Balloon & Blimp Generator

Balloon & Blimp Generator builds photorealistic lighter-than-air craft inside Blender: hot air balloons from one-person cloudhoppers to 24-passenger ride balloons, special shapes, gas balloons in their rope nets, non-rigid blimps, golden-age rigid zeppelins, modern hybrid airships, radar aerostats and small tethered advertising blimps. Pick one of 28 presets from pictures, press Add, then change anything. Every setting rebuilds the craft live.

The envelopes are made like the real thing. Each gore is a separate fabric panel between raised load tapes, the fabric bulges softly between the tapes and folds near the mouth, the horizontal panels carry double-stitched seams and every panel has its own slight dye-lot tint, so nothing looks like a smooth CG balloon. The crown has a parachute vent with its centering lines, the mouth a load ring, a scoop skirt and stainless flying wires down to the burner frame.

The baskets are woven wicker with leather-trimmed step holes, a suede rim roll, rawhide bands, ash runners, rope handles and partitions for the pilot and passenger compartments. On top sit single, double, triple or quad burners with vaporizing coils, jet rings, pilot lights and blast valves, fed by padded propane cylinders through sagging hoses.

Patterns are painted along the real seams, so stripes, checks and chevrons never cross a tape and never z-fight.

Features

• 28 presets: classic, rainbow, flame racer, chevrons, checkerboard, harlequin, spiral, sunburst, stars, patchwork, sponsor banner, passenger 16 and 24, cloudhopper, gas balloons, blimp, sightseeing airship, zeppelin, hybrid, radar aerostat and ad blimp
• 8 envelope shapes: classic, racing, tall teardrop, sphere, pumpkin, light bulb, cube and heart
• 14 patterns with up to 4 colors, plus banner panels that print your own logo image
• 1 to 24 passengers: the basket, partitions, burners, cylinders and envelope volume follow
• Blimps, rigid zeppelins with girder frames, twin-lobed hybrids and tethered aerostats with fins, gondolas, engine cars, ducted or open props and mooring lines
• Rip-stop nylon, polyester laminate, doped silver and rubberized fabric finishes
• Gentle bobbing and drift, pulsing burner flames and spinning propellers on the timeline
• Randomize and Surprise Me for endless new crafts
• Real-world scale in meters, PBR materials that export to game engines, Make Static for export

Requires Blender 4.2 or newer. Tested on Blender 4.2, 4.5 and 5.2 LTS.