Burning Question: Greeble… What is it and how to make your own.
What’s a Greeble?
A greeble, sometimes called nurnies, are the small details that you can see in the Death Star, spaceships, and cities, to make them look more complex than they really are. The idea is to add these details quickly and easily, without a lot of time-consuming work. Furthermore, they’re most often created with displacement, bump maps, or scripts.
- Definition on Wikipedia
- Greebles: How Tiny Details Make a Huge Star Wars Universe
- Bad Design and the Greeble
- LEGO building technique – Greebling
Awesome GreeblingTools
New Maxon Greeble Assets in S24
Maxon has included some interesting additions to the Asset Browser with S24, including ob Kitbash/Details/Crosses, Kitbash/Details/Triangles, Kitbash/Pipes, and Kitbash/Tubes. There are also templates and presets for Greebler/Height Maps and Greeble/Normal Maps.
Kuroyume Greebler Plug-in for Cinema 4D
Adding detail to 3D objects for enhancement of apparent size or realism is a time-consuming task. Indeed, it is made easier if tools are available to reduce the workload and time involved. Greebler is that new tool for your arsenal. It provides support for multiprocessors, NET Render, selections, materials, and much more.
Note: Note: The Kuroyume tool only works in Cinema 4D R13-R20.
Kuroyume Greebler for Cinema 4D
Video Copilot Motion Design Pack I for Element 3D
200+ Abstract 3D Design Objects, HD Models in Multiple 3D Formats
A collection of 3D models, including 12 Greeble Models, that are ready to use inside your favorite 3D program including the powerful plug-in, Element 3D!
Get Motion Design Pack Get Element 3D
Free Greeble Tools
Free 3D Kitbash Greeble Library Download
To point out, Markom3D is giving away his personal greebler library.
Maxon Extrudifier for Cinema 4D R20 and below
This Cinema 4D script from Maxon Labs generates random nested extrusions on your mesh. It creates a greebled look that is constructed entirely in Python code.
Note: Significantly, this hasn’t been updated for anything above R20.
See also: C4D Spotlight: Learning Python to Expand Cinema 4D
TJSpalcement – Greeble generator 8K res displacement maps
This one came to us via The Pixel Lab and is made with Javascript and is a pseudo-random 8K displacement map generator, created by Grigori Shevtsov.
Greeble for 3ds Max
A fun modifier plug-in that is useful for generating random detail for spaceship models, cityscapes, Death Stars… By Klanky The Robot, this one works in multiple versions of Max, including Max 2018.
Download Greeble (3ds Max Script)
Another tutorial for Greeble for 3ds Max.
Greeble Generator for Pixologic™ ZBrush® 4R7
Created by Glenn Patterson, who has a lot of ZBrush greeble-related stuff!
Greeble Plug-in for Houdini
It appears that this was ported over from the Greeble plug-in for 3ds Max.
Note: This plug-in is no longer available.
Download Free Greebles
There are a lot more freebies and tools out there than I have listed here but Google if you don’t see what you need here.
- Greeble Map Pack – Greeble pack originally released by Beeple under CC-Zero.
- Greeble Elements Free Version – A freebie from Glenn Patterson, who has the ZBrush tutorial below.
- In addition, Greeble Sampler Pack – Another from Glenn Patterson.
- Greeble Textures from Moonmanpictures
- nnGreeble for Maya 0.1.0 (Maya script) – This is compatible with Maya 2009 and I’m not sure about compatibility with other versions.
- CLF Greeble for SketchUp
- LW Greeble & Nurnies – LightWave Greebles tool for Lightwave 7.5c to 2015
Greeble Tutorials
After Effects and Cinema 4D: Greebler Scene Tutorial
A tutorial from VideoFort.
Solidify your Greeble
Glenn Patterson walks you through taking a simple Displacement Map and make it into a complex geometry in ZBrush 4R7.
How to Greeble a City
This is a 3ds Max tutorial by Johannes Schlörb and looks incredibly useful. Read the tutorial at 3Dtotal.
Build a Death Star Trench in Blender with Plating and Greeble Add-ons
Tech Greeble Generator – Substance Designer
Matt Wesney’s Substance Designer library and 50 free environment maps.
Article updates
25 May 2021 new greeble assets at Maxon
28 December 2018 with information on Kuroyume Greebler and a new Extrudifier tool from Maxon Labs.
26 December 2018: Insydium has updated Bridge so that Greebler is now working in Cinema 4D R20. This has been verified that both the plugin works and older projects (R13+) load.
Note: You must have the Insydium Bridge plugin installed and place Greebler in the same folder as the Bridge plugin for this to work.
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Posted by Michele Yamazaki
