@SaintSellotape Been working on some new stuff after your feedback
Align World
I have been working on a new tool call 'Align World' . All it does is rotate the selected UV islands to match world orientation. The tool determines orientation for 6 direction thresholds (e.g top view, side views,,..). This is a great tool for when you don't know if UV islands are aligned consistently.
Gravity checker map
I also added a 'Gravity' checker map which is cycled just like the other checker maps.
In other recent updates I have been improving the Mesh Texture tools. The usability should be increased a lot, with more immedient results. I also added new icons for the Mesh Texture tools.
Trim Tool
A new tool 'Trim' was added to trim meshes to the UVmesh layout
Better Wrap Tools
I moved a new wrap slider in the TexTools interface to faster preview mesh texture wraps. A mesh deform quality toggle was added as well as sometimes the wrap does not succeed, increasing the quality usually fixes the issue.
Mesh Pattern tool
already in development for a while the mesh pattern tool creates objects with added array and mirror modifiers to quickly design mesh patterns. With these primitive pattern tools its easy to create bricks, fences, floor paneling or sci fi patterns in a matter of a few clicks.
New bake mode 'Paint Base'
And finally there is a new baking mode called 'Paint base'. It combines a vertical gradient with cavity, this map is thanks to Link03D aka Danyl Bekhoucha . This is a common technique for characters in Blizzard games or Dota style of texturing.
At the moment I am a bit stuck with the documentation, hopefully once that's a bit out of the way there will be an update available.
Also ... I think I fixed the rectify bug on high density meshes. I thought this would have been a lot more difficult to solve but I actually managed to improve a few things include restoring selections & modes after rectify.
Little improvement for the bake panel: when changing to a previous baked mode for the selected object it will load the baked image in the background of the UV/ Image viewer.
Thanks MACHIN3 The wrapping tools got some major improvements in the last few weeks. Development source code is available via GIT release likely out next week. Creating icons and UI is just as important as the code, I sometimes get bored with just the coding and need some creative distraction on the project in order to push myself forward.
Bevel Mask Baking mode
I started added a bevel mask in TexTools which uses the bevel shader node. Just a single slider to adjust the bevel size to bake a mask on any object or high poly to low poly object selection.
unfortunately there is quite a bit of noise currently on the normals causing the noise in the mask, this is part of the experimental bevel shader node feature - its better than nothing.
I managed to detect wehter the Blender system supports the bevel shader or not. So this upcoming TexTools version will work in stable and development versions of Blender.
and if not provide a download link of a blender version that does
Here is a more complex example of this new Bevel mask bake mode
Logo Design
I started on a new Logo design for TexTools, colors are not set but the shape is getting where I like it
@Optimus Blender 2.8 is to incomplete to many things changing atm.. E.g. some parts of my scripts might fail because of the new collections system. Short answer is: i haven't tested because its to early.
But moving forward i started adding support for the new bevel shader which will be available in 2.8 and right now in latest 2.79 bot builds although not in any stable releases.
@Ryusaki Good question i guess i missed explaining that a bit better. In the latest development branch of blender (2.79 and 2.8, but not in public releases) there is a new cycles shader node called bevel. It is similar to VRay's bevel shader or modos bevel shader, even mental ray used to have something loke that in the past. It generates rounded corners on your render but its its entirely shader based. This also works in baking e.g. normals, i used it create a bevel mask by combing 2 surface normals as cross product.
@renderhjs Fantastic new additions, as usual! Would you consider enabling the Checker Map function to function in the 3D Viewport as well, so I can call it from a pie menu? If I add it (using Pie Menu Editor, which is incredible), it's grayed out. Any idea how to work around this?
One of these days, you're going to stumble upon something that's close to Smart Materials for Blender 2.8+, and on that faithful day, I'll weep like we all just won a sports championship.
