(Blender) Utility Node Pack - IMAGER 1.0

If you would rather view the below information via a video demonstration, take a look at the below links:

• Reveal Trailer
• Usage Demo
• Full Tutorial - Timestamps for specific nodes and parameters in the description of the video.

IMAGER 1.0: A collection of tools to make texturing easier and more automatic.

The IMAGER package contains four tools that make it easy to take any image and turn it into a seamless, automatically mapped, PBR texture, no UV mapping required. These textures can then be combined into procedural materials that adapt to the geometry of the objects you apply them to.

The four tools that come with IMAGER:

All the nodes that come with IMAGER.

• IMAGER Mapping: A tool to map and detile textures without using UVs.

IMAGER Mapping can use triplanar mapping combined with seam and corner blending to provide a vector that will automatically map an image texture onto any surface with little to no visible seams. It can also take non-seamless textures and make them seamless by zooming them in and blending the edges together, and even remove tile repetition by randomly rotating each image, all while retaining the ability to map onto a 3d surface.

Suzanne with a brick texture mapped via IMAGER Mapping.

• IMAGER Color to PBR: Create a full PBR material from one color input.
  

IMAGER Color to PBR can create color, roughness, normal, and displacement maps from a single color map input. It can also fake an ambient occlusion effect using an inferred depth map, adding contrast/wear to otherwise flat materials. This depth map is also turned into a 2 color mask for purposes such as adding puddles onto a surface.

Comparison with Color to PBR enabled on the right side.

• IMAGER Masks: A selection of simple masks for use in procedural textures.
  

IMAGER Masks creates crevice, edge, thickness, pointiness, steepness and flatness maps that can be used to blend together textures based on an object’s geometry. Especially useful for wear effects and organic materials.

Showcase of all the different IMAGER Masks.

• IMAGER Camera FX: Realistic camera effects to easily polish renders.
  

IMAGER Camera FX can add lens dirt, large & small bloom, film grain, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and green tinting in the compositor to mimic a real camera, quickly giving renders a more physically accurate look.

Comparison with Camera FX enabled on the left side.

The IMAGER package also contains:

• IMAGER Manual: All IMAGER features explained within Blender.
  

The IMAGER Manual (accessed by selecting the node with that name then pressing the tab key on your keyboard) contains a node graph with the four IMAGER nodes in the center, and explanations for each parameter connected to the inputs and outputs of the nodes.

IMAGER Mapping, Color to PBR, and Camera FX are all compatible with Eevee, although some minor setting tweaks may be required to achieve the same result as in Cycles. Only around half of the masks in IMAGER Masks are compatible with Eevee.

INSTALLATION:

Upon purchasing IMAGER you will receive this file:

Utility Node Pack - IMAGER 1.0 (2L&L) - All IMAGER content.

After you have downloaded the above file, locate your Blender assets folder, normally found at C:\Users\USER\Documents\Blender\Assets, where user is your username on your computer. If the Blender or Assets folders are missing, create them yourself.

IF YOU ARE ON MAC, LINUX, OR INSTALLED BLENDER WITH STEAM YOU MAY NEED TO CREATE YOUR OWN ASSETS FOLDER. You can set Blender to use your assets folder, or check where the current one is by going to Edit > Preferences > File Paths > Asset Libraries, and then changing the path in the wide box labeled “Path”.

Then, drag the downloaded file into your Assets folder. This will add it to Blender’s asset browser automatically, which can be accessed by changing any panel in Blender to the Asset Browser panel (the icon looks like 3 books). In order to access the materials, make sure the asset browser is set to “User Library” instead of “Current File” via the dropdown in the top left of the panel.

Now you can add IMAGER material setups to your objects just by dragging the material preview spheres from the asset browser onto the object in your viewport.

It is also recommended to activate the Node Presets addon that is built into blender (Edit > Preferences > Add-ons then search “Node Presets” and click the check box), and then switch the file path to your Blender Assets folder (press the drop down on the add-on after enabling it, and then under the preferences tab change the “Directory of blend files with node-groups” path to C:\Users\USER\Documents\Blender\Assets [or your custom assets folder], where user is your username on your computer). 

This will allow you to add all IMAGER nodes directly into your shader editor using Shift + A > Template and then clicking on your desired node.

Thank you for choosing IMAGER 1.0! Please email me at 2landlgroup@gmail.com for any questions or feedback!