Painter to UE4?

[charlestonn]

I did a search and looked through all of the tutorial videos and could not find an answer to my question so forgive me if it has been asked/answered.

I just bought Painter and i already have the UE4 Substance Plugin installed but can't figure out how to get my material files from Painter into UE4.

I know i am supposed to import the .SBAR file but when i save my Painter document it creates a folder with multiple folders under it.  Once of the folder is called 'resources and under that folder there are a few SBAR files but they are all just random serial file names and when i import those SBAR files they are just blank files with the names of the effects i applied in Painter.

Is there some 'publish' feature i am missing or something?  Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

[dcxciii]

umm...as far as i know, to get textures from Painter to UE4 you have to export your maps from painter and bring your maps into UE4

[Wes McDermott]

umm...as far as i know, to get textures from Painter to UE4 you have to export your maps from painter and bring your maps into UE4

Yes, this is correct. SP only exports bitmaps. For UE4 you will export the base color, metal, rough and normal. When you import into UE4, you need to go to the texture properties and disable sRGB for the metal and roughness textures.

Cheers,
Wes

[charlestonn]

Thanks for the replies, i now have the workflow down and it's a very easy to use and powerful program but now i have another question.

I understand that Substance Painter utilizes an Image Based Renderer but when i create my texture maps within Painter they look MUCH different once i import them into UE4 and plug them into a Material.

Metallic and Roughness values are much higher in UE4 and the color and brightness values for the Diffuse maps aren't the same - I find myself having to compensate for this within Painter by looking at both UE4 and painter side by side and while making the adjustments which causes me to have to go through multiple iterations. and i still don't get the result I'm looking for.

I don't have this problem with texture map exports from say ZBrush or MARI.  Is there any way to setup the rendered within Painter to simulate the renderer in UE4 so i can see a better representation of how things will look before i export them out to UE4?

Thanks in advance!

[Wes McDermott]

Thanks for the replies, i now have the workflow down and it's a very easy to use and powerful program but now i have another question.

I understand that Substance Painter utilizes an Image Based Renderer but when i create my texture maps within Painter they look MUCH different once i import them into UE4 and plug them into a Material.

Metallic and Roughness values are much higher in UE4 and the color and brightness values for the Diffuse maps aren't the same - I find myself having to compensate for this within Painter by looking at both UE4 and painter side by side and while making the adjustments which causes me to have to go through multiple iterations. and i still don't get the result I'm looking for.

I don't have this problem with texture map exports from say ZBrush or MARI.  Is there any way to setup the rendered within Painter to simulate the renderer in UE4 so i can see a better representation of how things will look before i export them out to UE4?

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

The metallic and roughness maps need to disable sRGB in UE4. If you double-click the texture and open in Texture Editor, you need to uncheck sRGB. This will fix the issue. These maps need to be interpreted as linear and not sRGB.

Cheers,

Wes

[charlestonn]

Awesome Wes, unchecking sRGB worked perfectly, thanks!

[Wes McDermott]

Awesome Wes, unchecking sRGB worked perfectly, thanks!

Great!

Cheers,

Wes

[charlestonn]

Hey Wes - I have two more questions for you and i figured i would just post them here rather than create a new thread.

Is it possible to create a custom Material for use within Painter?  I saw the tutorial on creating a custom Substance Effect within Designer for use within Painter but i want to create an actual material .

I'm looking to create a Carbon Fiber Material and I already have the texture maps for the Carbon Fiber created (normal, roughness, diff) but i would like to be able to apply it as a material with parameters within Painter (scale, roughness, etc.) - For now i just created an alpha from the Carbon Fiber Roughness texture and I'm using it as a stencil within the UVs but it's a lot more work than just being able to apply it as a material.

If not then Is it at all possible to adjust tiling/scale of a mask?  If i could use a bitmap mask with the Carbon Fiber alpha and adjust it's tiling that would make things much easier if i am not able to create a custom material.

My other question is in regard to performance - Is it possible to adjust performance settings within Painter?  I have a 64bit system with 24GB ram and a core i7 but render time seams to be slower than i have seen in videos with more complex material setups.

Once again thanks in advance!

[TeotiGraphix]

> My other question is in regard to performance - Is it possible to adjust performance settings within Painter?  I have a 64bit system with 24GB ram and a core i7 but render time seams to be slower than i have seen in videos with more complex material setups.

What is your graphics card specs? Painter uses GPU compute, where SD uses CPU (I am pretty sure).

So you could have a screaming CPU but if your graphics card lacks, you will see it in Painter's painting.

Mike

[charlestonn]

Dual MSI 2gb 560TIs in SLI - They blow through every other program which uses GPU compute with no issues.

[josh.coyne]

Hi charlestonn,

Have you tried disabling SLI mode to see if performance improves? When doing compute stuff versus traditional graphics work, SLI can sometimes be a hindrance rather than a help. 

[Cyrille Damez]

I confirm that Painter's performance will be lower with SLI activated than without (same thing with Crossfire on AMDs). We highly recommend to deactivate it when using Painter.

[Wes McDermott]

Hey Wes - I have two more questions for you and i figured i would just post them here rather than create a new thread.

Is it possible to create a custom Material for use within Painter?  I saw the tutorial on creating a custom Substance Effect within Designer for use within Painter but i want to create an actual material .

I'm looking to create a Carbon Fiber Material and I already have the texture maps for the Carbon Fiber created (normal, roughness, diff) but i would like to be able to apply it as a material with parameters within Painter (scale, roughness, etc.) - For now i just created an alpha from the Carbon Fiber Roughness texture and I'm using it as a stencil within the UVs but it's a lot more work than just being able to apply it as a material.

If not then Is it at all possible to adjust tiling/scale of a mask?  If i could use a bitmap mask with the Carbon Fiber alpha and adjust it's tiling that would make things much easier if i am not able to create a custom material.

My other question is in regard to performance - Is it possible to adjust performance settings within Painter?  I have a 64bit system with 24GB ram and a core i7 but render time seams to be slower than i have seen in videos with more complex material setups.

Once again thanks in advance!

Hi,

For custom materials, you can create a substance material with outputs for base color, metal, rough and normal. Then you can import this material using File>import Substance. You can also import textures and create a fill layer. On the fill layer, you connect the texture to the appropriate channel to create a material. From there, you can right-click and choose save material. This will create a material preset. You can also do this on a fill layer without using textures if you want the material to only be based on values.

We don't have a method for tiling the mask. Although, you could create this as a substance effect. You can create a mask that tiles using the transform node. Although, the best option is to use the substance material or fill layer with images for your setup.

Cheers,

wes