Add-on: make vertex colors unique across selected objects

Say you have carefully assigned vertex colors to your mesh to be used as a color ID mask in a texturing program. And now you want two copies of this mesh and you want to assign different materials while using the same texture set for both objects to save on the number of textures. Assuming you have given each mesh a uv-mapping that covers a different set of uv-coordinates this shouldn't be an issue if you could make the vertex colors unique across this meshes.
This is where this add-on comes in handy: it will count the number of vertex colors used in all selected objects and reassign colors in such a way that all the colors are unique with the selected objects.
For example, starting with two meshes with identical color assignments








You will end up with something like this:



Note that none of the colors used in the left mesh appear in the right mesh and vice versa.

Availability

As usual the add-on is available for download from my GitHub repository (right click on the link and select Save as ...)
After you have installed and enabled the add-on, a new menu entry will be available in object mode: Object → Make vertex colors unique.
It might be a bit odd not to have this in vertex paint mode but it operates on more than one selected object and selecting objects is not possible in vertex paint mode so this is a bit less inconvenient.

Version 20170918 of IDMapper available on Blender Market

I have released an update version of the IDMapper add-on to Blender Market.

In the video I demo the new functionality and I have listed the release notes at the end of this article.

If you would like more information on all the functionality, have a look at this article. A complete workflow demonstration is available in this demo video.

Release notes

Version 20170918

• Add ID Color List management
it is now possible to load, manage and save named lists of colors and to pick colors from this list when working in Face Paint mode. This is convenient if your studio uses smart materials for example and you have a list of predefined ID map colors you want to use for many different assets. Unlike Blender's built-in palettes, these colors have names, can be searched and sorted and loaded/saved as .csv files.
• Add color picking outside select object in Face Paint mode
• Number of undo levels in Face Paint mode is now configurable

Colorramp picker updated

Made a small update to the colorramppicker add-on. You can now use it on compositor colorramp nodes as well (and theorectically on any colorramp node but I didn't test it on Blender internal texture node group).
Read more on its use or watch the video in the original article.

Availability

You can download the add-on from GitHub. (click right on the Raw button and save the python file anywhere you like and then in Blender select File->User preference, Add-ons, Install from file... Don't forget to remove the old one first and don't forget to enable the add-on after installing it.)

If you would like to write add-ons yourself, you might want to take a look a my books on BlenderMarket.

New version of IDMapper available on Blender Market

I have released an update version of the IDMapper add-on to Blender Market.

In the video I demo the new functionality and I have listed the release notes at the end of this article.

If you would like more information on all the functionality, have a look at this article. A complete workflow demonstration is available in this demo video.

Release notes

Version 20170827

Add detection of sharp edges

When creating the initial ID map you now have the option to respect any edges marked as sharp as region boundaries

Help display in face paint mode 

All available keyboard shortcuts in Face Paint Mode are now shown in the lower left corner for easy reference. This can be toggled with the H-key

Respect sharp faces when smoothing, expanding or shrinking a region

When smoothing, expanding are shrinking an area in Face Paint Mode it is now possible to respect any sharp edges or uv-seams

Improved navigation

Most keys on the numpad now work as expected so panning and orbiting is now possible in Face Paint Mode

Bug fix: paint selected faces now sets undo stack