SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - MechaPaint 2.1.0 is available now. It gathers every release since 2.0.7 into one big update: tools that repair 3D scans and AI models right in the app, a brush that thins a mesh into clean quads, Factories that grow fur, scales, feathers and rust onto your model, cratered worlds and roads you can drive, and textures exported in ACES color for Blender 5.
MechaPaint is a standalone 3D model painter for Windows and macOS. Open a model you already own, paint on it directly in full PBR, and export for your game engine, your 3D printer or your paint bench.
Scan repair
- Smooth relaxes lumpy scan noise under the brush and keeps quads, UVs and paint in place.
- Smooth Relax lifts crevices and spreads out dense knots of points.
- Smooth Trim shaves raised AI clutter flat, and Depth Pin holds one trim level across strokes.
- Scalpel slices off anything you lasso, like a stray fin or a floating sheet, and caps the cut.
- Scalpel on animated models cuts skinned parts and takes loose floating pieces along with the cut.
- Flattener snaps everything inside a box flat to one edge.
- Corners turns the edge where two walls meet into a perfect 90 degree corner, and the faces beside it slide along so the texture does not stretch.
- Mesh Pen draws a line that becomes a tube or a flat strap, built right into the scan.
- Mesh Patch paints over a hole, bends the patch to fit and welds it in.
- Build Up fattens parts the scan made too thin, front and back together.
- Mesh Drag pulls points along a plane with a soft falloff.
- Work planes let the mesh tools work on a plane facing you or on one you set with three clicks.
- Decimate removes every edge loop that can go without changing the shape of a part.
- Poly Line adds a new edge between two points you click and rebuilds the faces under it.
- Level turns the whole model so the floor you click is perfectly level.
- Focus on 3 Points aims the camera straight at any plane you click.
Lighter meshes
- PolyShave thins a mesh into clean quads right where you brush, a little more with every pass.
- PolyShave Grid, Quad Flow, Quad Everything and Repair lay a tidy quad grid, keep existing quad flow, quad a whole part in one click, or restore the quads of a triangulated model.
- Keep Texture lets shaved areas keep the paint that was under them.
- Wire Reveal paints the wireframe on just where you want to see it, now in color too.
- Color Wireframe shows triangles red, quads blue and larger polygons purple.
Working with model parts
- Add Mesh merges a second model file into your scene, with Move Parts handles to move, turn and size it.
- Delete Mesh removes a part you no longer want.
- Rename meshes with a right click in the Meshes list, and export uses the new names.
- The Pointer picks parts. Click a part and the Meshes list opens right on it.
- Hide All and wildcard search in the Meshes list.
- One undo history. Ctrl+Z steps back through Level, Move Parts and mesh edits in order.
- Mesh tools on ghosted parts leave the ghosted faces alone.
- Cable and Pipe cables hang in a true catenary sag, in any color, with PBR surface values or your own PBR maps.
Fur, scales, feathers and rust
- Rust Factory and Feather Factory build rust and feathers from a page of knobs and grow them right on the model.
- Rust breaks through the paint your model already has.
- Scale Factory hides for dinosaurs, hadrosaurs, alligators and croc underbelly leather, with 16 bit height maps.
- Fur Factory coats such as Axis deer, Fawn and Sable.
- One Factory window for Fur, Scales, Rust and Feathers, and every Factory skips the parts you have locked.
- ModularPBR Factory packs any PBR set into one .mpbr file.
Terrain, craters and roads
- Crater starter builds a Moon Surface, Mars Plain, Impact Site, Battlefield or Blank Plate in one click.
- The Crater tool presses craters in seven looks, from a fresh moon bowl to a terraced crater with a central peak, plus a Pie Crust edge.
- Live Edit reshapes the last crater as you move a slider, and Crater Ground paints ejecta, rays and scorch onto their own layer.
- Snow and Sand in any color, a regolith preset or a color picked right off the model, plus a moon dust Regolith pattern.
- Roads cut through mountains with steep rough rock walls, and their controls now live in the Terrain sidebar.
- Ride Mode lets you drive your roads, with an eye height you can set.
- Tracks tile across into lanes, tile by fractional amounts and hug the ground.
Starting from a leaf
- Leaf starter traces a leaf photo and stamps a two sided 3D leaf with a twig.
- Veins, Fold and Droop make the stamped leaf bend like a real one.
One Library for everything
- One searchable Library for PBR materials, gradients, textures, references, stamps, brushes, real paints and presets.
- All of ambientCG, for nearly 3,000 free PBR materials, shown on little lit globes.
- 84 sci-fi decals, from hazard stripes and stencil text to insignia and battle damage.
Painting
- Selections come in shapes plus painted picks by Brush, Cx, Model, Mesh, Islands, Poly or Color, shown in green, with named saves.
- Layer Effects put live Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Stroke and Color Overlay on any layer.
- Film adds real thin film interference, the soap bubble and oil slick rainbow.
- Shape brushes for Lasso, Polygon, Circle and Rectangle, and Shift makes a Circle an oval.
- The Eyedropper picks the whole PBR material, not just the color.
- Brush preview shows your brush in the air, even off the model.
- Paint just Metal, Rough or Normal by turning Color off.
- Multi-line Text Path and new Synthwave gradients.
- Faster 2D painting, and Blur and paste change only the spot you touch.
Lighting
- Rim and Fill lights join the key light in the Light tool.
- PBR view brightness now matches the paint view.
Files and pipeline
- ACES EXR export in ACEScg, ACES 2065-1 or Linear sRGB, ready for Blender 5, for textures and FBX alike.
- Blender files from 2.80 through 5.2 open directly and export back to BLEND with rigs, lights and cameras untouched.
- USDZ files open, and LightWave PBR surfaces come in complete.
- FBX export writes the model's animation, and never overwrites your original by default.
- TGA is a choice whenever you export textures.
- iClone files come with step by step help to bring them in as FBX.
- Polytoria gets all ten body types, and Roblox animations hold together.
And more
- Seams save with your project.
- Stylus friendly right click leaves the camera where it is.
- Feature search finds every tool in the dock.
- Smoother frame rate that follows your display.
- Auspex Trium is the new name of the scale tool.
The details are in the patch notes for 2.0.8, 2.0.9 and 2.1.0.
Availability: MechaPaint 2.1.0 is available now for Windows and macOS at mechapaint.com. It is a free update for owners within their year of free upgrades. MechaPaint is a one-time purchase, currently half off in the launch sale, and the free version runs the full application with watermarked exports.
I believe MechaPaint's interface is its most important feature. Try it out, and let me know what you think!