Blender 3d Scatter add-on test
The Scatter add-on has been recently updated, with lots of new features, optimized for Blender 3, and extensive sets of biomes.
I did a quick, and dirty test. Rendered with Cycles-x. About 30 seconds per frame @ 1920×1080 on my old dual 1080ti config, and denoised with Intel Denoiser.
The denoised pass:
Gaea explorations
The images below have been created with Quadspinner Gaea, community education.
The output map limit is 1k, and things are already looking good. I’ll go with the Indie version to see what a 4k map from Gaea can do.
Rendered in Cycles-X. The background sky has been created with the Physical Starlight and Atmosphere add-on.
One more
The first render is all done in Cycle-X.
In the second render, I combined two EXR passes: the one from the image above, and a few more passes rendered in Eevee (beauty, mist, bloom, emitter).
This combination works flawlessly. It’s nice to have the main beauty pass render from Cycle-X, and then volume emitter from Eevee.
Further exploration with the new add-on
Some more images created using the new randomizer add-on under development.
New add-on by the Creative Bundle author
There’s a new add-on being developed, and the author has been kind enough to share the beta with me.
I did a couple of tests, and it’s quite fun to play with.
In this case, I’ve tweaked two basic cube shapes, and then I started random extruding, and random paneling the surfaces. Plus a few minor tweaks with the Creative Bundle.
Final result, The basic shape instanced
Main Setup, The basic shapes
Hard Surface doodles
I find doing some hard surface modeling somewhat relaxing. It’s an exercise of forms, and shapes.
I decided to test the Creative Bundle again. As for any hard surface add-on, there are specific workflow advantages tied to each of them.
Fluent is a very polished add-on, with a clear UI, and streamlined workflow. For some reason, I find it more suitable when I want to focus on the bigger parts. When it comes to tiny details, the Creative Bundle seems to fit better my needs.
The render times with the latest Cycle-X are about 10 seconds per frame on a dual 1080ti machine.
Testing Cycles-X
With the development of the new Cycles branch, namely Cycles-X, I wanted to give it a spin, and see how well it performs.
At a resolution of 1920 x 820 it took about 25 seconds per frame using 256 samples with adaptive sampling on.
I forgot to use the animated seed to improve the noise a bit, but in the end I’ve used OIDN denoiser in Fusion, so it wouldn’t probably make much difference.
It’s worth to mention that currently, Cycles-X can use 1gpu only.
3D assets provided by Poly Haven