Forge Material Studio vs Mixos Paint

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.

Mixos Paint is a browser-based tool for painting layered PBR materials onto 3D models, with brushes, geometry-driven smart masks, and live viewport updates. Layers support blend modes, opacity, and separate controls for color, height, roughness, and metallic channels. Smart masks can generate effects such as edge wear, curvature, grime, and cavity. The app imports GLB, glTF, FBX, and OBJ models, and lists 2,669 ready-made PBR materials; users can import their own material libraries. Painting is free without a time limit, but exporting finished texture maps requires a paid plan or license. Paid exports include PBR maps up to 4K and presets for Blender, Unreal, Unity, Godot, Cinema 4D, Maya, and Houdini. The free desktop app's Live Link streams changing maps to Blender, Cinema 4D, and Unreal. Pro costs $8.99/mo, Max costs $17.99/mo, and a Pro license costs $99 once. Mixos says editing runs on the user's device, but it has no certifications or uptime guarantee.