MechaPaint 2.0 Paints Pixels and Plastic
MechaPaint 2.0 combines PBR painting, physical-paint matching, image-derived geometry, local AI and engine-ready delivery in one 3D workflow.
Browsing Tag
PBR
87 posts
Colormass Scans 177 Reasons to Check Your Shader
Colormass offers free scanned materials for look development. The maps deserve a close look, and the licence deserves an even closer one.
ArmorPaint 1.0 swaps Haxe for C
ArmorPaint 1.0 swaps Haxe for C, trims memory use and adds local AI, UV tools, sculpting and broader interchange.
UV Flex 0.3 Adds Spline UV Deformation to Blender
UV Flex 0.3 adds interactive split, merge, reshape and spline controls to Blender's UV Editor, including falloff and 2D IK.
KIRI Brings Gaussian Splats to After Effects
KIRI Innovations releases a free, open-source After Effects plugin for rendering, styling and animating Gaussian Splat scenes from PLY files.
InstaMAT Guided Scatter Controls Rock Patterns
InstaMAT’s Guided Scatter steers tile-based rock patterns with masks, vectors, scale maps and collision controls; Abstract also reports SOC 2 compliance.
Blendkit expands to Maya, Godot and Rhino
Blendkit opens its asset library to Maya, Godot and Rhino through free open-source plugins, although the integrations remain early-stage software.
Physical Atmosphere² 2.7.4 for Blender
Physical Atmosphere² 2.7.4 brings spectral skies, procedural clouds and weather-driven lighting to Blender 5.2.
Maverick Render 2026.1 Adds Cutaways
Maverick Render 2026.1 adds non-destructive cutaways, web spinners, fSpy matching, broader undo and a refreshed CUDA and OptiX core.
Rebelle 8.3 Adds EXR Heightmap Export
Rebelle 8.3 adds brush colour jitter, interactive selection controls, smoother gradients and Pro-only 16-bit EXR impasto heightmaps.
Mixos paints PBR in the browser
Browser-based PBR painter Mixos supports mesh imports, layer masking, 4K paid exports and a 2,669-material CC0 library.
3DCoat 2026.11 Lets the Nodes Loose
The final 3DCoat 2026.11 release brings GPU node texturing, sculpt-time look development, voxel lattices and a sizeable modelling overhaul.
InstaMAT adds 2D UV painting
The July update brings 2D UV painting, UDIM handling, faster rebakes and fresher DCC support for texture-heavy work.
Material Maker 1.7 improves graph workflow
Material Maker 1.7 improves graph editing, adds a Dynamic Sky material, updates nodes and brings the open-source tool to Steam.
3DCoat 2026 gets GPU nodes
3DCoat 2026 beta adds GPU node texturing, procedural smart materials and masks. Shiny, useful and still beta-shaped.
Beeble Nuke plugin: relight with passes
Beeble’s Nuke plugin loads PBR pass sets and lets you relight with Directional, Point, and HDRI lights. Simple install, picky inputs, real control.
Node Ninja builds Redshift materials from folders
Node Ninja is a free Cinema 4D plugin that builds Redshift PBR materials from texture folders, with color spaces, AO, and bulk import baked in.
Material Maker 1.6 tunes graphs and exports
For those who don’t know the tool: Material Maker builds procedural textures and painted looks with node graphs,…
glTF sample assets and fidelity site refresh
New glTF browsing and comparison pages make it easier to test assets, spot renderer quirks, and argue about pixels with evidence.
5000 PBR materials, zero node wrangling
5000 PBR materials packaged for Blender Asset Browser, drag and drop, GPL licensed, priced for indies.
Quixel Mixer dead, final offline version released
Quixel Mixer is discontinued. Quixel has published a final, free, unsupported offline build, with optional free asset packs that include 800+ assets.
InstaMAT Test: Painting, Procedurals and Pasta
InstaMAT merges painting, materials, and mesh editing into one node-based tool that connects Substance-style workflows with procedural control. Sounds great, so we'll get our hands dirty and test it!
LotPixel drops 1,300+ free PBR textures in Hub app
LotPixel Hub beta gives 3D artists free access to 1,300+ PBR textures up to 8K, with Blender integration and more DCCs to come.
Poser 14 drops Cloth Room, gains simpler PBR setup
Bondware releases Poser 14 with simplified PBR and environment tools, SuperFly update, and no Cloth Room or macOS edition.
Plasticity 2025.3: Now with Instances, Curves and Clouds
Plasticity 2025.3 drops a full toolset refresh: live instancing, SVG export, real-time curvature and continuity feedback, new materials and precision tools.
Beeble Studio: 4K AI relighting on YOUR desktop
Beeble Studio puts 4K AI-powered relighting and full PBR pass generation on your own machine, no cloud uploads, no credits, just local GPU power.
Beeble launches SwitchLight 3.0
SwitchLight 3.0 from Beeble brings full video-frame PBR pass generation and relighting workflows.
