Plugin developer 3d-io has released Packer-IO 1.3, the latest version of the free standalone UV packing application for games, motion graphics, VFX and visualization artists.
New features include support for real-world scene scale units, and for texel density, making it possible for games artists to maintain consistent texture resolution across models.
3dio has also released a separate free Blender integration plugin, UnwrellaConnect, which makes it possible to use Packer-IO directly inside the open-source 3D software.
An efficient standalone UV packing tool for organic and hard surface models
First released last year, Packer-IO is a free standalone UV packing tool.
It automatically arranges the UV islands of an imported 3D model to minimise wasted UV space, reducing the total file sizes of its texture maps.
The software can be used on both hard surface and organic models, and supports tiled UV layouts, used in applications like ZBrush.
It works with assets with “thousands of charts and millions of polygons”, and is resolution-independent, so packing times remain constant, regardless of the resolution of the textures.
However, it is currently purely a UV packing tool: it doesn’t unwrap the UVs of a model first. You can find more details in our original story on Packer-IO 1.0.
Now supports scale units and texel density
3d-io has now released its first feature updates to the software, in the shape of Packer-IO 1.2, which came out last month, and Packer-IO 1.3, which came out earlier this week.
New features in version 1.2 include scale-aware packing, with users now able to specify real-world scene scale units, including both metric and imperial measurements.
Games artists get support for texel density: it is now possible to specify a target resolution in pixels per centimeter, so that packed textures look visually consistent with those of other assets.
Version 1.3 provides “vastly improved” hole filling, with Packer-IO packing smaller UV islands into the space left between larger islands more intelligently.
New UnwrellaConnect plugin makes it possible to pack UVs directly inside Blender
3d-io has also released a free connector plugin for Blender, UnwrellaConnect, which integrates Packer-IO with Blender’s UI, making it possible to pack UVs of models directly inside Blender.
It supersedes UV-Packer for Blender, 3d-io’s old Blender plugin, which was based on the same core technology.
The Blender download link on the UV-Packer website has now been redirected, although the other editions, UV-Packer for 3ds Max and UV-Packer for Unreal Engine, are still available.
So how do Packer-IO and UnwrellaConnect differ from UVPacker for Blender?
If you already have UV-Packer for Blender, one reason to update to Packer-IO and UnwrellaConnect would be better integration with the other tools in your production pipeline.
Packer-IO itself supports 3D models imported from any DCC app, while UnwrellaConnect – as the name suggests – also works with Unwrella-IO, 3d-io’s commercial UV unwrapping tool.
Packer-IO also features a more streamlined UI and workflow than previous UV packing tools.
Licensing and system requirements
Packer-IO 1.3 is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 10.15+. The software is free, and is licensed for use in commercial projects.
UnwrellaConnect is compatible with Blender 4.2+. Source code is available under a MIT license.
Download free standalone UV packing software Packer-IO from 3d-io’s product website
Download free Blender integration plugin UnwrellaConnect from the plugin’s GitHub repository
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