Marble Studio

SkdSam in Materials and Shading

MARBLE STUDIO / USER GUIDE / 1.7.0

Small spheres. Endless possibilities.

Build your marble, make it your own, and save your favourite designs. Explore every N-panel feature, from glass and internal shapes to surface wear and reusable libraries.

41 design families11 surface effectsMarble + surface libraries
01 / OPEN

3D Viewport → N → Marbles

02 / CREATE

Choose a style → Generate

03 / REFINE

Load Selected → Edit → Update

01 / FEATURE GUIDE

Getting started

STEP 1 Install the supplied add-on ZIP and enable Marble Studio. Blender 3.6 uses Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install. Blender 4.2 and newer support extension installation using Install from Disk.
STEP 2 In the 3D Viewport, press N and open the Marbles tab. Use Object Mode for applying and updating designs.
STEP 3 Open Style, choose a design, and click Reset Style Defaults to load its starting recipe.
STEP 4 Click Generate to create a marble at the 3D cursor. Set Batch count to 1 for a single marble.
STEP 5 Adjust the palette, finish, size or pattern. Open Recall & Update Selected and click Update Selected to commit your changes.
STEP 6 For glass interiors and bubbles, inspect the result in Cycles. Material Preview and Eevee can display glass differently.

Editing workflow: select a marble, click Load Selected, change its controls, then click Update Selected. Panel changes are committed by the appropriate Generate, Update or Apply action.

02 / FEATURE GUIDE

Quick controls and collapsible sections

Generate: creates a new marble or batch using the panel settings.
Random: creates one fresh marble with random colours and a new seed, retaining the current diameter and sphere resolution. Successive results are placed in free positions near the cursor, and their settings load into the panel.
Open All / Close All: expands or collapses every section, including nested surface effects. Sections start closed; click a triangle or title to open one.

03 / FEATURE GUIDE

Style

Choose from 41 design families, with thumbnail selectors and a larger preview of the primary style.

Style: changes the design family while retaining your edited controls.
Reset Style Defaults: loads the chosen style's starting recipe, including colours, finish, shape and surface controls, and clears the secondary style.
Combine with: adds a second family to create a hybrid. Choose None for a single style.
Secondary finish blend: controls the secondary family's contribution to the shell finish. Applicable internal shapes from both families can be included.
Combine styles when randomizing: lets Random choose two different families. Disable it for single-style random marbles.

For visible inserts inside a transparent shell, start with a glass primary style and a low secondary finish blend. Increase Transmission if an opaque primary hides the interior. Hybrid families share the palette, seed and shape controls.

04 / FEATURE GUIDE

Recall & Update Selected

Load Selected: copies the active marble or styled mesh's applied settings into the panel.
Update Selected: applies the panel recipe to the active design.

Selecting the visible marble or one of its generated parts identifies the design. Updates retain the visible marble's transform and animation, but regenerate its procedural geometry and materials; manual edits to generated parts can be replaced.

05 / FEATURE GUIDE

Design on Other Objects

Use marble finishes on Suzanne or your own mesh objects.

STEP 1 Select a marble or an already styled mesh and click Use Selected as Source. The source stays remembered while you select targets. Alternatively, choose Design from: Panel settings to use your edited controls.
STEP 2 Select one or more target meshes.
STEP 3 Choose whether to enable Include internal inserts, then click Apply Design to Selected Meshes.

Internal inserts fit the target's bounding box and use a live Boolean intersection. Closed meshes provide reliable clipping; use material-only mode for open meshes. Target transforms and existing modifiers remain available.

Restore Selected Objects: restores the original mesh, materials and face assignments, and removes generated insert helpers. Geometry edits made to the temporary applied mesh copy are discarded during restoration.
Remove Owned Materials: clears Marble Studio material assignments while keeping geometry.

Applying uses a private mesh copy, so linked duplicates are unaffected. Recipe copying recreates procedural settings; it does not copy manual shader-node edits.

06 / FEATURE GUIDE

Your Marble Library

Save favourite complete designs in a persistent library with thumbnails. Scene marbles are saved only when you explicitly add them.

Refresh: reloads saved library entries and previews.
Save name: supplies a name for the recipe.
Save New: stores the selected scene marble's applied recipe, including its surface details and supported pose settings. Apply panel edits before saving.
Update Entry: replaces the selected saved entry using the selected scene marble.
Generate Saved: creates a separate marble near the cursor using the saved design, diameter, root rotation and scale multipliers.
Apply Saved to Selected: replaces the active marble or styled mesh's design with the saved recipe. The existing name, position, rotation and size remain; saved pose is ignored.
Remove: deletes the saved entry while keeping scene objects.
Import JSON: imports a single recipe or an exported library without creating scene objects.
Export Library / Export Entry: exports all saved recipes or the chosen entry as JSON.
Save Marble JSON: exports the selected scene marble's applied recipe directly.
Import ZIP / Export ZIP: transfers recipes together with available preview images. Export offers the entire library or a selected entry.

