Mensis Septem

 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.

"The Tunnel"

Meet the anti-climax monster.

More time with Nature Generator

I've spent a bit more time learning some of the ins and outs of Nature Generator. I've been getting system hangs on start-up and after baking objects from the Geonode systems. It could be bugs with the addon, or it might be a coincidence. 

We experienced a very brief power cut on Friday, which caused my systems to shut down. I feared that I'd spend many hours getting my older system back up and running, but it only took a couple of minutes... phew!

Nature Generator Stuff

Nature Gen ground scatter on my existing test scene.

The Nature Gen ground scatters come with a ground layer which interferes with the scene's terrain. I think I managed to suppress it by manually tweaking the material's alpha channel.

Still great for baking procedural rock assets

I experienced crashes while creating multiple rocks and then baking them (applying the geonode tree).

Log message

> [NatureGen] Panel build error: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

> WARNING: Context is restricted!

> [NatureGen] Panel build error: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

> [NatureGen] Panel build error: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

> [NatureGen] Panel build error: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

> WARNING: Context is restricted!

> [NatureGen] Panel build error: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

> Info: Deleted 1 object(s)

Later crash log

>🧹 Removed asset library (4.0): Nature Generator Assets

>✅ Registered asset library: C:\Users\mark\AppData\Roaming\Blender
> Foundation\Blender\4.5\scripts\addons\The_Nature_Generator\asset_library

> register_class(...):

> Warning: 'TOT_MatB_UL_items' doesn't have upper case alpha-numeric prefix

> register_class(...):

> Warning: 'TOT_ImageResizer_UL_items' doesn't have upper case alpha-numeric prefix

> addon_utils.disable: ui_translate not loaded

> addon_utils.disable: viewport_vr_preview not loaded

> Error   : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

> Address : 0x00007FF6763FA082

> Module  : blender.exe

> Thread  : 00001ef0

> Writing: C:\Users\mark\AppData\Local\Temp\blender.crash.txt

Nature Gen is great for creating quick background terrains. To be fair, True Terrain is a lot more flexible, but I have a well-established workflow where I design my heightmaps and then work from there, rather than using True Terrain's terrain sculpting tools. Still, it's nice to have a set of parameters that are specifically tuned to terrain deformation rather than having to work out how different noise systems can mimic erosion, etc.

Two Nature Gen desert terrains with True Sky (3 minutes work)