Beeble: AI relighting steps up to validate in your pipeline
Beeble’s SwitchLight 2.0 marks the company’s push to put AI-powered relighting into the hands of actual postproduction artists—and not…
UDIM Planet: Free Globe Toolset Orbits Blender, Max, Maya, Houdini, Unreal and C4D
Free add-on "Figments UDIM Globe" maps UDIM textures to globe objects—UVs are auto-generated, PBR-ready.
Dirty Shader Hands? Use MatCaps!
A free tool for Blender lets you paint PBR materials directly in 3D Viewport—without UVs, nodes or shaders.
Marmoset’s Material Library Drop: Free Textures for Toolbag 5
Marmoset releases a new batch of free materials for Toolbag 5, including textures and assets for game development, animation, and VFX artists.
Through the Woodlands
Creatures made of tree branches and roots seem to have a firm place in the history ofVFX. Just…
Download over 1,200 free PBR textures!
Can also be used for commercial projects: Textures in a resolution of up to 8K - for subscribers even up to 16K!
Download now: V-Ray to Blender PBR/FBX
A handy function: Transfer PBR materials from V-Ray to Blender as an FBX file - with this script from a clever 3D designer. Is the script worth it?
3DCoat 2022.28 Updates UE5 and Blender
3DCoat 2022.28 improves Unreal Engine 5 compatibility, Blender PBR export and colour selection, with an FBX PBR limitation.
Trimsheet Maker Pro | Add-on
The pro tool among the trim sheet helpers? "3D CG Guru" helps you in Substance 3D Designer.
Free Blender Baker Add-on Speeds PBR Texture Baking
Daniel Bystedt’s free Blender Baker add-on was designed to streamline PBR texture-map and lighting baking from high- to low-resolution models.
Terragen 4.5 Adds PBR Workflow and OpenColorIO Support
Terragen 4.5 updates its default shader for PBR workflows and adds OpenColorIO support to the Professional edition.
Aixterior: Digital nature from calibrated scans
Aixterior bundles scanned natural objects, texture atlases, material scans and HDRIs into coherent biome libraries for offline and realtime 3D work.
Ray Tracer Sandbox Enables Real-Time PBR Shader Testing with Vulkan
The open-source Ray Tracer Sandbox lets artists create and test physically based shaders in real time with prepared scenes and assets.
Ptolemee 6.0 Adds Environment Backdrops and Cubemaps
Ptolemee 6.0 added environment backdrops, cubemaps, improved file browsing and new tessellation, displacement and tiling controls.
Modo 14.1 Expands Modelling Tools
Modo 14.1 added Polygon Bevel Auto Weld, USD import, viewport improvements, a PBR Loader and IK/FK switching updates.
Free Scanned Leaf Textures for treesDesigner
A free nine-species PBR leaf pack supplied colour, subsurface, displacement, roughness and two normal-map variants for vegetation work.
DP Collection: Free Assets for Everyone
A production-focused archive of free 3D assets, meshes, materials, HDRIs, VFX footage, textures and sound resources.
V-Ray 5 Beta Adds Light Mix
The V-Ray 5 public beta for 3ds Max added layered Frame Buffer compositing, a 500-material library, Light Mix, coat and sheen layers.
V-Ray 2020 Game Cinematic Reel
Chaos Group's 2020 V-Ray reel included game cinematics for Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin's Creed Unity, God of War and other projects.
InstaLOD 2020: rendering and automation with InstaLOD Grid
InstaLOD automates the entire 3D workflow, including the tedious steps that no 3D artist likes to perform, such as UV unwrapping, manual retopo or baking.
Photogrammetry: Surface Scanning with Monopod
A photogrammetry workflow for creating PBR materials with a monopod, Metashape and Substance Designer.
Creative Crops with Free Food Scans
Creative Crops offers high-resolution food scans, including three freebies for commercial use.
ProRender 2.3 Supports Blender 2.82
Radeon ProRender 2.3 adds Blender 2.82 support, Mantaflow rendering, Uber-shader materials, Object ID AOVs and easier installs.
100+ Free 4K PBR Textures
And even more material for the texture collection: You can find over 100 free PBR texture sets on Texture Box.
Organise PBR Material Easily
With the small but fine Gumroad tool “Ptolemee”, you can quickly search through the PBR library with a real-time preview.
Public Domain Textures | Free 4K Textures
New website for CC0 textures: Public Domain Textures offers a range of materials in up to 8
Corona Render 5 | Cinema 4D Release
Corona Render 5 has been released: following 3ds Max, the Cinema 4D release is now available too!
ProRender 2.0 with Blender 2.80 Support
ProRender 2.0 for Blender 2.80: Supports Blender shader nodes, adaptive sampling, AI denoiser and more!
Quixel Bridge 2019.2 with USD
Asset management and workflow improvements? Quixel Bridge already brings USD support in 2019.2!
Counter-Strike in Unreal Engine!
What does Dust II - one of Counter-Strike's best-known maps - look like with PBR materials in Unreal Engine 4?
