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  • Published 8 Oct 2025

why nobody cares about triplanar shader node?

I can't believe that nobody seems to care about a way to do the triplanar projection on an object... Maybe it's because the major part of the users are working for VFX and Games which requires UVmapping by default. But in archviz the triplanar mapping is a staple that you can't live without, and the box mapping that is integrated in the texture image node isn't a good solution becasue it breaks when the texture is rotated. Please consider adding a proper triplanar mapping node for a better usability in Archviz industry.

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Development Status: Open

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rikkarlo
8 Oct 2025

5 Comments

maxime1

You can easily build a triplanar projection in Shaders and many people have done it and shared it for the community to download. Yet I agree, these nodes require to get inside of it to change the image texture you'd like to have as a triplanar projection, AND the nodes from the community are hard to find online, since you need to make your own researchs etc..

Please note that developpers are planning on adding a new way of sharing node groups/assets from the community in a common place. Also the current development of Blender will allow to make the triplanar workflow much easier in the future : Blender 5.0 adds the Bundle and Closures nodes, in Geometry Nodes AND Shaders. To summarize quickly, Closures allow you to build a function and use it from the outside of a node group to anywhere inside the node group, and Bundles allow you to pack all of your node links into a singular link. And to make it more interesting, it's not here yet, but they're planning on adding Images as Input data types to Shader sooner or later, so you could have an image texture node inside a node group, and be able to change it from the outside.

When this gets release, you will very soon get 'easy to use' real triplanar nodes from the community, or even maybe as an official 'Essential Library' node from the Blender devs

4
CraigJones

That will make a lot more possible as far as using the Compositor as an input into the Shader using that method.

1
rikkarlo Author

That's good news! I would have hoped for a total rework of the way blender handles material creation and application, but it's already a step forward in the right direction, thanks for the update!

rikkarlo Author

any news about these implementations you were talking about? I'd really love to make a geonodes based modifier that applies a true triplanar projection to the selected object but I can't make it happend yet. In the meantime I've found a workaround and made a plugin that converts the selected material to a true triplanar setup by grouping the material inside an instanced group, in this way iI can manipulate the maps only once I'll share it here as soon it's polished.

maxime1

Hey! There is a PR for trying to have image as input in Shaders, this is still experimental but it's a step closer to single nodes Tiplanar projection. Unfortunately, there is no real news about the Extension platform update for assets such as node groups from the community, but recently in Blender TODAY, Pablo mentionned it was confirmed and they're gonna talk about it when the time comes.

Here's the PR btw : projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/151575