Octopus Vertex Color

Octopus Vertex Color is a production-focused Blender add-on for creating, editing, managing, randomizing, and baking vertex color data directly inside Blender.

Designed for artists and technical artists, it streamlines workflows for shader masks, material blending, color IDs, ambient occlusion, stylized gradients, asset variation, baked lighting, and texture-free rendering.

Features

Color Attribute Management

Manage Blender Color Attributes from a single panel.

• Create, duplicate, rename, and delete color attributes

• Quickly switch the active color set

• Keep the selected attribute visible and render-active

• Ideal for packed masks, shader inputs, and game-ready assets

Vertex Painting & Fill Tools

Paint or fill vertex colors across one or multiple meshes.

• Paint selected vertices or faces

• Fill entire objects

• Multi-object support

• Independent RGBA channel editing

• Preserve untouched channels during editing

Perfect for packed mask workflows without overwriting existing data.

Gradient Tools

Generate directional vertex color gradients with ease.

• Adjustable gradient angle

• Axis presets

• Two-color gradients

• Multi-object support

Great for:

• Height masks

• Material blending

• Stylized shading

• Dirt and wear masks

• Environmental effects

Channel Editing

Edit packed RGBA data directly.

• Fill individual channels

• White, black, or grey fills

• Swap channels

• Invert channels

• Direct RGBA editing

Ideal for workflows where individual channels drive roughness, metallic, wear, dirt, blend masks, or custom shader inputs.

Fill Presets

Create reusable RGBA presets for common workflows.

Each preset can store any combination of R, G, B, and A values. Channels left empty remain untouched, allowing partial updates without overwriting existing data.

Perfect for:

• Material IDs

• Roughness masks

• Metallic masks

• Team standards

• PBR helper values

Presets can be exported and imported as JSON for easy sharing across projects or teams.

Color Favorites

Save frequently used colors for quick reuse.

Useful for:

• Project palettes

• Material IDs

• Stylized workflows

• Consistent color libraries

Favorites persist across Blender sessions.

Randomization Tools

Generate automatic color variation by:

• Object

• Mesh element

• Connected component

• UV island

Perfect for modular environments, foliage, props, stylized assets, and reducing visible repetition.

Baking Tools

Generate useful vertex color data directly inside Blender.

Ambient Occlusion

Bake ray-traced ambient occlusion into vertex colors.

Ideal for:

• Mobile assets

• Lightweight rendering

• Texture-free workflows

• Stylized assets

ID Maps

Generate clean random ID colors for:

• Objects

• Connected mesh components

• UV islands

Designed for Substance Painter and other texturing pipelines requiring unique selection masks.

Lighting

Bake simple lighting information directly into vertex colors.

Useful for stylized environments, quick previews, vertex-lit assets, and lightweight rendering.

Texture to Vertex Color

Bake material texture colors into vertex colors.

Great for:

• Converting textured assets into vertex-colored assets

• Creating low-memory variants

• Optimizing game assets

Works best with clean UVs and existing material textures.

Debug Tools

Inspect precise RGBA values using the built-in Vertex Color Sampler.

Useful when verifying packed masks, exported assets, or exact channel values.

View Presets

Quickly switch viewport settings for inspecting vertex colors and material response while authoring assets.

Typical Workflows

Octopus Vertex Color is ideal for:

• Packing shader masks into RGBA channels

• Creating Substance Painter ID maps

• Baking ambient occlusion into vertex colors

• Baking textures into vertex colors

• Creating stylized gradients

• Adding variation to modular assets

• Managing multiple color attributes

• Preparing assets for Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot, and custom engines

Compatibility

• Blender 5.0+

• Tested with Blender 5.1

• Uses Blender Color Attributes

• No external dependencies

Installation

1. Download the add-on ZIP.

2. Open Edit → Preferences → Add-ons.

3. Click Install from Disk.

4. Select the ZIP file.

5. Enable Octopus Vertex Color.

Open the 3D Viewport Sidebar (N) and select the Octopus Vtx tab to begin.

Notes

• A mesh object must be selected for most tools.

• A color attribute must exist before painting, filling, baking, or sampling.

• Many tools support multi-object workflows.

• Texture baking requires valid UVs and material textures.

• Fill Presets only modify channels that contain values.

• Object Mode fill operations affect the entire selected mesh.

Support

When reporting an issue, please include:

• Blender version

• Octopus Vertex Color version

• Description of the problem

• Steps to reproduce

• Screenshots or a sample file if available

Octopus Vertex Color is built to make professional vertex color workflows faster, cleaner, and more efficient—whether you're creating stylized art, optimizing game assets, or building complex shader masks directly inside Blender.