Welcome

ArmorPaint is a stand-alone software designed for physically-based texture painting. Drag & drop your 3D models and start painting. Receive instant visual feedback in the viewport as you paint.

The preview version has many rough edges and the experience may be frustrating.

---

Download

Windows and Linux is recommended. An unsigned macOS build is also provided. ArmorPaint is a portable application with no installation, just unpack and run.

Get ArmorPaint

Requirements

Painting process in ArmorPaint runs on the GPU and the performance mainly depends on a graphics card. Minimum for 4K painting is an Intel HD4000 graphics card. For 16K painting, GTX 1060/6GB or better is recommended.

See Preferences to tune performance.

Updating

Latest builds can be downloaded through your Gumroad Library. Alternatively, use the original email sent by Gumroad to access the download page.

In ArmorPaint, press Help - Check for Updates... to check if newer build is available.

Get Started

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qNHeNetQNvE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Windows

Unpack downloaded archive and run ArmorPaint.exe. In some cases, Windows may prompt you with the unrecognized app dialog - press More Info - Run Anyway.

Linux

Unpack downloaded archive and run ArmorPaint. In some cases, you may need to open terminal in the extracted folder and run ./ArmorPaint.

macOS

Experimental: Unsigned app is provided. See instructions.txt file in the extracted folder.

Controls

• Left mouse button / Pen to paint.
• Alt + left mouse button to rotate the camera.
• Alt + middle mouse button to pan the camera.
• Alt + right mouse button / mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
• Controls can be customized in Preferences tab - Keymap.
• Standard or Blender keymap preset can be selected.

Workflow

Import Meshes

Drag and drop unwrapped .obj file into the viewport. This will replace the currently painted mesh. .fbx and .blend files are supported, but the importer is not 100% reliable yet.

• Enable Meshes tab - UDIM Import to split imported mesh per UDIM tile.
• Enable Meshes tab - Parse Transforms to load per-object transforms from .fbx file.
• Normals can be re-calculated with Meshes tab - Geometry - Calculate Normals.
• Up axis can be set with Meshes tab - Geometry - Rotate X / Rotate Y / Rotate Z.

You can download sample assets for testing here.

Import Materials

Drag and drop a folder with PBR texture set onto the viewport. ArmorPaint will recognize the file extensions and create a new material from imported textures.

Click on the Materials tab - Import button to import materials from ArmorPaint .arm files or Blender .blend files. wip

You can download starter content here. wip

Import Textures

Drag and drop .jpg, .png, .tga, .bmp, .gif, .psd, or .hdr images into the node editor. This will import the image and place a new Image node onto the canvas.

Export Textures

Click on the Export tab - Export Textures - Export button.

• Layers: Export all visible layers or selected layers only into textures.
• Format: .png or .jpg (8bit color), .exr (16bit / 32bit color).
• Channels: Specify which maps to export into textures.
• Res: Set texture resolution.
• Color: Set 8bit, 16bit or 32bit textures for painting.

Output presets:

• Generic: Exports individual PBR textures.
• Unreal 4: Exports packed occlusion-roughness-metallic texture.
• Unity 5: Exports packed metallic-occlusion-smoothness texture.

Export Mesh

Click on the Export tab - Export Mesh - Export button to save the currently loaded mesh into an .obj file. This is handy if you only have access to the .arm project file.

Save / Load Project

Click on the File - Save menu item (Ctrl + S) to save the currently opened project. Mesh, layers and materials will be saved into .arm project file.

To open the project file, drag and drop .arm file onto the viewport. .arm files can be set to open directly with ArmorPaint executable from the OS file explorer.

.obj and other asset types can also be associated if you wish to use ArmorPaint as a model / texture viewer.

Materials

Materials in ArmorPaint are composed with nodes. When painting, brush applies a material onto the surface. To compose a material, open node editor by clicking Materials tab - Nodes (TAB).

• Use toolbar at the top to add new nodes.
• Press space to search for nodes.
• Drag textures from Textures tab into the node editor to create Image nodes.

Material preview is displayed instantly in the Materials tab as the nodes are assembled.

Right-click onto material preview to expose material operations:

• Set which channels the material should affect.
• Create fill layer from selected material.
• Delete material.

Drag and drop material into viewport to create fill layer.

See Import Materials.

