• JJ

  2 months ago

  Would be great to have an EEVEE update for Blender 4.2 LTS. The environment goes to black so it's not really worth it to use the addon for now. It's otherwise great with nice UI and options and I'll happily update my rating if the addon improves.

• kim

  3 months ago

  Since the EEVEE engine has been completely changed since Blender 4.2 was updated, volumetric fog and clouds do not work, so I cannot solve the black sky. If I downgrade to the previous 4.1 version, it works. However, the 6.0.84 version cannot be used except for the cycle engine. Please solve this.

• Pac0master

  about 1 year ago

  Of all the addons I got over the years I think this might be the best one for lighting environment.
  It has proper volumetric fog and clouds.
  Though, as a result it is heavier to render, but I think it's worth it.

• Nirupam Saren

  about 1 year ago

  great boost in work

• PixelPunk

  over 1 year ago

  The low star reviews had me concerned so before I purchased I asked the creator about my primary concern, the bugs that more than a few reviews mention. He assured me the bugs have been fixed with the new Pure Sky Pro 6.0. Neither the market or creator allow a refund if not happy with the addon, so it was a gamble. But I liked that PSP has a more complete features set that no other sky addon (that I am aware of) has, and the creator's replies gave an okay enough impression, so I purchased it (June 2023).

  I learned the basics swiftly, and have had no difficulty learning more advanced features even though the documentation has yet to be updated to include all the new content that was added with PSP 6.0. I have not found any of these supposed bugs. Did anyone report these bugs to the creator to verify they really are bugs, and give the creator a chance to fix them? Besides the reviewer who did report a bug with a feature that was then removed as explained by the creator. I did find a few main settings that are listed in both the N panel and materials menu will only work with changes made with one or the other, not both, but if this is a bug it is not an issue in my opinion.

  As many have said the volumetric features take time to render, however I have not seen anyone mention that this is cumulative for each separate feature. Add a few and the render time increases by approximately that many times. If I am not mistaken this is how it is with all volumetric addons, not just PSP, though some render faster than others. But are there compromises for faster rendering? Maybe PSP could be optimized for faster rendering, but I have not found it to be an issue like some reviewers did (was anyone strictly working in rendered mode with many volumetrics running? CPU rendering? Using a GPU that might have driver issues with Blender or some addons?). All I can say is in my opinion PSP is well made and the render time while sometimes slow is worth it (as I will explain).

  With PSP volumetrics I find it fascinating to see the change when the denoise cleans the render. In the viewport they turn from noisy smudges to nicely defined obvious clouds, aurora or fog (this is with just 10 samples). I find this helps me be more efficient because I can see a sky that resembles a good painting instead of smudges and noise dots everywhere, and I can make adjustments right in the viewport without having to switch views. Then when rendered they look realistic enough for me. If the default clouds and aurora are not to your preference, there are many settings to adjust that can probably make it what you want.

  An important note I want to mention is that PSP has not crashed once. Not even with heavy volumetrics running (all three altitudes of clouds, aurora and fog) and a detailed landscape (with grass and plants), whether working in the viewport (any view mode) or rendering with or without animation. For anyone wondering, this is all with Linux Mint 21.2, Blender 3.6, cycles (GPU rendering), AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU and RTX 3060 12GB GPU (rendering with Optix). With this computer and nothing except PSP in the scene (no objects or other addons), PSP volumetrics each render at approximately 1 second per sample in the viewport with the camera looking directly at the horizon, and even faster when rendered. The denoise takes approximately 2x the time of a sample.

  Along with PSP I splurged to try one other popular sky addon (which I am not naming as I do not like to trash, promote or recommend competitors) because of what the product page and many recent reviews say, which nagged me that I might have chosen the wrong addon. That other addon was difficult for me to learn just the basics, did not look as nice in my opinion (particularly in viewport rendered mode), was not that much faster to render, had fewer features and settings (possibly some are more realistic but some were less realistic), and crashed Blender both while working in the viewport and test rendering with a simpler landscape or a few volumetrics. I followed instructions and advice, but could not adjust to that addon or fix the issues. Many people are obviously happy with that addon, and it will improve, but it is not for me.

