What separates good hotspot trims from great ones?

For years I’ve been curious about a better hotspot workflow in Blender. For those not familiar, hotspot texturing is something I covered in a recent article here. A big piece of this workflow is creating useful hotspot trim sheets. What constitutes a useful trim sheet? For me it comes down to two things:

• A useful variety of shapes
• Realistic edge detail across a set of PBR maps

The end goal of a hotspot trim workflow isn't just to save on performance by using fewer maps. It's to save on production by reusing maps across a wide variety of props. For an indie producer like myself, that's a huge deal! Those savings can mean the difference between finishing a project or not. The first part is easy. I scoured the web and looked for useful examples of hotspot trim sheet layouts. Here are a few I landed on:

All in all, I selected my top 6. The focus of my selection was usefulness and variety. The trim patterns I selected give me the greatest flexibility and usability across a variety of different props. Everything from a concrete staircase to a wooden windowframe.

The next challenge was a bit tougher to tackle. I need to create realistic edge detail across a set of PBR maps. Ideally, I want that to be done in Blender.  That's where my (work in progress) node group comes into play!

Here's a look at just a few maps generated with my new tool. It'll create all of the major PBR maps, including an ID map to help users set up custom trim templates.

Upcoming improvements

Release is likely a day or two out. I'm now refining the node group to make it usable for both seasoned Blender users and complete beginners. I'm packing in as much layered functionality as possible. More layers mean more options, more flexibility, and better trim sheets!

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Keep an eye on my Patreon for more details about release. If you want to be notified, simply sign up as a free member on my Patreon. "Production Workshop" subscribers and higher will get free, and early access to the tool.

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If you're a publication interested in covering this new Blender tool, please reach out to rileyb3d@gmail.com. I can get you content and information for your article.