PBR Painter 2.3 - Layered Multichannel PBR Texture Painting

Oh that’s not good! Is the button missing or just the settings inside the popup? A screenshot of the UI could help see what’s going on.

Also, I am looking at udims for the next minor version update (v2.2) so I’ll give some more detailed info on that soon.

I don’t have the buttons and I’m not sure how to find the base material and edit it, if it’s in this shader network. I poked around but couldn’t figure it out.

I look forward to hearing more about udims as it seems like a tough thing to implement for most other dedicated painting apps.

There is a button in the PBR Painter UI (circled in the screenshot below) that lets you access the background material. Does this work for you?

In general everything is controlled in the UI so you don’t need to go to the node editor, unless you’re using a custom layer.

Let me know if that works or if you still can’t access it.

Thanks,
Wil

Nice. Will try it out!

Yes that works for me, thank you.
A suggestion is adding a “copy material” alongside “backup material”. My current workflow is I setup basic material properties as I model and would like an easy way to paint those instead of re-creating them when I start PBR Painter.

It’s a real nice painting addon. Thank you for making it.

This is a noob question. I created a bunch of layers in pbr layers ui.
It then created textures in the texture slot. I pressed save button to the right of erase button. Where does it save the texture files? Or do I have to manually save each one before the save button in pbr works?
image
image

Hi, sorry for taking some time to respond to this.

Basically the save button will save all of the image textures that are involved in the painting process. This is generally the masks that you paint for a multichannel layer, but can also be individually painted textures in the case of a single channel layer.

It will save the images to the blend file (i.e. pack them) unless you have saved the textures externally, in which case it will save to whatever file path you used for that texture.

In other words, you don’t have to save them individually, but this will just mean they are packed rather than saved somewhere externally.

Does that help?

Ah so they’re packed inside the blender file. I think I missed that if it was in the manual or videos.
Thanks for explaining.

Hi all.

PBR Painter 2.1 is out now!

In case you missed it, this video covers all the major new features in this version:

Hope you enjoy the new features!

Cheers
Wil

1 Like

Awesome! Will look at the new features!

Hi all.

PBR Painter v2.2 was released yesterday and comes with some cool new features, including:

  • Added option to import a material node setup as a layer
  • Added constant bump option for layers using either normal textures or procedural normals, and also for custom layer and imported materials
  • Added option to bake and/or merge all PBR Painter materials on mesh to single texture set
  • Revamped mask system to enable layer masks on custom layers and imported material layers
  • Improved overall addon efficiency and performance
  • Added a streamlined UI for brush settings
  • Added extra procedural options
  • Added buttons for preset texture resolution (1k, 2k etc)
  • Added option to adjust color settings for albedo textures (hue/saturation and RGB curves)
  • Streamlined access to other materials via the model’s material slots
  • Improved background layers to be more efficient and easy to us

All the new stuff is covered briefly in this video:

5 Likes

Hello and thank you for this awsome addon !

I spotted a little bug :

  • Create a multiChannel mask named “Base color” with a color
  • Create a multiChannel mask named “top color” with an other color
  • On the top “color layer” add 3 masks (like procedurals or whatever)
  • Hide the 2 top layer masks and bake the third.
  • Now display again the second layer.
    => The result is strange because the first hided layer mask has an effect.
    To fix it, delete this top hided layer mask.

Please find enclosed an exemple.
Just delete the “Procedural Mask to delete” to see the effect.

painting test - masking bug 3.blend (4.4 MB)

Hi, thanks for this detailed bug report. I will take a look at it shortly and figure out what’s causing the issue!

Thanks,
Wil

1 Like

PBR painting issue with box mapping and 45 angles.blend (1.2 MB)

Hello again Wil, I hope you are fine and I really enjoy your addon which has nothing to envy to subtance painter !

But here is an issue with the cubeMap projection.
When working with 45 degres angles, the projection is wrong, even when adding a blendSeam value.

However it’s working when using the native cycles nodes
Capture

You can find enclosed the blend file.

Also sometimes when doing a mask, the refresh is wrong after the baking and I have to force refreshing the scene in order to get the good result.

Thanks,
Seb

Hi,

Thanks for reporting these. I’ll take a look and try to fix for the next update!

Will let you know if I need any more info.

Thanks,
Wil

EDIT: I’ve had a look and found the problem with the box mapping, so I will fix in the next update.

2 Likes

Hi, I have been trying for a couple of days to paint in multiple channels (painting in a material all at once) as I have seen done in the video. I noticed the absence of a particular type of multi-layer in the beta version which is the one I installed. I also noticed a “standard” layer which I thought might be the multi-layer under a different name. But alas, I have not been able to do it. Is my dilema related to this missing layer, and should I try learning on the last stable release instead?
(edit) I am starting to figure it out. I have two materials on the same object and can control where their influence by baking, then painting the mask. It occurs to me that maybe the need for multiple masks could be eliminated by using RGB values instead of grayscale?

