Foliagelab - Cluster

Michael G. Art in Modeling




Foliage grows where you point.

Point your source collection at your foliage meshes. Place anchor points where growth should start. Cluster handles the rest.

Meshes

  • Detects meshes from any Blender collection — LOD0 objects become actors, higher LOD levels are stored automatically for Bake LODs
  • Automatically recognizes LOD groups by naming convention (Leaf_A_LOD0, Leaf_A_LOD1…)
  • Assign meshes to buckets and set their target anchor index — controls exactly which anchors each mesh spawns on

Mesh Hierarchy

  • Base Mesh with its own deformations — Curl, Fold, Twist, Noise
  • Organize actors into buckets — each with independent Rotation, Scale, Variance and Deformations
  • Parent — each bucket can spawn on top of any previous bucket, or directly on the Base Mesh, building growth layer by layer
  • Per-bucket Seed for controlled variation across groups
  • Assign multiple meshes per bucket for natural variety
  • Duplicate any bucket to reuse its parameters as a starting point

Lighting

  • Per-bucket vertex normal control — adjust how instances catch light without touching the geometry
  • Global mode — blend normals toward World Up based on actor size, by size bracket (Tiny to Huge)
  • Local mode — Smooth, Parent Puffiness, and directional Adjustments (Up, Right, Out, World Up)
  • Normal Overlay — visualize vertex normals per bucket directly in the viewport

Manual Adjustments

  • Freeze the preview and adjust instances directly in the viewport
  • Actor Override — swap the mesh on any individual instance without rebuilding the preview
  • Instance Deformations — override Curl, Fold, Twist, Noise per instance independently of the bucket
  • Delete selected instances directly in the viewport
  • Confirm or Reset adjustments at any time

Output

  • Live preview before baking — updates in real time as parameters change
  • Explode View — spread baked LODs side by side with adjustable Spacing
  • Bake Branch — finalizes the composition as a single clean mesh (LOD0)
  • Bake LODs — generates the full LOD chain. Remove Missing LODs option available

Requirements — Blender 4.2+


$30

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Details
Blender Extension Compatible Yes
Published 6 months ago
Blender Version 4.2 - 4.5
Extension Type Add-on
Render Engine Used Cycles, Eevee
License GPL