Sparseal releases CozyBlanket Pro
Sparseal has released CozyBlanket Pro, its much-anticipated AI-assisted retopology, UV unwrapping and texture baking software for game development and animation work.
It makes it possible to create lightweight, animation-friendly versions of 3D sculpts or scans by sketching guides directly on their surface, with the app automatically generating new topology.
The new app – a separate product to the original CozyBlanket – is designed for working with entire characters and environments, and can display “millions of polygons” interactively.
The software is initially available as an iPad app, but a desktop version is in development.
A spiritual successor to CozyBlanket, but not a direct one
Sparseal has been developing retopology and texturing tools for several years now, beginning with the original CozyBlanket app.
CozyBlanket Pro is a spiritual successor to CozyBlanket, intended for work on more complex assets, but it isn’t a direct update.
According to Sparseal, it doesn’t share any code or architecture with the original app, has a completely new tool system, and saves in a different file format.
The original app has now been unlisted on the Apple Store: while it will still receive maintenance updates, users have no upgrade path to CozyBlanket Pro itself.
Architected for manipulating complex production assets in real time
CozyBlanket Pro is architected for work on complex production assets, including “entire characters or environments inside a single file”.
It includes an Outliner for navigating complex scenes, and soloing or muting objects; and the viewport is built for meshes with “millions of polygons”.
It’s also AI-assisted: according to Sparseal, the models it used were developed in-house, were trained exclusively on synthetic data, and run locally on a user’s machine.
Retopology: draw guides in 3D and have AI complete the topology patches
Retopology workflow in CozyBlanket Pro is driven manually, with the user establishing the foundation of the new topology, and the AI models filling in the details.
The main way to do that is to use the Pencil tool to draw the edges of topology patches onto the surface of a 3D mesh, and have the app fill them in, in a similar way to software like TopoGun.
The results can then be refined by drawing additional guides or changing the angle of the view camera.
It is also possible to add, delete or reposition vertices, edges and faces manually, in a way that will be familiar to users of other retopology tools.
The AI isn’t a magic bullet: early demos show it generating quite unconventional facial topology, so the quality of the results definitely depend on the quality of your guide placement.
UV generation: manually guided automated unwrapping and GPU-accelerate packing
UV unwrapping follows a similar workflow, by using the Pencil tool to draw in the first UV seams, and CozyBlanket Pro generating the remaining seams automatically.
Again, it is possible to adjust the results manually, either by manipulating the UV layout directly, or by using global density controls.
The 2D UV layout can be displayed on the surface of the 3D model, with changes displayed in real time.
UV packing is GPU-accelerated, with the algorithm capable of handling “millions of UV islands” and “evaluating trillions of layout combinations per second” to find an optimal layout.
Simple texture baking and export features
CozyBlanket Pro also provides a simple set of baking tools, baking vertex color, tangent space or ambient occlusion maps from the original high-poly asset to the new low-poly version.
Baking supports UDIM UV layouts.
The retopologized 3D model can be exported in OBJ or glTF format, and the baked textures in PNG, JPG, TIFF and EXR formats.
Currently available for iPad, with a desktop edition in development
Although CozyBlanket Pro is currently available only for iPad, Sparseal says that it is possible to compile it for other platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and the web.
A desktop edition is currently in development, along with a new network bridge designed to “streamline scene sharing between other Sparseal products and desktop DCC applications”.
Price, system requirements and release date
CozyBlanket Pro is compatible with iPadOS 18.6+. The base app is free, but to save or export requires a one-off payment of $89.99, so it isn’t a cheap app.
No date has been announced for the desktop edition or the network bridge, but Sparseal has confirmed that it will be a separate purchase.
Read more about CozyBlanket Pro on the Sparseal website
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