A Blender addon designed to generate consistent thumbnails for materials, brushes, and 3D assets following Blendflare's official upload guidelines.
This addon automates thumbnail creation to maintain visual consistency across Blendflare's explore page. While not mandatory, it streamlines the thumbnail generation process for most workflows.
Compatibility: Blender 4.2+
- Download the latest release ZIP file from the Releases page
- In Blender, go to
Edit > Preferences > Add-ons - Click
Install...and select the downloaded ZIP - Enable the addon by checking the box next to "Blendflare Thumbnail Generator"
Material (Sphere)
- Displays materials on a UV-mapped sphere
- Optional studio lighting or scene lighting
- Supports render engine selection (Cycles/Eevee/Scene default)
- Generate rotation variants to avoid seams
Brush Pattern
- Renders sculpting brush patterns using Workbench + Matcap
- Auto-scales and centers the pattern
- Intelligent pattern direction detection
- Always uses transparent background
Asset (Auto-frame)
- Smart detection: renders selected objects or active collection
- Automatic camera framing with adjustable padding
- Studio lighting scales to asset size
- Optional scene lighting support
- Generate camera orbit variants
Model by Jordi Se-Cam from BlenderKit
- Resolution: 256-4096px (default: 1024px)
- Samples: 32-512 for quality control (Cycles/Eevee only)
- Output Path: Customize save location (default:
//thumbnails/) - Render Engine: Choose between Scene default, Cycles, Eevee, or Workbench
- Use Scene Lighting: Option to use existing lights instead of studio setup
- Generate Variants: Create multiple views with rotation/orbit (2-12 variants)
- Select an object with the material you want to render
- Open the Thumbnail panel in the 3D Viewport sidebar (N panel)
- Click Material (Sphere)
- Find your thumbnail in the output folder
Tip: Enable "Generate Variants" to create multiple sphere rotations, helping avoid visible UV seams.
- Select the mesh object with your brush pattern applied
- Click Brush Pattern
- The addon will create a copy, rescale it, and render with Workbench
Note: Brush mode always uses Workbench + Matcap for consistent results. Variants not supported.
The addon auto-detects what to render with this priority:
- Selected objects (if any are selected)
- Active collection (if nothing is selected)
Simply select what you want to render and click Asset (Auto-frame).
Variants: When enabled, the camera orbits around the asset center, maintaining proper framing from multiple angles.
Access the addon from:
- 3D Viewport → Sidebar (N key) → [BF] Thumbnail tab
- Thumbnails are saved as PNG with transparency (RGBA)
- Default location:
//thumbnails/(relative to your .blend file) - Naming convention:
material_[MaterialName].pngbrush_[BrushName].pngasset_[ObjectName].png
- Variants create folders:
material_[Name]/material_[Name]_variant_01.png, etc.
- Temporary Setup: All cameras and lights are placed in a hidden "ThumbnailSetup" collection
- Scene Preservation: Original render settings are restored after generation
- Smart Clipping: Camera clip planes automatically calculated based on asset size
- Lighting Modes:
- Material: Optimized 3-point lighting for sphere preview
- Asset: Scalable studio lighting based on asset dimensions
- Brush: Uses Workbench matcap (searches for specific matcaps in preferences)
This addon follows the official Blendflare upload guidelines:
✓ Transparent backgrounds (PNG with alpha)
✓ Centered composition
✓ Neutral, clear lighting
✓ Square format compatible
✓ Materials on standard sphere
✓ Brushes displayed clearly
- Resolution: Use 1024px for standard uploads, higher for detailed assets
- Variants: Great for showing different angles without manual setup
- Padding: Adjust frame padding (default 1.5) if assets appear too tight or loose
Thumbnail appears empty:
- Ensure objects are not hidden in render
- Check that objects have geometry (not empties)
Matcap not found (Brush mode):
- The addon searches for specific matcaps; default will be used if unavailable
- This doesn't affect functionality, just appearance
Variants creating wrong rotations:
- Try changing the rotation axis (X/Y/Z) in settings
- Z axis works best for most assets
Lighting System:
- The studio lighting setup is generic and may produce inconsistent results across different model types
- Some renders may appear overexposed or "burned" depending on the asset's scale and reflectivity
- Light positions and intensity settings are currently hardcoded and scale quadratically with asset size
Material Preview Sphere - Texture Scaling:
- The addon automatically detects texture-based vs procedural materials and applies different sphere types
- For texture-based materials: UV Sphere with 2x UV scaling (hardcoded)
- The resulting texture scale may not match the artist's intended scale or desired look
- Currently no user control over UV scale, tiling, or sphere rotation.
We acknowledge that certain aspects of the addon may be overlooked or could benefit from optimization. If you have:
- Suggestions for improvement
- Better implementation approaches
- Solutions to any issues mentioned above
- Ideas for new features or workflows
- Experience with specific edge cases we haven't considered
We're open to explanations, discussions, and pull requests to improve all aspects of this addon.
This addon is developed using VS Code with the Blender Development extension by Jacques Lucke.
Requirements:
- Blender 4.2+
- Visual Studio Code
- Blender Development extension
Setup:
- Install the Blender Development extension in VS Code
- Open the addon folder in VS Code
- Use the extension commands to build and reload the addon directly in Blender
- Enable hot-reload for faster iteration during development
This workflow significantly speeds up the development process by eliminating manual addon reinstallation.
For issues, suggestions, or questions:
- Visit Blendflare
- Check the upload guidelines
Thank you for contributing to Blendflare and maintaining visual consistency across the platform!