Implemented material nodes: Attribute, Camera data, Fresnel, Geometry, Layer Weight, Object Info, RGB, Tangent, Texture Coord, UV Map, Value, Brick Texture, Checker Texture, Gradient Texture, Image Texture, Magic Texture, Musgrave Texture, Noise Texture, Voronoi Texture, Wave Texture, BrightContrast, Gamma, HueSatVal, Invert, MixRGB, Vector, Bump, Mapping, Vector Curves, Color Ramp, Combine HSV, Combine RGB, Combine XYZ, Math, RGB to BW, Separate HSV, Separate RGB, Separate XYZ, Vector Math.

Tools

Brush

Select Brush(B) tool from toolbar. Configure brush parameters in the header. Use left mouse button / pen to paint strokes using the selected material.

• Radius: Brush size. (Hold F key and move the cursor)
• UV Scale: Scale the coords for currently painted material.
• UV Rotate: Rotate the coords for currently painted material.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the brush stroke. (Hold Shift+F key and move the cursor)
• Hardness: Fade opacity towards the brush stroke edge.
• Blending: Blending mode used for painting.
• TexCoord: Coordinates used for texture sampling. Mesh UV Map, Project from view or Triplanar mapping.
• X-Ray: Paint through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror brush strokes on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Eraser

Select Eraser(E) tool from toolbar. Use left mouse button / pen to erase strokes on the currently selected layer.

• Radius: Eraser size.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the eraser stroke.
• Hardness: Fade opacity towards the eraser stroke edge.
• X-Ray: Erase through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror eraser strokes on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Fill

Select Fill(G) tool from toolbar. Press left mouse button / pen to fill active layer with selected material. Fill tool respects active object mask, material mask and color id mask.

• UV Scale: Scale the coords for currently painted material.
• UV Rotate: Rotate the coords for currently painted material.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the fill effect.
• Blending: Blending mode used for fill effect.
• TexCoord: Coordinates used for texture sampling. Mesh UV Map, Project from view or Triplanar mapping.
• Fill Mode: Allows to fill individual mesh faces.

Decal

Select Decal(D) tool from toolbar. Press left mouse button / pen to apply active material as a decal onto the surface.

• Radius: Decal size.
• UV Scale: Scale the coords for currently painted material.
• UV Rotate: Rotate the coords for currently painted material.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the decal.
• Blending: Blending mode used for applying decal.
• Mask: Apply shape mask to the decal.
• X-Ray: Apply decal through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror decal on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Text

Select Text(T) tool from toolbar. Press left mouse button / pen to apply active material as a text onto the surface. Drag and drop a .ttf file into the viewport to change the font.

• Radius: Text size.
• UV Scale: Scale the coords for currently painted material.
• UV Rotate: Rotate the coords for currently painted material.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the text.
• Blending: Blending mode used for applying text.
• Font: Select which font to apply.
• Text: Type a text to apply.
• X-Ray: Apply text through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror text on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Clone

Select Clone(L) tool from toolbar. Hold ALT to set clone source location. Use left mouse button / pen to clone the material from source location to active location.

• Radius: Brush size.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the brush stroke.
• Blending: Blending mode used for painting.
• X-Ray: Paint through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror brush strokes on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Blur

Select Blur(U) tool from toolbar. Use left mouse button / pen to smudge the material applied to the surface.

• Radius: Brush size.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the brush stroke.
• Blending: Blending mode used for painting.
• X-Ray: Paint through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror brush strokes on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Particle wip

Select Particle(P) tool from toolbar. Use left mouse button / pen to apply particles onto the surface.

• Radius: Particle emitter size.
• Opacity: Overall opacity of the emitted particle.
• Blending: Blending mode used for applying particles.
• X-Ray: Apply particles through mesh faces.
• Symmetry: Mirror particles on the X, Y and/or Z axis.

Bake

Select Bake(K) tool from toolbar. Press left mouse button / pen in viewport to apply bake into the base color channel of active layer or mask.

• AO (DXR): Bake ambient occlusion. Strength, Radius and Offset can be configured. This feature is powered by hardware accelerated ray-tracing using DXR and Direct3D12, available in an experimental ArmorPaintDXR build - see details on supported hardware.
• To bake Cavity, use AO bake with small Radius.
• Curvature: Bake mesh curvature. Strength, Radius and Offset can be configured.

• Normal (World): Bake world-space normals encoded into (0-1) range.
• Position: Bake world-space positions encoded into (0-1) range.
• TexCoord: Bake mesh uv map.
• Material ID: Bake colored material IDs.
• Object ID: Bake colored object IDs.

Use Curvature baker to create dirt masks.

