Manual

Text-based guide to ArmorLab.

Welcome

Version 0.1

ArmorLab is a stand-alone software designed for AI-powered texture authoring. Generate PBR textures using text prompts or by drag & dropping your photos.

The preview version has many rough edges and the experience may be frustrating.

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Download

Windows build is available. Linux (cpu only) and macOS (apple silicon only) builds also provided. On desktop, ArmorLab is a portable application with no installation - just unpack and run.

Get ArmorLab

Requirements

ArmorLab runs on the GPU by default and the processing time depends on a graphics card performance. GTX 1060/6GB or better is recommended. Optionally, GPU inference can be disabled at the expense of processing time. With GPU inference disabled, ArmorLab benefits from multi-threaded CPU performance.

See Preferences to tune performance.

Updating

Latest builds can be downloaded through your Gumroad Library. Alternatively, use the original email sent by Gumroad to access the download page.

In ArmorLab, press Help - Check for Updates... to check if newer build is available.

Get Started

Windows

Unpack downloaded archive and run ArmorLab.exe. In some cases, Windows may prompt you with the unrecognized app dialog - press More Info - Run Anyway.

Linux

Unpack downloaded archive and run ArmorLab. In some cases, you may need to open terminal in the extracted folder and run ./ArmorLab.

macOS

Unpack downloaded archive and run ArmorLab.app.

iOS

Coming soon.

Android

Coming soon.

Controls

• Left mouse button / Pen to paint a mask.
• Alt + left mouse button to rotate the camera.
• Alt + middle mouse button to pan the camera.
• Alt + right mouse button / mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
• Controls can be customized in Menu bar - Edit - Preferences... - Keymap.
• Keymap presets can be imported and exported.

Workflow

Import Textures

Drag and drop .jpg, .png, .tga, .bmp, .gif, .psd, .hdr, .svg or .tif images into the node editor. This will import the image and place a new Image node onto the canvas.

See Menu bar - Preferences... - Plugins to enable support for additional image formats.

You can get starter content in the ArmorPaint Cloud.

Import Meshes

Drag and drop unwrapped .obj file into the viewport. This will replace the currently painted mesh. .fbx, .blend, .stl, .gltf and .glb files are supported, but the importer is not 100% reliable yet.

Modifying imported mesh data:

• Normals can be re-calculated with Meshes tab - Calculate Normals.
• Up axis can be set with Meshes tab - Rotate X / Rotate Y / Rotate Z.
• Geometry can be re-centered with Meshes tab - Geometry to Origin.
• Height output can be applied to geometry with Meshes tab - Apply Displacement.
• UV map can be auto-generated by enabling the uv_unwrap plugin.

See Menu bar - Preferences... - Plugins to enable support for additional mesh formats.

You can get sample assets for testing in the ArmorPaint cloud.

Export Textures

Click on the Menu bar - File - Export Textures... button.

• Resolution: Set resolution for exported textures.
• Color: Set 8bit, 16bit or 32bit color depth.
• Format: .png or .jpg (for 8bit color), .exr (for 16bit / 32bit color).
• Preset: Select a pre-configured preset or build a custom one.
• Generic preset exports individual PBR textures.
• Unreal preset exports packed occlusion-roughness-metallic texture.
• Unity preset exports packed metallic-occlusion-smoothness texture.
• Minecraft preset exports packed metallic-emission-roughness texture.
• Destination: Export textures to disk or pack into the project file at Textures tab.

Configure custom channel swizzling for exported textures in Presets tab:

• Select an existing preset you wish to edit or press New.
• Press Import to import preset from .json file.
• Press Add to create new texture slot.
• Configure RGBA channels for each texture slot.
• Right-click on texture name and press Delete to delete texture slot.
• .json file for each preset is located in the ArmorLab/data/presets folder.

Save / Load Project

Click on the Menu bar - File - Save button (Ctrl + S) to save the currently opened project. Mesh, nodes and textures will be saved into .arm project file.

To open the project file, drag and drop .arm file onto the viewport. .arm files can also be set to open directly with ArmorLab executable from the OS file explorer.

.jpg and other asset types can also be associated if you wish to use ArmorLab as a texture viewer.

Browser

Click on the Status bar - Browser tab to activate the built-in asset browser.

• Click on the Cloud button to access the ArmorPaint cloud.
• Drag assets from browser into the viewport to import.
• Click on the + button to save the current path into bookmarks panel.

Nodes

Texture processing in ArmorLab is done via composing node graphs in node editor.

• Use toolbar at the top to add new nodes.
• Press space to search for nodes.
• Drag textures from Textures tab or file explorer into the node editor to create Image nodes.

Node preview is displayed instantly in the viewport as the nodes are assembled.

Photo to PBR Node

Extract base color, occlusion, roughness, normal map and height from color input. A photo image is expected as a color input.

Image Texture Node

Reference to a texture file from disk.

Text to Photo Node

Generate a photo described via text prompt.

Tiling Node

Outputs a tileable texture with removed seams from color input.

Inpaint Node

Allows to paint a mask in the viewport. Outputs a texture where mask area is filled with new content.

Upscale Node

Upscales color input to the current project resolution selected in the node editor header.

Variance Node

Generates a new image variant guided with text prompt.

Output Node

Final node which is used when exporting textures to disk.

