Take Refuge 3D
Matcaps Forever
Generate Matcaps until you find one you love, then keep going (forever).
Elevate your matcap game
Looking for the perfect way to get matcaps fast? Look no further.
Matcaps Forever is a Blender plugin that randomly generates matcaps until you find something you like, then lets you tweak it to your heart's content. Feed the render straight into any other 3D software that supports matcaps, like ZBrush or Plasticity, and use it right away.
A complete overhaul.
Seven lighting presets, five material presets, sky environments, procedural floors, lockable parameters and smarter saving. Requires Blender 5.0+.
Seven ways to light a sphere
Studio, Ambient, Dramatic, Moody Two-Tone, Horizon Glow, Satin Sunrise and Above the Clouds, plus a smarter Random that mixes them in.
Two-Tone
Glow
Sunrise
Clouds
Paired with the lighting, not fighting it
Diffuse, Glossy, Metallic and the new Dark, intelligently paired with the lighting so the two always agree.
Physical sky, fully exposed
Physical sky lighting with sun, atmosphere and full parameter control.
Seven patterns, richer reflections
Seven floor patterns with scale and tint controls, because what is under the sphere ends up in the highlight.
Keep what works, reroll the rest
Padlock any light, material value, sky setting or floor option and keep it while you generate endless variations around it.
Lighting that compensates for itself
Light size and strength adjust automatically for glossy and metallic materials, so a change of material does not blow out the sphere.
Better saving
One-click EXR and PNG export with an optional 128px thumbnail, ready for Plasticity and other apps.
Plus many fixes
No more clipped spheres, missing rim lights, blown-out skies or shadow artifacts.
Generate, lock what you love, and keep rolling.
See it running
What it does
Change log
- Blender 5.0+ now required.
- Added 7 lighting presets: Studio, Ambient, Dramatic, Moody Two-Tone, Horizon Glow, Satin Sunrise, Above the Clouds.
- Added material presets: Diffuse, Glossy, Metallic, Dark.
- Random lighting and materials now blend in preset recipes for better results.
- Added sky environments: 4 physical sky models with sun disc, atmosphere and full parameter control.
- Added procedural floor patterns: Checker, Grid, Tiles, Stripes, Dots, Noise, with scale and tint controls.
- Added lock toggles for lights, material values, environment, sky parameters and floor settings. Locked values survive generation.
- Added Adaptive Lights: size and strength auto-compensate for glossy and metallic materials.
- Added per-light visibility toggles.
- Added 128px thumbnail PNG export option.
- File names now sanitised for thumbnail pairing, spaces to underscores.
- Save now writes EXR and PNG from a single render, fixing missing PNGs.
- Generate now always ensures Cycles and rendered viewport shading.
- Added scene-wipe confirmation dialog, once per file or session.
- Fixed sphere clipping the camera frame. Cast Modifier is now set to 1 instead of 0.5.
- Fixed rim lights not reading as rims.
- Fixed blown-out Preetham skies.
- Fixed sphere casting shadow artifacts onto the floor.
- Fixed floor plane missing on consecutive generates.
- Updated to support extensions in Blender 4.2+.
