What I meant was tweaking it a bit towards texture/PBR painting.
I use substance painter so I don’t know much about other programs, but I’ve seen armor paint doing similar stuff with their layers.
Here’s a list of what I think it could be improved:
adding image as mask type automatically and also assign a new one when u add a layer for every channels by default (diffuse,rough,etc).
having the layer color match the constant color for that same layer and be able to change it straight from that layer list so u don’t need to go to the other panel and can work kinda on “fullscreen”
every time u select a layer, it automatically goes to the texture editing. ( What I mean by this is:
U create layers, and u’re able to work on the model straight away, no need to tweak anything unless u need so. It would be more straight fordward.
1: That’s easily doable, I’ll add an option for that in the next update
2: Isn’t this one covered by the last update? There’s the option now to replace the material edit button with the constant color. Or do you mean that it should explicily be the layer color?
3: What do you mean by being able to work on the model straight away? Do you want it to be in texture paint mode on the color channel when you select the layer?
Also if you have more ideas, tell me I’d be happy to add as much as possible!
1 & 2: It would be nice also to have it on the side in the layer list just like photoshop or SP:
So in here u have, from left to right: the constant color of the layer called as fill layers in SP (it creates a default middle gray color when u create a new layer and in BATS 1.0.3 the layer color doesn’t match it’s contant) follow by a grayscale mask where it applies on the mesh, and at the far right u have a set of blending modes and the layer opacity (this last one is already there in BATS).
PS: u can select the mask layers on the layer list individually to add stuff to them like filters, color ramps(would be simething like that), bake some pointiness, AOs, etc. to further customizate the mask strokes
3- Whenever u create a new layer, u need to select image as mask type, activate/deactivate the edit texture and FINISH icons EVERYTIME u create a new layer, and afterwards when selecting them.
First:
Second:
Third:
Paint on mesh
It would be nice to just have it all together when selecting a layer on list (it could be continuous texture editing) so u don’t need to go in and out of it.
other thing: I don’t know if it is easily doable but… when u go around selecting layers it seems like blender take a lot of work “loading” the information of each of them and it feels like it should be almost instantaneously. At least, at this point: I just tested it with 4 layers and a few strokes per layer mask, I don’t know how it could behave in a heavy project.
Thanks!
Alright, so except for the texture painting part of the addon I’m basically done with rewriting. The problem right now is, that there’s a bug in the blender API which makes it impossible for me to code that part.
Considering the amount of bugs that the devs have to fix I’m guessing it will take a while until this gets resolved.
Until then I’ll be working on the new asset file (which is now integrated into the addon directly instead of having to choose a filepath!). For that I would like to know which Masks and Shader node grous you would like to see as defaults.
These are basically SP smart materials and masks, and everything that can be done with node groups could be in there.
I use the 3D Distance, 3d Linear (this samples a position map’s colours) and Mask Editor quite a bit. There are also ‘Stitches’ and ‘UV Border’ generators that are quite handy! Lastly, I just use fill layers with alternative projection methods a lot, like tri-planar or especially the new planar and spherical ones.
On top of that I often use the built-in bevel, level and blur a lot, and the Matte Erode/Expand filter from Share.allegorithmic.com, which uses the position map to grow and shrink masks, as well as pre- and post-smooth them
Another thing I find indispensable is anchors, as I often need to reference specific parts of the stack. For instance: I create an anchor on a mask, then re-use it for a quick dropshadow or outer glow. I just add the previously anchored mask on another layer, blur the mask, fill the original mask again (this time set to subtract), and voila: outer glow. With a transform filter on top it’s a drop-shadow. Replace the blur with a directional blur, and with some streaks subtracted on top you’ve got leaks…
It’s super useful!
Having said that, a few specific ‘outer glow’ etc. filters would be welcome as well
Another thing is that, as said before, the price will go up when the addon is in a good state and I feel like after this update it will be! Everything should be a lot more stable and it will be a way better experience overall. So what do you think could be a fair price for the addon?
I’m not really representative, as I have a Substance subscription at work and don’t see myself switching to BATS for that reason, but I’d see myself buying it at 10 euros to support development.
People who desperately need it might well like to pay more!
I just looked at how much upgrading the maintenance for both Painter and Designer costs. After taxes it’s almost 200 bucks. Just for maintenance for a year… That’s the same price I payed to get the original Indie Pack that had everything, and I was actually buying completely new software, not just “maintenance”.
It’s tough to figure out an adequate price for any product. 30 seems reasonable. I’d say with a higher price you also have a bigger responsibility to the community to keep supporting the product. With a lower it’s not a big deal if the developer doesn’t want to work on it further at some point. For a fully functional and well designed tool that gives us something like 50% of the capabilities of Substance Painter inside Blender (I just chose an arbitrary percentage number), I would say 30 is a good price.
Hey. Really like your progress. How are you strategys to free gpu ram to allow painting on 8k and above.)
Do you plan to work with proxys so that only the active painted layer is fully in ram and all others are replaced by smaller resoulutions proxy. Only final bake loads all full res ones?
That’s some pretty good ideas right there, I’ll think about that when I get to a stage of optimization.
All the features should be working before that, then I will see what blenders limits in terms of nodes and textures are and try to optimize as much as possible.
I would suggest you to add some workflow vids to attract more users, comparing the user-friendliness and speed of your interface versus nodes interface. Here a nice subject, easy and yet impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izPhTEEKzsY
I’ll do that with the other tutorials that are going over the features.
I’ll make some sort of asset and texture it with the add-on, so the workflow becomes clear.
You can create custom node groups and there will be a file provided with the add-on in which you can import the node group.
Then you just have to connect it and press render and it will give you the thumbnail image.
