Friday, October 2nd, 2015 Posted by Jim Thacker

PixelSquid releases new free Photoshop plugin

Stock asset library PixelSquid has launched a new free plugin enabling users to place, scale and rotate its 3D content directly within Photoshop documents, then download a corresponding set of render passes.

How does PixelSquid work?
A spin-off of TurboSquid, PixelSquid operates a library of thousands of 3D assets, including buildings, vehicles, home furnishings, plants and creatures.

Once users have selected a model, they can rotate it in the browser, then download a still image of the camera view as a PNG file, or as a layered PSD complete with depth, object ID and lighting passes for compositing.

Manipulate stock 3D assets directly in Photoshop
The new Photoshop plugin lets you do the same thing, but directly in Photoshop.

Once installed, users can click the Add To Photoshop button for any object on the site to download it to Photoshop, where it can be positioned, scaled and rotated using Photoshop’s standard transform tools.

When the object is positioned correctly, users can download the corresponding render passes directly into the Photoshop document as separate layers.

You can’t change the lighting direction or position of the shadows, but you do get the lighting information as separate layers, as shown in this video, making it a more flexible alternative to conventional stock 2D images.

The content is free for commercial use, and can be rendered up to 2,048 x 2,048 pixels in size.

Pricing and availability
The PixelSquid Photoshop plugin is a free download, and requires Photoshop CC 2014 or higher.

Read more about the new Photoshop plugin on the PixelSquid website