IDMapper add-on for Blender is now free

 In a previous article I mentioned that I stopped publishing add-ons on blender market because basically I was done with it it: I didn't earn enough to warrant the amount of effort that goes into maintaining and supporting add-ons.

However, there is still quite some interest in some of the add-ons, and so I decided to open source some of the add-ons and make them available for free. The first one was Snap! then it was Weightlifters turn, my very first add-on published on BlenderMarket (now Superhive), back in 2014 (!), and now IDMapper.

Technically IDMapper already was open source, at least the source code was, but now I'm also open sourcing the manual, and that means that you can download the source from this GitHub repository (the releases section), and the manual is available too.

This repository is still a work in progress, but the code will run on 4.4. For now, simply download weightlifter.py and use the install from filesystem in the add-ons section. Then read the manual!

To give you some idea of its capabilities, there is a video on YouTube.

IDMapper add-on verified for Blender 4.1

  

I am pleased to announce that IDMapper is now verified for Blender 4.1. 

It has been tested against version 4.1.1 of April 16, 2024, and no changes were needed.

Blender 4.0 introduced quite a few breaking changes, so this version is not backwards compatible with 3.x

Although no new functionality was introduced in this release, please be aware of the following:

• IDMapper can currently not work with facemaps, because they are no longer supported in 4.0. This may change in the future (hopefully, see this discussion) and if possible I will try to get this back into IDMapper. Meanwhile, I did create a small, free add-on to make selecting faces from facemaps possible in 4.0 which may be useful in some workflows.
• Color picking in Face Paint Mode (with the S-key) is no longer restricted to the 3d-View area, so colors can be picked from anywhere in the Blender application (although still not outside of it).

IDMapper simplifies creation and editing of vertex color layers that can be used as ID-maps in texturing software like Substance Painter or Quixel. It aims to reduce the time it takes to create an ID-map significantly, especially for complex hard surface models. It uses powerful heuristics to create an ID-map from scratch and lets you interactively adjust the results. It offers options to use existing information, like uv-seams, but can also intelligently assign the same color to similar mesh parts. 

The new version is available on BlenderMarket.

This previous article showcases some of IDMapper's functionality.

IDMapper add-on ported to Blender 4.0

 

I am pleased to announce that IDMapper is now available for Blender 4.0. 

It has been tested against the daily of November 3rd, but I expect no changes will be needed for the 4.0 release candidate or the final release.

Blender 4.0 introduced quite a few breaking changes, so this version is not backwards compatible with 3.x

Although no new functionality was introduced in this release, please be aware of the following:

• IDMapper can currently not work with facemaps, because they are no longer supported in 4.0. This may change in the future (hopefully, see this discussion) and if possible I will try to get this back into IDMapper. Meanwhile, I did create a small, free add-on to make selecting faces from facemaps possible in 4.0 which may be useful in some workflows.
• Color picking in Face Paint Mode (with the S-key) is no longer restricted to the 3d-View area, so colors can be picked from anywhere in the Blender application (although still not outside of it).

IDMapper simplifies creation and editing of vertex color layers that can be used as ID-maps in texturing software like Substance Painter or Quixel. It aims to reduce the time it takes to create an ID-map significantly, especially for complex hard surface models. It uses powerful heuristics to create an ID-map from scratch and lets you interactively adjust the results. It offers options to use existing information, like uv-seams, but can also intelligently assign the same color to similar mesh parts. 

The new version is available on BlenderMarket.

This previous article showcases some of IDMapper's functionality.

IDMapper ported to Blender 3.6 LTS

IDMapper has been ported to Blender 3.6 LTS

I am happy to announce that I have updated IDMapper to work with Blender 3.6.

It sports a few bug-fixes and internal changes to work with the newer Blender versions, and also has two bits of new functionality:

• you can change the color of the help text shown in face paint mode, to better adapt it to your theme (in the add-on preferences), and
• the IDMapper operator is now applied to all selected objects, instead of just to the active object. This ensures that assigned colors are unique across those objects. If you prefer the old behavior you can select that in the add-on preferences

I have also created a new demo video that shows the basic workflow when using the add-on in Blender 3.6

IDMapper simplifies creation and editing of vertex color layers that can be used as ID-maps in texturing software like Substance Painter or Quixel. It aims to reduce the time it takes to create an ID-map significantly, especially for complex hard surface models. It uses powerful heuristics to create an ID-map from scratch and lets you interactively adjust the results. It offers options to use existing information, like uv-seams, but can also intelligently assign the same color to similar mesh parts. 

The new version is available on BlenderMarket.

IDMapper ported to Blender 3.3 beta

IDMapper has been ported to Blender 3.3 beta

That may sound a bit premature, but I am confident no changes will be needed for the official release of Blender 3.3. However, if necessary we update the add-on again of course.

Note that this version will not run on older versions of Blender.

 

IDMapper simplifies creation and editing of vertex color layers that can be used as ID-maps in texturing software like Substance Painter or Quixel. It aims to reduce the time it takes to create an ID-map significantly, especially for complex hard surface models. It uses powerful heuristics to create an ID-map from scratch and lets you interactively adjust the results. It offers options to use existing information, like uv-seams, but can also intelligently assign the same color to similar mesh parts. 

The new version is available on BlenderMarket.

IDMapper just got support for face-maps

IDMapper just got support for face-maps

It is now possible to assign vertex colors based on the face-map membership of faces.

If your workflow involves face-maps already, it is now super easy to create a vertex color layer (ID-map) based on those face-maps.