How do you guys use that bevel mask? Do you transform into a normal later
That's just a mask, think of it as an edge detector. Just look at this example: super low poly, very hard previously to get a nice edge mask e.g. cavity - but with this new bevel shading we can create this nice mask
Also a bevel tangent and object normal bake mode are also in the next version
Again you can adjust the bevel size on the fly for each bake
I recommend sticking to 2.79 but one of the nightlies for these new features. Without a nightly build these 3 bake modes will simply not show up. You can tell in the addon preferences if you are missing the bevel shaders
This is fantastic. I've never seen so much dedication and talent in a project before. And you also have time to write detailed answers to people on this thread.
There is also the new UV Packmaster which has a free version and is C++ based but installs like any regular addon.
I personally won't write a packing algorithm myself as the best way is to write it in a native language for speed and that I see as the responsibility of the Blender Institute to fix. At least we are getting UDIM support now, so perhaps integrating a better packing algorithm is not to far off?
@renderhjs Maya has a tool that aligns uv vertices on both sides of a seam, any chance you could replicate this? It'd make texturing pants etc. much easier in Substance Painter, where you'll often map a tiling texture rather than handpaint patterns.
edit: 'Select Bounds' has the same Tooltip text as 'Select Overlapping'. Select overlapping seems to be quite hit or miss for me, by the way, selecting things that (as far as I can tell) aren't overlapping at all.
Rectify doesn't allow me to use it. why? I tried all of my object but to no avail I even remake one object just to use this but no luck. why?
I've been having this issue as well, and apparently so have many others. I found that the error was a lot less prevalent when I applied scale and/or averaged the UVs
I personally won't write a packing algorithm myself as the best way is to write it in a native language for speed and that I see as the responsibility of the Blender Institute to fix. At least we are getting UDIM support now, so perhaps integrating a better packing algorithm is not to far off?
Thanks for the suggestion, renderhjs. Hopefully this happens.
Thanks for the feedback guys, in time I will address several of them, today however just a quick update on some upcomming stuff.
I have been working for a while now on an upcomming tool called Pin & Relax which is started to mature recently to something rather usable.
It unfolds and Pins selected edge loops into straight lines and relaxes the rest of the UV island. Similar to Headus UV layout with its edge constraints. It does not re-scale the edge distance but instead maintains it.
There is also support for selected multiple edge loop sets where it straightens and relaxes them largest to smallest but this mode is not yet fully fool proof.
Apart from that I have also been working on a hard edge UV split/bevel tool which was requested by GamedevFred to improve normal baking workflows in blender by eleminating pesky seams. More on that in the future.
There are some bugs that I also want to address for the next update as reported here in the thread by others as well.
Thank you @renderhjs for these amazing tools. The upcoming Pin and Relax tool is exactly what I'm looking for since I've been dealing with a lot of circular shapes that need straightening. Really excited for the next update.
I've created a pull request to preview normal bakes as normal maps instead of color in cycles. I don't know what the contribution workflow is, so I also posted here in case you missed the pull request on bitbucket.
@renderhjs The rectify is still having that error issue. I also noticed this error comes up with uvsquares addon when usng the To Grid by shape or To square Grid. I am not sure if the latest Blender versions have broken something that makes this feature work.
One quick question, does this addon also handle uv packing? Blender's uv packing isn't so good.
No but i recommend the following Blender addon uv-packmaster. It offers a limited free version and a paid version, its very efficient and thanks to its C++ code very fast at packing.
Michael Knubben
@renderhjs Maya has a tool that aligns uv vertices on both sides of a seam, any chance you could replicate this? It'd make texturing pants etc. much easier in Substance Painter, where you'll often map a tiling texture rather than handpaint patterns.
The upcoming Pin & Relax might be able to do just that
Rectify doesn't allow me to use it. why? I tried all of my object but to no avail I even remake one object just to use this but no luck. why?
I fixed that very recently, even the original plugin that I borrowed that script had the issue. This will be available hopefully soon in version 1.2.8+
Rectify doesn't allow me to use it. why? I tried all of my object but to no avail I even remake one object just to use this but no luck. why?
