by Michael G. Art·Modeling
Images © Michael G. Art. Used for product review; image policy.
Covers the whole foliage-mesh workflow from a single opacity map — hull drawing, silhouette tracing, LOD chains and cross meshes — inside Blender's Image Editor and viewport.
Foliagelab - Cutter is a Blender add-on for turning opacity maps into optimised foliage meshes. You pick an opacity map and a mode, then generate the mesh for each stage of the pipeline. Hulls are drawn per actor directly in the Image Editor, with inner Steiner points to guide triangulation and edge direction set per hull — Vertical for straight branches, Horizontal for bending geometry.
For level-of-detail work, you can save manual LOD snapshots and auto-generate a full LOD chain from any saved hull, controlling the number of levels and the reduction percentage per step. An exploded view spreads levels along Z or across a 2D grid for inspection. Cross Meshes duplicate a LOD mesh and rotate the copy 90° for billboard-style crossed geometry, and Consolidate Meshes merges each mesh with its cross companion into per-actor collections.
The Texture Cutter traces a pixel-perfect outline from the opacity map using Marching Squares, with Draft, Standard and Cinematic presets, while the Mesh Cutter cuts existing card or plane meshes in the viewport to follow the silhouette. It reads from Mask, Alpha, R, G or B channels at up to 8K, and holes or transparency regions are excluded automatically. Requires Blender 4.2 or newer.
Foliagelab - Cutter is best for blender artists building game-ready or real-time foliage and vegetation who need optimised meshes and LOD chains generated from opacity maps.
Foliagelab - Cutter is completely free to download and use.
Foliagelab - Cutter requires Blender 4.2 or newer and is listed as compatible with versions 4.2 through 4.5. It's distributed as a Blender add-on and marked Blender Extension compatible, so it fits into current Blender workflows. If you're on a version within that range, it should install and run; for anything outside it, check the developer's page before installing. Because it works directly in the Image Editor and the viewport, having a supported Blender build is the main requirement to get started.
Foliagelab - Cutter can source from an external file or from any image already loaded in Blender, including render results and procedural textures. It reads from the Mask, Alpha, R, G or B channel, so you can point it at whatever holds your opacity information. Working resolution goes up to 8K, and a full PBR viewport preview lets you see the material while you work. This flexibility means the opacity map driving your mesh doesn't have to be a standalone file — it can come straight from your Blender scene.
Foliagelab - Cutter detects holes and transparency regions inside your silhouette automatically and excludes them from the generated mesh, so no manual cleanup is needed. The Texture Cutter traces a pixel-perfect outline from the opacity map using Marching Squares, with control over outline precision and cleanup and Draft, Standard and Cinematic quality presets. Separation controls how aggressively distinct elements are detected as separate islands, while Edge Smoothing simplifies the traced contour before triangulation. Tris Density and a vertex limit let you control mesh density and cap vertices per island.
Foliagelab - Cutter is listed as free in this catalog. Licensing terms can change, so check the developer's page for the current details before relying on it for a project. The add-on is distributed under the GPL license and marked as a Blender Extension compatible add-on. If you plan to use it in a commercial or team pipeline, confirming the current license and terms directly with the developer is the safest approach.
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