• Steve

  about 2 months ago

  I purchased the bundle. PSA is great and I have used it several times the past year. Not my go to for environment lighting but still useful. I've never used PCO so I cant speak on that. I was pretty disappointed with POW. It's easy to use and understand, but has a known bug that creates a ton of motion blur every couple frames and looks so bad when rendering an animation. When I reached out to Physical Addons to find a solution, they responded with "Yes this is a known issue and there's nothing we can do". It wasn't a very helpful response. If I could go back knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have purchased.

• Bob3D

  3 months ago

  Perfect addon! VERY configurable, and so easy to use and animate!!! Improved my renders 400%!!

• Cj Laufeyson

  4 months ago

  perfect and so so so so very easy to use.

• Marc

  5 months ago

  Ok , let's get to real important points about this addon

  According to my experience ,BEWARE about 1 star reviews on addons like this one. All expert addons simulating complex realism with as much settings on Blender is subject to any ... stupid comment.

  We see people whine because things very probably linked to many many factors like running complex realtime algoritms in 3d on a regular Sata HDD and ... it freezes .... or , running the addon on a GTX 1050 GPU and ... hey " WTF , the screen stays black " . When it's not that , sometimes people may give one star because ... " Hey , clouds look horrible " but they didn't go through the many options to simulate volume and height and size for the good usage.

  " Hey , there is no real complex fog in it , it looks kind of simulated fog "

  I don't know but what I can say , it's that I'm looking for the best ratio performance - energy cost and ... it is awesome ! The options allows us to make real and unreal skies that runs so smooth on the GPU that you can do your other things. If you want intense and fluffy , moving sci-fi fog in a scene , anyway you'll go with maybe other addons specified for that because it's a precise case . In my experience , I admitt I'd like in the addon maybe a better " animated volumetric fog " option or maybe a volumetric clouds option .... and it may come in the future but sincerely , when I tweek enough the cloud models of PSA ... I'm really not far from real volumetric clouds feel ... at a point visually , I couldn't say precisely it's not ' real ' volume.

  It's what it should look like in most of my scenes and if I really need for a precise case really perceptible volume from a short distance , other addons will handle this and it's in fact a good thing not mixing too much high professionnal addons on blender . I had a VERY SAD experience on another sky addon , very well rated but ... not up to date and not well ... coupled with Blender team's way to code . The addon was doing " everything " and it was ... SOOO NICE but ... sooo buggy because of many things. Not as well coded as PSA and ... other factors maybe like too much on the same SSD . When you have two addons , one may be installed on one SSD and the other's assetts on another SSD etc etc. You gain possibilities to debug if your GPU driver of this month is a dump. It's never bad in some cases to split the work . I prefer one addon to concentrate on the atmosphere , on the general sky things and maybe handle the rest with others because in 60% and more of the cases, PSA fog settings will give me what I want WITHOUT creating volume datas and all sort of things that will cause problems with Blender. This prevent a lot of problems.

  What is my solution ? I've used another addon for FOG that is specialized in FOG , coupled it with this PAS addon ... and ... what ? It was AWESOME. Instead letting a addon decide my FOG space is 1 000 000 units and extend it to the infinite , I can handle it and set it the distance I want until I get the same photorealism I want. It frees a LOT of ressources and believe it or not , my PC that was .... throwing illegal CUDA and wrong size declarations in the Blender console , that was crashing every 3 minutes Blender ... suddenly continued to work , even in high polygons projects, EVEN WITH GEO-SCATTER . This one was very problematic because coupled witht True-Sky , Geo-Scatter crashed my computer each time. Together they were " awfull " . With PSA , I feel , by now , it's STABLE . It understand I have a 12 GB GPU but a powerful one and it stops to try fulling the GPU. The CPU mem takes it's advatage as I got a workstation and again , I can work on big big projects in CUDA mode. With True-Sky , at the minute it was a big scene, it was fulling my GPU and refused to take my CPU RAM that is almost the more powerful accessible .... even in CUDE mode. This PSA addon saved it to me.

