oolbag 5.0, the latest major version of Marmoset’s real-time rendering and look dev software, adds support for workflows with materials that use the UDIM UV layout format.

Marmoset has released Toolbag 5.0, the new version of its real-time rendering and look dev tool, in free public beta.

The update, described as a “game-changer”, adds support for UDIM workflows, making it possible to create, bake and render materials that follow the UDIM UV layout format.

Other changes include material layering, new vector texturing tools, a new hybrid render mode, the option to render imported hair grooms, and speed boosts of 2-10x in ray traced renders.

A real-time look dev and rendering toolkit for games, VFX and portfolio assets
A lightweight system for look dev, compositing and final rendering, Toolbag is widely used by games artists, but is also increasingly being used in other sectors of the industry.

It enables users to visualise imported models quickly, setting up PBR materials and lighting, with 2021’s Toolbag 4.0 also adding a 3D texture painting system.

Users can then either bake texture maps for export to other DCC software or game engines, or render stills or animation directly.

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Baking textures in UDIM format in Toolbag 5.0.

Toolbag 5.0: support for UDIM workflows
The major change in Toolbag 5.0 is that the software now supports UDIM workflows.

Users can now author materials with multiple UV tile sets, including the UDIM UV layout format widely used in VFX pipelines.

All of the software’s key texture-creation tools – including 3D painting, Fill and Procedural layers, and masks – “work seamlessly over [UDIM] tile borders”.

It is also possible to bake and render UDIM materials.

Support for Triplanar materials and material layering
Conversely, Toolbag 5.0 makes it possible to use UV-less workflows, with support for Triplanar texture projection as an alternative to UV texture mapping.

The software also now supports material layering, making it possible to create complex blended multi-material set-ups.

Toolbag 5.0’s Sync Points feature generates AO, curvature and height data from normal maps.

Other new texturing features: vector layers, Sync Points and Carve Groups
Toolbag 5.0 also introduces support for vector-based texturing workflows, including a new vector layer type, and tools for drawing and editing vector shapes.

Marmoset describes it as a quick way to add geometric forms to materials, from large features like pipes, wires, panel lines and vents, to smaller details like nuts, bolts and stitches.

There are also a number of new texturing features, including Sync Points.

The interesting system makes it possible to edit a material’s normal or bump map, and have Toolbag automatically generate matching ambient occlusion, curvature and height maps.

Another new feature, Carve Groups, makes it possible to blend multiple texture layers using a single “height-style blend” mask.

The update also makes the Clone tool available for Paint Layers, and adds support for painting flow maps and anisotropic direction maps for materials like hair and brushed metal.

Baking: interactive baking and support for baking the Bevel Shader
Toolbag 5.0 introduces support for interactive baking, making it possible to preview the output of baking operations in real time.

It is possible to adjust baking settings interactively during the preview, rather than having to wait until the baked texture maps have been written to disk before making changes.

The update also adds a new Bevel Shader, for mimicking rounded edges and corners on a model at render time, with the option to bake the output to normal, AO and curvature maps.

Rendering: faster ray tracing, hybrid rendering, and support for rendering hair grooms
The update improves rendering performance, with speed boosts in ray traced renders ranging from 2x for typical scenes, to 10x for those with “high bounce counts”.

A new Hybrid render mode, similar to those in game engines, balances “the raster renderer’s interactivity and the ray tracer’s image quality”, providing further render speed boosts without the need to sacrifice too much image quality.

It is also now possible to render realistic hair and fur in Toolbag, importing hair grooms in Alembic (.abc) format, and use the new Hair Reflection model for rendering.

Other new rendering features include a built-in procedural sky system and AgX tonemapping.

Other changes: UI updates and native Apple Silicon support
Toolbag 5.0 also updates the software’s UI, which should now scale better on high DPI displays.

Mac users finally get native Apple Silicon support, which should improve performance on current Macs: pretty much any macOS laptop or desktop less than four years old.