Floor board add-on (a.k.a. planks) updated for Blender 4.1

It is always good to hear that people are using an add-on, and this time I got a request to update my floor board generator for Blender 4.1.

Blender changes all the time and this time 4.1 even broke the old version of the add-on. Fortunately it was pretty easy to fix, so I am happy to announce that a new version is available on GitHub. [click download in the upper left corner]

If you want to know more about what the add-on can do, check this older article on my blog.

This version also incorporates a few small tweaks:

• the bevel modifier now uses percentage as the default. This gives more consistent behavior across different patterns,
• the bevel modifier now also has the harden normals option checked, which gets rid of quite a few shading artifacts,

and a new pattern: Chevron

floorboard add-on: Blender 2.80 compatible version available

A new version of the floorboards add-on that is compatible woth Blender 2.80 is available on GitHub. (this is a single python file: select File->Save As... from your browser and save it somewhere as planks.py. Then in Blender, select File->User preferences->Add-ons->install from file... (don't forget to remove an earlier version if you have one).

It is a pretty minimal port, i.e. I only made the necessary changes to make it run on 2.80 but to be honest, the add-on shows its age. The coding isn't very elegant and there are still a number of known issues. Nevertheless, it's a start, so enjoy!

PS. there are quite a few articles on this blog that talk about this add-on, check here for a list.

Floor boards add-on: random thickness

Acting on a question from Ákos I added a random thickness option to the add-on.

The new version is of course available on GitHub. (this is a single python file: select File->Save As... from your browser and save it somewhere as planks.py. Then in Blender, select File->User preferences->Add-ons->install from file... (don't forget to remove an earlier version if you have one).

If you select a non-zero thinkness each plank gets a random extra thickness up to the chosen maximum.

The option is located together with the other randomization options (which can be applied in parallel.)

Floor boards add-on: another small feature

Again prompted by a question I added a feature to guarantee minimum plank lengths at the sides when using random plank lengths, to mimic real life behavior where you would not allow too short ends when laying a wooden floor.

In practice you would probably also try to avoid seams to line up in adjacent rows but if this happens you can easily switch to another random seed already.

The images below show the vertex color map (for clarity) with (left) and without a minimum offset of 12 cm, resulting in less short 'stubs'.

Availability

As usual the latest version is available on GitHub.

Other floor board articles

This blog already sports quite a number of articles on this add-on. The easiest way to see them all is to select the floor board tag (on the right, or click the link).

Floor boards add-on: minor feature added

Prompted by a question from Trevor I added a Restricted random mode to the uv randomization. It still randomizes the position of planks on the uv-map but keeps them inside the original bounds. It does this simply by not moving a uv map of a plank at all when the move would result in any portion of the plank ending up outside the bounds. The result is a compacter randomized uv-map which should make it somewhat easier to use with non-tiling textures, i.e. reduce the area of the textures that is not used.

The new version is of course available on GitHub.

The difference is illustrated in the image below where I have contrasted the random uv-map in orange with the restricted uv-map in green

Sample artwork with ProWood shaders

I started playing around with Karl Andreas Gross' ProWood Shader pack and after some twiddling around I must say I like it:

In this example scene (a scene from Chocofur) I used the beech preset material for the chair (the chair is also from Chocofur. Note that I dropped the bundled textured material and replaced it by the ProWood procedural material). I picked the colors to match and upped the brightness and the reflectivity a bit to get the varnished look of the steam-pressed plywood of the chair. The books were generated by the book wizard cover generator.

For the floor (generated with my floorboard add-on) I used the material preset that is included in the shader pack specifically for the add-on, in this case oak. I just changed the colors. I had to changed the profile in bevel settings of the floor to 0.69 to prevent strange shadows. That has nothing to do with the shaders but everything with the geometry of the planks my add-on is generating, so it might be a good idea to make this the default in future versions.

floorboard add-on: a commercial shader with specific support

My free floorboards add-on has proven to be quite popular and now even a professional shader writer, Karl Andreas Groß, has created a wood shader collection that includes specific settings for use with the add-on. His shaders are available on BlenderMarket and I hope to try them out myself soon.

The floorboard add-on itself can be downloaded from GitHub.