My Learning Project for Painter

[deepwater3d]

Greets! -Unity artist/ Painter new user here. This is the model I am going to use to try and learn SP. Any tips before I start? First question: Is an auto-UV-Layout a suitable way to save this file for import to painter? I'll hit the tutorials prett y hard for the next couple of days but wanted to make a first post. Hopefully this is a fun learning experience..

Thanks

[Wes McDermott]

Hello,

Please let us know if you have any questions as you work with Substance Painter.

You can start with an auto UV layout to begin. Substance Painter can reproject the UVs later when you re-work the UVs for a better layout. As with any texturing, you will get the best results with a UV layout that maximizes the UV space to proved enough texel resolution.

Cheers,

Wes

[elowan]

 

You can start with an auto UV layout to begin. Substance Painter can reproject the UVs later when you re-work the UVs for a better layout. As with any texturing, you will get the best results with a UV layout that maximizes the UV space to proved enough texel resolution.

Cheers,

Wes

Do you have some good hints or tutorials on that topic?

I would just make UVs as big and as evenly distributed as possible on the canvas .... I am a beginner, also

Cheers

[Wes McDermott]

 

You can start with an auto UV layout to begin. Substance Painter can reproject the UVs later when you re-work the UVs for a better layout. As with any texturing, you will get the best results with a UV layout that maximizes the UV space to proved enough texel resolution.

Cheers,

Wes

Do you have some good hints or tutorials on that topic?

I would just make UVs as big and as evenly distributed as possible on the canvas .... I am a beginner, also

Cheers

Hi,

Here is an example. I've attached two images. The first image has a torso that has it's UV shell rather small in the 0-1 UV space. Imagine that both images are 2K maps. In the first image, the UV shells can only utilize about 814 px wide in a 2048x2048 document. A lot of texel resolution is wasted.

In example 02, the UV shell has been resized to fill as much texel resolution as possible and is utilize about 1891 px wide out of the 2048.

In Substance Painter, or any texturing application for that matter, you will get better resolution depending on how much texels you give a UV shell. The more the better.

It really comes down to a good layout. In the case of a character, you may want or need to place all of the UV shells in the 0-1 space, which will make you place shells rather small. In this case, it can be tough to get around the resolution issue. That is why you would break the character into separate mesh parts so that you can layout the UVs more optimally. Mainly in film projects, characters will use UV tiles (not tiling) but place UVs in separate tiled sections of the single UV set. For example tile 1 = 0-1 space tile 2 = 1-2 space and so on. Then you can target a texture to utilize a specific section or tile of the UV set.

Substance Painter doesn't work with multiple UV tiles, but it will support down the road. The multiple material support is coming very soon and you will be able to break up a mesh into multiple parts as you can in SD.

Cheers,

Wes

[elowan]

Ok, what is a 0-1 UV space?!

I just unwrap mesh-parts (marked with seams beforehand) to an image-canvas and position/re-scale them to fit. then I save this (texture) image. Areas like a characters face would get som more space aka scaled bigger, than maybe the foot or something...

Do you mean you do "Pack Islands" or something like that to layer UV´s in layers 1,2,3 and so on?!

Sorry I am fairly new to all this stuff 

[Wes McDermott]

Ok, what is a 0-1 UV space?!

I just unwrap mesh-parts (marked with seams beforehand) to an image-canvas and position/re-scale them to fit. Areas like a characters face would get som more space aka scaled bigger, than maybe the foot or something...

Sorry I am fairly new to all this stuff 

No problem 

A UV set has a space where the UVs are contained. It is measured from 0 - 1 and is square. Here is a screen shot of Maya's UV Editor that has the 0-1 numbers visible. Every 3D program works this way. If you place UVs outside of this range, it will cause the texture to repeat. So you can scale or move UVs outside of the 0-1 range. One method of tiling a texture is to actually scale the UVs so they are larger than the 0-1 range (outside the grid in the attached image).

Cheers,

Wes

[elowan]

Ahhhh, ok that explains it 

The other methode would be projecting single parts of a mesh to single UV-texture-canvas and save, repeat for next mesh-parts, so one get multi UVed-areas onto a single mesh ?!

Cheers!

[Wes McDermott]

Ahhhh, ok that explains it 

The other methode would be projecting single parts of a mesh to single UV-texture-canvas and save, repeat for next mesh-parts, so one get multi UVed-areas onto a single mesh ?!

Cheers!

Yes, that's right. If you break a mesh into multiple parts, each part can have it's own UV space where you can make sure to maximize the UV shells for texturing. Substance Painter will very soon work with this setup.

You could also create multiple UV sets in a single mesh and then target different textures to use the specific set. Another method is to use UV Tiles (not tiling like seamless images). This is where you have a single UV set and you place UVs in a tile. So 0-1 is tile one and then you can place UVs out side 0-1 grid. Basically, just keep placing them to the right. So it would be 1-2 and so on.

Here's an image of what UV Tiles looks like. Substance Painter will support this in the future.

Cheers,

Wes

[elowan]

Cool, but dont know if blender supports UV-Tiles or more than 1 UV-Space per mesh, hehehe...

What are the real-life situations, one would need this? I mean, normally unwrap everything to a 2048x2048 canvas will do 

[deepwater3d]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the Welcome Wes. Your videos are a big help! I'm intrigued by the remapping options down the line. Is it possible that say I work certain polygons more than others, that I can create a UV map inside Painter that has more space for more detailed polygons, and less space for areas I havent worked?
Despite this having a lot of squarish sides, its actually not at all easy to automatically UV. Well it is, but I hink the UV map speaks for itself. So ideally I can work the edges, and create larger UV spaces for worked areas, and less space for unworked areas? Is that possible?

Edit: This is just the Pyramid base btw

[Wes McDermott]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the Welcome Wes. Your videos are a big help! I'm intrigued by the remapping options down the line. Is it possible that say I work certain polygons more than others, that I can create a UV map inside Painter that has more space for more detailed polygons, and less space for areas I havent worked?
Despite this having a lot of squarish sides, its actually not at all easy to automatically UV. Well it is, but I hink the UV map speaks for itself. So ideally I can work the edges, and create larger UV spaces for worked areas, and less space for unworked areas? Is that possible?

Edit: This is just the Pyramid base btw

Hi,

You can't create the UVs in Painter at this time. You can start with a UV layout like what you posted. Then, if you change the UV layout, SP will reproject all strokes to the new layout. You need to supply a normal map as well. So at this time, you could start with mesh and automatic layout. Paint away. Then, change the layout. At this point, you would bake a normal map as well. This will be streamlined in the future. When you go to Edit>Project Configuration, you supply the mesh with new UVs and normal map and SP will do the rest.

The idea is to give the areas of focus the most space in the UV layout.

Please check this video.

https://vimeo.com/93528890

[deepwater3d]

I'm new to Substance Designer too but it soon became clear that using substance files in Unity is amazing.

First Substance in Unity.