IDMapper simplifies creation and editing of vertex color layers that can be used as ID-maps in texturing software like Substance Painter or Quixel. It aims to reduce the time it takes to create an ID-map significantly, especially for complex hard surface models. It uses powerful heuristics to create an ID-map from scratch and lets you interactively adjust the results. It offers options to use existing information, like uv-seams, but can also intelligently assign the same color to similar mesh parts. 

The new version is available on BlenderMarket.

IDMapper ported to Blender 2.80

IDMapper has now been ported to Blender 2.80 and is available from BlenderMarket.

There were a fair number of bumps along the road with regard to some parts of the Python API so be aware that Blender 2.80 is still in beta and you might still encounter some difficulties!

NodeSet Pro ported to Blender 2.80

NodeSet Pro has now been ported to Blender 2.80 and is available from BlenderMarket.
Porting this add-on has been fairly easy but be aware that Blender 2.80 is still in beta so you might encounter difficulties!

IDMapper: December 2017 release available on Blender Market

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

New features

It features some cosmetic changes but more importantly it hosts a ton of new features developed based on user feedback, including:

Baking

you can now directly bake a vertex color layer to an image without the cumbersome route of setting up materials, emission shaders and dummy images necessary in the regular way. Just 1-click and a couple of seconds later you'ĺl have you color id-map as an image in the UV-image editor

Vertex groups to vertex colors

there is now an option to assign unique vertex colors based on vertex group membership of vertices. This 1-click option lets you quickly convert vertex groups to vertex colors

Create materials based on vertex colors

this option creates a material for each unique vertex color and assigns the vertices with this color to the material.

Better color list management

If you use a predefined list of colors to use in id-maps across different models the color list lets you manage these colors. It is now possible to add items to this list for any vertex color nor yet present, simplifying the maintenance of those lists

And of course there are lots of smaller improvements too.

The new features are highlighted in this video:

This video is part of a small playlist with additional tutorials:

Availability

IDMapper is available in my Blender Market shop:
https://blendermarket.com/creators/varkenvarken

Nodeset: tiny enhancement

NodeSet is now also available in a Pro version. Read all about it in this article or check out my BlenderMarket shop if you are interested.

A new version of nodeset is available that includes .jpg in the default list of extensions.

Availability

The current version (201712020811) is available for download (right click and save as ...) from my GitHub repository.

Previous nodeset articles

I wrote several articles on this tiny add-on that you might want to read. They are (newest first):

• nodeset: additional features and clean up
• nodeset: bugfix and small new feature
• nodeset: add principled shader
• nodeset: more flexibility
• nodeset: support for ambient occlusion
• nodeset: tiny update might save even more time
• NodeSet: import substance painter textures into Blender

Nodeset: more flexibility

NodeSet is now also available in a Pro version. Read all about it in this article or check out my BlenderMarket shop if you are interested.

Prompted by a question from Packsod 百草头 I've added the option to disable filtering the list of files. It's still enabled by default and in fact you can now specify a fragment to be used in the filter pattern.

This means that if all your texture sets normally contain an albedo map with _alb in its name, that you not only can configure which files to load but also you can restrict the list of visible files to pick from, to anything you like. This greatly reduces the clutter when selecting a texture collection from a folder that contains many texture sets. (remember that even though you see a limited list from which you only pick one file, other textures with the same name and matching configured suffixes will still be loaded).

This means you can configure any set of suffixes that your favorite texture editing program uses in these settings and save it along with your user preferences, an example is shown below.

I also added the option to make suffix filtering case sensitive or insensitive. This is set to insensitive by default.

Code availability

The latest version of the code (201702051650) is available on GitHub (right click and select save as ... , then in Blender File -> user preferences ... -> Add-ons -> Install from file .... Don't forget to remove the previously installed version first)

Previous articles

Previous articles about the Nodeset add-on:
NODESET: IMPORT SUBSTANCE PAINTER TEXTURES INTO BLENDER
NODESET: TINY UPDATE MIGHT SAVE EVEN SOME MORE TIME
NODESET: SUPPORT FOR AMBIENT OCCLUSION MAPS

IDMapper - a complete walkthrough

uploaded a complete walkthrough video to showcase the use of IDMapper.
IDMapper is available on Blender Market.

IDMapper - create ID-maps the easy way

it's always exiting to announce a new product on Blender Market and today I am pleased to announce IDMapper.

IDMapper is a Blender add-on that lets you create a vertex color layer that can be used as an ID-map by texture paint tools like Substance Painter.

When creating textures for models you often want to reduce the actual number of textures, for example because your GPU can only handle a limited number of textures or maybe simply because juggling a large number of textures for a single model is such a hassle.

Whatever your motivation, texture painting software lets you apply different materials to a texture with ease but you still need to identify areas. An ID-map makes it very simple to apply a material to faces that have a certain color, often by letting you pick a color from the ID-map with an eye-dropper tool.

You will still need to create the vertex color layer that can be used as an ID-map and that's where IDMapper can help.

The first thing it offers are powerful heuristics to assign a unique vertex color to regions consisting of related faces. What is considered related can be tweaked interactively and any resulting distinct regions with very similar geometry can still be assign the same vertex color, simplifying for example the assignment of colors in hard-ops modelling in situations where your mesh contains repeated features like handles or bolts.

The second feature is an operator that acts like a new face paint mode. Instead of applying blended colors to vertices in a painterly manner as with Blender's vertex paint mode, this operator keeps colors uniform across a face, something often desirable when assign materials to mesh parts. It also lets you assign new colors to colored regions and resize or smooth these regions interactively.

And finally it offers some convenience functions to combine different vertex color layers and copy vertex color layers from one mesh to another, probably more high poly, mesh.

A short video showcasing the main features is available on Youtube:


IDMapper is available in my Blender Market shop