NodeSet Pro: 2018 Spring Edition

A month ago I introduced the NodeSet Pro add-on on BlenderMarket, an add-on that allows you to quickly create complete node setups from texture sets. In the new Spring 2018 edition I have added significant enhancements, like the options to manipulate collections of textures sets, saving and loading of preference presets and some smaller features like a color ramp node to control the roughness and options to specify your preferred projection mode (when for example you want to work with blended box mapping instead of UV-mapped meshes).

The new features are highlighted in this short video:

The most visible addition is a panel in the tool region that lets you manage collections of textures sets:

If you have additional suggestions to enhance the usability even more, don't hesitate to contact me.

Nodeset: better heightmap adjustment

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 adds a subtract node if you use the option to link a heightmap to the displacement output.
The reason is that most often the values in a heightmap are between 0 and 1, which will result in a bloated mesh unless you subtract 0.5 first.

Availability

The current version (201801031529) 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: tiny enhancement
• 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: 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: additional features and clean-up

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.

In a reply on a previous post monari suggested some additional functionality and in the true spirit of open source even supplied a new implementation.

So in this version I incorporated most of his new code: if you now import a texture set with an associated shader you get a height map correctly wired to a normal node with the help of a bump node.

In addition I added the option to create a nodeset that is suitable for use with microdisplacement, i.e. that wires the height map with a multiply to the displacement socket of the material output (the option is available on the left side of the fileselector).

The two variants of the node setup are shown below:

As usual the add-on is available from my GitHub repository.

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

Nodeset: support for ambient occlusion maps

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 couple of weeks ago I created a small add-on that lets you load whole sets of texture maps as generated by Substance Painter in one go.

I left out support for ambient occlusion maps but now I have corrected that :-)

The latest version is available on GitHub.

It now also loads textures that end in _ambient_occlusion (if present). This suffix is of course configurable in the user preferences, just like all other suffixes.

ColorRampPicker, a new Blender add-on

Got this idea from Substance Designer which offers an option to sample a whole palette of colors from a reference image for their gradient node. Now you can do the same for Blender's color ramp node. With a color ramp node selected, just go to the Node menu and select Color Ramp Picker. An eye dropper will appear and you can sample from anywhere within your Blender window by clicking and dragging. Unfortunately it is not possible to sample outside the Blender window so you should have your reference image loaded in Blendeś uv-image editor.

I have also made a small video that illustrates the proces:

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 enable the add-on as well after installing it.)

check this update article for the latest version.

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

Alternative

After publication I learned about a similar and much more versatile tool to generate (and sample) gradients. Check this BlenderArtists thread to learn more.

NodeSet: tiny update might save even some more time

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.

In a previous article I showed a small add-on that lets you import a set of textures with a common base name (like the ones typically exported by Substance Painter). It not only groups them in a frame but also gives the individual textures proper labels and sets the non color data attribute accordingly. On top of that you only have to select one textures from a set and all corresponding textures will be loaded anyway.

This should save you quite a lot of time but I found that in real life a complex model or scene can easily have several tens of texture sets, maybe even a hundred or so and multiplied by 5 textures in a typical PBR Metal Rough export (BaseCOlor, Metallic, Height, Normal and Roughness) this results in hundreds of textures and a very cluttered file selector.

Now becuase you only need to select one of them to load the whole set, I made a small change the set the default filter to *Color* so that the file selector will only show the base color files (which happen to be the most distinct ones when you are looking at thumbnails). This reduces the list of files greatly, making it easier to pick the texture set you need (because as sais, clicking just BaseColor will load the others just the same). You can of course always uncheck the filter icon (at the top of the file selector) if necessary.

Code availability

The update is available from GitHub

Check the previous article for info on how to use the add-on. It includes a small tutorial video.

NodeSet: import Substance Painter textures into Blender

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.

I recently bought Substance Painter because i really liked the product. But when i started working in ernest on a complex model with a large number of materials, the repetative work necessary to import the relevant textures quickly got tedious.

Of course with Node Wrangler you can import multiple textures at a time but i still had to switch most textures to non color data and the labels on the image texture nodes reflected the filenames which are too long to act as a readable label.

So i decided to create a small add-on that sort of does what Node Wrangler's multiple images does but in a neater way. The add-on is called NodeSet and when you select its menu entry from the node editor (Add->Texture->Set of images) it will:

• open a file dialog where you can select a texture (you only have to select one from the set of textures)
• add this texture as an image texture node
• set the non color data flag if it is not a color texture (i.e. not a BaseColor nor a Diffuse map)
• automatically try to load all other textures with the same base name (for example Roughness and Metallic). It will ignore textures that are not present
• give all nodes a descriptive name (BaseColor, Normal, Specular, ...)
• group all those nodes into a frame with a label that reflects the basename of the texture set
• order the nodes alphabetically (BaseColor will always be located above Metallic, regardless of the number of textures in the set or the loading order)

The result looks neat and descriptive:

A small tutorial on how to use it is available as well:

This all works because textures exported by Substance Painter normally follow a strict naming convention where each texture in a set has the same basename (typically the meshname followed by the material name) and a different suffix depending on the type of texture (_Normal or _BaseColor for example)

You can change these suffixes when you export so although NodeSet is configured with the Substance Painter defaults for both the metal/roughness and glossiness workflows (i.e. in Substance Painter you can select Export Textures en select either PBR MetalRough or SpecGloss (non PBR)), you can configure the suffixes it will look for in the User preferences -> Addons . If you leave one empty it will not try to load it. There is of course nothing Substance Painter specific in this setup so it should work for every program that is able the produce texture sets with a common basename and a different suffix for each map.

Currently it will look for png, jpg/jpeg, hdr and exr textures.

Availability

The add-on is available from GitHub. Download it and then select it from File -> User preferences -> Add-ons -> install from file. Don't forget to check the enable checkbox.