Color ID

Select Color ID(C) tool from toolbar. Drag and drop color-id texture onto the viewport and assign it into the Color ID Map field. Afterwards, click on a model to pick a specific color. All drawing operations will now be restricted to this color. Picked color can be removed with a Clear button.

Picker

Select Picker(V) tool from toolbar. Press left mouse button / pen in viewport to read material values from the surface. Base color, normal, occlusion, roughness and metallic values will be displayed in the header.

• Select Material: When enabled, the material you pick from the mesh surface will also get auto-selected in the Materials tab.
• Mask: When set to Material, all drawing operations will be restricted to the surface where picked material is painted.

Painting

Layers

To create a new layer, press Layers tab - New. Brush will paint onto the currently selected layer.

• Layer can be parented to the specific object by setting the Object combo property. This allows to utilize multiple UV maps per project - each object having it's individual UV map.
• Reveal the layer properties by clicking the + sign to set layer opacity.

Right-click on the layer to expose layer operations:

• Convert layer to fill layer or paint layer.
• Create a White Mask or Blask Mask.
• Merge the layer down.
• Duplicate the layer.
• Move the layer up or down.
• Delete layer.
• Set which channels the layer should affect.

Right-click on the mask to expose mask operations:

• Apply mask to parent layer.
• Delete mask.

Operations for the base (first) layer are restricted.

Drag textures from Textures tab into the viewport to create mask for active layer.

2D View

Click Layers tab - 2D View to show the channels of the selected layer. The 2D View is updated immediately as you paint. In the top bar, you can select which channel to show or display UV map as a wireframe.

• Paint tools are also usable directly inside the 2D view.
• Press Textures tab - 2D View to show selected image inside 2D view.

Camera

Set camera type and parameters in the status bar.

• Orbit - Rotate camera around the mesh.
• Rotate - Rotate mesh around the origin.
• Fly - Hold right mouse button and move camera freely using the WASD and QE keys.

Press menu bar - View to set specific camera viewpoint.

Viewport

• Set Light and Environment intensity.
• Set Light Size.
• Display specific channel in the viewport.
• Enable Show Envmap to draw environment map in the viewport.
• Drag and drop a .hdr file onto the viewport to change the environment map.
• Show Wireframe in the viewport.
• Show 3D Compass in the viewport.
• Set camera clip distance with Clip Start and Clip End.
• Enable Texels to visualize texture pixels in the viewport with a checker pattern.
• Set Displace strength in the viewport.

Brush Mask

To use image as a brush mask:

• Press Brushes tab - Nodes to open node editor.
• Drag and drop brush mask image into the node editor.
• Connect newly placed Image Texture node to the Brush Output - Opacity socket.

Workspaces

Select workspace from the header bar:

• Paint: Texture painting, material composition.
• Scene: Scene composition. wip

Preferences

Interface

• UI Scale: Scale up the user interface when running on high-resolution display.
• Layout: Pin properties window to the left or right side.
• Theme: Select Dark or Light theme. Theme can be tweaked by editing the theme_light.arm file placed in the /data folder. A proper theme editor will be provided in the future.

Usage

• Undo Steps: Set the number of undo steps to preserve. Using less undo steps may improve performance when running on GPU with constrained memory.
• Paint Bleed (Bias): Stretch brush strokes on the uv map to prevent seams.
• 3D cursor: Enable topological warp for paint cursor with depth and angle rejection.

Pen Pressure

• Brush Radius: When painting with a pen, pressure affects the radius of brush.
• Brush Opacity: Pressure affects the opacity of brush.
• Brush Hardness: Pressure affects the hardness of brush.

ArmorPaint uses Windows Ink API on Windows. Windows Ink is available on Windows 8 or newer. When using Wacom tablets on Windows, ensure Use Windows Ink option is enabled in Wacom Tablet Properties.

Viewport Quality

On faster GPUs:

• Raise Super Sample to 2X/4X for improved anti-aliasing.
• Enable Voxel AO for cone-traced ambient occlusion and shadows.

On slower GPUs:

• Disable SSAO for improved performance.

To simulate pixel-art like painting, disable Filter Textures option and set Super Sample to 0.25x.

Keymap

• Select an existing preset or redefine keyboard shortcuts.

Plugins

To enable plugins, edit the config.arm file placed in the /data folder. A plugin filename can be entered into the plugins array. A proper plugin manager will be provided in the future.

Plugins are written in JavaScript or WebAssembly. For a minimal example, see the bundled plugin_hello.js and plugin_rotate.js files located in the /data folder.

{
	...
	"plugins": ["plugin_hello.js"]
}