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Getting started - the Gscatter outliner

The Gscatter outliner is where you’ll see all of the scatter systems in your Blender scene. Each system will be shown as a layer in a stack. The various controls are as follows:

1. The Emitter is an object that you scatter things on. You can select an emitter by using the drop-down field, and choosing from the available objects in your scene, or by using the eye-dropper tool and clicking on any object directly in a Blender viewport or the Blender outliner. The highlighted button in this section is an Active switch. This gives you the option of always using the active object as the emitter.
2. This is the Linked Systems button. All scatter systems present in the outliner, for every single defined emitter in your scene, can be selected via this button. This allows you to share a scatter system between two or more emitters. See How to create a Linked System for more information.
3. The Scatter selected button is for scattering assets in your scene without using the Gscatter Asset Browser. Just select an object in your Blender outliner, or in the viewport, and then click on this button. You can remove a scatter system by clicking on the ‘-’ symbol to the right-hand side of the button.
4. This is the library icon. Clicking on it opens up the Gscatter Asset Browser. From there you can install assets as .gscatter files, search for and choose assets, and then scatter them. More details are in the How to create a scatter system section below.
5. Presets. Use this button to store custom parameters for a specific scatter system, including all effect layer and optimization settings. You can then re-use the stored set-up as a preset on other scatter systems, to quickly achieve the same look. More details on how to create and store presets can be found in the How to create and store presets section.
6. Click on this to duplicate a scatter system layer.
7. Use these arrows to move a layer up or down in a stack. This only works with two or more layers.
8. This is where scatter systems are added, displayed as a layer. You can double click on the layer name to change it. The coloured boxes to the left of the layer/asset name represent the colour of the material for that layer when using Blender’s Solid View or scatter system proxies. If you click on these, you can choose your own custom colour.
9. This figure represents the number of instances present in the scene for each scatter system.
10. The circle icon controls proxy visibility in the Blender viewport. Proxies are low-poly objects that are used in place of the assets in your scene, which makes them useful for scene management and for keeping the Blender viewport responsive. Clicking on this icon will cycle between proxy and normal views. You can use proxies to maintain a faster workflow, switching them off when you want to do a test - or final - render.
11. The eye icon controls scatter system visibility within the viewport. Clicking on this will also turn the icon on/off in the Blender outliner.
12. The camera icon controls visibility of a scatter system in a render. Clicking on this will also turn the icon on/off in the Blender outliner.

How to create a scatter system

The steps below explain how to scatter Gscatter assets, and other objects, in your Blender scene.