Unreal Engine | Free Assets in June
And this month Epic Games is also giving us the next batch of free assets!
Physically Based Rendering: Lots of realism, but with creative levers, please!
When computer-generated content is to be displayed as photorealistically as possible, we are talking about Physically Based Rendering or Physically Based Shading - hereinafter referred to as PBR. Modern, production-experienced renderers, who use this abbreviation, enable artists to create impressive visualisations of entire worlds based on physical principles. To do this, artists must learn the skills of the classical arts and combine them with a meticulous gift for observation and an understanding of physical principles in the field of optics. With the foundation gained from art and science, artistic nuances can be integrated into realistic-looking computer-generated content using physical parameters for light sources and materials, right through to the creation of surreal effects.
Substance Tools 2019.1 | Spring Updates
Substance's first major 2019 update: Designer and Painter add viewport displacement, radial symmetry, resources and more!
Unreal Engine | Free Assets in May
And this month Epic Games has another load of assets: furniture, plants, fire, PBR materials and more!
Chaos Cloud Rendering
Order in chaos - the new one-click solution from Chaos Group? Here is all the information about the new cloud-rendering feature for V-Ray.
50 PBR Texture Sets 10K
High-resolution textures on Tumblr: Virtual Shade offers a series of texture sets in PBR format.
Freebies: 100 Arnold Materials
Free Arnold materials for your own asset library: with textures and Arnold setup!
Adobe Buys Allegorithmic
In a move that surprises no one, Adobe announced today that Allegorithmic, the makers of the Substance Suite, had been acquired.
PBR Metal Roughness: Tutorial
Rohan Dalvi with an introduction to the Metal Roughness workflow:
Shading, Lighting & Rendering with Cinema 4D R19 (Part 5)
So far in this series of articles, we have looked in detail at the basics such as BSDFs…
PBR-enabled textures from the cloud
Physically based shading from the browser - BrainDistrict makes it possible! The software developer BrainDistrict GmbH from Cologne offers a software called Material-Z. A physically-based material editor that can be used in a web browser, but is also available as a download installer so that you can work on your computer without an internet connection. The material editor is based on Disney's Principled Shader. The materials created can be used across platforms via export functions. One thing can be said with certainty: this newcomer has it all!
Shading, Lighting & Rendering with Cinema 4D R19 (Part 2)
In the last part of our series, we took a thorough look at the basis of shading, lighting and rendering, namely methods for geometry smoothing and various lighting models / BRDFs. In this part, we will build on this foundation and take an in-depth look at C4D's material system to provide a basis for later work with textures, shaders, lighting and shadows.
Texture Haven
Completely crowd-funded, completely free. Texture Haven includes a texture website that makes high-quality textures available entirely free of charge. Also for commercial use!
Allegorithmic – Interview with developers
Allegorithmic is known for its material authoring tools. We met the team at FMX and talked about current and future developments, with information on Project Alchemist, UDIMs, UV tools, the new PBR Guide and more!
OctaneRender 4.0 and Roadmap
The Octane 4.0 preview is here: alongside a test version, there is information on the new features: a new free version, AI tools and more!
PBR and Shaders: Rays Visualized
PBR fundamentals: this rig visualizes the behavior of light rays with different shading attributes.
Godot 3.0 Release: Open Source Game Engine
The open-source game engine Godot arrives in release 3.0 with a new PBR workflow, improved asset pipeline, Bullet Physics Engine and more!
Octane for Unity Released!
Otoy’s Octane Renderer is now also available for Unity: The GPU renderer is also available in a free version for the game engine.
NewTek: LightWave 2018 Release!
NewTek presents LightWave 2018: With the new release on January 1 come many new functions, including a new PBR system, VR features, Open VDB support and more.
Goodbye Mental Ray!
The end of Mental Ray has come: Nvidia is stopping development of the standalone renderer, as well as the Maya and 3ds Max plug-ins.
Cinema 4D: Start your Engines!
Driving a Lamborghini is a dream for most people. But why not model your dream car in 3D? It costs less, is better for the environment and you don't have to worry about the width of the car when parking if you manage your assets cleverly and keep the size of the materials to a minimum. And how do you do that? Exactly, with PBR!
New Update for RenderMan
Pixar's RenderMan version 21.5 is now available: Among other things with better skin materials, improved shaders and workflows.
Update: Substance Designer 2017.1
The new version of Allegorithmic's Substance Designer is available – including improvements to the baking features, Graph Editor and PBR Converter.
Blender: Real-Time Rendering with Eevee
Real-time rendering in Blender: Updates on "Eevee" for real-time rendering in the viewport. You can test the new engine in the 2.8 test build.
Up Close: Skin Material from Allegorithmic
Looking for skin materials right now? Substance Source now has 30 new PBR skin materials for your 3D model.
Free Materials for Substance
Silvio Valinhos has put together a feree package of metallic materials for Substance Painter and Substance Designer.
Creating PBR Textures in Blender
This 100%-Blender tutorial explains how PBR textures for rough, specular or diffuse maps are created.