I've been having this issue as well, and apparently so have many others. I found that the error was a lot less prevalent when I applied scale and/or averaged the UVs
Yes this was indeed very frustrating, for quite a while I was not able to reproduce the issue or would only encounter it very rarely. If something like this happens in the future it helps me a lot of i you could provide a sample blend file for me to fix the issue. The issue is now fixed and a fix will be available hopefully soon in version 1.2.8+
pin and relax looks great. might finally prompt me to abandon roadkill.
Oh wow Roadkill is still available? I remember integrating it back then into TexTools for 3dsMax. The features that I recall from Roadkill are pretty much all available in Blender including shading of UV distortion and pins.
Hello, thanks so much for this tool. I have an extremely noob question. Is there a way to bake lighting?
Its not a bake preset that I added mostly because most 3D engines or realtime graphics engines already have their own shadow baking solutions (e.g. Unity and its beast baking technology). I'll think about it.
@renderhjs The rectify is still having that error issue. I also noticed this error comes up with uvsquares addon when usng the To Grid by shape or To square Grid. I am not sure if the latest Blender versions have broken something that makes this feature work.
Its finally fixed This will be available hopefully soon in version 1.2.8+
Hello, I've created a pull request to preview normal bakes as normal maps instead of color in cycles. I don't know what the contribution workflow is, so I also posted here in case you missed the pull request on bitbucket. Thanks.
Yes I did get your pull request and I have actually incorporated your improvements. There were a few small issues like normal type was not set to tangent and I added support for world space normals as well. Its all in the latest pushes in GIT. Thank you very much for your contribution and effort - much appreciated!
...which brings me to my latest updates I added a new Texture list view in the Bake panel. It lists all related texture bakes of your object selection. If you select any of the textures of the list not only will it display the texture in the UV/Image editor but it will also switch the bake mode. This is a nice and fast way to go back to the bake settings of a particular texture.
Also new and thanks to Astronovice you can now preview normal maps in the viewport (only when using cycles atm.) when you press the 'Preview Texture' button. This makes it more convenient to see the normals on your model. You can even lock the selection e.g. high and low poly and then select only the low poly and isolate the view ('/' key on numblock). That way you can still keep baking the high to low and preview your textures whie only seeing the low poly in the viewport.
Another new tool that I have been working on recently is the 'Fill Tool' It rotates selections to their most compact bounds and then scale fits them to fit within the UV area. This is great for particle meshes or when you need maximum texel fill.
This will be available hopefully soon in version 1.2.8+
Oh, why hast thou forsaken us poor Max users......?? I'm another long-time Max user who's been dipping my toes more and more into Blender. What a wonderful program it is. I also used TexTools in Max for years.
You've done a fantastic job on this. Great presentation. Lovely UI and icons. Solid features. I definitely have to give this a try. Although I don't think anyone would complain if you charged a few Euro for this. Very generous of you to offer it freely.
Also, to see more and more users from the industry standard DCCs move to Blender has given it a new edge for me. In the past there was always this weird '3D Coat user' vibe on the forums. Almost cult-like. The userbase seems a bit less creepy these days.....
Well Blender is getting more recognition these days especially when you look at the features and it's free. Some companies are alreadly making shifts especially in small archviz studios. Having said that, I still love 3dsmax. Is still a heavy house software and it's holds up especially in a lot of architectujral companies
Just found out what is causng the rectify error: In the uv editor, make sure the cursor location is set to 0,0, and it will work with no issues.
Welp, after seeing updates on TexTools, HardOps, and MeshMachine I see no reasons to keep 3ds max as the main tool. I guess it's time to learn Blender xD
@renderhjs Hey man, I'm an long time Max user whose recently been dipping my toes more and more into Blender. I haven't even got around to testing baking in Blender yet, but was just wondering if it's possible to bake the new 2.8 bevel shader in your baking tools? Or does it have to be baked directly with Cycles? Cheers.
With some of the recent happenings on the Max beta forums I can only laugh when I see what a fantastic job you've done with this toolset as a lone dev. I'll leave it at that.
@renderhjs Hey man, I'm an long time Max user whose recently been dipping my toes more and more into Blender. I haven't even got around to testing baking in Blender yet, but was just wondering if it's possible to bake the new 2.8 bevel shader in your baking tools? Or does it have to be baked directly with Cycles? Cheers.
