TexturePacker3D

Large 3D modelling projects might include hundreds, if not thousands of files, documents, textures and so on. Working with all these files might be a hassle for designers, especially when they need to share the content with others, such as their customers, collaborators or their team members. Having that in mind, the developers of TexturePacker3D created a user-friendly application that can combine textures into atlases that can be then shared for viewing.

The application is easily installed and, after a few “next” buttons, you are greeted by the main window. The GUI sports a simple and clean look, with an upper toolbar that displays options to open a project, manage textures and models.

Unfortunately, there are no example projects, although maybe it would have been useful to understand how the application works. On the other hand, the application provides access to tutorials and an extensive documentation to help you unveil its potential.

You can open previously created projects with ease, but if you are working at your first project, then you should start by importing a 3D model in FBX format. TexturePacker3D displays a list of all the textures, meshes and other available items in the left-side panel. Additional information is shown when you select an item. For instance, TexturePacker3D tells you which material is used by a mesh and how many polygons it defines. On the other hand, if you select a material, you can see which of the project’s meshes is using it.

But what can you do with TexturePacker3D besides exploring the meshes and textures of your 3D model? Well, this application can merge textures in the design into atlases that can be easily shared with others. This allows you to lower memory usage and helps with the rendering speed.  You are the one who chooses the maximum size of a texture and the mesh distance. In other words, the textures are automatically scaled to fit your constraints.

If a model uses a shared texture atlas, then you can use TexturePacker3D to extract the textures or materials and save them separately.

TexturePacker3D can both merge textures into shared atlases or extract data from atlases that are already available in a 3D model. To put it another way, it provides a method to optimize your 3D model.