Metal Edge Wear size question [SOLVED]

[pheonixflame9]

Hey guys,
I have a substance that contains a Metal Edge Wear mesh adaptive but I think it is causing an issue with the overall size. Without it my substance comes to about 477kb in size, however when I use it it jumps all the way to 6mb. Is this the normal size cost for using it, or am I using it wrong? Is there a way to reduce this cost?
Thanks

[Wes McDermott]

Hey guys,
I have a substance that contains a Metal Edge Wear mesh adaptive but I think it is causing an issue with the overall size. Without it my substance comes to about 477kb in size, however when I use it it jumps all the way to 6mb. Is this the normal size cost for using it, or am I using it wrong? Is there a way to reduce this cost?
Thanks

Hello,

For the metal edge wear, you need to supply an ambient occlusion and curvature map as mesh data to the node. These embedded bitmaps would be causing the package size to increase. You can use lower res maps for the mesh data as well as be sure that they are not set to Raw for the bitmap format.

Cheers,

Wes

[pheonixflame9]

Hi Wes,

I have indeed placed the right maps and it works fine but even when I ensure the bitmaps are not set to raw the size shoots up. I even tried a tiny resolution to test it and still gained the same issue. from around 400-500kb to 6mb.
On removal of the metal edge wear the size is always tiny yet when included it is a lot larger.

At the moment I have had to reduce the size by avoiding it all-together. I achieved this by using the node to generate the effect, saved the outcomes as .pngs then imported them into my project. I then used blend nodes to link them up with the alpha options on sliders to change the visibility of the effect to try to replicate the wear and grunge customization. It is not as good as I lose the randomization and it does not generate new maps but it still allows for some tweaks and surprisingly, is smaller, even though it includes 6 new textures (1024x1024). The outcome has been cut by over half around the 3mb mark.

The use of this so far is puzzling as one of the selling points for this software are the small texture files you can create, but that node (hooked up) on its own costs 5mb. The other nodes I use such as the dirt and leaks do not have this problem however and are relatively light so I can still use them. I hope a less costly effect like this comes out in the future.

Thanks for the reply ,
Chris

[Wes McDermott]

Hi Wes,

I have indeed placed the right maps and it works fine but even when I ensure the bitmaps are not set to raw the size shoots up. I even tried a tiny resolution to test it and still gained the same issue. from around 400-500kb to 6mb.
On removal of the metal edge wear the size is always tiny yet when included it is a lot larger.

At the moment I have had to reduce the size by avoiding it all-together. I achieved this by using the node to generate the effect, saved the outcomes as .pngs then imported them into my project. I then used blend nodes to link them up with the alpha options on sliders to change the visibility of the effect to try to replicate the wear and grunge customization. It is not as good as I lose the randomization and it does not generate new maps but it still allows for some tweaks and surprisingly, is smaller, even though it includes 6 new textures (1024x1024). The outcome has been cut by over half around the 3mb mark.

The use of this so far is puzzling as one of the selling points for this software are the small texture files you can create, but that node (hooked up) on its own costs 5mb. The other nodes I use such as the dirt and leaks do not have this problem however and are relatively light so I can still use them. I hope a less costly effect like this comes out in the future.

Thanks for the reply ,
Chris

Hi Chris,

The issue is that the metal edge wear is using bitmap grunge maps and they are set to 2K Raw internally. I updated the package which uses jpeg compression on the grunge maps and gives you a resolution control for low and high. Low = 1k and High = 2K. By doing this I was able to get the package size down a great deal.

Cheers,

Wes

[pheonixflame9]

Hi Wes,

Thanks for the update. Not sure if this is a silly question but how exactly do I use that? I cant open or use it.

[Wes McDermott]

Hi Wes,

Thanks for the update. Not sure if this is a silly question but how exactly do I use that? I cant open or use it.

Hi,

You can open that in Substance Designer and then drag the graph into one of your graphs and use it instead of dragging the metal edge wear mask generator from the Library. This one will be more lightweight. 

Cheers,

Wes

[pheonixflame9]

Hey,

I have tried to open it in designer and have tried to drag the graph in but it is locked and will not load in.

Thanks

[Wes McDermott]

Hey,

I have tried to open it in designer and have tried to drag the graph in but it is locked and will not load in.

Thanks

Oh, I'm sorry about that. I had the settings wrong. Here is the SBS.

Cheers,

Wes

[Wes McDermott]

Hey,

I have tried to open it in designer and have tried to drag the graph in but it is locked and will not load in.

Thanks

Oh, I'm sorry about that. I had the settings wrong. Here is the SBS.

Cheers,

Wes

Just a note, the metal_edge_wear has been updated in SD 4.5, so when that version is available, you no longer need this fix.

Cheers,

Wes

[pheonixflame9]

Hi Wes,

Works perfectly, much smaller. Thanks for the help, really appreciate putting it in the next update as well.

Many thanks ,

Chris