The Advanced All-in-One Set of Tools for Procedural Instancing of Objects in Blender

Advanced Array Tool is a comprehensive set of tools and features designed for procedural instancing/cloning of objects in Blender. It has lots of customization settings and includes a wide range of features spanning from randomization to an excellent set of Instance on Curve/Object tools, making it ideal for rendering, level/environment design, game development, architectural visualization, and more. You can also use it for animation, and motion graphics. (Note: If you're using the AAT for animation, a fairly capable CPU is recommended)

Powered by Geometry Nodes and neatly organized within a single node group to keep your project clutter-free. It delivers impressive performance, even with over 2000 nodes packed within. There's no Geometry Nodes knowledge required. It's user-friendly and has all the controls you need right in the modifiers panel.

 Current Version: 2.1 🚀

 See the documentation for more info. 

Key Features

• Easy to Use
• Fully Procedural (Powered by Geometry Nodes)
• Highly Customizable
• Single Node Group (For a clutter-free project!)
• Performant (Over 60 FPS on a MacBook Air M1 during an animation)
• Instance From Object / Collection (Load instance(s) from either an object or a collection)
• Transformation Tools
• Full Set of Randomization Tools (Randomize location, rotation, and scale. Uniform Random Scale)
• Random Stepped Rotation (This feature allows you to achieve randomized incremental rotations of the instances by specifying the number of angles)
  
• Advanced Arrays (Grid Array, Circular Array, Linear)
• Instance on Object (A variety of useful features that allow you to precisely position the instances on the surface of a selected object)
• Instance Along Curve (A set of powerful and essential features designed for the precise distribution of the instances along a curve)
• Look at Object & Repel (Align the orientation of the instances toward a specified object & control the repulsion and attraction forces)
• Texture Transform (Control the transformation of the instances using either a procedural noise, a custom image texture, or a combination of both)
• Variation Row (Modify the number of the instances within each subsequent row you add)
• Curve Profile (Convert all splines of a curve to a mesh using a profile curve, with an option to preserve scaling)
• Object Offset (Transformation of instances based on the attributes of a selected object)
• Effectors (Linear, Object, Proximity, and Noise)
• Delete Geometry (A range of features dedicated to precise instance deletion)
• Rarity Settings (Control the rarity or frequency of instances)
• And Much More!

What's inside?

• Advanced Array Tool
• Example scene with 300+ examples
• Over 20 unique 3D models
• Bonus Tool: Deform Along Curve v2.2

Example Scene

You'll receive an example scene with 300+ detailed examples organized into separate categories to help you get started quickly.

The included example scene with 300+ examples

A quick peek inside Advanced Array Tool

Bonus Models

As a bonus you get over 20 unique 3D models that you can use in your projects.

Settings

The settings are located in the modifiers panel, conveniently organized into separate categories, and many of them have useful tooltips. All settings have default values; simply press the backspace key while hovering over a value to reset it to default.

Since version 1.1 the Important categories are now color coded, significantly improving the user experience!

Starting with version 1.8, the UI now features collapsible panels!

Recent Updates

This category highlights some of the key features added in recent updates.

New in version 2.1 - The much improved Index Mode now lets you order instances along the X, Y, or Z axis, or by each spline. It supports Grid Array, Row Settings, Variation Row, Circular Array, and Instance Along Curve, allowing for greater versatility in arrangement.

New in version 2.1 - The Increment Z option in Grid Array lets you add a vertical offset between rows, making it easy to create tiered or stepped arrangements. This feature is perfect for architectural layouts and stacked object setups.

New in version 2.1 - Circular Array now supports the Drop to Ground feature, allowing you to place and align instances directly onto a selected surface. This makes it simple to position objects accurately on uneven or sloped terrain.

New in version 2.1 - The Rings Phase feature allows you to alternate the rotation of rings in Circular Array.

New in version 2.1 - The Adapt Count to Length feature in Advanced Duplicate automatically adjusts the number of instances based on the length of the curve in Instance Along Curve, ensuring a balanced distribution.

New in version 2.0 - Instance Along Curve now features Respect Size Mode, a powerful new addition. This feature takes into account the sizes of objects when arraying them along a curve, ensuring that objects of different sizes are arranged without overlapping.

With Respect Size Mode, you can explore new possibilities in arranging objects of different sizes, offering greater flexibility and control in your designs.

