SplatPilot

Pilot Studio in Rendering

The full manual, with every setting, is at splatpilot.com.

Requirements

Blender 5.3 or newer
System Windows or Linux, 64-bit (Linux: glibc 2.34 or newer; ldd --version shows yours). Not macOS.
Graphics card A GPU with Vulkan support and a current driver
GPU memory About 1 GB at Standard, 3 GB at High
Disk space About 8 GB for an object at Standard with Cycles, 26 GB for the Classroom at High. EEVEE needs about a third.

Install

1
Download the zip for your system from your Superhive order, splatpilot-…-windows_x64.zip or splatpilot-…-linux_x64.zip. Keep it zipped.
2
In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.
3
Click the drop-down arrow at the top right, choose Install from Disk… and pick the zip. You can also drag the zip onto Blender's window.
4
Open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > SplatPilot and click Test GPU. SplatPilot shows which GPU it trains on and compiles the engine's shaders. Compiling takes a minute or two, and only once.
5
In a 3D Viewport, press N and click the SplatPilot tab.
If the preferences say Engine missing (slangpy): reinstall SplatPilot to train, install the zip again.

Update or remove

To update, install the newer zip the same way. To remove SplatPilot, open its menu in Get Extensions and choose Uninstall. Splats you made stay in your .blend files.

Your first splat

1
Press N in the 3D Viewport and open the SplatPilot tab. In Setup, pick your object in the Object field. SplatPilot names the splat after this object.
2
For a quick first result, set Quality to Draft. The default, Standard, looks better and takes longer.
3
Check the estimate at the top of Create Splat. Click Measure in the Render row, and SplatPilot renders six images to time the rendering.
4
If Check Before Rendering shows under the estimate, open it. You see what to settle first, such as mirror-like materials, and a fix for each.
5
Click Create Splat. SplatPilot renders the images in a background copy of Blender, then trains the splat. While it trains, SplatPilot refreshes the preview in the viewport every 5 seconds. You can Pause and later Resume. If you click Cancel, SplatPilot discards the new splat and keeps the images.
6
SplatPilot adds the finished splat to a Splats collection and names it after your object, such as Suzanne Splat. SplatPilot shows the splat alone: your object and the cameras stay hidden until the next run. You find the splat in Results with its score in dB. To remove it, press Ctrl Z.

A room or a landscape

Set Subject to Scene and Kind to Indoor for a room or a house, or Outdoor for a street, a site or a landscape. To see the cameras before rendering, click Cameras under Create Splat. SplatPilot places the cameras by the surfaces and shows them in the viewport. To see what the cameras miss, click Map in Coverage, at the bottom of the Cameras panel. Then click Create Splat.

The panels

Panel What you find there
Create Splat The estimate and Create Splat. Below the button, the steps Cameras, Render and Train, each with its result. During a run, the progress with Pause and Cancel.
Setup Subject (Object, Collection or Scene), Kind (Indoor, Outdoor or Object), Quality (Draft, Standard, High or your presets)
Cameras Automatic, Rigs and Collections, each turned on in its header. You can use all three together. Also Count, focus points and Look Through. At the bottom, Coverage with the coverage map and its problem areas
Rendering Engine, Samples, Image Size, Subject Only, Min Roughness, Sky Dome
Training Made For, Steps and Max Splats. With Advanced Settings also SH Degree, Opaque Splats, Start Detail, Focus Detail and Preview Every
Results Your splats with their scores, Improve… and Export…. Each splat's menu has Train Again, Use This Splat's Settings, Export Training Dataset, Mark as Asset and Open Run Folder.
Storage The disk space of rendered images, training runs and splats, and Clean Up…

Qualities

Quality Cameras Splats Steps
Draft 100
800 px, 32 samples 		300 k 7,000
Standard
the default 		240
1600 px, 64 samples 		1 M 30,000
High 400
2048 px, 128 samples 		2.5 M 30,000

Indoors and outdoors, SplatPilot places as many cameras as the space needs, from half to twice these. SplatPilot also renders geometry cameras there and trains a third more steps for them. At High, SplatPilot renders objects at 1600 px. You can change every number in the panels and keep your own with Save as Preset….

