Export and use

Use Matelume in Blender

Install the Matelume add-on in Blender 4.2 or later, put materials on your objects at their real size, and receive Send to Blender from the Studio.

Matelume Guide. Upcoming features are marked separately.

The Matelume add-on brings your exported materials into Blender, set up at their real size. The normal map does the shading and the height drives displacement only, the way Matelume materials are meant to render. You need Blender 4.2 or later.

Install the add-on

  1. Download the Blender add-on, a .zip file, from Add-ons & plugins on the Download page on matelume.com. Don't unzip it.
  2. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.
  3. Open the menu at the top right of that page and choose Install from Disk.
  4. Pick the .zip file.

The Matelume panel lives in the 3D Viewport's sidebar: press N, then click the Matelume tab.

Put a material on your objects

  1. Keep Matelume open on the same PC.
  2. In the Matelume panel, click Refresh. The list shows your exported materials, newest first, with their pictures and sizes.
  3. Click a material in the list.
  4. Select your objects and click Apply to selected.

The material goes on at its real size. The add-on measures each object's own UVs, so one tile covers its real size on the object; an object without UVs gets UVs in metres. Every time you apply, Blender gets a new material, and nothing of yours is changed.

Tip: Apply your objects' scale first (Ctrl+A > Scale). The relief height follows the object's scale, and the tile size is measured when you apply. If you resize an object later, apply the material again.

Quick test objects

Under Add a block:, click Sphere (30 cm), Cushion (45 × 45 cm) or Plane (one tile at its real size). You get a ready object with the material on it, at the 3D cursor, with the mesh detail real displacement needs at render time.

Real relief on your own objects

The material uses true displacement. On your own objects, the mesh needs enough detail for it: add a Subdivision Surface modifier or use a dense mesh. The normal map shows the relief's shading either way.

Send to Blender

  1. In the Matelume panel, click Listen. It stays on, and the panel says "Listening to Matelume: Send to Blender in the app arrives here".
  2. In the Studio, after an export, pick a card under Send to Blender: On the selected objects, A sphere, A cushion or A plane.

The material arrives in Blender at once. If Listen was off, Matelume keeps the job for ten minutes: switch Listen on in that time, or send it again.

Without the app

Open an export folder brings in a material from a folder Matelume exported, even when the app is closed. Pick the material's folder, the one that holds its maps and its .json. It adds a sphere with the material; the file window's options also offer Apply to selected, Cushion and Plane.

Wall art

For a wall art export, the panel shows Add the framed artwork. It brings in the frame, the mat and the glass, with the painting's full material.

Add-on settings

The add-on's preferences hold Matelume address, where the app answers on this PC (http://127.0.0.1:8765), and Give objects without UVs their UVs (in metres), on by default. You rarely need to change either.