Ubisoft Just Gave Away Their AI Texturing Model
Ubisoft just open-sourced CHORD, an AI model that turns any image into PBR maps, plus key updates from Gaea, Substance 3D Designer, and Moonlake.
The end of year is nearing yet we're still getting some exciting new announcements, previews, and releases!
No new video this week but here's the weekly roundup of changes in tools and technology that are shaping the future of worldbuilding and creative work.
NEW TECH UPDATES
1. Ubisoft R&D Open Sources CHORD
Ubisoft's R&D team released CHORD (Chain of Rendering Decomposition), an open-source model that extracts PBR maps from a single image. Feed it a photo or AI-generated image and it outputs Albedo, Normal, Roughness, and Height maps.
By releasing the code and weights publicly, Ubisoft is effectively accelerating texturing pipelines (should it work as promised). For artists, this means you can now take a Midjourney concept or a photo and extract usable, physically accurate material data for Unreal or Blender in seconds.
We’ve had image-to-material tools/workflows before but they tend to guess at surface properties and consistently produce that plastic sheen where everything looks wet.
CHORD is trained on actual rendering decomposition (breaking down how light interacts with surfaces) so the maps are more physically accurate. Extracted quote from their PR:
“Although the quality isn’t where it needs to be for AAA video games material, it shows a lot of promise, and I’m confident it’s only a matter of time before it delivers the expected results.”
Weights and code are public now, and you can even access them directly within ComfyUI but it will probably show up in Blender add-ons soon as well. This likely will work on some material types much better than others but let me know in a reply to this email if you'd like a dedicated video testing this one out.
2. Gaea 3.0 Now in Active Development
QuadSpinner announced Gaea 3.0 has entered active development with the exciting promise of no longer locking you to a single terrain tile.
Previously larger environments meant stitching tiles manually and fighting blend seams. The new TOR Engine 3.0 supports continuous world-space workflows at whatever scale you need.
The update also adds vector drawing tools for placing rivers, roads, and lakes directly instead of coaxing procedural erosion to cooperate and 2.7D displacement that breaks the heightmap limitation to allow overhangs and caves.
They are targeting a 2026 release, will keep you updated as they roll out early access.
Check out Gaea 3.0.
3. Substance 3D Designer 15.1 Releases
Adobe redesigned the graph creation window to make starting new projects less confusing. Templates now show thumbnail previews with detailed tooltips, and they’re organized into categories (materials, filters, scan processing) so you can find what you need without guessing.
As part of the redesign, Adobe added a set of sample materials in response to requests for better learning resources. Fabrics (leather, satin), wood, metal, plastic, ceramic, and others.
Each graph is annotated, uses a minimal number of nodes, and is organized to show how the main node families work together. There are also advanced samples for FX-map and Pixel processor if you want to dig into those.
The noise system got practical updates too. Nodes now support non-tiling scenarios properly (previously they were forced to tile regardless), most noises have additional parameters, and bit depth is no longer locked to 16-bit meaning you can override it per node instance.
Check out the release notes here.
4. Moonlake Generative Game Engine
Moonlake came out of stealth this week to introduce Reverie: their Game-Native Diffiusion Model. Unlike current text-to-3D tools that output static meshes for you to import, Moonlake claims to generate interactive systems with physics, collision, and object permanence already built in.
The problem they're trying to solve is that video-generation AI hallucinates. Objects tend to drift, environments shift when the camera moves, and nothing persists between frames. While you may be able to get away with this in video, this clearly presents a problem for games.
Moonlake's "programmable world model" is designed to maintain consistent world state over time, so if it works as they claim (which is a big if), you would theoretically be able to generate playable spaces rather than assets you need to assemble yourself.
Beta opens Q1 2026, so nothing to test yet but I’ll keep you updated.
Check out Moonlake.
Don't miss what's next
The next issue drops soon.