This morning, I completed the first pass on the rock scatters on the "Sniper Alley" section of the service road.
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Rocks from Nature Generator |
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Small scatters need to be improved. |
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Overview |
I decided to put down my tools over the weekend. I wish it had been for a noble cause, but I ended up playing Civilisation 5 for too many hours.
TrueVault
True-VFX have released their very cool asset library system. It's both a repository of your owned assets and a shop window for buying new things from the TrueVFX library.
I took the plunge and bought some credits, picking up a collection of grass assets.
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Nature Generator procedurals absolutely rock! |
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Ambush on the service road |
I lost a significant amount of productivity over the last couple of days, thanks to an impulsive decision to reinstall Civilisation V. What a terrible mistake. That game is such a driver of the "one more round" compulsion in me. I completed two full playthroughs and two games that were discarded or lost.
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Best game so far! |
I started an entirely different quick Blender project.
I decided that I needed to finish my "pile of rocks" quick project, but that a chrome ball wasn't enough of a subject to justify the effort. What should go there, instead? A hard-surface model, a space probe!
I was eager to create a hard-surface model, so I began developing the idea of a lander/probe. I didn't bother to do any sketches; I got most of my inspiration from the escape pod that featured in the first Star Wars movie.
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Thruster package |
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Propulsion Unit |
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Landing Leg. Meh! |
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Much better |
I invested a considerable amount of time creating "hero" assets with Nature Generator. It's great, and it seems more stable than I first thought.
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Little rocky heroes |
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Quick practice scene |
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From above - near cave entrance |
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View from within the cave |
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Overview |
We're here at the golden gates of autumn. Ready for 2025's final slog.
Over the weekend, I created the base meshes for the second stretch of the service road for the film project. I need to get proxy scatters in place. I should get this handed over in the next couple of days, then jump onto the third section, which is a bigger piece of work.
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"The Tunnel" |
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Meet the anti-climax monster. |
Nature Generator Stuff
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Nature Gen ground scatter on my existing test scene. |
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Still great for baking procedural rock assets |
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Two Nature Gen desert terrains with True Sky (3 minutes work) |
Last night, just before going to sleep, I watched a YouTube video about the latest releases of Blender Addons. The first one covered was The Nature Generator, which provides a library of customisable procedural terrains and terrain-related objects -- mostly different rock structures. Oh my! This is what I've been failing to deliver for about three days. It wasn't super-cheap; about £50 for the personal edition, but it looked great.
I was hesitant due to the high cost and the number of times I've purchased an add-on, only to quickly find a show-stopping deficiency. I watched the release video and read all the comments on SuperHive. Despite any limitations that appear during testing, this looked like a handy landscape toolbox, so I bought it this morning. If only a couple of the components work well, I'll make use of them and the addon will pay for itself in the long run.
Let's jump in and learn the basics before I move on and forget how it works.
There are two files to download:
Note: The Nature Generator requires Blender 4.1 or later
1. Drag and drop The_Nature_GeneratorX.x zip file into the Blender desktop. The addon will then be installed and appear on the N-panel.
2. The Optional NatureGenerator_Texture_Options.zip file needs to be extracted and placed on your file system, preferably on a local SSD drive, so as not to cause stuttering.
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The Nature Generator is ready to spring into action. |
I'm back at the day job, which I can do early while we're not in term time. I was intent on completing the next previs section, but I fell down another rabbit hole.
Quick project
I wanted to conduct a quick animation/post-production test, as I have a bunch of tools in this area that I'm unfamiliar with.
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I'm happy with the post-work, but the horizon is too abrupt. |
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Added landscape meshes to fill out the background. |
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The overall vibe of the scene is better, but it needs a lot of work. |
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The cloud colour is a bit distracting, but I like how the rolling fog softens the horizon. |
I'm now back at work, but off on Monday -- bless you Bank Holiday. In the meantime, I've reworked the first service road previs.
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Better scatters coming soon. |
I've been rambling along the tail-end of Summer in a state of ignorant bliss. On Monday, the penny dropped: I'm back at work on Thursday (tomorrow). It's an odd time to return to work. I guess we'll be using the days before the teaching staff return to do deep cleaning or disruptive work.
Yesterday
I missed making a post because it all got jolly busy. I got feedback on the project work. I need to make some tweaks, which I'll have completed for end of tomorrow.
I progressed the Texas Tower 4 model.
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Texas Tower awaits the final elements. Mostly the radar dishes on the back face. |
I've had a couple of days where I didn't get much done. I played with World Creator and found myself going through the old flow of sculpting a terrain, exporting maps and playing with them in Blender. Not very useful or productive, it's a therapy thing.
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The colour map is "banded". Commented as a bug |
Today, I found what appears to be a serious bug in the latest World Creator beta that corrupts exported material maps. As good a reason as any to go away and do something more productive. I'm supposed to be doing a final clean-up on the service road, but I wanted a weekend break.
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Texas Tower |
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Work-in-progress |
This morning, I completed the first pass on the rock scatters on the "Sniper Alley" section of the service road. Rocks from Natur...