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Installing MatPlus

Understanding MatPlus Limitations and Best Practices

Due to the way Blender’s shading system and GPU resource management work, MatPlus is subject to certain technical limitations that users should be aware of when working on complex or large-scale projects. Understanding these constraints is essential to achieve a stable, efficient, and comfortable workflow.

For this reason, it is highly recommended to compartmentalize projects whenever possible. Even if the final asset will use a single UV set (for example, a single 4K texture set), working with multiple geometries inside one project can quickly exhaust Blender’s available texture and memory resources. A more optimal approach is to split the asset into two or three logical groups, working on each group in a separate MatPlus project. This provides significantly more headroom, better performance, and a more responsive workflow. Once completed, the exported PBR maps can be merged or combined externally as needed.

Additionally, users are strongly encouraged to make regular use of the Cache tool. Once a layer is finished and no longer needs to be edited, caching it will bake its result and free up memory, allowing Blender and MatPlus to run more smoothly and reducing the risk of hitting resource limits.

Being aware of MatPlus’ practical limits is key to using it effectively. Structuring work across multiple projects when necessary, caching completed layers, and planning ahead are not workarounds, but essential parts of a professional and scalable MatPlus workflow.

Requirements

Below are the Blender versions you can use for each version of MatPlus.

MatPlus Blender
1.0.2 4.5.1 LTS

All versions of MatPlus are compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Download

You can download MatPlus from the account panel in Superhive once you have purchased it.

The necessary installation files are:

  • MatPlus_1.0.2.zip
  • AmbientCG.part1.rar
  • AmbientCG.part2.rar
  • AmbientCG.part3.rar
  • AmbientCG.part4.rar
  • AmbientCG.part5.rar
  • AmbientCG.part6.rar
  • Brushes And Icons.zip
  • MatPlusMasks.zip

Except for the MatPlus_1.0.2.zip file. You must extract the rest of the files into a folder and later set the path inside the addon.

Installation

The easiest way to install MatPlus is directly in Blender. You can do this in Edit > Preferences > Add-ons. Go to the dropdown arrow in the top right corner of the editor and select "Install from disk".

This will open Blender’s File Explorer, where you can browse and select the zip file you downloaded.

Click "Install from disk".

addon-pref

Once installed, inside the addon settings you will need to configure the folder paths where you previously extracted the files in the download section.

To do this go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Matplus > Misc.

config

Configure the following options:

Root Projects

Folder where your MatPlus projects will be created and saved, along with all the files it generates.

AmbientCG Materials

Folder where you extract the materials downloaded from AmbientCG so MatPlus can use them.

MatPlus Masks

Folder where you extract the mask textures so MatPlus can access them.

Brush And Icons

Folder where you extract textures, icons, brushes, etc., that you will use for painting inside MatPlus.