  I don't blame True-VFX but I had enough. It may be linked to Blender code but I prefer using a separate addon for FOG and HAZE that don't blow Blender's environment distance limit. PSA is actually older and better coded also maybe for this reason. It's very stable , very compatible and it's not interfering in the CUDA code of Blender that continues to work as intended in Cuda mode. Seriously try this and encourage good coders . Like I said , even if you like True-Sky as I do , there are situations anyway where you want results , quick results ... and also you can use it under EEVEE Next , which is very very nice because I had no solutions yet for EEVEE I found satisfying. I could tell you that this addon on EEVEE Next is pleasing , fast and gives a so nice look , if you get to learn this version's of EEVEE curve , that in some scenes , it's very hard to tell if it's EEVEE or Cycles. With raytracing well balanced .. seriously , it's impressive and it's pretty much ... realtime.

  You want to work on EEVEE Next and have the best photorealism ? GO GET THIS . That's my advice. Even if you like True-Sky or other , you'll find this one has it's very usefull functions. I love the ability to set the horizon quickly and to REMOVE it on need etc. These are features we need to save time . I must say the result it my goal . I don't care how I get to there . I want also to be able to add creativity to realism which is well integrated in the addon . There are not a hundred control bars but each one is super pertinent and take the time to understand them before to say it's cheap and horrible addon. It's what some producers exactly need in facts. Thanks for the infinite plane also ... something every other addons should have.

  I've made things I'd like to show here. It's gorgeous. Blendermarket should have a way to let us upload some photos ( 1 or 2 at least by comment ) . Just looking at the photo is clear .

  Anyway , yes , I'd like maybe " volumetric floor fog " integraded if it's very tigh coded and fast as possible but for the price , come on , we must understand it's awesome and let time go. Maybe the author will add a bit of volumetric complex fog types as an option but ... when you use PSA , you are generally a geek and nothing stops a geek . I personnally can tell using Alt Tab Easy Fog with this Physical Starlight Atmosphere addon is GORGEOUS .

  People under-rating this , telling things that may alert you ... seems to me more about people not understanding the base of atmospheres , how to tune them and how to understand which setting plays on the other . It's not just a thing of ... playing with each setting with no regards to the others. There are presets for people to learn how to get to a result.

  I hesitated more than with any other addons to buy this one as it was still for me ... around 100$ CAD . .... but what a good surprise for now. Even on the SAME DAY Blender 4.2 LTS was out , it was working out of the box as intended without any bug yet.

  This speeds all my projects because this addon plus independant addon volumetric fog is less hungry in ressources than just ... other do it all addons. I just set all the data for a specific zone instead making calculation for the entire Blender environment. The only difference is that to get a perfect realism , you have to tweek a bit by yourself between some methods and it's VERY versatile. Mars atmosphere ? YES . Others too because it's very inter-operative. Every everything almost ... importe to the rest. I love this. It's the " JUST GIVE ME WHAT I NEED " addon. Don't throw me goodies I don't care most of the time but do it the best you can.

  I love so much this work and when I see the ratings giving one star , I find it maybe a bit ridiculous. The creator maybe won't say that to stay humble and it's ok but as a user, I must tell you this is awesome and ... don't pay too much attention to ratings. Just learn the basic curve before calling this a ... trashy addon or ... too basic for you. I bet it's possible you are too basic for the addon in this case. :)

  I am an autistic gut at home , a geek that loves to buy technical things and tune them. I'm not used to give bad advices and I am highly positive about this addon. The only reason I didn't buy yet the complete serie of addon is money because I work on my own . I'll buy pro licence for all these once I sell any project with them. I'm learning the curve but. .. it's what I need . The planet addon is " very tasty too " and the fact these guys are taking care of their addons and update them .. really fast shows how much they are serious. They , she , he ... whatever the number of people in this.