Make a splat better

Click Improve… in Results to train a splat further from where training stopped. With Add Cameras, on by default, SplatPilot renders more images and trains on all of them. Raise More Steps to train longer. Tick Keep the Current Splat to train into a new splat, so you can compare the two.

Export

Click Export… in Results, or use File > Export > Gaussian Splat (.ply/.sog/.spz) for the active splat. SplatPilot saves the splat as it sits in the scene.

Format For
PLY Most splat viewers, editors and engines
Options: up axis, SH degree 0 to 3, sky dome
SOG Web viewers such as SuperSplat and PlayCanvas. About 15 times smaller than PLY. A million splats take about 20 seconds to export.
Options: SH degree, sky dome
SPZ Spark, Octane and Blender 5.3's own importer. About 14 times smaller than PLY. A million splats take a few seconds to export.
Options: SH degree, sky dome

With Colours at For Viewers, the default, SplatPilot bakes your file's view transform, look, exposure, curves and white balance into the colours. The compositing that changes each pixel's colour on its own is baked in too. Glare, blurs and other screen effects are left out, and SplatPilot names the ones your file uses in the export options. The splat then looks the same in SuperSplat, PlayCanvas and game engines as in Blender. Pick As in Blender to keep the colours as trained, for a viewer's own tone mapping. Where a viewer has antialiasing for splats, turn it on.

To train in another program, choose File > Export > Splat Training Dataset (COLMAP/nerfstudio). SplatPilot exports the images rendered last for Postshot, LichtFeld Studio, GraphDECO 3DGS, OpenSplat or nerfstudio. You can export the images without the training engine.

Files and disk space

SplatPilot saves rendered images and training runs in a splatpilot folder beside your .blend file. To keep them elsewhere, set Storage Folder in the preferences. In a Blender Project, SplatPilot uses a splatpilot folder in the project's folder instead. You see how much space each takes in the Storage panel. Click Clean Up… to delete the training runs that belong to no splat in the file. With Rendered Images ticked, SplatPilot deletes the unused images too. The splats themselves are saved in the .blend file, and 2.5 million splats add about 600 MB.

When a message comes up

Message What to do
No object Pick the object in the Object field in Setup.
… has nothing that renders Pick an object or collection that renders, or change Subject. Cameras, lights and empties do not render, but an empty's children can.
The working space is …: SplatPilot needs Linear Rec.709 In Render Properties, set Color Management > Working Space > File to Linear Rec.709.
Only … of … cameras found The subject leaves little room for cameras. Choose a smaller subject or the other kind.
… renders differently from the viewport SplatPilot leaves out cameras inside the object or right against it. To keep those cameras, make the object look the same in the viewport as in a render.
Cameras, Render or Train is red The step was run with other settings. Click the red step to run it again with the current ones.
Over the … GB VRAM limit Click Use … Splats under the warning, or lower the camera Count or the image size.
Training failed: not enough memory (GPU or system) Close other programs, or lower Max Splats, the camera Count or the image size. Then click Resume to go on from the last checkpoint.
Not enough disk space Free space on the drive, for example with Clean Up… in the Storage panel.

More help

At splatpilot.com you find every panel and setting, and pages on rigs, shiny surfaces, Blender Projects and more messages. Send questions and bug reports to [email protected].

  • One-person license for hobby and professional work.

    $16.15 $19

  • For up to five members of one studio or production team.

    $35.70 $42
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Details
Blender Extension Compatible Yes
Dev Fund Contributor
Published about 16 hours ago
Blender Version
Extension Type Add-on
Render Engine Used Cycles, Eevee
License GPL

Pilot Studio

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