Download Figment’s free UDIM Globe toolset
Stock asset provider Figment – aka VFX artist Henrik Bjerregaard Clausen – has released the UDIM Globe, a free toolkit for converting planetary textures into UDIM tiles.
The set of Photoshop scripts converts satellite images of the earth or any other high-resolution planetary textures into UDIM format.
The toolkit also includes three 3D models of varying resolutions that can be used as bases to which to apply the formatted textures inside 3D applications like 3ds Max, Blender and Maya.
Convert high-resolution equirectangular planetary textures to UDIMs
The UDIM Globe toolset consists of a set of Photoshop scripts for converting high-resolution planetary textures into the UDIM UV layout format widely used in VFX and animation pipelines.
It processes equirectangular textures of the type available from NASA’s free Visible Earth collection into sets of 32 equally sized UDIM tiles.
A Photoshop Action generates the tiles as separate layers, then a Photoshop Batch script exports the tiles in EXR, TIFF or JPEG format, automatically adding the appropriate UDIM suffixes to the file names.
The scripts themselves are resolution-independent, but Figment recommends that you have at least 32GB of RAM to process very high-resolution textures like the one in the video above.
If you want to export manually, other Actions apply guides corresponding to the UDIM tiles inside Photoshop, with or without an overlay showing the earth’s surface.
Can be used in DCC tools like 3ds Max, Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya and Unreal Engine
The UDIM Globe toolkit also includes three 3D globe models – spheres with resolutions of 60,000, one million and six million polygons – to which the formatted textures can be applied.
The video above shows the workflow for 3ds Max, but most modern DCC applications support UDIMs, including Blender, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya and Unreal Engine.
The models themselves are in FBX format, and should load in almost any modern 3D app.
Free for commercial use, but you can donate to support future releases
The UDIM Globe toolkit is free, including for use in commercial projects, but you can choose to make a voluntary donation at the Gumroad checkout to support future releases.
Figment also has a range of commercial VFX assets, including a new set of high-resolution textures of the Milky Way galaxy.
Licence conditions and system requirements
Figment’s UDIM Globe Toolkit comprises scripts in Photoshop’s ATN format and 3D models in FBX format. You can find details of compatible 3D software in the story above.
The assets are licensed for commercial use by both freelance artists and studios.
Download the free UDIM Globe toolset via Figment’s Gumroad store
(Enter a figure of $0 to download it for free, or make a voluntary donation)
See Figment’s commercial asset packs on Gumroad
(Includes water, tree shadow and astronomical textures)
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