Portal

Imagine moving your objects and meshes in real time, wherever and however you want. With Portal, a Blender add-on, this is now possible: it can teleport any type of mesh, even liquids.

Make Portal your go to tool for every project, transport your meshes today

Action Menu

Create

With the Portal add-on there are two ways to create portals

• Create portal: Creates a default portal, choose Square or Circle from the options list
• Assign portal: Converts existing meshes (meshes that were originally planes or circles) into editable, customizable portals, so you can edit them before running “Assign portal” (you can still edit the portal meshes afterward, but doing it beforehand is more efficient and recommended)
• Name here: Lets you set the portal names before using “Assign portal” so they’re easy to find in the search

Readjust

Restores default rotation, location, and scale for objects in the teleportation system, and if the origin was lost it applies “Set Geometry to Origin” to fully reposition the geometry

• Individual: Resets the selected object

• Global: Resets every object in the portal system

Additional portals

Exit Portal” lets you create as many exit portals as needed

• Exit portals only work as exits and require an existing entry
•  An exit portal can be turned into an entry by selecting the portal and then choosing “Assign portal”, enabling it to act as both entry and exit
• The same portal cannot be used as entry and exit at the same time, for an entry to also serve as an exit there must be another entry in the system, it may act as an exit, but that does not mean the same object will enter and leave through the same place, it can be the entry for one object and the exit for another

Unlink and link

Exit portals can be unlinked from the current system to become independent meshes, assigned as portals in a new system, or linked to a different system

• Unlink: Turns the selected portal into an independent mesh, removing every connection to the portal system

• Link: Links that mesh back to any portal system (the previous one or a different one) by selecting a system object in the picker to the left of “Link” and then pressing “Link”
• Assign portal: Same as “Assign portal”, but used on portals coming from other systems, assigning them as new creates their own system with no relation to the previous one

Preferences Menu

Automation

Provides tools to fine-tune behavior in the teleportation domain, with controls to adjust key parameters simply and precisely

• Proportional: Makes the domain’s direction follow the portal’s shape proportionally as it extends, tracking its changes of direction, otherwise the domain advances in a straight line ignoring that shape

• Empty scale: Lets you adjust and visualize the Empty’s scale manually without keyboard shortcuts, to its right there is a list to change the Empty’s shape as needed, using Blender’s default Empty types
• Automatic mode: Moves the portal domain automatically when the object of interest approaches, select any object type in the picker to its right, avoid very complex meshes to prevent overloading the PC, however this is up to the user’s discretion

• Offset: Once Automatic mode is enabled, an “Offset” bar becomes available, this widens the reaction range of Automatic mode, higher values increase detection distance, useful to correct misalignment or to extend range to user preference

Curve

Lets you add portals to a selected curve to position them automatically and animate them

• Curve mode: Adds portals to the chosen curve, select any object from the desired portal system and, when you enable “Curve Mode”, a picker appears to its right, use it to choose the curve that will host the portals
• Curve objects: Once “Curve Mode” is enabled, a list with the system’s portals appears, each portal name has a checkbox on its left, this lets you choose which portals from that system will be added to the curve
• Offset: Once Curve mode is enabled, an “Offset” bar becomes available, it evenly distributes the portals selected in “Curve Objects” so spacing stays constant, the maximum editable value is 1 regardless of curve length, for example, with “Offset” at 1 and three selected portals, portal 1 is placed at the start, portal 2 in the middle, portal 3 at the end, with “Offset” at 0 they remain grouped at the start because distribution hasn’t begun yet, increasing “Offset” gradually spreads them along the curve until, at 1, one portal sits at both the beginning and the end
• Individual offset: Lets a portal ignore the global offset and use its own offset to move along the curve independently, once enabled (to the right of the portal name in “Curve Objects”), two new controls appear to position the portal on the curve, an “Offset” where 1 is the end and 0 is the start, and to its right a button to insert keyframes so you can animate the portal’s position and keep it moving as desired