With some of the recent happenings on the Max beta forums I can only laugh when I see what a fantastic job you've done with this toolset as a lone dev. I'll leave it at that.
The awesome thing is u do not need to select any renderer. Just rename ur meshes according, select them, Textools automatically figures them out due to naming, select bevel shader and click bake and wait for the render in your UV image window.
@renderhjs Hey man, I'm an long time Max user whose recently been dipping my toes more and more into Blender. I haven't even got around to testing baking in Blender yet, but was just wondering if it's possible to bake the new 2.8 bevel shader in your baking tools? Or does it have to be baked directly with Cycles? Cheers.
With some of the recent happenings on the Max beta forums I can only laugh when I see what a fantastic job you've done with this toolset as a lone dev. I'll leave it at that.
just dive in blender and it will have a final release of v2.8 on I think was in October 2018,
Imo as for baking I wouldn't recommend blender for baking purpose I'd rather choose xNormal for that even in hardsurface baking in blender has a subtle gradient on it.
@re@renderhjs are you going to update your TexTools now for 2.8 because I seen in their log that they will ask every developer to update their addon and hopefully packing in blender will be as good as possible.
Replies
Been working on some new stuff after your feedback
Align World
I have been working on a new tool call 'Align World' . All it does is rotate the selected UV islands to match world orientation.The tool determines orientation for 6 direction thresholds (e.g top view, side views,,..). This is a great tool for when you don't know if UV islands are aligned consistently.
Gravity checker map
I also added a 'Gravity' checker map which is cycled just like the other checker maps.In other recent updates I have been improving the Mesh Texture tools. The usability should be increased a lot, with more immedient results. I also added new icons for the Mesh Texture tools.
Trim Tool
A new tool 'Trim' was added to trim meshes to the UVmesh layoutBetter Wrap Tools
I moved a new wrap slider in the TexTools interface to faster preview mesh texture wraps. A mesh deform quality toggle was added as well as sometimes the wrap does not succeed, increasing the quality usually fixes the issue.Mesh Pattern tool
already in development for a while the mesh pattern tool creates objects with added array and mirror modifiers to quickly design mesh patterns.With these primitive pattern tools its easy to create bricks, fences, floor paneling or sci fi patterns in a matter of a few clicks.
New bake mode 'Paint Base'
And finally there is a new baking mode called 'Paint base'. It combines a vertical gradient with cavity, this map is thanks to Link03D aka Danyl Bekhoucha . This is a common technique for characters in Blizzard games or Dota style of texturing.At the moment I am a bit stuck with the documentation, hopefully once that's a bit out of the way there will be an update available.
Will be in the next update
How do you have the patience to create those wonderful icons? ha
The wrapping tools got some major improvements in the last few weeks. Development source code is available via GIT release likely out next week. Creating icons and UI is just as important as the code, I sometimes get bored with just the coding and need some creative distraction on the project in order to push myself forward.
Bevel Mask Baking mode
I started added a bevel mask in TexTools which uses the bevel shader node. Just a single slider to adjust the bevel size to bake a mask on any object or high poly to low poly object selection.unfortunately there is quite a bit of noise currently on the normals causing the noise in the mask, this is part of the experimental bevel shader node feature - its better than nothing.
I managed to detect wehter the Blender system supports the bevel shader or not. So this upcoming TexTools version will work in stable and development versions of Blender.
and if not provide a download link of a blender version that does
Here is a more complex example of this new Bevel mask bake mode
Logo Design
I started on a new Logo design for TexTools, colors are not set but the shape is getting where I like itBlender 2.8 is to incomplete to many things changing atm.. E.g. some parts of my scripts might fail because of the new collections system. Short answer is: i haven't tested because its to early.
But moving forward i started adding support for the new bevel shader which will be available in 2.8 and right now in latest 2.79 bot builds although not in any stable releases.
@Ryusaki
Good question i guess i missed explaining that a bit better. In the latest development branch of blender (2.79 and 2.8, but not in public releases) there is a new cycles shader node called bevel. It is similar to VRay's bevel shader or modos bevel shader, even mental ray used to have something loke that in the past.
