After last year's positive reception to 8monkey's release of Toolbag, we've decided to make some major additions and updates. Behold, version 1.0:

http://www.8monkeylabs.com/toolbag

For those of you who don't know, Toolbag is a realtime material editor and presentation tool, based on our Marmoset engine. It's a quick way to preview your work in a realtime engine (and we do mean quick). We think you'll find it presents your work in a most flattering way. v1.0 has several new features not present in the previous release, most notably:

* Dynamic light creation and editing
* Saveable scene files (save all your toolbag settings)
* Several new sky lighting presets
* Expanded post effects, including SSAO, DOF, and vignette
* Improved light and shadow accuracy and detail
* Expanded material options, including gloss maps and translucency
* New debug & compositing render modes, preview options
* Greatly improved and reorganized user interface
* A bit of stank on it

And that's just the stuff we can remember. The trial version is a free download so by all means everyone go check it out post-haste. We think you'll like it.

polycount is getting the early heads up here, you guys are the first to hear about this. If there are any troubles with the thing let us know at toolbag@8monkeylabs.com or on this thread.


- The 8monkey Team

omg is right, this looks great. Thanks again for sharing this, lots of artists I know use the toolkit, and now its even better

Whoo hoo, I started using it

Originally Posted by jeffdr

For those of you who don't know

Likely a small percentage, Marmoset rivals the UDK in terms of render popularity on this forum I think.

edit: and rightfully so, shit's pretty.

Okay now I just have to get this! UDK for model presentation is a bit clunky and time consuming, this looks amazing

Frontpaged. Nice one guys, thanks for letting Polycount be the first to know ;)

Originally Posted by MoP

Frontpaged. Nice one guys, thanks for letting Polycount be the first to know ;)

Thanks MoP ;-)

Wow, thats awesome ! I got a couple questions though. Since new free version is 20 day trial, is it illegal to use old marmoset ? I can't check it right now, but like to know does it support glow/emmisive maps ? Last thing is there going to be animation/particle exporter for 3ds max ?

I'm gonna drop myself right in the firing line and be 'that guy' now...

Why the expiration on the watermarked version?

Let me just clarify that yes, the model viewer is awesome, produces fantastic results (even on my crap), and I appreciate that a lot of people worked hard on it. But I'm curious as to why an individual would pay $50 for a model viewer/presentation tool, when UDK / Xoliul's shader does the same thing for free. Admittedly some stuff does look nicer in Marmoset, but whether it looks $50 nicer, I'm not sure.

I mean yeah, for volume licenses, or unmarked versions then a $50 one time seems realistic, but to limit the use of the watermarked version to 20 days seems like an odd decision.

I think the $50 price is to compete with the 3 point shader.
http://www.3pointstudios.com/3points...purchase.shtml

Originally Posted by ZacD

I think the $50 price is to compete with the 3 point shader.
http://www.3pointstudios.com/3points...purchase.shtml

Yeah I guess, although the free version of 3Point doesn't expire.

I dunno why but I always assumed a lot of the guys from 3 Point were also involved in 8Monkey Labs too...

I was so happy and excited when i saw this thread, im glad it could be destroyed so quickly when i saw that theres a price on it. Not going to even bother with the 20 day trial, ill get sucked into it and be even more bummed when i cant get it. The most valuable free software to any modeler just got more awesome and it now is no longer the free godsend that it was before. It prances off in the mist just like any other paid software and no longer stands out from the crowd as freeware. Of course i can go back to the old toolbag, but it wont be the same knowing theres something more amazing.

@Creation22 neither does the older version of the toolbag

Frell, You're so dramatic, I like it.

@frell: How dare you sir. How dare you.

But seriously we weighed a bunch of options for the free/lite/trial version, and we came up with this. We feel with all the work we've been putting into the tool a little love needs to come back to us. We were drunk, or something, I dunno. If everyone truly hates the current evaluation setup then maybe we'll reconsider, but not yet.

And as far as the old version, well it's not really supported by 8monkey. Actually, it was never really supported by 8monkey. But you are of course free to keep using it.

The new version does support glow/emmissive maps, among many other things.

And yea we know some of the 3point guys and have worked with them, but we're not the same studio.

That IBL is SHIT HOT. Its so nice to see matte surfaces looking that hot
Id love to know if 8Monkey are using this renderer/shading system in production or if its just a pimped out setup for previews

Frel: Dont be a plonker, next to the price of all the other tools a 3D artist uses everyday this is peanuts. Especially considering how important good presentation is.

Is the pay version Node locked or can you install it on multiple systems, using only 1 at a time.

Looks great guys, really nice changes by the sound of things. But that 50 dollar price point is too high for me when UDK is free, or old Toolbag, or Max viewport shaders. 25 bucks and I would have got it but 50 for me personally isnt a reasonable investment. Feel the same with 8monkeys shader.

But to each his own.

you mean 3Points shader

Id much prefer a lite version rather than a trial :P

Originally Posted by r_fletch_r

Is the pay version Node locked or can you install it on multiple systems, using only 1 at a time.

Pay version is node locked, but we provide a tool to switch the license between machines if you need to.

Like the new love this is getting.

At first I was like >=( when I read you had to pay for it...

...then I actually opened it up and played with it... And I will admit it. You guys REALLY deserve the money for it. You've figured out how to make an awesome product even more awesome. The new interface is great, I love adding new lights.. I love all the new options. I'm gonna use up the free trial..and probably gonna force myself to drop the money to buy it. I applaud! Thanks again, guys.

50 buck? Im not earning USD and to convert it is pain the ***

Very cool, i liek the new light capacity, shadows are working better on my end.

I have one remark tough, i use d1save script for photoshop to save multiple tga maps from one psd with layergroups. And by default it saves with compress (rle) on.

Apparently, toolbag doesn't suport compress (rle) option in tga files, and it's kind of a bother to uncheck that everytime you save. manualy (because the script is on always)

Oh and i saw the psd support, pretty cool too, but if your file is kinda heavy it's slow to see the result, tga is way better combined with auto reload texture on..

[EDIT] I edited the script so it works now, but it would be kind in to have toolbag support it in a next version, just to avoid that kinda worries.

For those who have the same problem: edit d1vSaveTGA.jsx and add "tgaSaveOptions.rleCompression = false" (without quotes) after the "tgaSaveOptions.alphaChannels = false" line

Awesome stuff. Didn't use the original much, as you couldn't add any lights and this was a killer for me for environment work and i see you now added this functionality Is there any vertex colour blending supported, for blending between textures?

Can you save out a video of the turntable or do you have to use FRAPS or something similar?