Visual Effects Menu

Portal

Provides several tools to customize the portals

• Shade smooth: Applies “Shade Smooth” to all portals at once with a single click, softening their appearance
• Shade flat: Applies “Shade Flat” to all portals at once with a single click, giving a flat look
• Subdivide: Subdivides all portals together to unify their appearance
• Apply/Delete: Buttons to the right of Subdivide to apply or remove subdivision changes
• Level: Sets the desired subdivision level for all portals at once
• Catmull/Simple: Choose between rounded subdivision that smooths edges with “Catmull-Clark”, or flat subdivision that does not alter geometry with “Simple”
• Center: Shows or hides the portal’s center, useful to improve or vary the result as needed, if you need to move the portal you must show the center because it controls position, scale, and rotation, when hidden you cannot interact with or select the object to make those changes
• Slide: To the right of Center there is a control to adjust the size of all portals together, this works even if “Center” is hidden, to its right there’s a button to insert keyframes so you can animate portal size

• Border: Shows or hides an outline for portals in the same system, useful to apply a material or effect as needed
• Slide: to the right of “Border” there is a control to adjust border thickness/size, to its right there’s a button to insert keyframes, so you can animate the border size
• Material: Lets you pick a specific user-created material to apply to the borders of all portals together
• Effect: With “Border” enabled, applies a preset effect to the outline, you can choose effects using the selector to its right

• Add: Inside the Animation menu, this adds different editable animations that apply to all portals in a system together
• Hide/Show: Collapses the menu to avoid clutter when there are many entries
• Animation name: Lets you name the menu so it’s easy to identify whether collapsed or expanded
• Duplicate: Duplicates the animation if you want two similar ones, avoiding manual rework
• Delete: Removes the animation entirely
• Activate: Enables or disables the animation without deleting it, useful for performance
• Linear/Radial: Chooses the animation’s path, either linear (starts at one edge and extends to the opposite) or radial (starts at the center and ends at the borders)
• Editable animation properties (Each has a keyframe button, meaning all can be animated):
  • Height: Sets the maximum vertical motion on the Z axis
  • Frequency: Sets how many repetitions per second
  • Interpolation: Defines how smooth or abrupt the change is
  • Radius: Sets the area where the animation applies
  • X: Toggles animation on the X axis
  • Y: Toggles animation on the Y axis
  • Initial X: Sets the starting position on X
  • Initial Y: Sets the starting position on Y
  • Speed: Sets propagation speed
  • Displacement: Sets the second at which the animation starts
  • Duration: Sets how many seconds the animation stays active

Teleport

Provides the options required to make teleportation possible, where you choose the object(s)/collection to teleport and which portals they enter and exit

• Hide/Show: Collapses the menu to avoid clutter when there are many entries
• Teleport name: Lets you name the menu so it’s easy to identify whether collapsed or expanded
• On/Off: Enables or disables teleportation to optimize resources and keep the scene light
• Duplicate: Duplicates the teleport setup to create a similar one without rebuilding it
• Delete: Removes the teleport setup completely
• Object to teleport: Lets you select the mesh to be teleported
• Collection Mode: Toggles between selecting a single object or multiple objects from one collection to speed up workflows that need many objects
• Hide all: Once objects are selected they’re added to “Object List”, then the “Hide All” button is enabled to hide every listed object in both viewport and render, speeding up work with many elements
• Show all: Once objects are selected they’re added to “Object List”, then the “Show All” button is enabled to show every listed object in both viewport and render, speeding up work with many elements
• Hide/Show: Once objects are selected they’re added to “Object List”, then the “Hide/Show” button is enabled to toggle visibility for individual objects in both viewport and render
• Directly: If you want to select an object but can’t spot it among many in the scene, you can click its name inside “Object List” to select it instantly, avoiding manual searching and saving time

• Entry portal: Lets you choose the entry portal where teleportation begins
• Exit portal: Lets you choose the exit portal where the object leaves, as long as it belongs to the same system as the “Entry portal”
• Link output: Registers the exit selected in “Exit portal” into “Output List”
• Link outputs: Automatically registers every exit associated with the same entry into “Output List”, saving time by avoiding adding them one by one
• Delete: Removes an exit from “Output List” using the button to the right of each exit portal, so the selected object no longer exits through it
• Delete all: Clears all exits registered in “Output List” using the button to the right of “Output List”, leaving the selected object with no exits