Tuesday, March 25th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerZen Masters releases Zen UV 5.0html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"Blender tools developer Zen Masters has released Zen UV 5.0, the latest version of its popular UV unwrapping add-on.Key changes include the Zen UV Touch tool, for quickly manipulating UV islands in the UV Editor using an intuitive gizmo, and a new Auto Unwrap operator.A popular UV editing add-on for Blender with tools for games and VFX workFirst released in 2020, Zen UV is one of the most popular UV editing add-ons for Blender.It uses a custom, context-sensitive UV unwrapping algorithm with control over the placement of UV seams and sharp edges, with a separate algorithm, Zen Relax, for organic models.It has a good set of features for manipulating UV islands, including tools for stacking, mirroring, randomizing, stitching and reshaping islands.Movie artists also get a set of tools for managing UDIM tiles, while games artists get tools for creating and managing trimsheets and controlling texel density.Zen Masters tools are used in production by both VFX and games studios: clients listed on the teams website include Folks VFX, Funcom and People Can Fly.Zen UV 5.0: new Zen UV Touch Tool and Auto Unwrap operatorNew features in Zen UV 5.0 include the Zen UV Touch Tool, which makes it possible to perform common operations like moving, scaling, rotating or snapping UV islands more quickly by manipulating them directly in Blenders UV Editor, using an intuitive-looking gizmo.There is also a new Auto Unwrap operator, which provides a bridge to Ministry of Flat, Quel Solaars free standalone Windows-only UV unwrapping tool.Workflow improvements include a new Zen Sync operator, which preserves edge and face selections when switching between working modes.There are also new options for selecting intersecting or stretched faces, new control options in the trimsheet tools, and updates to Zen UVs native UV unwrapping algorithm.Pricing and system requirementsZen UV 5.0 is compatible with Blender 4.0+. A single-user license costs $39. The update is free to users of version 4.x.Read more about Zen UV in the plugins Blender Market listingRead a full list of new features in Zen UV 5.0 in the online changelogHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsZen Masters releases Zen UV 5.0Check out the new features in the free update to the popular Blender UV editing toolset for games and visual effects work.Tuesday, March 25th, 2025Peregrine Labs ships Yeti 5.2Check out the latest features in the popular Maya fur and feathers plugin, including new nodes for resolving intersections.Monday, March 24th, 2025Check out new open-source 3D character generator CharMorphPromising free Blender add-on generates rigged 3D characters with skin materials and hair, suitable for games, animation or VFX work.Monday, March 24th, 2025Polygonflow releases new free version of DashUse the powerful Content Browser from the Unreal Engine 5 world-building tool free indefinitely. Comes with thousands of free 3D assets.Sunday, March 23rd, 2025Unity unveils its 2025 product roadmapFeatures due in Unity this year include in-editor LOD generation, swappable physics backends, and more generative AI tools.Thursday, March 20th, 2025Unity previews Unity 6.1Check out the key artist features in the next version of the game engine, including support for Variable Rate Shading and better DX12 ray tracing.Thursday, March 20th, 2025More NewsCharacter Creator to get new MetaTailor pluginNVIDIA unveils Blackwell RTX PRO GPUs with up to 96GB VRAM5 key features in Blender 4.4Sketchsoft releases Feather 1.1GIMP 3.0 is out after seven years in developmentAdobe releases Substance 3D Modeler 1.21Adobe releases Substance 3D Painter 11.0Free tool: Lens Cap for BlenderCelsys releases Clip Studio Paint 4Assetify 2.1 converts Blender assets to game-ready formatsTutorial: Creature Combat Animation in MayaWonder Studio becomes Autodesk Flow StudioOlder Posts