Texture Robot - Home

DOWNLOAD LINK (ver 1.3.0 - July 27th, 2013)

Version 1.3.0 (July 27, 2013)

* Added Ptex support for Vray material
* Added insert Gamma Nodes option for Linear Workflows (mia_mat and Vray Mtl)
* Bug fix- Some Vray textures failed to assign to file nodes in previous version of TR
* Bug fix- The 'create shading network' button lit up green and "textures found" message displayed only if a diffuse file texture was found
* Bug fix- Misnamed icon filename

Version 1.2.1 (June 23, 2013)

* Bug Fix- # UnboundLocalError: local variable 'file_node4' referenced before assignment #

Version 1.2.0 (June 22, 2013)

* Added Store Config and Toggle Hypershade Buttons (top left)
* Added support for Ptex (mia_material_X and Blinn).
* For Ptex in MR, maya.rayrc file created in maya/prefs folder if it doesn't already exist (rendering will require Maya restart)
* UI Improvements - nicer button graphic, found textures highlit in green, info display window, new shelf icon
* Bug fix- Specular Gloss overwrote Emissive texture slot
* Bug fix- When creating a Blinn shader, script tries to delete node before it exists
* Bug fix- Script editor gives error @ Create Network if hypershade isn't open

Version 1.1.0    (June 10, 2013)

* Added support for Vray and Arnold renderers with Vray_Mtl and aiStandard material shaders
* Added support for Maya Blinn (useful for viewport 2.0 texture map previews)
* Added option for creating Place2D Texture nodes before file texture nodes
* Added transparency, cutout opacity and emissive (self illumination) texture slots
* Added 'tooltip' annotations to many UI elements
* Added support for vector displacement with 'vector space options' menu
* Set attribute 'Alpha is Luminance' to On for all file textures (when might someone specifically not want that? Email me!)

Version 1.0.1    (May 25th 2013)

* Fixed bug on Mental Ray plugin load
* Redirected Texture Robot 'Home' icon button to this page

Version 1.0.0    (May 2013)

* Initial Release version  



Noted Bugs / Rough Edges

* Once in a while I've noticed the Object list stops showing objects. This is fixed by closing Texture Robot, and reopening it. I'm not sure why this happens but I'm working on a proper fix.

* If TR finds both a bump map file and a normal map file, it will try to hook both of them up to the network, which will result in an error. Same goes for displacement and vector displacement. A workaround for this problem while working in Maya is to temporarily change the suffix of one of the slots (the one you don't want to use) to something unrecognisable (ie, change bump from 'b' to 'x', then refresh the texture slots. A proper fix will be to code in some radio buttons which toggle between bump and normal map or displacement and vector displacement.


Features or possibilities planned for future versions

* Update currently selected shader via filename versioning, ie- of the two files 'apple_d_v01.jpg' and 'apple_d_v02.jpg', the latter file will be selected and will overwrite the current entry in the file texture node, or create a new node if none existed.

* Shader conversion (from mia_material_x to VrayMtl for eg) (? a bolt on feature, low priority)

* Udim (multi UV patch) support

* 'Super auto' feature - if a scene object(s) matches a name in Texture Robot's object list, the script will automatically apply the associated textures to the selected (unselected?) geometry. This could be an 'outside the UI' feature, possibly another shelf icon or hotkey, leaving the UI as a general configuration tool.

* SSS layer slots for combined SSS and mia_mat etc,

* Dx11 shader support

* UI improvements


INSTRUCTIONS:

Video coming Soon

Introducing Texture Robot - Auto File Texture Assigner for Maya

Humbly but proudly presenting 'Texture Robot'

Today I'm pleased to announce a new tool for Maya. 'Texture Robot' represents my first foray into building Maya tools with Python and I'm surprised it works at all, but it does. This little robo does the job of automatically assigning common file textures (maps) into shading networks based on simple filename conventions.

Since a video is worth a thousand pictures (at 25 fps running for 40 seconds anyway) below's a quick preview demonstration of the new script in action. Over the next week or so I'll try to find the time to create a new post here on the blog which will serve as 'Home' for Texture Robot- it'll include some proper instructions, a program changelog and updates on any planned or new features, of which I have a few in mind already.

So without further ado, take it away- Texture Robot...

   


Edit : the script is now online at Creative Crash.