Forge Material Studio vs Material Maker

Forge Material Studio is a local-first tool for authoring procedural PBR materials on the web or Windows. Its node graph builds tileable materials from components such as cloud noise, Voronoi, gradients, bricks, math, blending, and normal nodes. It can also convert PNG, JPEG, or WebP albedo images into editable base-color, height, normal, roughness, metallic, and ambient-occlusion maps. A live Babylon.js preview shows materials on a sphere, cube, plane, or production-style model, with full-result and channel views. Work can be done at 512, 1024, or 2048 pixels while preserving the source aspect ratio. Projects are stored in IndexedDB with recovery, generated-map caching, undo and redo, and keyboard save shortcuts. Exports include individual PNG maps or validated .mmpack packages with baked maps, the source graph, a manifest, and an export report. The standalone viewer opens these packages in browser memory. The tool has no account system, telemetry, or material upload service. It is free under the MIT License, which permits commercial use if the copyright and license notice remain with the software.

Material Maker is an open-source tool for authoring procedural PBR materials with node graphs and exporting them for game engines and movie assets. It supports static and dynamic PBR, raymarching, and dynamic unlit materials. The official site lists more than 200 nodes; users can create nodes by combining existing ones or describing them in GLSL. Materials can be exported for Godot, Unity, and Unreal Engine. Unreal requires extra steps: Unreal Engine 4 needs manual material setup, while Unreal Engine 5 uses a generated Python script that must be run in Unreal. The tool provides 2D and 3D previews, image and spritesheet export, and loading of custom OBJ models. An experimental procedural-brush feature can texture 3D models. A website library offers community materials, nodes, brushes, and environments. Material Maker runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It is free through Itch.io, with a Steam plan at $14.99 as a one-time purchase. Its code uses the MIT License and assets use Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal.