Where can I edit multiple PBR textures at same time?

Lemenus

Looking for software where is possible to edit multiple textures at same time, mostly i need to move edges on baked maps, photoshop doesn't fit for it since it doesn't let to edit multiple layers at same time. Tried affinity photo, but i couldn't figure out how do i even edit selection.

gnoop

There is no software where you could do it easy and simple. If you mean re-compositing textures by moving something.

1. Substance painter - easy working with multiple channels at once but you can't move anything precisely say 32 pixels right . But if you do it in twice of target resolution it still could be a choice. I am trying to make it follow a kind of a pixel grid for years. Still no success. Not sure why actually. Scaling and moving gizmos are monstrously inconvenient although. Layers have no way to sync transforms. No actions to record and play.
2. Substance Designer does it pretty well with MAterial Nodes and you CAN write your own pixel processor that would help you scale and move things with per pixel precision using simple arithmetic. But in general it's inconvenient as hell from my mostly traditional artist former experience. Still it's very flexible and couple years later , after you re-do all the tools to something more or less usable it could be easy and quick .
3. Photoshop and Affinity photo can do all the same too. Remember, you should edit not the PBR channels directly but rather masks . In Photoshop you should use chain links and layercomps inside smart objects. So your smart object have color/height/roughness layercomps inside. And you should keep evrything non-destructive. Photoshop has so-called "groups clipping" where you could have a stack of gazillion linked smart objects working together as a single dynamically re-calculating mask for something . If you need to do a manual selection you are alredy doing it wrong. Still for quick fix you can use an ancient approach when you draw something on color texture , while recording it into an action and then run this action on other texture channels. People did it decades ago in a soft like Corel Painter for example.
4. Also remember , modern texture pipeline is creating the height first . Sculpting the surface. Then using gradient remapping giving that height some color variation, then converting the height into normal map, then converting the normal maps into crevices to build roughness. You start your work with single channel . Color, normal and roughness are just dynamic "live" post-effects . You never need any manual selection in this except layer/object selection . And Affinity photo has almost everything necessary for that too. Just sort of hidden and not so obvious.

ps...In a word : use Substance PAinter in twice of target resolution and downscale at export. if you have height and color form photogrammetry edit it by patch or color aware move tool in Photoshop using action recorder.

Larry

Natron is a free version of a compositing software, almost an exact copy of NUKE

gnoop

Natron has lots of weird glitches imo. Its cryptomatte node can't read exr from Octane properly for example. And also all those 2d compositors are focused on video sequences , not texture re-compositing. Not very convenient for the task really.

I would say there is no easy, simple to use and flexible enough program to composite texture images . I am looking for one for years. I mean a program where you could easily re-scale details, move something around , combine photogrammetry, procedural and especially CG rendered things while keeping everything tillable.

There is a huge empty hole in the market offering . Adobe Sampler have been supposed to be one probably but IMO is extremely inconvenient and a huge pain in your a... While Substance Painter is able to do all the same basically.

No cryptomatte support in any of Adobe soft except exr-io for Photoshop. And even there it makes a mess of useless layers instead of providing a mask on demand. How could you composite something without proper cryptomatte .

My guess it's why nobody use renders to produce textures . Even when GPU renders works speedier now than Substance Designer and you get perfectly real looking result no atlas scatter , splatters or procedural thing would ever do. With better AO/GI, better small shadow casting in crevices game textures are often so much lacking to look real even if its perfectly dynamic lllumination. More natural colors when you can bake in certain phenomena your real time render is incapable for .

Yet the pain of post compositing makes it so much time consuming.