Substance Painter Texturing for Beginners

[Alexander Green 0]

Hello, Wes!
How can i download project files from topic? (access denied)

[Gyul]

Hello, Wes!
How can i download project files from topic? (access denied)

I got the same problem
You can find all the files here : https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/102

[Wes McDermott]

Hello, Wes!
How can i download project files from topic? (access denied)

I got the same problem
You can find all the files here : https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/102

Hi,

Very sorry for this issue. The best place to get the files is now on Share.
https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/102

Cheers,
wes

[Igor Minic]

Hey everyone! I've been reading quite some on the subject of synced workflow and I do have some questions still as I believe I didn't quite grasp some aspects of it. Today, for the first time I tried to work in synced workflow since we switched to Unreal from the old, and I mean really old crap of an engine.

My production tools are mainly Modo and Painter. I make the models (low/UV, high) in Modo and bake them in Painter. I had no issues with my traditional workflow and it still works for me but from what I've gathered, I should now be able to have single smoothing group on my mesh and still get a clean bake for UE. My traditional workflow of course consists of having hard edges / UV splits... Also worth mentioning I'm pretty much only doing hardsurface stuff (weapons mainly).

So, my question... I've included some images for the test scene I prepared, this scene is troubling me as for the love of god I cannot get a clean bake using one smoothing group only, traditional workflow still yields good results as expected. Let's get to the issue, shall we?


This image shows my high poly mesh, it has no UV, no additional vertex maps, and has material assigned, with 180 smoothing, this is my regular workflow for high poly meshes, also, it's subdivision is "frozen", since otherwise subdivision wont get exported to Painter.


This image shows my low poly mesh with one smoothing group, data is kept in vertex map.


Here you can see the UV set for my one smoothing group low poly mesh.

All good there? The reason I ask is because reflection gets messed up quite some after doing a bake in painter with these meshes.


I was under the impression that this shouldn't happen? For comparison, this is the reflection on hard edged, UV split low poly mesh.

Looks perfect!

This is what my hard edged low poly mesh looks like.


And as you would expect in a traditional workflow, my hard edges are split in UV.


In addition, these are my fbx export settings, and baker settings.





I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong, or did I completely misunderstood the point of synced workflow? Appreciate any help! Cheers!

[Wes McDermott]

Hey everyone! I've been reading quite some on the subject of synced workflow and I do have some questions still as I believe I didn't quite grasp some aspects of it. Today, for the first time I tried to work in synced workflow since we switched to Unreal from the old, and I mean really old crap of an engine.

My production tools are mainly Modo and Painter. I make the models (low/UV, high) in Modo and bake them in Painter. I had no issues with my traditional workflow and it still works for me but from what I've gathered, I should now be able to have single smoothing group on my mesh and still get a clean bake for UE. My traditional workflow of course consists of having hard edges / UV splits... Also worth mentioning I'm pretty much only doing hardsurface stuff (weapons mainly).

So, my question... I've included some images for the test scene I prepared, this scene is troubling me as for the love of god I cannot get a clean bake using one smoothing group only, traditional workflow still yields good results as expected. Let's get to the issue, shall we?

Hi,

I'm a fellow modonaut : ) I think what you are seeing with smooth edges is the lack of a normal map applied in the Painter viewport. Although I do see in your image you have baked a normal. What it not applied in the additional map? It looks like you are still getting the reflection skew with a normal map and the mesh triangulated. 

In the first attached image, I have a cube with a single smoothing group. I used the Vertex Normal Toolkit to soften all of the edges and exported FBX. I had the FBX export triangulate the mesh for me. It's important to have the mesh triangulated for baking. Viewing this result in the Painter viewport shows some skewing in the reflection due to the vertex normals.

I then baked a normal from a high res rounded mesh cube. In this case, I just beveled the edges of the cube and I have several continuous UVs. The 2nd image shows the mesh with single smoothing group and the normal applied. The reflections are no longer skewed due to the correction to the shading via the normal map. Here is looks like you are still getting a skewing after the normal bake?

A synced workflow is that the same tangent basis is used for the bake and for rendering. Your FBX settings are correct in that you do not include the tangent basis. If Painter doesn't find a tangent basis in the FBX, it will use MikkT to compute the tangent which is what you want. MikkT is used in both UE4 and Unity.

I attached the FBX files I used.

Cheers,
Wes

[Igor Minic]

Indeed my smoothed mesh shows skewing before and after the bake. The skewing is different after the bake leading me to believe that normal map did get applied after bake (viewport also refreshed as usual). I believe I did the same steps, soften the edges using vertex normal toolkit, triangulate before bake (I triangulated mesh manually with shift+T) but in my case skewing is there after bake.

