if you plan to become a film maker or video game developer, you have to improve on the level of detail in your renders, games like GTA and red dead redemption continue to be played years after they are released mostly because of the attention to detail that goes into making these games.

this is also true for the best selling movies of all time, like Avengers, Avatar or titanic. Its not surprising that the most grossing movies of all time are also the ones with the most CGI, though more CGI does not equal to quality movies, CGI artists are the most dedicated creators on the planet so if there is no interference from High up executives and bureaucracy from studios, more CGI can equal to better movies because more CGI requires alot of dedicated artists who love what they do, so CGI may not improve your movie but its mostly done by people who can improve your movie, people with attention to detail and discipline to execute any project successful.

so today lets look at tools and addons for blender that will help you perfect your scenes with more detail on par with Hollywood studios.

Smart Materials Bundle

when working upclose, your materials have to be detailed enough to capture the character of the object, you also want the look of your materials to reflect the age of the object in the story you are trying to tell.

this bundle of smart materials comes with a variety of materials from wood, metal, plastic, rust and more, all with realistic smart masks to help you bring out the ware and tear of any object in your story.

Spock: Structured Scifi Packer

if your story or render has futuristic vehicle interials or control rooms, no other tool is going to give you easy functional detail like spock,SPOCK is a structured greeble packing and generation tool. It uses advanced algorithms to efficiently and eloquently pack different objects from distinct collections onto a face or selected faces. it also uses 10 different algorithms to pack objects in a realistic way without overlapping. spock comes with its default assets but if you are looking for something different, there other artists developing and designing spock compartible assets for more variaty like this

skyfort dpack for spock

Simplecircuits

Deoxorus Dpack | Sci Fi Kitbash

Quick Decals Version 2

materials are the best way to add detail, but detailed materials can get complecated really quickly, one easy trick is the use of decals, like this quick decals addon, here you are not really working on the material or object directly but the addon wraps a decal onto the mesh, this can have decals like, damaged poster, dirt, rain damage, smurge and more.

Smurge generator

speaking of smudge, this free smudge generator can turn any building into an old looking building, its simple and easy to use. you can watch my tutorial on how to use it on different objects.

Fluid Painter

one of the most useful and amazing addon released this year, is the fluid painter, just Imagine effortlessly painting of fluids over any surface in blender, No simulation, no baking or caching, just Realtime fluid painting, on food, on objects and on surfaces. No more tedious workarounds or clunky interfaces – just pure, seamless creativity.

Flowify For Blender

its much easier to add detail to flat surfaces than to uneven, curved or deformed surfaces, so why not make your detailed on a flat surface and let flowify translate it to any uneven surface you have.

Realistic Touch – Surface Imperfection

if you are making realistic renders, you need to add realistic detail like surface imperfections, the realistic touch library if a library of hundreds of imperfection textures and comes with a complementary addon to help you add these surface imperfections anywhere you want.

Physical Open Waters

if you are making open waters, like rivers, oceans, what sells their look is the detail in how the water is animated, blender comes with the ocean modifier to do just that, but its not well optimized so you need alot of subdivisions to make it look good. on top of that you have to bake the simulation to see any detail but we are in the age of realtime vfx, so why not use physical open waters addon, which has all the features of the ocean modifier with out any drawbacks of the ocean modifier, its realtime, comes with materials, and you dont have to cache or bake anything which means your file size is going to be small compared to the ocean modifier or anything else.

Real Damage – Realistic Internal Damage

the real world is harsh, there is weathering, tearing, damage and degredation, bring this out in your renders using realistic internal damage, this will give you the most realistic damage you can find without any work.