Earlier this year we introduced 3D texturing and Smart Materials support in the first Mixer 2020 release. This release comes with 50 new Smart Materials, a handy new Asset Manager and a new installer that lays the groundwork for regular releases of Smart Material packs. We are also working on new feature updates including Multiple Texture Set Support, slated for later this year.

50 New Megascans Smart Materials

50 premium scan based Smart Materials have been added to Mixer’s expanding collection of free top-quality assets. Mixer’s Smart Materials are crafted based on your requests by Quixel’s art team, using Megascans to ensure a world-class look and feel to your assets, instantly.

The new release includes Metals such as aluminum, oxidized iron and gold, Fabrics such as denim, linen and camo gear, and a plethora of Plastics, Rocks, Woods and Leathers. All these are ready to go and are completely free to use.

The Smart Materials workflow fuses the Megascans library with Mixer’s procedural engine, giving you photorealistic control over every aspect of an asset’s wear and tear.

And viola!

Using Smart Materials, you can easily transform any asset to make it fit any biome or style. This gives your assets unlimited potential, also enabling style transfer workflows that go beyond realistic texturing.

And here’s a comparison:

Smarter downloads

For your convenience, we have updated the installer to make it easier for you to download upcoming Smart Material packs and other free upcoming assets. This means you won’t need to download a version of Mixer you already have, whenever more and more free content is released and available to you.

Introducing the Asset Manager

The Asset Manager gives you the ability to quickly replace assets that are referenced multiple times in your layer stack. When working with a complex material, it’s not uncommon to reference a specific surface or imperfection throughout your layer stack. Prototyping with different surfaces then becomes a pain, as you’d have to swap it multiple times for a result that you might not even like. This is where the asset manager really shines: it allows you to instantly replace that surface or imperfection without breaking your layer stack, and you can easily undo/redo the result as well.

When working on a Mix shared by another user, sometimes you don’t have all the required assets in your local library. The Asset Manager comes in handy in such scenarios by automatically detecting if there are any missing Megascans assets and allows you to download these with a single click.

On the horizon

We are working on bringing you multiple new Smart Material packs from all kinds of biomes, styles and levels of degradation, and these will be released to you for free at regular intervals. Every Smart Material is created based on your feedback, so keep it coming!

We’ve also heard you loud and clear on Multiple Texture Set support. We are working on an update to support these and we hope to have a preview available in the very near future. For now, here’s a sneak preview of what’s in the works:

We have big plans for Mixer and intend to rapidly expand its abilities with new features and tools together with feedback and conversations from you, our amazing community.

Quixel Mixer – One application, unlimited creative potential

Quixel Mixer 2020 seamlessly fuses scan data, PBR painting and procedural authoring. With a vastly streamlined texturing experience you can design Smart Materials, 3D paint meshes, and create tileable surfaces, all in one app. Mixer is available for everyone, for free, forever. What’s more: Unreal Engine users also have access to the entire Megascans library for free, right within Mixer. Download Mixer now.