Import choices: Keep and Add Missing preserves existing entries and skips duplicate IDs or equivalent recipes. Replace replaces the chosen library with exactly the imported contents, including an empty library.

Libraries persist in Blender's user configuration directory. Export a backup before replacing one. Library changes write immediately to disk and are separate from Blender's scene undo history. Recipes store procedural controls, not manual mesh edits, manual node edits, unrelated children or world positions.

07 / FEATURE GUIDE

Size & Quality

Diameter: sets the generated marble's base diameter.
Sphere segments: adjusts sphere resolution. Higher values produce finer geometry at greater processing cost.
Seed: controls reproducible procedural variation, including inclusions and patterns.

08 / FEATURE GUIDE

Palette

Primary colour, Secondary colour and Third colour provide the shared design palette. Their roles depend on the selected family; for example, Third colour supplies the crack-line colour in Crackle Glass. Seam colour colours the pale central seam where supported.

09 / FEATURE GUIDE

Glass & Finish

Glass tint: colours the shell.
Glass IOR: controls the index of refraction and resulting optical bending.
Transmission: controls the transmitting glass finish. High transmission helps reveal internal geometry.
Roughness / frost: changes the finish from polished toward rough or frosted.
Metallic: adds a metallic finish.
Polished coat: adjusts the coating contribution.

10 / FEATURE GUIDE

Style-specific shape and pattern sections

These sections appear when the primary or secondary family supports them. A shared control can affect each family differently.

Internal Shape: for Cat's Eye, Ribbon, Corkscrew and Frost. Adjust Twist, Insert width / radius, Insert half length, Insert thickness, Vanes / strands, Insert orientation and Pale central seam. Negative twist reverses handedness. Insert dimensions are relative to the sphere radius; oversized combinations are scaled down together to fit inside.
Confetti: sets Inclusion count and Inclusion size for the internal pieces.
Core & Winding: for Latticinio, Solid Core, Divided Core and Lutz. Adjust insert width, length, thickness, twist, orientation and Outer winding count. Latticinio adds Lattice threads; Divided Core adds Vanes / strands and Division gap.
Reflective Flakes: for Lutz and Mica. Adjust Inclusion count, Inclusion size and Insert orientation for the reflective flake geometry.
Internal Cloud: adjusts width, length, Pattern scale, Spot coverage, Pattern distortion and orientation for the enclosed cloud.
Enclosed Figurine: adjusts Figurine size and orientation for the stylized sulphide rabbit.
Clambroth Strands: adjusts Stripe count, Stripe / belt width, Twist and orientation.
Mineral & Ceramic: for Agate and Bennington. Adjust Pattern scale, orientation, distortion and Surface relief. Bennington also exposes Firing contact marks and Stripe / belt width for its contact-mark appearance.
Reference Pattern: for Onionskin, Crackle, Patch and Band. All expose orientation, scale and distortion. Onionskin and Band add stripe count, width and twist; Crackle adds Crack density, Crack width and Surface relief; Patch adds Spot coverage.
Surface Pattern: for Swirl, Speckle, Rainbow, Hammered and Pearl. Adjust Pattern scale, Pattern distortion, Spot coverage and Surface relief.
Creative Pattern: for Checker Mosaic, Honeycomb, Leopard Rings, Zebra Ink, Woodgrain, Malachite Rings, Lapis Flecks, Turquoise Veins, Snowflake Obsidian, Granite, Aurora Edge, Circuit Grid, Topographic Contours, Halftone Dots and Polar Vortex. Adjust scale, distortion, coverage, relief and orientation. Polar Vortex also exposes Twist.

11 / FEATURE GUIDE

Surface Details

Add independent wear, residue, moisture and internal bubbles. All added effects start disabled. Open an effect, enable its checkbox, adjust its controls, then apply the result.

Load Preset: loads surface controls into the panel. Available recipes are Clean, Handled, Vintage wear, Rain wet, Frosted, Dusty, Cracked, Bubbled and Wiped.
Recall Selected: loads the active design's applied surface settings for editing.
Details from: Panel settings: uses the panel's edited surface controls.
Use Selected Details as Source: remembers a marble or styled mesh. Select other targets and apply to copy its surface details.
Apply Details to Selected: commits panel or source details to selected designs while preserving their base styles, palettes and transforms.
Clear Details: removes added effects and generated droplet/bubble geometry, and resets panel detail controls. Intrinsic finishes belonging to styles such as Crackle or Frost remain.

Generate and Update Selected also include the panel's current surface controls.

Shared Detail Controls

Seed: varies detail patterns and geometry placement.
Depth: controls micro-surface relief.
Residue colour: colours supported residue effects.
Shader orientation / Shader offset: rotates and shifts shader detail patterns.

