by Michael G. Art·Modeling
Images © Michael G. Art. Used for product review; image policy.
Earns its place for combining bucket-based foliage scattering, per-instance manual adjustments, and a full LOD baking pipeline in one Blender add-on.
Foliagelab - Cluster is a Blender add-on for scattering foliage meshes onto a base mesh. Foliage grows from anchor points you place where growth should start: you point a source collection at your foliage meshes, and Cluster handles the rest. It detects meshes from any Blender collection, turning LOD0 objects into actors while higher LOD levels are stored automatically for later baking.
Meshes are organized into buckets, each with independent rotation, scale, variance and deformations such as Curl, Fold, Twist and Noise. Buckets can parent onto any previous bucket or directly onto the Base Mesh, building growth layer by layer, and a per-bucket Seed controls variation across groups. Per-bucket vertex normal control adjusts how instances catch light without touching the geometry, with Global and Local modes plus a viewport Normal Overlay.
A live preview updates in real time as parameters change, and you can freeze it to adjust instances directly, swap meshes with Actor Override, override per-instance deformations, or delete instances. Bake Branch finalizes the composition as a single clean LOD0 mesh, while Bake LODs generates the full LOD chain.
Foliagelab - Cluster is best for blender artists creating game-ready foliage and vegetation by scattering meshes onto surfaces and baking LOD chains.
Foliagelab - Cluster is completely free to download and use.
Foliagelab - Cluster supports Blender versions 4.2 through 4.5 and requires at least Blender 4.2. It ships as a Blender extension-compatible add-on, so it installs through Blender's standard add-on workflow. If you run an earlier release, you would need to update Blender before using it. Compatibility can shift as new Blender versions ship, so it's worth checking the developer's page for the latest supported range before you install.
Foliagelab - Cluster works with both Cycles and Eevee, the two render engines listed for the add-on. Its per-bucket vertex normal controls let you adjust how instances catch light without changing the geometry, and a Normal Overlay lets you visualize vertex normals per bucket directly in the viewport. Because it bakes foliage into standard meshes, the output renders like any other Blender geometry in either engine. For engine-specific notes, the developer's page is the best reference.
Foliagelab - Cluster is listed as free in this catalog and is distributed under the GPL license. Licensing terms on marketplaces can change over time, so if you plan to use it in a commercial project, confirm the current terms and any conditions on the developer's page before downloading. The GPL license governs how the add-on's code can be used and redistributed, and checking directly with the developer gives you the most accurate, up-to-date information.
Foliagelab - Cluster recognizes LOD groups automatically by naming convention, so meshes named like Leaf_A_LOD0 and Leaf_A_LOD1 are grouped together. LOD0 objects become actors, while higher LOD levels are stored automatically for later use. When you finish a composition, Bake Branch finalizes it as a single clean LOD0 mesh, and Bake LODs generates the full LOD chain, with a Remove Missing LODs option available. An Explode View can spread the baked LODs side by side with adjustable spacing for inspection.
Foliagelab - Cluster grows foliage from anchor points you place where growth should start. You point a source collection at your foliage meshes, then assign those meshes to buckets and set each bucket's target anchor index, which controls exactly which anchors a mesh spawns on. Each bucket carries independent rotation, scale, variance and deformations, and a bucket can parent onto any previous bucket or directly onto the Base Mesh, building growth layer by layer. A per-bucket Seed adds controlled variation across groups.
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