As an open-source 3D creation software that is enable for free, Blender is getting more popular with the CG community nowadays. And because it is public available, Blender gives the industries more possibilities to, by 3D creators themselves, develop plug-ins that truly designed based on user needs.
Let’s take a look at some of the new plug-ins for Blender that may be helpful in you 3D creation process.
| Support USD and USD Hydra by AMD
Originally released by Pixar, Universal Scene Description (USD) is an open-source software that satisfies the need for robust and scalable exchange and enhancement of arbitrary 3D scenes that may consist of many basic assets.
Announced on August 19 by AMD, a USD Hydra plug-in, in beta, for Blender is now available for free under an Apache 2.0 licence and supports Blender 2.90+.
The free plug-in now allows users to import USD files into Blender, compose USD scenes, and render them with the help of the Universal Scene Description‘s Hydra render framework.
In addition, users can load, edit, and export materials in ILM’s USD-compatible MaterialX format which can be used in Substance 3D Designer and Arnold.
Although Blender is said to get its own USD importer in Blender 3.0 later this year, the AMD’s plug-in is said to provide “first-class support” for USD, and creators can use it to deal with the USD files right now. To learn more about the USD plug-in for Blender, please check the release note on GibHub.
| Bystedt’s Blender Baker to Bake for Free
Character artist Daniel Bystedt shared his self-developed add-on that helps to streamline the texture baking process in Blender, supporting all released version of Blender for free.
The Bystedt’s Blender Baker enables users to bake the texture maps of Blender models, including lighting, geometry-based maps and PBR texture maps directly in Blender. Users now can also combine individual RGB color channels from different map types into a single packed texture with the Channel Transfer. The add-on is now available for free, you may download it here.
| Substance and Mixamo by Adobe
Adobe has released two beta plug-ins, Substance and Mixamo for Blender, which are both free of charge under a GPL v3 licence. The two plug-ins both support Blender 2.90+ and is available to run on Windows, Linux and macOS.
The new Substance integration enables artists to import materials in .sbsar format and edit their parameters natively inside the software, which gives Blender users more possibilities in game developing, visualization and VFX pipelines. In addition, users now can access to online libraries like Adobe’s Substance 3D Assets with the new Substance integration.
Mixamo Auto Control Rig is a plug-in that can auto-rig biped characters for use with animation clips from Adobe’s Mixamo library, an online library that is accessible for free with an Adobe account.
Get to learn more and download the two free-of-charge plug-ins for Blender, please click here.
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