Try new 3D texture painting app Wafer free in beta for Windows
Sparseal has released Wafer, its previously iPad-only 3D texture painting app, free in open beta for Windows PCs.
The software, which is geared towards non-photorealistic texturing, includes features usually found in more expensive apps, like multichannel painting.
The latest graphics tool from the developers of CozyBlanket and Uniform
Wafer is the third product from Sparseal, the company founded by former Blender sculpting tools lead Pablo Dobarro, and Godot Engine developer Joan Fons.
It follows retopology app CozyBlanket, and sculpting and texture painting app Uniform.
A demo video for the original iPad release of Wafer.
Geared towards stylized 3D texture painting
Wafer is a more focused tool than Uniform, being geared specifically to 3D texture painting: primarily stylized textures for games, animation, illustration or motion graphics.
Users can paint directly onto a 3D model – it imports OBJ, FBX and GLB files – or a 2D texture view, displayed alongside it.
It has the standard features you would expect in a 3D painting app, including customizable brushes with support for pen pressure and pen tilt; stencils, decals and stamps; a layer-based workflow, including layer masks and layer blending; and PBR support.
More unusual features include multichannel painting – something only recently added to Mari – making it possible to paint into multiple texture channels simultaneously.
You can find more details of in our original story on the iPad release of Wafer.
The new Windows beta includes the new features from Wafer 1.1.
Now available for Windows PCs, with potentially other platforms to follow
The new open beta makes Wafer the first Sparseal product to be available for a platform other than iPad.
Currently, that means Windows systems, although Pablo Dobarro has said on Discord that Sparseal has “builds for all platforms”, including macOS and Android.
The Windows build is based on the current iPad release, so it includes all of the new features from last month’s Wafer 1.1 update, including the new Smudge tool.
It’s still early in development, and had some stability and performance issues when we tried it, but according to comments from Discord users, it supports pen tablets and pen displays from the major manufacturers, including Wacom, Huion and XP-Pen.
Price, system requirements and release date
Wafer for Windows is currently free in open beta.
The download link and instructions for unlocking the save and export features – you have to enter dummy credit card details on the license server – can be found in the Sparseal discord.
Sparseal hasn’t announced a date or official pricing for the stable release, although the license server suggests that the Windows version will be priced slightly higher than the iPad release.
Read instructions for downloading and unlocking the Windows beta of Wafer
Read more about Wafer on Sparseal’s website
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