Substance Player: sourcing matte sequences to export multiple textures

[jtk700cln]

Hello! 
Houdini Artist here--relatively new to substance designer--LOVING it so far!

My question is about frame based exporting.  I know that subtance player is the tool that is utilized to generate multiple textures from a graph-great way to create some procedural variations very quickly.   
My question though is--can a graph itself be sourcing bitmap file sequences--such that when the graph is fed into substance player to generate texture sets per frame basis- it can pull the mattes that have a corresponding $F token?   

For example:
I have a series of leaf venation displacement maps.  They were built using simulations in houdini. 
Ex:
leaf_venation_matte.01.tiff
leaf_venation_matte.02.tiff
leaf_venation_matte.03.tiff
leaf_venation_matte.04.tiff

These maps are being imported into substance designer as bitmaps, and are a critical part of our node network we have been building within designer to get the final result. 

Currently we are using one batch of 3 files to help push the texturing process.
at the moment we have:
leaf_venation_height.01.tiff
leaf_voronoi_matte.01.tiff
leaf_venation_matte.01.tiff

these three mattes are a critical part of the template, and are themselves are just one set in a much larger group of matte sets (300 or so altogether). 


ideally we would like to get a finished graph template, and then use substance player to kick out a series of textures using in sequence
leaf_venation_height.02.tiff
leaf_voronoi_matte.02.tiff
leaf_venation_matte.02.tiff

leaf_venation_height.03.tiff
leaf_voronoi_matte.03.tiff
leaf_venation_matte.03.tiff

etc etc etc
until all 300 are exported



Is it possible to have substance designer know that it is reading sequence information at the beginning of the graphs in a situation like this?  --apologies if my syntax is poor here, just getting to know the program. 

Thank you in advance for your help!


just to reiterate--
maps are input as masks into a substance designer graph
leaf_venation.01.tiff for example-- drives things on frame01, while
leaf_venation.02.tiff (ideally) will drive the next group of outputs on frame02
when it comes to output everything

Thanks again!

[Nicolas Wirrmann]

Your substance graph should contain multiple image inputs, then in Substance Player you'll get as many "slots" to load your bitmaps.
When you load the first image from the sequence, the Player should ask if it's part of a sequence.

So I guess it should work. I'd advise you to make a simple test to see if it's ok.

[jtk700cln]

Thanks Nicolas!  Great to hear!
Im gonna do a test this weekend and see if it works out.
j

[Campi]

Sorry to be hijacking the thread. I have exactly the same issue. I am trying to use a substance to 'post process' renderings for a certain look.
So is there really no other way than to manually specify input frames ? Can I automate this ?
We are investigating if we can use substance for a painterly look as a post processer, so we are talking a lot of minutes of animation here

[jtk700cln]

Campi,
I actually havent gotten a chance to check this yet--some back and forth on the design for the flowers themselves has slowed the texturing process  .  Id imagine the same process should work for me same as for you though?   As I understand it--as long as the images coming into the designer graphs have frame ranges -- say matte1.$F.tiff --when you bring the designer graph into substance player it should ask you about these image files(are these sequences?)--then if you say (yes this is a sequence)--it should really just be plug and play on the exporting side.  That probably doesnt help much though--just reiterating what was said earlier--however--when i get to it, if it works--ill post on the work flow here. 
Best,
Justin

[Campi]

How would you specify though int he graph that something is a sequence ?
In player in the Input node you cannot even select a sequence of specify a framerange etc.
From what I understood (which is different from what you said) I would have to create x- amount of inputs in my graph and manually insert each frame in player into each input.
So if I had 100 frames I would have to create 100 inputs

[Nicolas Wirrmann]

Create a graph with a single image input, load that into player and load an image from the sequence from here. Player will ask if you want to load it as a sequence (if it detects multiple file with similar names). Hit yes: a time line will appear.

[kissb]

Hi!

may I ask how to do this "and load an image from the sequence from here" exactly?

I've literally pushed every button I could find... I can't tell how extremely frustrating the lack of documentation is on certain things.

Anyway, I hope someone can enlighten me!
Cheers,
b

[kissb]

do I have to set something in my input color node in designer to make the player ask for a sequence?

[kissb]

no, you can't put "." ahead of #### ( which is what every render engine does by default ). instead use "_". ty