Typical weekend

 Was it a lazy weekend? Well, I didn't do very much. Battlefield 6 was offering double-XP, so it made sense to mindlessly waste all my time on that. But not all my time, really. I actually did some cool things.

I did a lot of scatter practice, as I want to do a really good job on the Blender 5.0 celebration render.

New terrain. Lots and lots of new terrains

Tres dark out there.  It's hard to see the biome test.

I played with GeoScatter's biome system. Biomes are a collection of ground scatter recipes that carefully layer different ground assets to produce an instant environment type. They are too resource-hungry to use on anything other than a tiny area of foreground. 

Biomes in a pot

From now on, I'll use this smallish pot (it's enormous, for a pot, but very small as a terrain) to test complex scatter collections and own-grown biomes.

A dry grass terrain (my own scatter collection)

Arid (Bagapie biome collection)

Customised biome

Customised biome

Another terrain and some of those wonky generative AI assets

This element looks pretty cool. I will generate some complementary elements to form a full Lovecraftian alien temple.

This week

Blender 5.0 Release Candidate

This will set the clock for the full release in the following week, unless something stinky turns up while testing. I will migrate some of my own work to 5.0, although project work, such as the Service Road, must remain on 4.5 LTS.

True Sky 3

Oh boy, this looks absolutely amazing, especially with the added sky physics and support for planets.

Layered clouds and a "projected planetary sphere"

Service Road

Complete the requested changes to the service road elements. Probably a day's work all in all.

Celebration Render

Complete the modelling and texturing of the egg house. Select a terrain and start dressing it. I had trouble testing BagaRiver addon. I might look into it as it looks like a great way to add a nice stream. This might be handled by Nature Generator; I'll consider that, too.

Back to learning, back to focused output

 I have work to do, but I make excuses to do something else. Usually, what I do is not focused and leads nowhere useful. Let's get back on track!

1) More planning and discipline... complete a training element at least twice per week. So, more Blender School!

2) No more starting something and fizzling out.  Although it is okay to abandon a project that has run its course, if you just stop every time you hit a creative roadblock, you'll never finish anything.

3) Work towards a more iterative and reflective workflow. It's been a while since I've completed a critique session. More of those!

generative Cthulhu statue 

Back to work, damn it!

 
I need to complete the Service Road element but I keep finding excuses to play with World Creator -- which, in fact, just entered general release. Not a massive number of changes from the Beta. The cliff filter is no longer in an experimental category.

True-Vault asset tests

I wanted to do a scene that showcased the True-VFX  asset library available through their very cool new add-on, True-Vault. I still suck at scattering! But maybe I'm getting a bit better when I keep things simple and slowly build up.

Nature Generator cliffs. Nicey nice, yes?

Grass from the GraSSy knoll collection

Cameo by Bagapie's basic ivy

I'll go back to the service road on the next session, maybe tonight.

The rest is weekend

 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.

Grassy knoll 

Rocks need a lot more work, but I love how Nature Generator's rock procedural material lets you quickly colour-match to your terrain.

Nature Generator procedurals absolutely rock!

This week

I have received feedback for the next section of the service road, so I will be building that. It's more like two sections, it's twice as big as the previous parts.

Ambush on the service road

Thought for the week: For gawd's sake, finish something!

I need to regain some discipline and not leave part-finished mini-projects in a growing discard pile.

A day for Odin

 Progress Report

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. 

Little rocky heroes

The only screaming limitation is the lack of a built-in material-baking tool. These assets are now plain meshes with the Nature Gen Geometry Node trees applied. Ready to share! However, the materials are still using the addon's procedural systems. To make these rocks easy to share, I'd need to turn the procedural results into PBR textures, which would require that the objects be given good UVs. I may run some tests to see if I can create a UV map for an object while maintaining the great texture results, and then use the baking tool I have from the Sanctus Library.

Quick practice scene

Service Road

I haven't forgotten about the tunnel section of the service road. I had put it off, as I thought the scatter step wasn't going to be much fun. Turns out it was okay.

From above - near cave entrance

View from within the cave

Overview

Next

That scene will need to be optimised. I used detailed assets because they give a much better sense of how much the tunnel is obscured, but at the cost of a very big scene -- about 1GB.

More Blender School! I have courses! I have the last section of the environmental design course to complete.

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)

Blender School: Nature Generator

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.

The Nature Generator

Let's jump in and learn the basics before I move on and forget how it works.

Installation

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.

Using The Nature Generator

When installed, you pick from the available assets in the Asset Browser. Once an asset is dropped into the viewport and selected, the N-Panel shows the available parameters. While there are many standard parameters, most assets have some unique properties. Lots of options for customisation!

The Nature Generator is ready to spring into action.