Open PainterGetting started
Install the extension, open the editor and paint your first texture set.
On this page 7 sections
Build and paint materials directly in Blender. Start with a smart material, add wear that follows your mesh, paint details across PBR channels and export textures for your renderer or game engine. Layers, masks and procedural controls stay editable throughout.
These guides cover Open Painter 0.13.1, from your first texture set to UDIMs, node-based materials, aging and shared libraries. Core texturing works offline without an account. Open Painter is free and open source: see licenses.
Requirements
- Blender 5.2 or newer.
- A mesh with a UV map. Use a 0–1 layout for the quick start, or follow the UDIM guide for a model spread across several tiles.
- No separate Python installation, no account and no network access for the core painter.
Install
- Download the
open_painter-<version>.zipfrom the download page. Do not unzip it; Blender installs the ZIP as-is. - In Blender open Edit › Preferences › Add-ons, open the menu at the top right, choose Install from Disk… and select the ZIP. Enable Open Painter if it is not enabled already.
- Click the Editor Type selector in the upper-left corner of any Blender area — the menu that lists 3D Viewport, Image Editor, Shader Editor and the others — and choose Open Painter.
The editor opens in that same area: Assets along the bottom, the paint viewport in the centre, and Texture Set, Layers, Inspector and Assets on the right. Use Blender's usual Ctrl+Space to maximise the area, and the Editor Type selector again to switch back to another editor.
Your first texture set
- Select the low-poly mesh and click + in Texture Set. A selected, UV-unwrapped mesh is assigned automatically; use Texture Set Settings › Assign Selected to assign additional meshes. For a mesh with several materials, choose the intended active material slot before assigning. A new texture set creates a material connected to its eight PBR channels.
- Choose a resolution from the dropdown in Texture Set. The default is 2048.
- Bake maps for wear and dirt. Click Bake Mesh Maps in the tool header to open the Bake tab. Under Setup, add high-poly sources with Add Selected, or disable Bake from High Poly for a self-bake. In Maps, select the required maps and click Bake Selected Maps. See Mesh maps and Bake Check. For plain paint or a material with no required maps, go straight to adding layers.
- Add layers with Add Layer (Paint, Fill, Folder, Decal, Smart Material or Module). Click a layer's name to select its content; the adjacent mask icon selects its mask effects.
- Click Bake › Results › Add Baked Normal and AO Layer to bring those mesh maps into the material.
- Paint. Select a paint layer and use Paint Material in the Inspector to paint enabled PBR channels together. Paint Channel Brush provides Blender's native brush for one channel. See Painting.
- Apply a material. Select a thumbnail in the bottom Asset Shelf, check its destination in Assets, then click Apply or click the thumbnail again. The type filter in the tool header filters Materials, Smart Materials, Smart Masks and the other categories. See Smart materials.
- Export. Click Export in the tool header, choose Contents, Scope, a destination preset and folder, then review Output Preview and export. See Export and engine targets.
Finding your way around
| Region | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Tool strip (left) | Blender's native texture-paint toolbar. T shows and hides it. |
| Tool header (top) | Asset type filter, Target, Engine Preview, Clean View, Bake Mesh Maps and Export. |
| Asset Shelf (bottom) | Materials, smart materials, smart masks, filters, brushes, alphas, textures and geometry effects. Toggle it from Blender's View menu. |
| Sidebar (right) | Texture Set, Layers, Inspector and Assets, plus Bake, Export and Assistant tabs. N shows and hides it. |
Use More › Open Inspector for a companion Properties area. Clean View hides scene furniture and restores it when disabled. The shared status reads Idle, Updating, Stale, Baking, Failed or Paused. Resize the sidebar and shelf by dragging their borders. Controls follow Blender's theme and interface scale.
Saving projects
Save your project as a .blend to keep the layer stack, masks, painted images and imported textures together. Open Painter rebuilds the live channel images when you reopen the file. Use Export to share finished textures with another application, or save a smart material to reuse an editable recipe on another asset.
Included example
The repository ships examples/open_painter_demo.blend: explicit high-poly/low-poly assignments, baked maps, Painted Steel layers and a viewport-painted roughness image. The high-poly source is hidden; baking temporarily makes it available and restores its visibility afterwards.