Check out the gallery to see nodes in action.

Viewport

Set viewport parameters in Menu bar - Viewport.

• Enable Distract Free (F11) mode.
• Toggle Fullscreen (alt+enter) mode.
• Set Environment and Light intensity.
• Set Light Size.
• Enable Cull Backfaces to skip drawing backward facing polygons.
• Enable Filter Textures to apply linear filter when sampling textures references by material.
• Show 3D Compass in the viewport.
• Enable Envmap to draw environment map in the viewport.
• Enable Blur Envmap to use blurred version of the environment map.

Drag and drop a .hdr file onto the viewport to change the environment map.

Hold Shift + middle mouse button to rotate light.

Hold Ctrl + middle mouse button to rotate environment map.

To simulate pixel-art like texturing, disable Filter Textures option and set Super Sample in preferences to 0.25x.

Viewport Mode

Set viewport render mode in Menu bar - Mode.

• Pick Lit to draw viewport with applied lighting using the rasterizer.
• Pick specific channel to visualize it with no applied lighting.
• Pick Path Traced to draw viewport with interactive path-tracer. (ArmorLabDXR and ArmorLabVKRT builds)

Path Traced Viewport wip

• Available in ArmorLabDXR and ArmorLabVKRT builds (see dxr requirements and vkrt requirements).
• The renderer favors performance.

Camera

Set camera parameters in Menu bar - Camera:

• Set specific camera viewpoint.
• Orbit, Zoom In and Zoom Out camera.
• Reset camera.
• Set FoV (field of view).
• Set Perspective or Orthographic camera type.
• Set camera mode:
• Orbit - Rotate camera around the mesh.
• Rotate - Rotate mesh around the origin.
• Fly - Hold right mouse button and move camera freely using the WASD and QE keys.

Workspaces

Select workspace tab from the header bar:

• 3D: Set for 3D view.
• 2D: Set for top-down view of the plane object.

Preferences

Click Menu bar - Edit - Preferences... to show the preferences window.

Interface

• Language: Set localization. See currently available translations.
• UI Scale: Scale up the user interface when running on high-resolution display. By default, 2X scale is applied during the first startup for high-resolution displays.
• Camera Speed: Intensity of camera movements.
• Direction to Zoom: Mouse / pen direction to perform camera zoom.
• Wrap Mouse: Wrap mouse around view boundaries during camera control.
• Show Asset Names: Draw labels below each texture icon.
• Click Restore - Confirm button to revert back to default settings.
• Click Restore - Import... button to import settings from older ArmorLab version.
• Click Reset Layout button to revert all layout changes.

Theme

• Select default (dark) or light theme.
• Click New button to create custom theme.
• Click Import button to import theme from file.
• Click Export button to export theme into file.
• Set Viewport Color to draw when environment map is hidden.
• Set color and size of individual theme elements.
• Set Straight or Curved link style for node connections.

Usage

• Undo Steps: Set the number of undo steps to keep. Using less undo steps may improve performance when running on GPU with constrained memory.
• Default Workspace: start-up workspace.
• Default Layer Resolution: for new layers.
• Cloud Server: address of the S3 server used by Browser tab - Cloud.
• GPU Inference: Use GPU to accelerate node graph processing.

Pen

• Brush Radius: When painting with a pen, pressure affects the radius of brush.
• Sensitivity: Manual pen pressure sensitivity control.

ArmorLab uses Windows Ink API on Windows. Windows Ink is available on Windows 8 or newer.

When using a Wacom tablet on Windows, ensure Use Windows Ink option is enabled in Wacom Tablet Properties.

When using a Wacom tablet on Windows, you can rotate the viewport by assigning Alt + Left click modifier onto pen button in Wacom Tablet Properties.

Pen pressure is expected to work on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS.

Viewport

On faster GPUs:

• Raise Super Sample to 2X/4X for improved anti-aliasing.
• Enable Voxel AO for cone-traced ambient occlusion and shadows (non DXR / VKRT builds).

On slower GPUs:

• Disable SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion) for improved performance.

Additional options:

• Set Path Tracer mode: Core for performance, Full for features. (DXR / VKRT builds)
• Set clipping values with Clip Start and Clip End.
• Enable SSR for screen-space reflections.
• Enable Bloom.
• Set Vignette intensity.
• Set Displacement Strength applied by height channel in the viewport.

Keymap

Select an existing preset or define custom keyboard shortcuts.

• Use left, middle, right handles to reference mouse buttons / pen.
• Use + character to reference multiple keys: ie. ctrl+1.
• Click Import button to import keymap from file.
• Click Export button to export keymap into file.

Plugins

Press Plugins tab - Manager to open the plugin manager.

• Click Import to install a new plugin from .js, .wasm or .zip file.
• Click New to create a new hello-world plugin.
• Enable desired plugins from the list.
• Right-click onto plugin name to expose plugin operations:
• Export plugin file for distribution.
• Edit plugin in a text editor.
• Delete plugin.
• Controls for enabled plugins are displayed in the Plugins tab.
• Some plugins may not expose controls but add new import / export file formats.

Plugin Development

Plugins are written in JavaScript or WebAssembly (compiled from C, Rust, ..). For a minimal example, see the bundled hello_world.js file located in the ArmorLab/data/plugins folder.

A plugin development guide will be provided soon.