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For those who don’t know the tool: InstaMAT is Abstract‘s material authoring, asset texturing and pipeline automation platform. It sits beside InstaLOD, Polyverse and RSX Engine in the developer’s wider 3D tool family.
The UV grid gets paint on it
InstaMAT 2026-07 adds 2D painting for Asset Texturing projects. Artists can now paint directly on a mesh’s UVs in a dedicated 2D view, opened next to the 3D viewport from the Asset Texturing toolbar. The feature goes for the kind of work where “just rotate the camera a bit” stops being a workflow and starts being a quiet cry.
The 2D view uses the same procedural, GPU-accelerated layering and painting engine as the 3D painting workflow. That includes dynamic layering, procedural paint behaviour, preservation of painting and texturing when the source asset changes, and the option to apply texturing work to multiple assets inside the same project.
The use is very clear: placement. The update allows artists to place procedural masks in 2D so textures wrap and warp correctly once viewed on the model in 3D. The developer gives examples such as aligning text around a tire rim or texturing clothing through UV projection. Anyone who has tried to place lettering around a curved asset by eyeballing it in a viewport may now exhale in a controlled, professional manner.
The feature also ties neatly into existing UV mapping habits. Many artists still think in UV space when exact alignment matters, especially for labels, decals, seams, stitching, panel lines, logos, hard-surface detail and layout-dependent wear. Giving that workflow its own view inside the same tool reduces the usual hopscotch between texture editor, viewport and export folder. Hopscotch is fun at age six. Less fun at 2 a.m. on delivery week.
UDIM work gets less fussy
The update includes full UDIM support for the new 2D painting view. Artists can display a full UDIM layout with all tiles side by side, then paint across those tiles in the 2D view. The target here is high-resolution asset work for visual effects, animation, games and virtual production, where a single tile often taps out long before the asset does.
The workflow also includes performance controls. Artists can disable UDIM tiles from the side panel so InstaMAT processes only the active tiles instead of executing the full texturing stack across every UDIM at once. A specific execution resolution can also be set per tile. That gives artists more control over where resolution and processing time actually go, which is the rare kind of control that does not require a meeting.
The update also adds the ability to solo the active material section or UDIM tile in Asset Texturing projects. A button in the viewport toolbar filters out other sections, and painting applies only to the active material section. This should help when working on small, covered or awkward areas that otherwise invite accidental brush strokes on the wrong part of the asset. The undo stack may still be there, but it does not need to become a lifestyle.
Existing paint tools come along
The 2D view is not a toy mode with three brushes and good intentions. The update carries over existing tools such as symmetry painting, lazy stroke, curves and paint projection. Artists can also use the mask library for masking by UV shell, mesh normals and UV projection transform.
That matters in daily use because the feature does not split the tool into two separate mental models. The same procedural painting system runs across both views. Artists can work in 3D when surface context matters, then switch to 2D when layout precision matters, without throwing away the rest of the setup.
The Paint Projector also gets a dedicated settings window. Opacity, paint opacity, rotation and clamping can now be adjusted directly through sliders. That is not “glamorous”, but it is exactly the sort of thing that decides whether a feature feels usable after the first ten minutes.
Nodes get more useful too
The update is not limited to painting. The Mesh Bake Light node can now bake lighting from an environment map using IBL. The workflow can use the HDRI Convolute node to pre-generate Radiance and Irradiance maps for faster performance, or the Mesh Bake Light node can handle that automatically when its Environment Mode is set to Input Map.
This is aimed at assets where a soft baked lighting pass adds shape and depth to the final output. Beecause: baked environment lighting can add readable form without turning every asset into a physics seminar. Tile Scatter and Guided Scatter also gain a new Distribution Mode named Tile Number. Scattered images can now be distributed based on the order of supplied image inputs. That gives technical artists more predictable scatter behavior when ordering matters. The point is not that scatter becomes magic. The point is that it becomes less shrug-powered.
The library also gains a Normal to Curvature Smooth node. It creates a broader, smoother curvature map for procedural masks such as edge wear, dirt buildup and edge or crevice emphasis. The regular Curvature node remains the sharper option, while Curvature Smooth averages and smooths the curvature information for softer results.
Other library changes include MSAA support for Mesh Mirror, line spacing for the Text node, JSON parse support for vector types, arrow-key translation for the 2D transform widget, IBL light baking in Mesh Bake Light, Curvature Smooth, and a Mesh Bake to Vertex Colors node that bakes mesh map attributes into mesh vertex colors.
New materials broaden the library
The July release adds new stock materials. The list includes Ancient Greek pillars, stucco, pottery, plaster, mosaic, wood cage, wood tiles and tiles. It also adds Japanese roof tiles, Japanese ceiling, Shoji Door, Tatami Mat and Human Skin.