Hi, sorry for such a delay in responding.

Yes the new version 2.3 has changed some things around, however all of the original features are still there! What you’re after, based on your description, is a “Painted” layer. This can be selected instead of a “Filled” layer.

A Painted layer has a built-in painted mask that is setup out of the box, and let’s you do your multichannel painting. In addition, you can use the painted setup with either a Standard layer (which is identical to the previous “Multichannel” layer) or any other layer type (e.g. Custom Nodes layer, which lets you make your own node setup but still take advantage of the painted mask + PBR Painter’s other masks).

In terms of the RGB mask - there will be the option in future versions to select a channel from an image texture masks (e.g. R, G, B, or Alpha) to do the masking, so you could have a single image doing 4 different masks. Note that this kind of channel-packed setup is available in the current version for Image Textures within a channel, but is not yet implemented for masks.

Hopefully that helps.

Thanks,
Wil

1 Like

PBR Painter 2.3 has now been released, encompassing all of the great features from earlier versions with a bunch of cool new features displayed in a brand new, dedicated PBR Painter workspace!

PBR Painter is a straightforward yet powerful addon designed to enable quick and easy PBR texturing within Blender. It uses a layer-based, multichannel approach which lets you modify all of the channels of a PBR material (albedo, roughness, displacement, normals, emission etc.) simultaneously using the addons simple UI. Materials can be created from scratch, by importing pre-made PBR texture maps, and/or by generating procedural textures separately for each channel. With painted layers, you can also hand paint your multichannel textures with a single brush stroke.

PBR Painter automatically generates and manages complex node setups that allow you to have complete control over every aspect of every channel, allowing you to combine normals of stacked layers, control the opacity of any channel of any layer, create complex layered mask systems and much more. This gives you complete freedom over all aspects of the material properties, without ever having to manually create a single node.

Some of the new features in v2.3 include:

  • Moved addon outside of texture paint mode to open up access to new features
  • Developed a dedicated workspace layout for PBR Painter
  • Added filled layer option, removing the need to fill every layer (painted layers as you know them will still remain!)
  • Restructured the UI to give easy access to the main channels (color, roughness, metallic etc)
  • Added option to use another layer’s mask in the current layer’s mask stack
  • Added option to use different UV maps for textures, masks etc
  • Added option to bake textures and masks to a different UV map
  • Added option to import a layer, or all layers, from another material
  • Added option to import a mask, or all masks, from another material
  • Integrated with 3.0 asset browser, to allow for saving and loading smart materials, layers, masks etc. (still to be added to/improved upon in future
  • Added option to use node group as a mask
  • Added ambient occlusion option during baking
  • Added options to use different edge detection methods for preset edge wear masks
  • Added vertex color as an option for ID map, with the Fill Selected Faces feature. This will fill the selected faces with the vertex color that is selected (very useful for quickly creating ID maps for materials).
  • Added a new ID map system with multiple colors
  • Modified material slots UI to automatically determine when to be in texture paint mode when selecting a material
  • Added the option to create an Exportable Material when baking. This will setup a new material (or use a material from a dropdown menu) with the baked textures, ready to export.

Available now at Blender Market , Flipped Normals and Gumroad.

You can checkout the new project-based tutorial - texturing a Viking shield in Blender - here.

Some example screenshots and renders created with PBR Painter and Blender:

Viking shield:


Masking and smart procedural material creation:




Please post below or jump on the Discord Server if you have any questions/feedback!

Thanks,
Wil

5 Likes

Hello will and thank you for these awesome improvements !

Could I suggest to add a useful checkBox called “Random” inside Brush Settings → Texture Mask

This option add a lot of chaos during painting which is great for painting rust etc

Would it be possible to add this checkBox “Random” inside PBR Painter Brush Settings → Brush Mask → Mask Mapping ?

Edit : would be nice also to be able to rotate the HDRI through a shorcut like this : Rotating viewport HDRi backround with hotkeys - #2 by rattle-snake

Thank you and have a nice day,
Seb

Hi, @PBR_Painter

I have a large library of PBR textures in organized directory structure and there is a tutorial video about saving PBR Painter shaders for Asset Browser. Would there be a way to automate PBR Painter compliant shaders creation as Asset Browser library? I didn’t check in detail yet, but the method in tutorial seemed to require manual saving each one individually which would be too much work.

Standard Blender PBR shaders assets creation can be automated with other addons, but if I understand correctly those wouldn’t work with PBR Painter. I have the PBR Painter addon, but I haven’t used it for some time and just updated to latest version.