Auke Huys writes:
Maybe you know IPackThat or similiar programs and extensions for other 3d packages - these programs helps you to pack your UV Islands to a compact mass. Usally we do this in Blender by hand, but this is a huge load of work and for the most of us, it isnt fun.
Here comes ShotPacker into play.
Features and requirements:
- Includes parameters to set iteration count and island margin.
- Currently only works on meshes with no ngons or corrupted data. Doesn't support overlapping UV.
- If the mesh has double vertices the algorithm has unexpected behavior. It's best to remove doubles before running packing.
Addon is developed for Blender version 2.78 and later, with Python 3.5 (builtin).
The developer was so kind to share four copies of his addon with you for free - in case you are fast enough. Please follow this link.
Note: I am not related to the developer. I am not the developer. I am just a supporter.
9 Comments
Great! I was waiting for this!
I was late for the free copy... but I´ll aquire it soon! :D
Why is by default Blender so bad at UV packing? Wasn't there already a Google Summer of Code project to improve the UV packing algorithm?
No brainer, I got my copy.
This sounds cool but I generally get by with Smart UV Project anyway for my grunge-looking stuff. Otherwise the built-in tools are already fantastic.
Honestly if I'm gonna do a bake etc I just do a lightmap pack and its by far the most efficient.
It takes two minutes to unpack??
It's not that much if you think about the time you would spend doing it by hand on meshes with tons of islands (specially if you want to do a texture atlas for various assets).
This is on the blender market right?
The tool isn't working 8 out of ten attempts. On some computers it can't even initialize it's libraries.