3d-io Announces Flatiron

Game developer and video production company 3d-io announced Flatiron, a new Autodesk 3ds Max plug-in for scene unwrapping and baking. With Flatiron, users can bake textures for multiple objects into a single map and complete the full unwrapping and baking process through as few as four operations. Render-to-texture parameters from 3ds Max's built-in "render-to-texture" dialog available are also available for additional options and fine-tuning. The product automatically manages the unwrapping and packing process and creates UV maps optimized for distribution. 3d-io says the process is designed to minimize texture seams and image corruption due to stretched pixels, while also boosting average image quality by keeping the UV area ratio of all objects uniform. Flatiron's unwrapping algorithm is based on 3d-io’s Unwrella plug-in technology and allows for an automatic process aimed at minimizing charts, seams, and texture stretch. Its packing algorithm is based on 3d-io’s Unwrella plug-in based UV packing technology and the company says it can pack large numbers of chunks for hundreds of unwrapped objects. It accomplishes this with 3d-io’s Unwrella plug-in based UV packing technology. The company says charts are packed quickly and optimally, yielding high texture space usage, and at the same time respecting user selectable gutter padding and final texture sizes. Headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, 3d-io specializes in game development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. The company's previously released video games include PC titles Perry Rhodan and Ruhemasse Null.