PBR Forge Changelog

The 3D wireframe toggle now overlays mesh edges on top of the textured surface instead of replacing it, plus stability improvements for resource cleanup and WebGL context recovery.

Improved

• Wireframe overlay — Wireframe renders as semi-transparent white lines over the fully textured mesh, so you can see how topology affects your texture (e.g. UV pinching at sphere poles)
• Displacement-aware wireframe — The wireframe overlay follows displacement mapping at any scale, staying perfectly aligned with the displaced surface

Fixed

• Memory management — Images, textures, and background processes are now properly cleaned up when switching files or closing the app, reducing memory usage over long sessions
• Large texture exports — Temporary resources used during chunked exports are now freed between tiles, preventing memory spikes when exporting high-resolution texture packs
• 3D viewer recovery — If your browser reclaims GPU resources (common on mobile or when switching tabs), the 3D preview now recovers automatically instead of going blank

Customize your workspace layout with drag-to-resize panels and improved rendering quality.

New

• Drag-to-resize sidebars — Resize the parameter sidebar and preview panel by dragging their edges to fit your workflow
• Preview sidebar — Dedicated collapsible panel for 2D and 3D preview controls, separate from the main parameter sidebar
• Collapsible panels — Sidebars collapse with smooth clip-path animations and can be toggled with a single click
• Auto-transparency — Transparency in the 3D viewer toggles automatically based on whether your source image has alpha

Improved

• Aspect ratio preservation — 3D plane geometry now matches your source image’s aspect ratio for accurate material previews
• Deferred renderer activation — UI transitions complete before the renderer activates, preventing visible layout jank on load
• Main thread yielding — Long-running file operations yield to the browser between chunks, keeping the UI responsive during exports
• Export pipeline testing — End-to-end and golden regression tests verify that exported PBR texture packs match expected output
• Control ordering — Sidebar controls reordered by relevance: primary parameters first, shared dependencies last
• Tooltip placement — Asset type tooltips moved onto the buttons themselves for a cleaner, more discoverable layout

Full control over 3D preview lighting and a ground-up mobile interface redesign.

New

• Procedural environment map — Built-in environment map for physically accurate PBR reflections and specular highlights in the 3D viewer
• Light intensity slider — Control the strength of the directional light in the 3D preview
• Ambient & environment intensity — Separate sliders for ambient fill and environment map contribution
• Fill light — Secondary light source to reduce harsh shadows in the 3D preview
• Normal preview intensity — Adjust how strongly the normal map affects the lit 2D preview
• AO preview intensity — Control ambient occlusion darkening strength in the preview
• Resolution toggle — Switch between preview and full-resolution rendering with a single click

Mobile

• 4-tier bottom navigation — Dedicated mobile layout with view tabs, parameter controls, and preview drawer accessible from the bottom of the screen
• Touch-optimized controls — Larger tap targets, smooth-scrolling tabs, and swipe-friendly parameter panels
• Mobile preview drawer — Toggle the 2D/3D preview from a persistent bottom button without losing your place in the controls

Improved

• Selective map tracking — The renderer now tracks which maps changed and only updates the 3D material textures that need refreshing
• 3D light rotation — Lights are attached to the camera so they rotate naturally as you orbit the 3D model

Automatic sprite vs. texture detection and major WebGL stability improvements across browsers.

New

• Smart mode detection — PBR Forge analyzes your source image and automatically selects the optimal processing pipeline for sprites or photographic textures
• Inline error banners — File and WebGL errors now display as contextual inline banners instead of transient toast notifications
• Light cursor feedback — The canvas light cursor dynamically updates its size and color as you adjust light parameters

Improved

• WebGL context recovery — Automatic detection and graceful restoration after GPU context loss, with full re-render of all active maps
• Async GPU reads — Pixel readback from the GPU uses fence-based asynchronous polling instead of blocking the main thread
• Safari compatibility — Adjusted WebGL setup with preserveDrawingBuffer for correct rendering on Safari
• Color contrast — Updated text colors across the interface for improved readability and WCAG compliance
• Critical CSS inlining — Above-the-fold styles are inlined for faster first paint, with non-critical styles deferred

New tint color controls for diffuse map customization and a redesigned workspace layout.

New

• Tint color adjustment — Apply color tints to your source image for diffuse/albedo map customization, with a one-click reset button
• Collapsible right sidebar — All surface, material, and lighting controls consolidated into a collapsible sidebar panel
• 2D/3D preview toggle — Switch between 2D map views and the 3D material preview directly from the canvas controls
• View tab scrolling — Horizontal scroll support with mouse wheel and chevron buttons for navigating map view tabs

Improved

• File validation — Browser-native image format detection with clear error messages for unsupported file types
• Sidebar accessibility — Keyboard navigation and focus-visible styles for sidebar buttons
• Viewport accessibility — Removed maximum-scale restriction so users can zoom the page freely

PBR Forge is now available in public beta — a browser-based PBR texture generator powered by WebGL2.

PBR Map Generation

• Normal map generation — Convert any source image into accurate normal maps using GPU-accelerated Jump Flood Algorithm distance fields
• Ambient occlusion — Generate AO maps with configurable intensity and smoothing to add depth to your materials
• Roughness & metallic maps — Create roughness and metallic textures with blur, invert, and per-channel controls
• Emissive maps — Define glow regions with threshold and intensity sliders
• Height maps — Automatic height extraction from source images for displacement workflows
• Alpha-weighted smoothing — Normal map smoothing clips to the original sprite alpha, preventing ghostly rims on transparent edges

Real-Time 3D Preview

• Three.js integration — Preview your PBR materials on plane, sphere, and cylinder meshes directly in the browser
• Lit 2D preview — Interactive light positioning for quick normal map validation without switching to 3D

Export & Workflow

• PBR texture pack export — Download all generated maps as a single ZIP or export individual map channels
• Multi-file support — Load and switch between multiple source images in one session
• Worker thread exports — Large texture exports run off the main thread to keep the UI responsive
• Banding detection — Automatic analysis of gradient-prone maps with user notifications when banding artifacts are detected

Performance & Compatibility

• GPU-accelerated pipeline — All map generation runs on WebGL2 compute shaders for instant feedback
• Incremental rendering — Dirty flag system recomputes only the maps affected by parameter changes
• Mobile & tablet support — Touch interactions for light positioning, zoom, and canvas navigation
• Android Chrome compatibility — Offscreen canvas rendering and explicit attribute bindings for mobile WebGL edge cases
• Keyboard shortcuts — Hotkeys for switching views, toggling help, and common actions