  To specify, I am currently no expert and my expectations and opinion are in the budget minded good enough for now league. No sky addon is currently best for everything, and while this competitor is better for this and that competitor is better for that, to have a complete set of sky and separate sky features addons (see next sentence) to have all the pros and a counter for every con, would need the budget to purchase all those addons. This is why although PSP might not be the most realistic or fastest, I currently consider it the best value (because it includes a set of sky features that all of the competitors need one or more purchased separately to equal, which may or may not work without issues) and a good start (though a gamble, but read the last paragraph).

  Because for me PSP has been easy to use, reliable, and exactly as described and shown on the product page, I have not had need or interest in trying any other sky or sky feature addon. I considered purchasing the #1 (in sales) sky addon of the market instead for the realistic accuracy, but it is sun, sky and not much else, and has some issues, so it was not a good choice for me. The creators of that addon are working on extensive fixes, improvements and new features, so when it is updated I will reconsider it as an option for anything it is better for than PSP.

  I usually do not write detailed reviews like this, but the recent low star reviews make me worry that the creator will lose interest in supporting PSP, and that those reviews could lead to frustrating wrong choices for others as they did for me. 3DVision, I will be sending you a message with suggestions for improvements and new features, but one I want to mention here is to add a refund if not happy policy, which would help you, current customers, and future customers. And I will conclude this review with a thanks to you and any team you have for supporting and improving Pure Sky Pro.

• 

  3DVision

  about 1 year ago

  Hello, thank you for your encouragement.
• leehenshall

  over 1 year ago

  I purchased all the major procedural cloud/sky add-ons I could find on Blender Market.

  True Sky, Pure Sky, Ultimate Sky & Stratus.

  Unfortunately, Pure Sky was a big disappointment. The UI and overall functionality gets a pass, it is clean and easy to understand. But the volumetric clouds are incredibly slow compared to True Sky and the moon/night sky does not look as realistic. Also the sky/atmosphere simulation is generally not as good.

  I found that a large volume cube and a high quality HDRI produces might better results and renders much faster whilst adding no node group dependencies to the scene.

  But if you need to art direct a procedural sky such as control the clouds and time-lapse animation etc. Then I strongly recommend Stratus. It is much faster to preview clouds. It's basically an semi real-time procedural HDRI baker but for most of my use cases this is actually faster and more efficient than full volumetric clouds. Plus once rendered the only dependency is an HDRI sequence.

  There are times when you may want to wait for full volumetric to render such as Ariel shots or any composition where you want to see parallax in the clouds. But for all those use cases True Sky is faster and has better quality results.

  I contacted the seller for a refund but they declined the refund based on there technically being nothing broken about the add-on. While this is technically true, I think the store page makes the add-on seem like it can get better results out of the box than it actually does. There is quite a lot of set-up and tweaking required and even when you do get good results, it will take a very long time to render.

  I thought the sellers decision to decline the refund was quite mean and the developer could have showed more understanding.

  I won’t make the same mistake twice and will not be purchases add-ons from this creator in the future. Not a satisfied customer.

• Pablo Angeles

  over 1 year ago

  Great addon, one of my favorite atmosphere generators.

• ondrej semotan

  over 1 year ago

  Giving two stars just to be kind. Probably a nice idea, but.. really slow, slow, slow... all I can say. It is so laggy and tricky, that it didn't allow me any testing. Not ready to be used in daily work and is not worth money at this stage of development. Once kindly asked for a refund I was rejected. Consider carefully.

• 

  3DVision

  over 1 year ago

  The addon works correctly, even with an RTX 2060, but if you try to use it only with your CPU, it's normal for it to be slow. A volumetric environment spanning several kilometers cannot be displayed with just one CPU.
• Ed Tannenbaum

  over 1 year ago

  The developers created a slow, buggy product. I bought it for a project to use the "outer space" part of the product. It didn't work properly and I reported the major bug. They said it would be fixed in an update. Now, a year later, they have removed the whole outer space module instead of fixing it. I feel like I should get my money back.

• 

  3DVision

  over 1 year ago

  We are sorry, we know that some people will be disappointed but to illustrate, when a patient is suffering from a condition that may be fatal, it is better to remove the diseased area to save his life and this is exactly what we have done, just as the Blender Foundation has abandoned the branch (Blender game) to save the development of the main branch.
• ICE

  almost 2 years ago

  really nice one addon, not sure about the price but you know ''everybody need to eat''.
  Overall is a good one ;)

• Displaying ratings 1-10 of 76 in total

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