It generates rounded corners on your render but its its entirely shader based. This also works in baking e.g. normals, i used it create a bevel mask by combing 2 surface normals as cross product.
You can read more here: https://developer.blender.org/D2803
Fantastic new additions, as usual!
Would you consider enabling the Checker Map function to function in the 3D Viewport as well, so I can call it from a pie menu? If I add it (using Pie Menu Editor, which is incredible), it's grayed out.
Any idea how to work around this?
Yes this is now possible, I made changes to many operators to also work from within the 3D view instead of just the UV image editor.
Here is an overview of current menu integrations (top: UV image editor, bottom: 3D view)
@armagon
That's just a mask, think of it as an edge detector. Just look at this example: super low poly, very hard previously to get a nice edge mask e.g. cavity - but with this new bevel shading we can create this nice mask
Also a bevel tangent and object normal bake mode are also in the next version
Again you can adjust the bevel size on the fly for each bake
Version 1.2.0 is out!
Download & documentation
New Features
Fixes
Bevel Shader
If you want to use the 3 new bevel based baking modes, make sure you download a nightly build of Blender at https://builder.blender.org/download/I recommend sticking to 2.79 but one of the nightlies for these new features.
Without a nightly build these 3 bake modes will simply not show up. You can tell in the addon preferences if you are missing the bevel shaders
YOU ROCK, SIR.
I personally won't write a packing algorithm myself as the best way is to write it in a native language for speed and that I see as the responsibility of the Blender Institute to fix. At least we are getting UDIM support now, so perhaps integrating a better packing algorithm is not to far off?
Maya has a tool that aligns uv vertices on both sides of a seam, any chance you could replicate this? It'd make texturing pants etc. much easier in Substance Painter, where you'll often map a tiling texture rather than handpaint patterns.
edit: 'Select Bounds' has the same Tooltip text as 'Select Overlapping'.
Select overlapping seems to be quite hit or miss for me, by the way, selecting things that (as far as I can tell) aren't overlapping at all.
Rectify doesn't allow me to use it. why? I tried all of my object but to no avail I even remake one object just to use this but no luck. why?
The 'Checker Map' function is greyed out in the Object menu.
Having this issue too:
Rectify doesn't work.
I've created a pull request to preview normal bakes as normal maps instead of color in cycles. I don't know what the contribution workflow is, so I also posted here in case you missed the pull request on bitbucket.
Thanks.
No but i recommend the following Blender addon uv-packmaster. It offers a limited free version and a paid version, its very efficient and thanks to its C++ code very fast at packing.
The upcoming Pin & Relax might be able to do just that
...which brings me to my latest updates
I added a new Texture list view in the Bake panel. It lists all related texture bakes of your object selection. If you select any of the textures of the list not only will it display the texture in the UV/Image editor but it will also switch the bake mode. This is a nice and fast way to go back to the bake settings of a particular texture.
Also new and thanks to Astronovice you can now preview normal maps in the viewport (only when using cycles atm.) when you press the 'Preview Texture' button.
This makes it more convenient to see the normals on your model. You can even lock the selection e.g. high and low poly and then select only the low poly and isolate the view ('/' key on numblock).
That way you can still keep baking the high to low and preview your textures whie only seeing the low poly in the viewport.
It rotates selections to their most compact bounds and then scale fits them to fit within the UV area. This is great for particle meshes or when you need maximum texel fill.
This will be available hopefully soon in version 1.2.8+
Just found out what is causng the rectify error:
In the uv editor, make sure the cursor location is set to 0,0, and it will work with no issues.
TexTools 1.3.0 is out!
This is really nice - thanks for your hard work. You are awesome!
Imo as for baking I wouldn't recommend blender for baking purpose I'd rather choose xNormal for that even in hardsurface baking in blender has a subtle gradient on it.
@re@renderhjs are you going to update your TexTools now for 2.8 because I seen in their log that they will ask every developer to update their addon and hopefully packing in blender will be as good as possible.