Looking for Substance abusers...I mean 'users'
NGartplay
Posts: 3,109
You know who you are...those of you who are addicted to and love to work with Substance Painter and Designer.
So, I'm trying to learn to use Substance Painter (to be known as SP henceforth) so that I will never again make the fatal flaw of converting 3Delight textures to Iray the incorrect/lazy way. Nobody wants that, right?
I have purchased tutorials and have watched Youtube vids until my eyes need propping open. I'm making a clothing set and thought this a great opportunity to use them as guinea pigs for my attempts at hi-rez in ZBrush (which I'm learning at the same time) to use for making normal maps and PBR textures in SP.
Been working on textures for the dress and have something that looks alright so far but I've run into a problem and all the videos I've watched don't explain how to fix issues; only how to create. I'm hoping that it's an easy answer and maybe someone here can supply it.
Will explain my workflow in case it makes a difference then will explain what I want to change.
Modeled an outfit and selected material zones in the modeler. Uv mapped and saved out as a low poly version. Took it into ZBrush and made some wrinkles to add character to the pieces. I also added stitches in ZB which I've found out I should do in SP instead. I'll have to remove those.
In SP I baked the textures and made the normal map with the hi-res ZB version. Went ahead and made some textures. So here I am.
What I would like the change is to take two of my 6 dress material zones and combine them into one zone so that I only have 5 mat zones. This is easy enough in my modeler but then I don't know how to save my already created materials so I can apply them to the fixed mat zone dress obj.
Question one then is: Can you, inside of SP, combine two mat zones into one zone?
Question two is: If you can not combine two mat zones into one zone and I need to bring in a new object file is there a way to save and apply my materials that I've already made in SP?
I also have two other mat zones that create a seam where I have no special geometry. This works great if you are using the same material for both zones as there's no seam then but if you use two different materials it looks unfinished. I now wish that I had added a modeled in seam here. This is another example of needing to bring in a different obj.
Thanks for any suggestions
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Comments
Thank you to open this thread.
I have now SP in my workflow, but had no so much time to learn it.
All the little tests I made are not conclusive (not enought time to learn the program and above all, any experience in the UV mapping skill).
There are a few great users here who can teach us a lot of things about SP... allo Tango???
I don't make clothes, so there may be some things that require different treatment or processes.
1. I don't know of a way to combine material zones from within SP.
The issue here is that SP creates a texture sheet for each mat zone. Generally I like to be efficient and keep the number of texture sheets to a minimum, thus UVs try to make efficient use of space. If I can fit an entire prop into one map, regardless of the number of zones, I'll try to do it. If the prop is small enough I'll fit two or more to a sheet. I don't have ZBrush, so I can't comment on what that might do to a UV or a mat zone.
In Carrara I save two versions of the prop: the normal one, which is what I'll export for DS, and a special "painter version" This is the one that I strip down to a single shading domain: In the vertex modeller go to the Global tab and just delete all the domains except one. Then rename that last domain to be the same name as the prop. (this is important, because this is the filename that SP will use for the texture sheets, and if you call everything "Texture_0" (a) you won't know what the sheets are for and (b) SP will overwrite them without warning next time you export.)
Export your prop for SP. I always use DXF, because for some reason SP doesn't like OBJ files on my system. DO NOT SAVE THIS FILE IN CARRARA! (or Zbrush etc. at least call it something different if you do. You don't want to be starting from scratch recreating all your shading domains!
When you've exported from SP, you'll have a nice set of maps with all your textures for all your domains. Reload the original prop and start applying the textures. You can apply the same maps to each domain, at least the core maps - colour, bump/normal etc. and just tweak the other settings appropriate to each material.
Sorry, I didn't answer your second question. In SP, go to Edit->Project Configuration. From this dialog you can update your mesh, and then it's a matter of copying and pasting your material stacks. You'll have to re-bake your AO etc maps too, but that's not a big deal. Remember Save As so you don't lose the old version in case it goes titsup.
Thank you Tango. I too worried about all the maps being created and thought that I'd layer all the maps from one uv map in my raster program and create one map each for each uv. As it is now I have three separate uv maps for all the clothing items so that would be a lot less than all the texture maps if I combined them. Example is sandals and dress are one uv map. I would take all the normal maps for these items, layer, erase areas and create one normal map, one diffuse, one AO, etc.
Can I just save my materials I created and start from scratch with a new .dxf or obj?
I guess I'm a bit confused still about the steps you outlined. Can I reiterate? In my modeler I delete all existing mat zones but leave one mat zone that contains the entire clothing item. I export from my modeler as a .dxf being sure to name it something different so it doesn't overwrite. I'm not sure what to do next. I have an existing .spp file with my work in progress. How do I bring in the new .dxf one and still keep my shading domain showing and the materials I created for them? ...Edit->Project Configuration? If so, do I then have to rebake before applying the materials or after?
I think you are going to lose your existing materials if you update the object model to one with just a single material zone, but I agree with @TangoAlpha that it's the best way to do it (in fact I learned it from him and now it's the only way I do it unless I really really really need a 4K texture on more than one material)
Before changing your model, to save each of your materials do the following:
Now, you should
You can see in my attached image below an example project. I've just got a single material zone but used folders and masks as outlined above to put seven different materials on different parts of it, which will export all on one map (well, not one map since there will be a base_color, roughness, metallic, etc. but you know what I mean).
It may seem like a pain to create the masks, but the Poly Fill tool usually makes pretty quick work of it.
The options for the polygon fill tool, from left-to-right:
You can also select in empty space and drag to box select in both the 3D and 2D views with any of the above options selected.
