Substance Painter Brush and Workflow Problem

[contact_32]

Mesh is exported from Unreal Engine, then Blender, and then to Substance Painter, the mesh has reflection which creates hard edges in the reflection and the brush tangent space doesn't allow the brush to flow on the surface properly, when you slide brush over the reflection acts like a stencil which impacts your brush strokes, the brush strokes bulge along the reflection edges and does not maintain the desired strokes.

The Video Below Shows the Reproduction Steps and the Problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Aa1MJpA8xM

[Wes McDermott]

Mesh is exported from Unreal Engine, then Blender, and then to Substance Painter, the mesh has reflection which creates hard edges in the reflection and the brush tangent space doesn't allow the brush to flow on the surface properly, when you slide brush over the reflection acts like a stencil which impacts your brush strokes, the brush strokes bulge along the reflection edges and does not maintain the desired strokes.

The Video Below Shows the Reproduction Steps and the Problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Aa1MJpA8xM

Hello,

First, I must say that is the best video I've seen for showcasing a problem. The music was great.

I'm wondering if there is an issue with the tangents in the model when it gets exported from blender. Have you been able to create a default cube in blender and then export to Substance Painter without issue?

Cheers,

Wes

[contact_32]

You're Welcome!

Yes, I'm considering if it's tangent related as well, if I create the cube in either Unreal Engine then export for Substance Painter, or create the cube directly in Blender and export for Substance Painter using the same process it works fine, the problem with this is it's not working for my regular workflow.

I create the Unreal Engine BSP geometry first like normal, convert the geometry to static mesh as I've done, and edit the geometry adding extra details in any other program first, and then I want to paint on it with Substance Painter rather than using the built-in painters in Unreal Engine, Blender, or Hexagon to finalize the basic process, this is one of the main reasons I bought Substance Painter to rapidly cover the paint aspects and as I'm working on some of my own levels and content for Unreal Tournament and will be later for my own games and art assets.

One thing I've also tried was to apply a Specular Channel and adjusted roughness all the way up, while bringing the Specular down, this brings the surface to a closer matte finish removing some of the reflective highlight effect, and if I switch to UV it locks the paint brush flat and I can paint on the surface, the problem with that is it doesn't solve the problem and it doesn't provide accurate results to paint normally by default, and you rely on extra tweaks that doesn't fully fix it so it's not a complete solution for a final product.

[Wes McDermott]

You're Welcome!

Yes, I'm considering if it's tangent related as well, if I create the cube in either Unreal Engine then export for Substance Painter, or create the cube directly in Blender and export for Substance Painter using the same process it works fine, the problem with this is it's not working for my regular workflow.

I create the Unreal Engine BSP geometry first like normal, convert the geometry to static mesh as I've done, and edit the geometry adding extra details in any other program first, and then I want to paint on it with Substance Painter rather than using the built-in painters in Unreal Engine, Blender, or Hexagon to finalize the basic process, this is one of the main reasons I bought Substance Painter to rapidly cover the paint aspects and as I'm working on some of my own levels and content for Unreal Tournament and will be later for my own games and art assets.

It's definitely an issue with the normals. In Blender is there a way for you to adjust the normals before export? You need to un-smooth the cube. The normals are all averaged to one smoothing group.

Cheers,

Wes

[contact_32]

I thought that as well at first, I tried turning off smoothing in the FBX export but same result.

A new version of Blender came out with updated FBX support, I tried that as well and samething.

[contact_32]

Think I found a workaround or maybe a solution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsuNE3G-tQs

I guess this video may explain what's going on, mustive been the vertex normals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMgjVJogIbc

I converted the cube exported from Unreal Engine to Blender to be Flat Shaded, then I imported into Substance Painter which now fixes my main workflow problem, and found a few more things as shown in this video.

However, I don't know if there will be an issue with smoothing later with higher detailed geometry which might require it to maintain their rounded or smooth appearances.

The 3 other things you'll notice are:

1. The Document Size when you click File/New and manually set it isn't reflected once the mesh is imported.

2. Changing the Viewer Settings/Quality changes the coloring contrast/brightness. (Not sure if it would effect the final output, it might if this impacts your ability to choose colors from the visual aspect when painting.)

3. The edges have transparent gapped lines as you change the Document Size it's noticeable, not sure if that impacts the final output, but it's present in the viewer while painting and is a bit confusing when the surface is supposed to be solid.

[sergiopt]

Blender have a simple way to do that.
Find the edge split in modifiers and is done, you can adjust the angle of normals.
If you want to sharp specific edges, use the sharp edges with the shortcut "Control E" and is done.