The 11 surface effects

Scratches: fine directional wear marks.
Smudges: soft patches of handled or greasy residue.
Cracks: a fine shader fracture pattern. This changes appearance without breaking the mesh.
Finger marks: procedural fingerprint-like ridges.
Frosting: granular surface roughness.
Smears: directional streaks from wiping or handling.
Dust: fine scattered surface residue.
Surface pits: small shader-based indentations.
Water spots: ring-like marks resembling dried droplets.
Water drops: actual small lens-shaped geometry on the exterior. Set Amount, Drop count and Drop size.
Internal bubbles: contained glass-to-air interface geometry. Set Amount, Bubble count and Bubble size. Bubbles show best inside transmitting glass.

Shader effects expose Amount and Pattern scale. Drops and bubbles use count and size; Amount scales their count. Geometry size is relative to the target's smallest half-extent. Open user meshes skip internal bubbles and report the reason. Drops sample the evaluated surface, including modifiers; reapply after changing geometry. Water drops are generated geometry rather than a fluid simulation.

12 / FEATURE GUIDE

Your Surface Library

Store reusable detail recipes separately from complete marble designs.

Refresh: reloads the surface library and its previews.
Save name / Save Panel Details: names and saves the current panel detail settings, including unapplied edits. Use Recall Selected first to capture an object's actual surface.
Update Entry: replaces the selected saved surface with the panel details.
Recall Saved: loads the selected recipe into the panel.
Apply Saved: loads and applies the saved details to selected designs while retaining their base designs.
Remove Entry: deletes the saved recipe while keeping applied scene details.
Import JSON / Export Library: transfers surface recipes without preview images.
Import ZIP / Export ZIP: transfers surface recipes with available previews.

The same Keep and Add Missing / Replace import choices apply to this separate library. Surface library changes write immediately to disk.

13 / FEATURE GUIDE

Library previews

Saved marble and surface entries display row thumbnails and a larger selected preview. Saving or updating an entry automatically captures its recipe; Refresh Preview recaptures an existing entry. Browsing the library does not trigger rendering.

Preview capture briefly blocks Blender while it renders in a temporary Cycles scene. The working scene and selection are restored, but the global Render Result is replaced. Previews reconstruct saved procedural controls rather than manual mesh or shader edits. Surface previews use a consistent clear reference marble. ZIP exports carry available images; JSON exports carry recipes only.

14 / FEATURE GUIDE

Batch Generation

Batch count: sets how many marbles Generate creates.
Spacing (diameters): sets grid spacing relative to marble diameter.
Vary batch orientation / seed: varies seeds and internal orientations across the batch.
Generate Marble: creates the configured batch.

15 / FEATURE GUIDE

Ownership & Cleanup

Reference: displays a short identifier for the active tagged design.
Select Adjusted Objects: selects visible, selectable objects created or styled by Marble Studio, including objects using its materials.
Restore Selected Objects: restores styled user meshes and their original material assignments. It can also clear manually assigned Marble Studio materials from other objects.
Remove Owned Materials: clears only Marble Studio material assignments and keeps geometry. Selecting a generated marble root includes its generated parts.
Clear Owned Orphans: removes unused, tagged Marble Studio meshes and materials. Referenced data is retained; scene objects are not deleted.

16 / FEATURE GUIDE

Testing Studio

Create Test Studio builds a separate showcase scene with the style collection, labels, ground, reflection lights and a camera. Your original scene remains available in Blender's scene selector. Use Cycles and press F12 to render.

17 / FEATURE GUIDE

Moving and animating your marbles

Select the visible marble to move, rotate, scale or keyframe the complete design. Its shell, standard internal inserts, bubbles and drops share one mesh object. The parent root also moves the full assembly. Custom-mesh insert and droplet helpers remain parented for live clipping, with independent selection and transforms locked.

18 / FEATURE GUIDE

Common questions

My edits are not showing. Click Update Selected for a complete design, or Apply Details to Selected for surface-only edits. Check that the intended object is active and that the source mode matches your workflow.
I selected another marble and see the previous controls. Click Load Selected before editing the new selection.
The internal shapes are difficult to see. Use transmitting glass, reduce roughness and secondary finish blend, and inspect the result in Cycles with useful reflection lighting.
My saved marble did not include the edits I just made. Save New reads the selected object's applied recipe. Update Selected before saving. Save Panel Details in the surface library instead reads panel controls directly.
Importing did not create any marbles. Import adds library recipes. Select one and use Generate Saved, or Apply Saved to Selected.
Can I transfer my libraries? Export ZIP to include previews, or JSON for recipes alone, then import into the other installation.

Compatibility: the package targets Blender 3.6–5.2. Runtime verification in this project was performed with Blender 5.2.

Your next marble starts in the Marbles tab.

Choose a style. Generate. Refine. Save your favourite.

$6

Have questions about this product?
Login to message

Details
Blender Extension Compatible Yes
Dev Fund Contributor
Published about 8 hours ago
Blender Version 3.6 - 5.2
Extension Type Add-on
Render Engine Used Cycles
License GPL

SkdSam

Visit Website See all items by this creator
Discover more products like this

marbles Glass skdsam Marble Cycles