Biomes

What are Biomes ?

Defining the concept.

Biomes are premade multi-layered particle systems. With only one click, Scatter will append multiple vegetation models and distribute them on your terrain surface automatically.

By default, Scatter comes pre-packed with 15 biomes composed of a multitude of different particle layers. You can create your own biomes or install external biome packages on your computer. You can check all existing biomes package in the Catalog.


Note that Scatter offer multiple category of content in the manager:

  • Biome: as already explained above, a Biome is combination of multiple assets with their assigned scattering presets.

  • Layer: single layer of one species, with associated scattering presets.

  • Assets: import a specific asset, no scattering involved at all.

  • Material : one click to assign CC0 materials (bonus)

How to use them ?

Here's a quick guide on how to use the biome.


Useful Tip: Scattering a Biome can be much faster if the assets are already appended in your scene.

Here's how to use the Biomes:

  • Open the Biome Library either by going in Preferences Editor > Addons > Scatter > Enter Scatter Manager > Biomes or simply by clicking on the Biomes Button in the Creation Panel.

  • Once inside the manager, you can choose a category or search for a keyword, and click on the name under the chosen icon to start scattering the biome layers.

When clicking on this button, the plugin will append assets and automatically scatter multiple layers of particles.

In the Creation > Creation Behaviors Panel you can change a few things about the biome scattering process. For example automatically hide the biomes on creation, set them as bounding box display, enable the LOD system by default or change the viewport display percentage.

Note that some of these options are also accessible within the manager and that all biomes creation will be protected by the Security Actions feature.


In General, all biomes shipped with scatter are compatible with the LOD system.

In this demonstration i activated auto-enable LOD option from the Creation Behaviors to automatically view the LOD instead of the full-res mesh when creating the biomes.

I strongly recommend to always enables this option by default, as it will drastically boost your viewport performances.

(more informations about the LOD system in optimization)

Create your own Biomes.

Create your own biome Library.

Any particle systems created in Scatter can be saved into a Biome inside Scatter Library \ __biome__ folder. Only one click is needed. To do so, just open the biome manager and click on 'Biome Creation Menu' then follow the instructions (Note that it's mandatory to save the file you are working with before start using the Biome creator).

  • The scattering and clustering presets will be saved in their own preset files inside __biome__\__presets__ and the assets in a separate optimized .blend in __biome__\__blends__. Once changes occurred in this folder, don't forget to hit the refresh button.

  • Note that you can also create your own custom category inside __biome__\__categories__,then refresh the them in the Pref panel of the Scatter Manager.

  • You can quickly access the __biome__ folder by clicking on the 'Open Biome Folder' operator.

Disclaimer:

  • Once you created your own custom biomes it will be your job to manage those files.

  • With the new Hair type and everything node, Blender particle system will drastically change at end of 2021, and so will Scatter. All officially supported biomes will be for sure converted by myself but it is unsure if all the scattering presets can be transferred from the old particle system to the new one. so i'd advise waiting before creating a gigantic custom library of biomes as we don't know yet if they will be compatible with the future Scatter5, a newer version that will support the new geometry node system.

  • If you'd like to add your biome product to the list of officially supported biomes, contact me via the blender market or the blender artist forum thread.