PermaBlend v1.1 Now Available!

2026 March Update*

v1.1.0 — What’s New? ✨

🪄 Invert Blend — Flip the blend direction on any object for complete control and creative flexibility.
🎨 Vertex Group Mask : Precisely paint exactly where blending happens, giving full control over your effect.
🧭 Normal Direction Filter : Restrict blending to surfaces facing a specific direction, ideal for snow, moss, dirt, and more.
🪨Displacement Blending : Seamlessly blend displacement between two materials for smooth, realistic surface transitions.
🐛 Banding Artifacts Fixed: Sharp stripes are gone; blends now transition smoothly across any geometry.
🎛️ Custom Blend Style : Fully accessible with dedicated controls for amplitude, threshold, and radius, giving you ultimate precision.

✨ Advanced material blending system with dynamic proximity-based effects for Blender 4.0+
Created by Egret

It’s a non-destructive and real-time solution for environment artists, procedural designers, and shader developers — helping you achieve natural, adaptive material blending with minimal setup.

🚀 Key Features

🔄 Dynamic Proximity Blending: Materials blend automatically based on distance
🎨 Multiple Blend Styles: None, Noise, and Height-based blending options
⚡ Real-time Preview: Instantly visualize blend changes in the viewport
🧱 Non-destructive Workflow: Add, remove, or reconfigure blends anytime
🎚️ Distance & Falloff Controls: Fine-tune how far and how smoothly blends occur
🪶 Lightweight: Minimal performance impact, fully optimized
🧠 Smart System: Automatically manages modifiers and nodes behind the scenes.

🧭 Quick Start Guide

🖱️ Select your target objects (these receive the blend)
🔹 Shift-select the source object (this provides the blend material – must be the active object)
⚙️ In the PermaBlend panel (N-Panel sidebar), click “Create a Permablend”
🎚️ Adjust Blend Distance and Falloff for desired softness
🎨 Choose a Blend Style (None, Noise, or Height)

That’s it! The selected objects will now blend their materials dynamically based on proximity.

💾 Installation

🧱 Blender 4.0+

Download permablend.zip
Open Blender → Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions
Click the dropdown ⌄ → Install from Disk
Select permablend.zip
Enable the addon

📍 Finding the Panel

Press N in the 3D Viewport → Go to the Permablend tab.

🎛️ Interface Guide

🧪 Create a PermaBlend

Main operator that generates a proximity-based blend between selected objects.
Requirements:

At least two objects selected
Each object must have an existing material
The active object (last selected) becomes the source material

🧩 Apply / Remove

Apply 🧱 : Makes the blend permanent, removing temporary modifiers
Remove ❌ : Deletes all Permablend data and restores original materials

🎚️ Blend Distance

Controls how far the effect extends from the source.

Higher = smoother, wider blending
Lower = tighter, more localized blend

🧮 Falloff & Scale

Fine-tune transition softness and scale per object for detailed control.

🎨 Blend Style

Select how the blend behaves:

None: Smooth gradient transition
Noise: Adds procedural breakup for natural variation
Height: Uses geometry height to drive blend

👁️ Display Options

Show/Hide Blend Mask – Toggle visibility of blend influence
Color Ramp View – Visualize the gradient strength

Levels Preview – Check intensity and smoothness.

⚙️ Technical Overview

Permablend uses Blender’s modifier and data transfer systems to create non-destructive blends:

🧩 Proximity-Blend Modifier: Computes vertex weights based on object distance
🎨 Vertex-Color Transfer: Applies blend data as vertex colors
🧭 Normal & UV Handling: Ensures consistent shading and texture mapping
⚙️ Shader Integration: Connects directly to material nodes for smooth transitions

All these operations are handled automatically — no manual node setup required.

⚡ Performance

💨 Real-time feedback with minimal lag
🧠 Smart modifier stacking: optimized order and updates
🪶 Lightweight system, designed for large environments
🔒 Apply blends when satisfied to “bake” results and boost performance

🧱 Requirements

Blender 4.0 or higher
Objects must have valid materials
Works with Eevee and Cycles
Mesh objects only (no curves or volumes)
🧰 Troubleshooting
❓ Blend not appearing?
- Ensure both objects have materials
- Check that the source object is active (last selected)
- Try increasing the Blend Distance
⚠️ Modifiers not behaving?
- Do not manually edit Permablend modifiers
- Use the Remove button and recreate if needed
🐢 Performance issues?
- Collapse modifier panels
- Apply blends once finalized
- Avoid excessive high-poly objects.
  🆕PermaBlend Changelog v1.1.0
  What's New?
  ⚖️ License
  PermaBlend v1.0
  © 2026 Egret Studios LLC
  Licensed under GPL v3.0

Permablend

PermaBlend – Dynamic Proximity Material Blending for Blender 5.0