You can choose the axis, move the objects along the curve, control spacing, and add randomness.

New in version 2.0 - With Fill Curve Mode, you can turn a curve into a surface and evenly distribute instances over it.

The Fill Curve Mode is also especially useful when combined with the Drop to Ground feature.

New in version 1.9 - The Pack in Object feature allows you to pack instances inside an object, with customizable settings for density, overlap, and seed.

New in version 1.9 - With the addition of the new Curve Mode, the Proximity Effector now supports curve objects.

New in version 1.9 -  The Advanced Duplicate mode in Instance Along Curve now includes the option to reduce overlap. 

New in version 1.7 - The Align to Face Tangent option allows you to align instances with the tangent direction of the faces they are placed on.

New in version 1.6 - The Orient to Next Point feature precisely aligns each object toward the next one along the curve. This is particularly useful for setups like barriers, walls, and other structures where consistent orientation is crucial.

New in version 1.5 - The UV Array feature lets you array instances on a surface based on UV coordinates.

Since version 1.0, over 60 new examples, 130+ new settings, and countless improvements and bug fixes have been added.

Base Features

This category includes various transformation features (including randomization), the ability to load instances from an object/collection, and other useful settings. You also have the option to realize the instances.

Advanced Array Tool supports base object transformation features, including settings such as Offset Rotation, Offset Scale, and others.

You can randomize location, rotation, and scale. Additionally, you have the Influence Factor setting, which allows you to control the number of affected instances.

The Uniform Random Scale feature allows you to uniformly randomize the scale of the instances, and provides the functionality to affect specific axes as well.

You can also offset the instances along their local axes.

Demonstration of Offset Rotation.

Advanced Array Tool supports multiple ways to add rows, one of which is through Row Settings, which also allows you to control the scale variation for each row.

Instance From Object / Collection: This feature allows you to load instance(s) from either an object or a collection. When loading from a collection, you can randomize and offset the order of the instances, select individual elements, and separate children.

Instance From Collection

Instance From Object

Separate Children

The Collection as Points option allows you to retain the original positions of objects as they are loaded from the collection, which is useful for loading fractured objects.

You can also use Empty Objects, which can be useful for exporting placeholders.

This feature is similar to Blender's Object Offset, but with the added benefit of incorporating randomization and more.

Rarity Settings

New in version 1.1

This feature allows you to control the rarity or frequency of specific instances, adding an element of randomness and variety.

Circular Array

This feature allows you to arrange multiple instances in a circular or radial pattern. It gives you control over the number of the instances, their spacing, rotation angles, and other parameters to customize the arrangement according to your needs.

The Circular Array offers many useful functionalities, including the capability to add, offset, and rotate the rings. Additionally, you have the option to adjust the circle's resolution.

You can rotate the instances along all three axes and also align them to face the center.

When enabled, Adaptive Mode positions the instances based on a specified length rather than a set count.

You also have the ability to scale the Circular Array along both the X and Y axes.

Angle Mode allows you to set the start and end angle of the circle.

In Spiral Mode you can set the height, specify the number of rotations, as well as the starting and ending radius. Turning on Adaptive Height will maintain the height difference when adding rotations.

The Adaptive Scale feature allows you to control the scale variation per each ring. The Circular Array also supports Incremental Offset which in combination with Adaptive Scale can lead to very interesting results.

You can also offset the instances along both the X and Y axes (including randomization).

Here's an example of using the Order Offset setting from the Instance From Object / Collection category to offset the order of the instances on the Circular Array:

This example uses the Delete Range feature from the Delete Geometry category to separate the numbers.

The following Circular Array example takes advantage of the Delete Every n'th feature from the Delete Geometry category to form a clock face.

Similar Examples (Included in the example scene)

Compass Breakdown

The Use Object as Center setting can be used to center the Circular Array around the origin point of a selected object.

Random Stepped Rotation

This feature allows you to achieve randomized incremental rotations of the instances by specifying the number of angles. It provides a simple and effective way to introduce an element of unpredictability and variation to the orientation of your objects.

You can set different Angle Count for each axis. In this case, the Angle Count is set to 4 on all three axes, giving the following result.

Random Stepped Rotation can be used in many different scenarios such as the following:

Here's an example of using Random Stepped Rotation with Instance on Object.

The Factor setting enables you to control the number of affected instances, and you can also modify the Factor Seed.