Review: Flatiron - render-to-texture plugin

With a few clicks You can unwrapp uv-s and bake selected maps, like for example ambient map or diffuse color map.

Some people may want use this plugin for baking all objects in the scene to textures.

When you want to make an animated scene, baking all surfaces to complete texture will reduce rendering time. The render engine does not have to calculate each frame separately, so nothing will flicker.

But I'm not 100% convinced to this method, because I can't imagine how huge texture I would need to bake the scene with trees. And such baking does not have much sense if there are moving objects in your scene. It will result with artifacts, like in the image below.

The best part of Flatiron is unwrap modifier, this is what I like the most. There are two ways to unwrap object: Organics and Hard surfaces. The choice depends of the object You want to unwrap.

For this chair below it's better to use Organics mode, because Hard surface mode will create artefacts on soft fabric, as you can see below:

Summary

Flatiron is very powerful tool, it is a lot more advanced than standard unwrap engine in 3ds max. For some quick unwrapping it is very good, but you have to remember that (as every automated tool), it will not work perfect in every scene. Sometimes, for a better use of space and to achieve superb results, You may need to unwrap uv-s in a standard (and time-consuming) way.

3D-IO made also Unwrella - a plugin for unwrapping. Both Unwrella and FlatIron use the same technique. The only difference is that FlatIron can unwrap multiple objects, while Unwrella is a modifier, and can unwrap single object. So if You want to only unwrap single object, then Unwrella is a better option - because it is cheaper (149$ for one seat licence). If You want to unwrap multiple objects and render to texture, choose Flatiron.

+ Automatically unwrap objects

+ Is quick and easy to use

- Unwrapping algorithm could be better (some uvw space is wasted)

Flatiron can be bought here: Texturebaking.com

Pricing:

• Flatiron Artist - single seat licence: 299$
• Flatiron Studio: 5 seat licence: 1199$