Patreon Fund January 2026

2 January 2026

• Getting Charan set up with GitHub Desktop so we can better sync changes for BY-GEN.

• We have also synchronised references and inspiration content.

• Charan will be converting effects to use bundles and closures now that Blender 5.0+ is available, keeping in mind that when we were experimenting with approaches, bundles and closures were not guaranteed features.

• Creating a branching growth effect for the surface effects, aiming to have at least three effects per pillar of the addon.

+ 1 hour 33 minutes

3 January 2026

• Continuing with developing Ivy Growth.

• Experimenting with a deconstructive mesh effect.

• Working on Ivy generation effect.

+ 2 hour 26 minutes.

4 January 2026

• Work continued on simulation-like features.

• I am adding effects to the official content pack - volume advection, volume plexus. Waiting for Charan to finish Ivy. Waiting for reaction diffusion.

+ 35 minutes

6 January 2026

• Getting reaction diffusion done and light usability checks on the node groups of current effects, adding frames and info where appropriate.

• + 50 minutes

8 January 2026

• Replacing the ivy growth with a simpler version for the base version of V10, holding on to the more complex version.

• Adding reaction diffusion to the official content pack in preparation for V10 release.

• Doing a usability check from empty file, noticed surface growth needs some default parameters changed to make the effect properly visible, and reaction diffusion needs to be applied to the source mesh as it was using a generated icosphere for testing.

• More usability testing.

• In __init__ and effects.py, added debug_mode property and put into settings panel as a toggle, which we can use to enable debugging output in the console. Hopefully we can use this to let people give us more information when they encounter issues - specifically in regards to directories, as that seems to be the most common issue.

• Hiding weight paint option for applying surface effects, as won't be appropriate in all cases and seems like a point of potential issues as geometry nodes develops into the future.

• Removed old tools panel from panels.py.

• Removed panels.py and ui folder as these were no longer necessary.

• Removed interpreter folder and associated py file as this was no longer necessary.

• Massively trimmed down init file and removed old scatter and generation / modify files as they are no longer necessary. This should reduce the code size and registration time of the addon.

• Removed resources folder with the surface effects blend file as it was not being used.

• Removed geonodes.py module file (which I never continued working on) as it was not being used, but it will still exist in the workspace of previous versions if I want to return to it.

• Removed spatial.py module file as it was not being used.

• Removed randutils.py module file as it was not being used.

• Moved easybpy module to the root addon folder and removed the modules folder since there would have only been the single easybpy file in it anyway.

+ 2 hour 24 minutes

• Removed BYGEN_OT_surface_effect_weight_paint, as we will not be having the weight painting specific import anymore. This means we have a bunch of argument we can remove from the import function.

• Trying to remove unnecessary arguments from the import function, and update the calls from surface, mesh and volume effects to reflect this.

+ 50 minutes

• Fixed a bug, avoiding applying effects if invalid object types are selected.

+ 24 minutes

Total: 3 hours 38 minutes

10 January 2026

• Writing documentation for BY-Gen including a guide on turning asset libraries into content packs for the addon.

+ 37 minutes

• Finished first version of page explaining custom creation of content packs, including from asset libraries.

+ 38 minutes

(1 hour 15 minutes total)

11 January 2026

• Going to do some investigation into directory issues to see if we might be able to have multiple options people can select from in case directory discovery goes wrong.

• Discovered that directory issues on mac may be due to the omission of a trailing separator at the end of the filepath. This is because macOS is stupid.

• Added much more comprehensive debugging information which will be written to the console if someone imports an effect while debug_mode is set to true. Users will be able to screenshot the console, although showing the console on each operating system may be different.

• Figured that it would be a good idea to dump the debug information to a log file at the root directory of the addon, since not every user will want to run Blender by console on non-Windows systems, so going to spend a bit of time setting that up. Also made a new property and checkbox that appears under the 'Debug Mode' checkbox that people can tick to output to the log. By default there will be no log output, as it would be unnecessary.

• Basic outputting to log file is now working for (S) case, now need to add it for (Tr) and (Ts). I've also noticed that there is one more argument in the import function that can be removed so will do that afterwards.

• Each of these things has been done now, so I will now push these changes to the repo.

+ 1 hour 30 minutes

• Starting to write documentation to explain debugging features on the docs.curtisholt.online gitbook wiki.

• Was not originally going to add BY-GEN version to the debug / log but it would be important, so adding that now.

+ 21 minutes

( 1 hour 51 minutes total )

12 January 2026

• Packaging and cleaning the first release version of BY-GEN version 10 in preparation for pre-release.

• Discovered a bunch of grammar issues in the usability text in node trees so did some cleanup.

+ 21 minutes.

• Adding section to the documentation 'BY-GEN layout for distribution', which is a note to ourself about the file layout for BY-GEN for packaging. This may not be relevant to other people unless they want to modify and redistribute the addon.

• Making a page on the documentation 'Can I Sell Content Packs for BY-GEN?'.

+ 34 minutes

• Investigating the possibility of reincluding 'legacy' content, which may or may not be possible with the new import system.

• Decided might leave that for a later point, so packaged it away in a folder.

• Talking to Charan now, trying to get him to finish un-duplicating the node groups in the official content pack.

• Duplicate checking seems to be done now, going to repackage the release zip for V10.

• Sent the zip file to Charan installation seemed to work fine.

+ 1 hour 23 minutes

• Forgot that I wanted to tag the geometry node content as assets within the official content pack so it can also be recycled as an asset library, but not sure on the best method, so going to take a look now.

• Seems as though the root geometry node tree could be marked as an asset and will just be dragged in as a group from the asset browser, which is fine. Now to repackage the release version again.

• Working on potential cover artwork for the V10 release.

+ 2 hour 11 minutes

( Total: 4 hours 29 minutes )

16 January 2026

• After updating web pages to point people to new BY-GEN information, going to quickly write a new page on the documentation for 'Changes Over Time'. This won't be granular detail about every change, but will give an overview to bring people up to speed.

• Section 'Why So Many Changes' done.

• Section 'Settling on the Content Pack System' done.

• Section 'Compensation for Free Development' done.

+ 31 minutes