MDO, that's really helpful too. I've saved Tango's and your info in one text file and will give this a try. Much appreciation.
This (Substance Painter) just looks like such an amazing tool!
This shows the bench I donated to the animation project. It's a pretty straightforward model with two shading domains - bench and base. In SP I used black masks - as MDO describes above - to limit each material to the polys I wanted. ("Fill UV" and click in the islands). I used smart materials, which are material stacks and have layered effects built in such as grunge and edge weathering. There are lots of dials to tweak and change how it looks. For the base and legs I used a "painted metal", which lets me control the amount of show-through between paint and metal layers. I made a copy of the material and used different settings for the legs compared to the base.
There's lots of pre-built materials you can get from the Substance Share and Substance Store websites, plus you can build your own through Substance Designer. And of course you can 3d paint over the top, with loads of brushes, stencils etc.
I'm loving this program. Played around with it all last night. Getting a better understanding and the explanations here are a big help. Thankis all.
A different question. Can I take the .ssp file I'e saved, copy it on another computer and open it in SP on that other computer or do I need to locate the texture pngs and move them over too?
Reading this thread, I really should add SP to my toolbox.
Yup, Edit/Project Configuration...update your mesh. If you have taken two materials and made them into one you will lose one of them upon importing/updating to SP. What you can do is group all of your wanted layers into a folder, then right click on that folder and Create Smart Material. Then once you update your mesh you can import your "smart material" and all you have to do is update your masking!
Hey, thanks DED. Lots of options here. Definitely going to do the one mat zone thing in the future. Did make a dress obj with 5 mat zones and will try bringing it in via edit.
What I'm finding with my existing .ssp file is that my slow computer is bogging down because of all the maps (due to many mat zones). I'm going to assume that one mat zone will reduce the number of textures files and stop the bogging down of the computer. I'm down to the small details, like stitches, and each little change takes forever to process. I see why one mat zone is the way to go.
Anyone thinking of picking this software up should view all the different Youtube vids to get an idea if it will help with their workflow. I grabbed the entire 3 software pack for a very low price during a sale. What I'm hearing now is that a lot of people are suggesting that you buy the subscription for these products instead of the softwares themselves. Not sure but I think that you only pay for what you use then.
Sometimes it helps to reduce the texture size in SP while you work. In the TextureSet Settings you can lower the size while you are working and bump it back up when you export. If that gets in the way of seeing the details you are painting you can also click the little circle next to a layer to hide it - hide ones you are not currently working on and things will really speed up.
Yes - the subscription is a great deal. You get all three of Allegorithmic's programs with constant updates to the latest version, plus 30 free materials per month from the new Substance Source site. You can start and stop the subscription any time you want and whenever you stop, you can apply whatever you have already paid in monthly fees toward the purchase of the software. It's really more "rent-to-own" than a subscription.
I also have the subscription. Unlike Photoshop etc, where you are only ever renting, with the SP subscription it's basically hire purchase, so after 18 (I think) payments, you own it. (and of course, for those of us that use it for work, it's deductible anyway)
Yeah... that's really cool of them. getting their tools into the hands of artists without asking them to quit feeding their kids... great plan!
Adobe made me just look the other way entirely, never to return - I thought I'd miss PS, but I don't.
I came across this free app (its in beta now) http://www.pixaflux.com/
Looks like its certainly not as advanced as Substance, but it can do some pretty cool things with normal maps. I'll post this over in the free software thread too.
That's a very cool looking ap. Creation with vectors right inside the program. Wonder how long it takes to get as fast as the person making the video? Makes it look simple :)
A new question. I was trying to paint on the uv map and I used the rotate command and it rotated my uv map so it is no longer square/parallel to the screen. Does this mean that I permanently changed my uv map or is it just a 'view' thing? Can I reset it back to normal?
It's just the display. Shift-Alt-Left mouse button will get you back to square.
Thanks :)
Also, I moved my .ssp file to another computer and saved out the texture files. Almost all of them were blank/transparent. Did I miss moving some needed files with it?
I'm also using the one mat zone trick on my second clothing item. Love that it makes only one set of textures but I'm still awkward working with the polyfill and uv map.
Anyone know the answer to the above question about moving to another computer?
No, sorry. Never done it.
Sorry - I have no idea either. Everything I can find says that the textures are all saved in the project file - the only thing that isn't is the hi-res version of the mesh (assuming you used Substance to bake maps from one, the project just keeps a reference to it).
Thanks guys, I'll have to experiment some more. Probably user error.
Here's another multi-material prop I just textured in SP. The label and pressure dial were added in Photoshop, but otherwise it's as is. Rendered in Carrara using a single shading domain. I put the metallic map in the reflection channel at 30% and roughness into the Shininess channel with "invert" checked. Maps are 1k x 1k. (I exported the from SP at 2K, and shrunk them in Photoshop after adding the text).
When you create the UVs for something like this, it pays to check that the map is square - ie there's no distortion - and that the seam is well away from where the label will go.
Great job on that Tango. I love the rubber hose mat and the label came out nicely.
I've been using the one mat zone trick for my objects. I'm fussing with masks still a bit but I'm getting the hang of it slowly. Think I only have 3 more objects to do but because my materials vary from project to project (each object is a project) they may not match well after they're done. Probably need some color fixes in PS.
I have some more questions. When poly mode is on and you are selecting polys is it possible to unselect a poly that you mistakenly clicked on?
Also, is I change the uv map of my object can I bring it into my working project and apply it?
Thanks