Using the discombobulator in Blender

In this video we create automated greebles in Blender 2.79 with the built-in Discombobulator tool:

Written instructions:

In this video we will look at the built-in discombobulator tool in Blender, which allows you to quickly create greeble-like details for your 3d-models.

Here we have this tunnel that we modeled in the previous tutorial. Let’s start adding some detail by first enabling the “extra objects” -addon.

EDIT: For Blender 2.82 you can just search for “Discombobulator” in the addons. It’s no longer under extra objects.

Select your object and take it to edit mode. Then go to the “add” -menu and choose discombobulator from the list.

The minimum and maximum heights affect how much depth the created shapes will have. Here’s how a very low setting will look like:

Here’s how high values will look like:

You can change the direction of the protrusions by flipping the normals of your object.

These values affect the tapering of your shapes. Here’s how a low taper value looks like:

With the max taper values the shapes look like spikes or pyramids.

These four checkboxes affect the variety of the created shapes. We usually keep them all checked for maximum variation.

This repeat protrusions means how many times we will add even smaller details to previously created larger details. Be careful with this one, setting it to a high value can freeze Blender for a long time.

The discombobulator always creates new objects for each protrusion level, so in order to see the results properly you might want to hide some of them along with the original shape.

The doodads feature allows you to assign additional objects to your protrusions. Just model some objects and assign them as doodads.

Getting a good scale and orientation for the doodads can be challenging. It’s easier with simple base shapes like this plane. Giving the doodads the same material as the base mesh will help them blend in better.

We can also give our original object several material slots, and then give different parts of the protrusion different materials.

Thanks for watching and see you next time on OneMinuteVideoTutorials.com.

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