical screen

Preset Tactical Telemetry with layout Tactical Green.

Low battery moment

Type a low Volt (14.4 for a tired 4S) or keyframe Voltage down: the warning blinks below 3.5 V per cell.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
No FPV tab in the Compositor	Switch the node editor to the Compositor tree.
Only "Build FPV Toolkit" shows	This scene isn't set up yet; press it.
Colours washed out with effects at 0	Source & Output › View Transform Standard.
"FPV is set up in scene …"	Press Move Setup Here, or switch to that scene.
My own compositor is gone	It's kept. Advanced › Remove FPV From Scene restores it.
OSD missing in the render	Turn Visible on and Opacity up; press Update / Repair This File.
OSD blurry or torn	Mode Crisp, or Artifacts 0.
A number ignores what I type	It's keyframed (keys win) or its box in Telemetry Values is unticked.
Bake button greyed out	Add a scene camera; press Build.
Speed far too high or low	Scene isn't at real scale: set Top Speed.
Picture stopped changing with distance	A preset was applied after baking; bake again.
Signal drops at the very start	The camera starts inside geometry; start above ground or untick Terrain Blocks Signal.
Red box "parts are out of date or missing"	Press Update / Repair This File; values are kept.
Footage looks cropped	Different shape footage is cropped to fill; use Match Resolution.

Known limits and support

Tested on Blender 5.2.2 LTS, Windows 11, with EEVEE and Workbench scenes and CPU and GPU compositing. macOS, Linux, Blender 5.3+ and Cycles renders haven't been tested yet.
One FPV setup per .blend file.
Master sliders (Intensity, category sliders, Speed, Seed) can't be keyframed for the render. Keyframe the effect settings instead, or use the signal-driven look.
Flight Mode text can't be animated (Blender can't keyframe text): swap two elements with their Visible boxes.
OSD fonts: Pixel OSD or Clean Mono only.
Blackbox / SRT flight logs can't be imported directly; key values from Python.

Questions, bugs or a feature request? Contact LarkLab through Superhive. Include your Blender version, operating system and, if you can, the .blend.

superhivemarket.com/creators/larklab

import bpy
bpy.ops.fpv.build()
bpy.ops.fpv.apply_preset(name="Unstable Signal")
bpy.ops.fpv.apply_hud_layout(name="Betaflight OSD")
bpy.ops.fpv.bake_flight(signal_range=400)
bpy.context.scene.fpv.master_intensity = 0.7