This material batch covers architecture, decorative surfaces, ground and organic content. The release notes do not give counts for each category beyond the named entries, so the useful fact is the type of content added rather than any grand claim about library size. The library is expanding. We can leave the adjectives in marketing jail where they belong.
The update also improves Japanese translation and credits community user Hattori Kaoru for that contribution. Localization rarely gets the headline, but for tools that want wider adoption beyond English-speaking teams, better translation is part of usability, not decoration.
DCC support moves with current versions
The July release updates several integrations. Autodesk Maya support reaches Maya 2027, with a correction for an issue where the vertices of a created mesh were not connected and improved user and error messages.
Autodesk 3ds Max support reaches 3ds Max 2027. The update corrects an issue where the plugin could break other installed plugins, improves node handle validation, and improves user and error messages. The plugin-breaks-other-plugins fix is exactly the sort of entry that should make pipeline TDs sit up. Preferably before coffee reaches keyboard altitude.
The Unreal Engine integration adds support for Unreal Engine 5.8 and improves user and error messages. The Blender integration adds support for Blender 5.2 and the Cycles render engine, along with improved user and error messages.
That DCC coverage matters because material tools are only as useful as their exits. Studio artists need texture authoring, graph work and procedural materials to land inside production tools without turning into an export puzzle. The July update keeps the supported host list aligned with current application releases.
The 2026 cadence is getting spicy
The July update also lands in a busy year for the product. January brought updated integrations for Blender 5.0.1, Unreal Engine 5.7.1, 3ds Max and Maya, including improved performance, UI and graph instance handling across several hosts.
March brought InstaMAT 2026 with new Asset Texturing tools. That release added curve brushes based on editable Bezier curves, lazy stroke, radial symmetry painting, brush controls, mesh import settings, viewport shortcut overlays, planar translation gizmos and a long list of library additions and fixes. Curves could be created with editable control points, reordered, set to erase instead of paint, closed into shapes and given per-point radius, falloff, flow and rotation settings.
May brought native Linux preview builds for the full Abstract technology stack. The Linux release included InstaLOD and InstaMAT integrations for Blender and Maya, with integration support marked as preview.
A May hotfix then added OAuth support to the license activation UI, using Abstract ID activation rather than a password. July now adds the dedicated 2D UV painting workflow, UDIM painting, active material and UDIM soloing, IBL baking, scatter control, new nodes, new materials and updated DCC support.
That is a fast cadence. More importantly, it is a fast cadence aimed at boring production pain points as well as shiny feature demos. Painting precision, rebake speed, autosave behavior, current DCC support, license activation and Linux integration are not all the same kind of feature, but they all touch the daily reality of getting assets through a pipeline without turning the toolchain into a group therapy exercise.
Pricing stays unusually aggressive
Current pricing starts with the Pioneer License, listed as free for individuals or businesses with annual revenue or total funding under $100,000. It includes InstaMAT Studio, integrations for tools and game engines, Windows, macOS and Linux support, commercial use rights and attribution requirements.
The Indie License is listed at $8 per month, billed annually, for individuals or businesses with annual revenue or total funding under $250,000. The Perpetual Indie License is listed at $489, includes two years of software updates, and is described as a license that does not expire.
The Pro License is listed at $36 per month, billed annually. It includes integrations, a semi-floating license for two devices, virtualization support and Windows, macOS and Linux support. The Perpetual Pro License is listed at $989, includes two years of updates and is also described as not expiring.
For game production, the Indie Game License is listed at $320 per month, billed annually, for independent game productions with up to 10 developers including external partners. It includes pipeline automation, the C++ SDK for engine and pipeline integration, external developer partner coverage and a private training session. The AAA Game License is listed at $3,333 per month, billed annually, for large AAA-sized game productions with up to 150 developers including external partners. Enterprise licensing covers volume purchasing, site-wide licensing and custom agreements.
That pricing model is still unusual in a market where material and texture tools often get expensive exactly when a team starts needing them properly. The free tier has eligibility and attribution conditions, so commercial teams should read the license terms before building it into client work. Yes, reading license terms is dull. So is explaining a surprise compliance problem to a producer.
Production take
The headline feature is 2D painting, but the larger story is convergence. InstaMAT is pulling UV-space painting, 3D painting, procedural layering, UDIM handling, node-based material work, scatter logic, baking and DCC integrations into the same production surface.
That does not make every other tool obsolete. Good grief, no. Artists have muscle memory, studios have pipelines, and texture departments have enough carefully balanced scripts to frighten small animals. The interesting part is that the update reduces the number of places where an artist has to leave context just to solve a precise placement problem.
https://abstract3d.com/2026/07/23/abstract-rolls-out-2d-painting-for-instamat-giving-artists-complete-creative-control/
https://docs.instamat.io/en/Products/ReleaseList
https://instamaterial.com/
https://abstract3d.com/
https://www.instalod.com/