  I saw so much addons trying to add too much goodies that are ... " flashing things " you won't use or ... things that are not in their ... line. A Camera addon that begins to try handling all the atmosphere is generally ... pretty poor to very poor , as an example.

  That's what I think and if I'd have the money , I'd get the complete pack. I'm sure you wouldn't be sad about it ... if you are a serious creator that takes time to learn before to ... be catastrophic.

  Nice day to all and to Physical Addon team. I wasn't previously paid or received an incitation previously to this review. I'm not eighter a ROBOT paid to give good reviews or so ....

  A+

• 

  Physical Addons

  5 months ago

  Hello, Marc!

  We're incredibly thankful for the detailed review of PSA. It definitely clears up many questions and expectations for the addon and it will help future users understand what they're buying.

  10/10 review, would receive again.

  ~Physical addons team.
• ASE 3D

  10 months ago

  hello i have a prblm
  but before that
  i want to say its really nice and smooth addone i like it
  the problem its not working as it should and its crashing blender and also not updating real time in the blender version 4.0.1- i didn't use it in long time because i work on 4.0.1 version
  but in 3.5 it works really good and smooth

• 

  Physical Addons

  9 months ago

  Hi! There are a few reasons that might cause the addon to not work as smoothly as expected, one of them being other addons interfering with PSA. You can reach our support by writing a message through blendermarket or by joining our discord community https://discord.com/invite/mX4JTWR8
• Radiant Mantra

  11 months ago

  Excellent Addon, I can't recommend it enough.

  I initially started using RealSky when I jumped to Blender, but it gave me some issues when baking textures.
  Really, out of necessity I started using PSA but it is so much more than an alternative to RealSky. I like RealSky but PSA gave that kick to my renders that improved them immediately out of the box. The documentation is clear and there's a lot of parameters to mess around and make your scene look that much better the way you want it to.

  Excellent product.

• 

  Physical Addons

  11 months ago

  Hello!
  Thank you for the awesome review, we always encourage our users to play around with all the settings to get exactly what they like. Glad you're having fun.
• Kyle

  11 months ago

  I'm very happy with this add-on. It gives me that extra edge in my 3D art. Great people in the Discord too! I highly recommend it!

• 

  Physical Addons

  11 months ago

  Thank you, Kyle!
• Peter Goodman

  about 1 year ago

  This addon is absolutely awesome, I can't praise it enough. It is particularly great at matching VFX lighting to real images. I rarely use HDRIs for outdoor scenes anymore. Great documentation, and responsive devs on their discord. Thanks :)

• 

  Physical Addons

  12 months ago

  Hi, Peter!
  It's awesome to hear you're using the addon exactly for what it was made for, and we're thrilled that it's proving effective for you. Your kind words mean a lot to our developers, and they find inspiration in the positive experiences of our users.
• Ziad

  about 1 year ago

  Honestly PSA have been through most of my workflow it added more life to my renders even more realistic look to my renders and even futuristic the add-on is really customizable when it comes to worlds and adjusting it is beginner friendly too, also the guys there are supportive and very helpful, looking forward for future updates.

• 

  Physical Addons

  12 months ago

  Hi, Ziad!
  Glad to see a positive review from you. Seeing your work with our addons is very motivating for us to continually enhance and refine our products. Knowing that you appreciate our developers is rewarding to hear. We're committed to delivering even better experiences in the future!
• styq

  about 1 year ago

  Highly realistic atmospheric controls! Runs on Eevee! Well written manual!! and very professional customer support!!

  If they add physically accurate night sky function, this add-on would be omnipotent, for sure.(But, it wasn't so difficult to add them by our own side, thanks to the PSA's generous customer support! )

• 

  Physical Addons

  about 1 year ago

  Thank you for your kind words! We're thrilled that you're enjoying our addon. Your feedback on the night sky is very valuable. We're committed to continuous improvement and will certainly consider your suggestion for future updates.

• Displaying ratings 1-10 of 139 in total

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