[Wes McDermott]

Indeed my smoothed mesh shows skewing before and after the bake. The skewing is different after the bake leading me to believe that normal map did get applied after bake (viewport also refreshed as usual). I believe I did the same steps, soften the edges using vertex normal toolkit, triangulate before bake (I triangulated mesh manually with shift+T) but in my case skewing is there after bake.

I think the issue was that the normal is not applied. In the texture set settings, for the Normal Mixing, is it set to Replace? If it's on replace, then the normal in the additional map is not used in the viewport. Perhaps this setting was changed?

Cheers,
wes

[franman]

I am learning about Generators & Filters.  At this mark, Wes applied a Warp filter and made adjustments using the Level parameter.  Since Painter 2017.4 no longer has that feature in Warp filter, what alternatives do I have to adjust to achieve similar affect?

[Wes McDermott]

I am learning about Generators & Filters.  At this mark, Wes applied a Warp filter and made adjustments using the Level parameter.  Since Painter 2017.4 no longer has that feature in Warp filter, what alternatives do I have to adjust to achieve similar affect?

I am learning about Generators & Filters.  At this mark, Wes applied a Warp filter and made adjustments using the Level parameter.  Since Painter 2017.4 no longer has that feature in Warp filter, what alternatives do I have to adjust to achieve similar affect?

HI,

We still have the warp but it's now a filter. It has more features in the latest release. In the video, I showed it as a generator. You can add a mask and then add the warp.

Cheers,
Wes

[Wes McDermott]

I am learning about Generators & Filters.  At this mark, Wes applied a Warp filter and made adjustments using the Level parameter.  Since Painter 2017.4 no longer has that feature in Warp filter, what alternatives do I have to adjust to achieve similar affect?

I am learning about Generators & Filters.  At this mark, Wes applied a Warp filter and made adjustments using the Level parameter.  Since Painter 2017.4 no longer has that feature in Warp filter, what alternatives do I have to adjust to achieve similar affect?

HI,

We still have the warp but it's now a filter. It has more features in the latest release. In the video, I showed it as a generator. You can add a mask and then add the warp.

Cheers,
Wes

[getmyattention]

I am on Chapter 11 Masking of the fundamental videos.

I can't seem to figure out when I am using the quick mask how to make it not select the polygons on the other side of the mesh. Currently it seems like it is ray casting through to the back which then I have to go around and try to deselect. Which I can't seem to do quickly.. Like once I have drag selected the group I want on one side, then there are they faces selected on the back side which I didn't intend, I can't seem to figure out the quick key deselect mode... like how in Maya Shift adds faces and ctrl deselects faces.

EDIT--- OK I continued and you just told me how to fix, because it isn't Undo BUT you switch the color black/white since it is a temp mask.---edit

Is there a backface cull for the quick mask selection? Since I have been watching over two days I can't seem to remember this quickmask being covered before even though you may have shown a backface culling option somewhere.

Thanks for any info in advance. I am learning a lot.

[getmyattention]

I can't seem to make the latest version of Painter follow the tutorial correctly in chapter 12.

adding two fill layers. Then adding a mask to the top, then adding the effect/generator/metal edge wear does not produce the result. It just stays the same way in the viewport. Any ideas?

[getmyattention]

Ok, I figured out that I had started over and lost the baked maps which was why the generators were not working when applied.

Now I am on the next set of tutorials where you paint the sci-fi crate. I have just brought in the new normal maps that we painted from scratch and then am attempting to bake the other maps once the new normal detail maps have been applied.

The problem is that the bakes look find except that the ambient occlusion does not have detail as shown in the tutorial. It is only using the geometry without the new normal/height map details included.

[Wes McDermott]

Ok, I figured out that I had started over and lost the baked maps which was why the generators were not working when applied.

Now I am on the next set of tutorials where you paint the sci-fi crate. I have just brought in the new normal maps that we painted from scratch and then am attempting to bake the other maps once the new normal detail maps have been applied.

The problem is that the bakes look find except that the ambient occlusion does not have detail as shown in the tutorial. It is only using the geometry without the new normal/height map details included.

Hi,

Before you bake the maps, do you have the normal map with the details in the Additional Map for the normal input? Another thing you can do in the latest version of Painter is to use the HBAO filter. Just set the mode to height or normal.

Cheers,
wes

[Mikewitk]

Hello,

I'm trying to download the project files but it keeps failing. I tried in two different computers but had no success.

Is there any other link I could try downloading from?

Thank You