Meshy, a company whose AI makes 3D models from a typed description or a picture, has a new tool for the step that gives a model its look: the texture, meaning the colors and surface patterns that cover a 3D shape. Called N1, it has been open in Meshy's web app since Oct. 30, and the company announced it on Nov. 3. Meshy built it for makers of games with simple, stylized graphics, who need dozens of props, characters and pieces of scenery in one style.
Meshy says most AI coloring tools, including its own Meshy 7, work from flat pictures. They make several flat pictures of the object from different angles and wrap them onto the 3D shape. Where those pictures meet or disagree, Meshy says, colors can bleed from one part into the next and details can land in the wrong place. Those seams and misplaced details have to be fixed by hand in a 3D program such as Blender, which Meshy says slows the work. N1 makes the color directly on the surface of the 3D model instead, so there are no pictures to blend, and Meshy says far fewer seams to fix.
Meshy says a game piece shaped by its T2 tool, which builds the 3D shape, and colored by N1 is ready in about 20 seconds, roughly three times faster than with Meshy 7. To guide the colors, users upload one picture, or pictures of the front, back, left and right. N1 is now the default for shapes made with Meshy's T-series tools. Meshy says every registered user can use it, free accounts included, at the same price as Meshy 7 in the credits Meshy's plans give out each month.
N1 has clear limits. Meshy says N1 is tuned for a stylized look with clean blocks of color and gives up some fine detail for speed. For lifelike or highly detailed models, Meshy still points users to Meshy 7. For now, N1 makes only the base colors, not the extra layers that tell a game how shiny, metallic or bumpy a surface should look. Its colors also carry a faint built-in shadow, which Meshy says is on purpose because it looks better in simple game graphics.
Meshy's claims of cleaner results rest on its own internal tests, and it has not shared the details. Meshy calls N1 the first in its N series of coloring tools.