P-XCEL is a simple texture editor that allows you to paint
and adjust the textures directly on the model.
1. Why?I always struggled with making even simple models for my 3d games. Learning to model in SketchUp for example is very easy - unfortunately same cannot be said about texturing. I never quite liked 3d Studio's uv mapping and the whole workflow scheme pushed me back every time I wanted a quick texture to be done.
So I have written a small tool to makes things
easier!
Maybe it doesn't allow as much freedom as some major applications, but it's fun to use and easy to learn. And you can then export the model with it's textures nicely packed together for use in your games immediately!
2. About the programThe editor reads and exports .obj files currently (Wavelength model format) - it's a simple and open standard, handled by many 3d modeling programs out there.
You can paint on the whole model using a few basic tools, you can also edit UV coordinates of each face inside a handy 2D Texture Editor.
Then you just export the model to a .obj file with automatically generated textures and you can load use it in your game
I currently use C# - I can quickly upload a versatile .OBJ model loader code if anyone is interested 
3. How it works?You choose an .obj model to load, then you set the texture scale (originally 1 unit in model-units is 1 pixel, but different programs tend to export in a different way) and you are ready to paint!
The program automatically generates faces and puts empty textures on them. Faces are created with coplanar triangles, or to be more exact - adjacent triangles that have the same normal, so it is possible to have curved faces, as long as the normals in the file are the same.
When you are done with painting, choose File->Export and specify the output file - the program will generate an .obj model with appropriate UV mapping and compile a final texture, containing all textures in the model (you can either force a specific texture size or let the program automatically find the smallest size possible, which might take a while for lots of faces)
Example of compiled texture:
There are some cool features, for example
references which allow you to share the same texture by multiple faces, thus saving final compiled texture space.
Just look into short
manual and eveything will be clear!
4. FutureAfter this public release I plan on developing the tool further, I already have a complete list of useful features I really want to add but I'll wirte more about them later, in my devlog
And please, keep in mind that this editor is meant for rather low-poly models, so import 5000+ tri objects only at your own risk Screenshots
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DOWNLOADno installer, just exe and some other files + demo models
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Manualcurrently as an image, too lazy to create a webpage just yet
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DevLogsee some info on the updated version
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