Material Creation Tools
Texture authoring, procedural materials, and baking tools.
| Software | Description | Pricing | License | Tags | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agama Materials | Software for creating PBR materials and painting 3d models. You can create materials and use them for painting models, or you can use pre-made textures. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Paid | |||
| ArmorPaint | Open-source texture painting. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Open Source | Open Source · Painter-alt | OSS texture painting | |
| AwesomeBump | Generate normal, height, specular or ambient occlusion textures from a single image. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Open Source | |||
| Filter Forge | Node-based filter editor with library of thousands of textures and photo effects; standalone or Photoshop/Affinity plugin. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Paid | Procedural · PS Plugin | Procedural textures and photo filters | |
| Game Texture Viewer | Fast, reliable, and simple tool for viewing PBR texture sets. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Free | |||
| Live Normal | An Android and iOS app for generating materials on the go. You take a photo, and Live Normal creates a tile-able texture and generates texture maps ready for a PBR engine of your choice. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Freemium | |||
| Mari | Foundry's high-resolution 3D texture painting app, film-VFX standard for hero assets. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Indie perpetual $149; Individual $299/yr; Studio $1,289/yr | Paid | Industry Standard · Hero Texturing | Film-VFX texture painting at hero resolution |
| Material Maker | Open-source procedural texture generator (Substance Designer alternative). See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Open Source | Open Source · SD Alternative | Procedural PBR materials, free | |
| Materialize | Free texture map generation from a single image. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Free | Free · Map Generation | Generating normal/height/AO maps | |
| Quixel Mixer | Create photorealistic, tileable, materials in seconds with mixing and painting. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Free | |||
| Substance Designer | Node-based procedural texturing. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Paid | Procedural · Industry Standard | Procedural PBR materials | |
| Substance Painter | Industry-standard 3D texture painting with smart materials. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Paid | Industry Standard · PBR Painter | 3D texture painting | |
| Texelpaint3D | Paint directly on 3D model faces without UV unwrapping. 1-pixel-per-triangle workflow. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Free | No-UV · Early Access | UV-free 3D painting | |
| TextureLab | Tool designed to make procedural texture generation. See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Free | |||
| xNormal | Free high-poly to low-poly baking (normals, AO, cavity). See also: Software Reference → Material & Texture Creation Software |
Free | Baking · Free | Texture baking |
Related:
- Agisoft De-Lighter. Standalone tool to remove baked shadows from model textures.
- Architextures - Create Freemium. Web app for creating textures, bump maps, and CAD hatches.
- Imogen. GPU Texture generator using dear imgui for UI.
- NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporter. Creates compressed texture files from image sources via CUDA-accelerated compression.
- ShaderExpo. Browser shader editor with inline error logs, autocompletion, and model/texture loading.
- SmartNormal 2.0. Normal map generation from images.
- TexGraph. Procedural texture creation by connecting nodes in a graph.