Hey guys, today I’ll be showing you how to use an awesome modifier plugin called GREEBLE. If ever you need to create complex modular designs, look no further. This plugin works as a modifier and interactively transforms your meshes. It takes each poly face, and randomly insets and extrudes various shapes from them.

This plugin is perfect for creating enormous amounts of detail on models such as spaceships, sci-fi panels, cities, wall decoration, decorative pieces and many more. With just a few simple controls you can even create your own Death Star.

So without further ado, let’s jump right into it. I’ve created a sample scene for this tutorial that you can download here. And to download Greeble, visit the creator’s page. Choose the plugin for your 3ds Max version, unzip and place the plugin file in your plugins folder for 3ds Max.

Greeble Parameters

1. To use Greeble, create any geometry with quads or triangles, and add the greeble modifier to your Modify stack.
2. Greeble actually uses just the quads and triangles in your mesh. So its a good idea to subdivide your mesh accordingly. Proper placement of faces will help you create the desired effect.
3. You can choose if  you just want to use quads, triangles or both as inputs for this modifier.
4. A simple Seed spinner adds random variation to the design.
5. The modifier creates 2 levels of block design: Panels as base and small Widgets on top of these.
6. The Panel options let you set the min and max height, and also a taper amount which is animatable.
7. Other settings for panels include the ability to select the side or top faces for editing with an Edit Poly modifier. Also you can add numbers with a comma for creating randomly assigned sub-object material IDs and thus add material variation. Entering the same number multiple times increases the probability for that material. Let’s say you input 1,1,1,2 here, this makes the material with an ID 1 appear 3 times as much.
8. The Widget settings control the shape, min and max size, max height, density and the material IDs.
9. If you’re not careful, you can slow down your viewport to a halt by increasing the density too much. To prevent this, use the performance mode, which applies the density only during rendering.

Tinker around with its settings and you can use it to easily create skyscrapers and cityscapes. For more inspiration, be sure to Google for amazing work done with this plugin. I hope you found this guide useful, so please share and comment. Till next time, guys. Happy Rendering.