Surforge 1.0.1 released - new tool for 3d rendered PBR texturing

Tinker3D

Surforge 1.0.1 released
- Meet Surforge + ProBuilder workflow!
- Poly Lasso profile scale slider.
- Better Blender support.
- Added 12 fantasy ornament Add Detail tool mesh assets.
- A lot of fixes and workflow improvements! ChangeLog

Videos Features Images UserGuide

Surforge is an Unity Editor extension that enables you to easily make quality 3d rendered PBR textures from scratch directly in Unity, with an extremely productive and intuitive workflow. The exported maps are fully compatible with Unity 5 Standard Shader, looking exactly the same as while you working on them.

It's a modeling toolset, kitbash library, map render, and material composer. All in one, everything you need to create great textures.

Installation:
- Import Surforge into a clean new project.
- If something went wrong, you may need to press "Window - Layouts - Revert Factory Settings". Although this should not be necessary in this version. 

Thank you for interest in Surforge!
If you have issues, please mail me before leaving a negative review and I'll be happy to help you out.

Thank you!

gnoop

Super cool tool .  Although I mostly interested in natural subjects like soil+rocks.  Your ability to manually re-compose the rocks for less repetitive look is so much a relief over Substance Designer.

Allegorithmic   does have same option years ago in their old MapZone   but killed  it.  

A few things I would need form such tool  : 
1.An ability to scale "rocks" around a pivot placed in certain position  ( absent  in Substance Designer)

2. An ability to depth Z combine such rocks with each other and the ground plane. ( a pain in SD)

3. An ability to work with 2x1,4x1 etc form factor textures , not only square one ( again a pain in SD)

4. An ability to scatter true  3d details   and do actual render with shadows and other passes.  I would actually prefer if the whole tool be based on Blender , not Unity editor.   With power of Blender node system and Cycles.

IMO  modern tools for texture creation can't be just 2d image manipulation , hand painted or procedural . It should be a hybrid of  those and a true 3d  tools.

 

radiancef0rge

Wow that really is quite cool. Is it possible to somehow turn this into it's own application as if it was a Unity game or is that not really possible? 

Tinker3D

Thank you very much for your comments.

Surforge based on Unity Editor, which opens up great opportunities for fast development.

Its hard to release standalone version, and in the near future it is not planned.

Now my efforts are focused on the development of new features, kitbash library assets and request based improvements.

Cathodeus

Hello,

I'm intrested to test your tool wich seems to be intresting to me. Something you should probably think of would be to to provide a depth var to users. Same things as ndo do. There is something to be done with the way you are handling things [by polygons] that is the main stuff of your tool. It look like the same than what i'm doing currently inside max. [BUt within max i can extrude in out, bevel, and smooth].

There are not a lot of videos currently so you're maybe handling it. That's why i propose you to be a tester, i will be hable to provide a better advice/analysis. I already helped a few tools out there as beta testers during dev like
: Zookeeper, 3DSmax, Ndo, LazySave.

Thanks for your work.
Massimo

Tinker3D

You're right, the main approach of Surforge is polygons.

As you know, for working with bitmap things, there are already great proven software. 

Surforge works like as if you were creating your texture elements in the 3D editor.

This opens up some interesting possibilities.

As texture in Surforge is actually a 3d scene, you could easily move your texture elements up and down with editor move tool, to get full controll on its depth.

Since ambient occlusion capture comes from true 3d objects, it's easier to create multilayer, volumetric looking attractive detail.

Exported result is still a common set of textures, but z-value show itself with AO, heightmap and normal map bevel intersections between elements.

As for Poly Lasso objects, its like a realtime updated extruded shape, with set of parameters like bevel, rounding, shape detail, child shapes, top cap normal.

For the common tasks, it could be very effective. When you need to create a large amount of simple things, Surforge saves you a lot of time.

Also, 3d based approach suits well for kitbashing and using of prefabricated details. 

There are also some interesting time saving features, such as UV island based symmetry, seamless tools, material IDs shuffle. Hope you'll like them.

Scruples

It looks really interesting, I didn't even think something like this was possible. I'll be watching. Being able to load in svg and some basic support for fonts would be nice.

Tinker3D

Surforge supports text labels and fonts (in current version, only Bebas font comes with it, but you could add yours).

There are also some interesting text and labels features:

Labels interact with specular/gloss, normal, ao and worn edges. 

When adding text label or warning sign, no need to worry about the texture channels. Label will override material IDs properties as separate pass.

There is also rich set of prebuild labels, all mesh based and resolution independent.

 

Surforge save you time with a simple titles generator, removing the need of inventing and typing the title texts. You can type in the text of course. 

Also, you can change text color and noise amount with Unity Inspector (as text titles based on Unity 3D Text object).

The great advantage of that Surforge is a Unity Editor extension, you could use Unity things in it.

Load and add fonts for example, as well as other Unity assets, meshes, scripts etc. Surforge based on Unity prefabs, and you could create your own if needed. You could use other Unity extensions (third party SVG import for example, turn SVG to mesh or texture and use with Surforge).

Tinker3D

Surforge 1.0.1 released
- Meet Surforge + ProBuilder workflow!
- Poly Lasso profile scale slider.
- Better Blender support.
- Added 12 fantasy ornament Add Detail tool mesh assets.
- A lot of fixes and workflow improvements! ChangeLog
Videos Features Images UserGuide