Agnostic texture files browser

V!nc3r

Does someone know about an efficient texture browser & management software?

For years, I've maintained my local textures' database folder using file-tree categorization, greatly inspired by our beloved cgtextures.com, and browsing inside this database using XNViewMP.

But file-tree classification had limitations, such as not allowing tag & keyword filtering, and instant search & find. Quixel Bridge could be a very wonderful software to handle this, but (if I'm not wrong), you can't use it to maintain your custom textures' database.

So, is this kind of software already exists and I shamefully miss it? Or is it still to be invented?

Bonus if it's also handled 3D models database.

poopipe

I think you could make bridge do it, you'd need to provide metadata but that's not hard.
It might be you need to be using their network based server thing for that - it's been ages since I last spoke to them about it.

There have been such tools on the past - mostly focused on post/VFX workflows - but I'm not sure any of them have survived. everywhere I've worked in the last 15 years has built their own tools 

Eric Chadwick

XnView has a tagging database iirc. You have to create all that metadata of course.

Promethean AI has a neat image library system that "learns" correlations. But that's not a freely available system afaik.

pior

This topic was brought up a little while ago and as far as I am concerned the takeaway is : 

- No, there is no such thing - in the sense that none of the content organization apps that get close to what you describe actually have all the features that a 3D artist would need - like juggling between 3d files, textures and renders.

- However I would highly, highly recommend giving Eagle a try. It does something completely different than what you are after, in the sense that it doesn't add tags to files or anything of the like ; but rather, it copies any image file that you throw at it into a dedicated library folder (therefore without any relationship to the original file), and *then* you can add descriptions and ratings to these duplicate images. As well as inserting a link to any location that you want, be it local on your machine or online.

https://en.eagle.cool/

This is very counter-intuitive at first ... and their website is not very clear about the way it all works as it absolutely does *not* do what the landing page says. It is not an image organization tool, at all. But in practice it is extremely useful because of the way it operates on copies of images. For instance, you can have an Eagle library called "Work In Progress" showing one render for each project you've been working on, each tagged with a link to the respective work folders of these projects - a collection of album covers if you will. Similarly you can have a tiling texture that you use often act as a "cover" for your repository of texture overlays, instantly taking you there by clicking the link, bypassing any browsing through folder trees (and with no need to enable filters/tags, even though it does support them anyways). For instance, a folder containing a bunch of normalmap overlays could be represented by a normalmap sphere, as part of a "3D tools" Eagle library. And so on.

As far as I am concerned I have been using it almost every day since the day I first tried it. It quickly became my daily first stop helping me manage my projects and daily workloads. Really great stuff.

V!nc3r

Thanks all for your answers, sorry if this topic is a duplicate (I've probably put wrong keywords in the search field ).

I find that XnView tagging ergonomic design isn't enough quick & efficient.

I'll definitely take a look on Eagle, thanks!

Jerc

You can give Adobe Bridge a try, you don't need an Adobe sub, and you'll get image/texture tagging, search, categorization, metadata edition, etc. + support for Substance files as well.

pior

@Jerc : Unfortunately the price of Bridge seems to be quite obfuscated, as I can't seem to find any mention of it on the Adobe website. There's nothing wrong with paid apps of course, but the price being hidden instantly raises eyebrows ...

Jerc

It's because it's free 😀

You just need a free Adobe account and you'll be able to download it in the Creative Cloud app.

pior

How so ? There's a "free trial" link, and a "buy now" button ...

gnoop

pior said:

How so ?

I am interested too.

V!nc3r

You can download it from this link: https://creativecloud.adobe.com/apps/download/bridge

I very like UI of Eagle, its instant search, and its filters ; what bothers me is that it use a copy of the original files (here why), and so don't write tags on them... like Bridge do.

But what bothers me in Bridge is that there isn't instant search (off-topic, but I greatly recommand Everything to get an instant search of all your files in your PC, I use it more often than the explorer), and also the non-optimization of the software (I just launch it, and it already takes near 1 GB of RAM, what the heck), but it writes tags on the files.

[edit] in fact maybe instant search in Bridge exists and just need some time to create kind of cache, it seems so after navigate through some file tree

pior

Oh yeah, Eagle is absolutely *not* an image library tool, and I think it's very dumb of them to advertise it as such because anyone trying it out for that is bound to be disapointed by the way it works on duplicates, and will never buy it. But as said I'd highly recomment anyone to give it a try because of the "album cover" approach it opens up thanks to the link feature. As a matter of fact I think it really is a great tool to have alongside a library software (and/or a well maintained folder structure).

As for Bridge : weird, this link seems to be incompatible with a win7 machine. Just another oddity on top of the confusing "buy" buttons.

poopipe

I'm not installing it because I hate it  but Bridge seems to be free for me - I do have a Designer/Painter/Alchemist subscription but no photoshop or any of the other cancer packages

gnoop

it's amazing we don't have a simple and convenient  file manager  after 30 years of Windows updates and gazillion  useless interface novelties. 

  Adobe Bridge could be ok probably if it could write XMP sidecar files for  files not supporting embedded keywords like 3d files.   

Search function is ok actually on indexed folders . What annoys me is that you can't ran a search  or make a smart collection for the whole pc  content.   it only works per drive/disk/   

poopipe

oh - we all forgot about AlienBrain didnt we 

https://alienbrain.com/?no_redirect=true




I've not touched it since the early 2000s - no idea if it's any good (wasn't much use to me then) 

gnoop

poopipe said:

oh - we all forgot about AlienBrain

oh, yeah.   that dinosaur. Doesn't look like it have changes a bit  since.   I tried it that time, shrugged  and moved on. 

What I need is simply an ability to write and read  keywords for any kind of file and have smart folders that collect them  automatically .   It did nothing like that.

 

i would be perfectly  happy with Xyplorer   if it could read standard  IPTC keywords from image files and then sync them with its own  database.     Too bad such a basic thing requires script writing  there . I tried and it never worked.        

Another wish is ability to write such keywords  right in the soft you create/ save files from.  Works for psd or affinity photo files.   Adobe climes it should work for substance files    with substance own keywords in Bridge  but it works only with sbsar  on my end .  At least their smart folders  find only sbsar.

Tried to write a simple pyton script to  write XMP sidecar files with keywords   from Blender   like what  Bridge does for RAW images    but  that XMP standard is so convoluted  I never figure  it out.  

I love  macOS  tags  in save dialogs and Finder , problem is  their tags are one level flat . no hierarchy.    Still it's so much a relief  there. No search time  they work  always instantly.   Too bad Blender doesn't use  Apple  save dialogs  where you set the tags.