How can I add textures created in Substance Designer on a model created in Maya ? (Noob question)

TheLazyScarecrow

Hiii !

I have been trying to texture a house I made in Maya for something like 2 days and I just can't figure out how to do it... So yea I request your help, people from polycount!

So, I have this house that I created in Maya :

http://prntscr.com/h0gxte

After doing some researches on youtube, I found out a software to add textures called "Substance Designer".
I created a wood texture using Substance Designer 2 days ago :

http://prntscr.com/h0h1y0

Now, what I would like to do is to add this wood texture on some parts of my house.

I've watched plenty of tutorials on youtube but everything i so complicated that I don't even know what I don't understand. Apparently you have to use a plugin called Arnold renderer (but yea that's pretty much all i was able to understand... ) And am I supposed to import my house into Substance Designer or to import my texture into Autodesk Maya ? I don't even understand that T_T
Or do I need to put both my texture and my model in an engine like UnrealEngine to be able to texture it ?

So yea, of course I'm not asking for a full tutorial, I just would like to know what software/plugins I need to use or something like that so I can research it on youtube and find a process to follow...


You are probably wondering why I struggle with such a simple stuff with all the tutorials out there but I'm a noob so I'm totally lost ><

I hope someone will be able to help me a bit, thanks in advance !


Edit :
So, I was able to "extract" my texture from Substance Designer but it's in 4 small parts (Normal, Histogram Range, Ambient Occlusion and Blur HQ Grayscale).
Now, I don't know how to "combine" them to make them 1 single texture that I could use on my house created in Maya.

So yea, if anyone knows how to use Maya a little bit more than me and could help, I would really appreciate it >< Thanks !

Obscura

You can just export out textures from substance. There is a save icon on the 2d preview window. You can select the file format and make a tga or whatever you want to, and then just apply them in the texture slots of the material. But anyways,  I'm pretty sure you can import raw substances without a need for Arnold.

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura Okay, thank you for your answer !

So basically I need to export the texture from Substance Designer, import it in Maya and then put it on my model right ?

I will try that right now, thanks again

Obscura

Thats one of the options. That way you end up with static textures, just like normally.But  "Substances" can be saved in a partially dynamic format, meaning that when you imported them into your working package - Modeling or renderer, you can still modify exposed parameters, and alter the look of the material. 

Here is a link to some Maya - Substance plugins. I think this should allow you to use raw substances with any material inside Maya:
https://www.allegorithmic.com/substance-maya

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura Okay soooo, I encountered a problem ><

What you call the "2D preview window" is the thing in the red square right ? http://prntscr.com/h0hf1b

But I can't see the finished texture in this box, I can only see either the "Normal", the "Ambient occlusion", the "rougness", ... But not all of them at the same time. The only area where I can see the full completed material is in the 3D view.

So yea I can't save the 2D view because it will only save the normal or ambient occulision or... but not the full material right ? 

Obscura

Double click the final base color or normal or any map, before combining them into a material. So double click the one nodes before the last one and then you can see and save them. Or just use the raw substance file with the Maya plugin.

Obscura

Not sure if this was clear, but the 2 different export methods would give you 2 different outputs. If you export the textures, you'll get a bunch of tga-s or image files in a format that you selected upon exporting. So lets say you use a classic diffuse - spec - normal material. Then you get 3 image files. Since they are standard images, you can edit, and view them in any image editor. And you can hook them up one by one into the texture slots in your actual material inside Maya for example.

But if you just use the substance straight, it will be one file that you won't be able to view or edit in an image editor. It will contain all your maps and parameters, and 3d softwares can read them.

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura ... Well it didn't work so I don't think I understood what I'm supposed to do ><

Here is what I did : 

1/ I double clicked on the normal node. The normal node showed up in the 2D view : http://prntscr.com/h0hjuy

2/ I linked it with my base material and double clicked on the base material : http://prntscr.com/h0hkft A brown color appeared on the 2D view (?)

3/ I double clicked on the Histogram Range. The histogram range node showed up in the 2D view : http://prntscr.com/h0hktj

4/ I link it with my base material and double clicked on the base material : http://prntscr.com/h0hl8l I still have that brown color on the 2D view of the base material (???)

5/ I did the same thing for the 2 last nodes (ambient occlusion and blur HQ grayscale) and here is what I have in the 2D view of the base material node : http://prntscr.com/h0hljx  The finished texture is showing in the 3D view though so idk what's going on ?

TheLazyScarecrow

Honestly I'm so bad at it that I will just use whatever method that works xD

Obscura

After double clicking the normal for example, just press save on the 2d preview. It saves the normal map texture. Then double click the next map, like occlusion, do the same, double click on it, save. That save button will save you the texture that is currently shown in the 2d preview. No need to hook them up to that finel combining node. Its only necessary for peviewing, or if you want to export the raw substance , instead of individual textures. 

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura Ohhhhh okay I understood! So once I hace saved my 4 nodes (Normal, Histogram Range, Ambient Occlusion and Blur HQ grayscale) how can I put those 4 "textures" on a part of my house at the same time ? (I don't know if my question is very clear).
Like, can I overlay 4 textures on a model in Maya? ._.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain haha, it helped me a lot!

Obscura

I think you should look up texture and material types. Manily, if we simplify it to the extremes, there are 2 kinds of materials used in 3d rendering. Physically based, and non physically based. A physically based one would usually want a base color map, roughness or glossiness map, a specular or metallic map, normal map and occlusion map. All of these are optional, but for example there isn't such a map as blurHQ thats an operation inside substance that you can apply on your texture. Like a filter. 

So when using a physically based material, you will have slots for those textures that I was mentioning, and the shader will "combine" them during the rendering , but on the interface it shows as separated textures.


Knowing the final usage of the asset would help determining what kind of material should you use. Is this going into a game engine? Or you just want to render it in Maya? Do you want more realistic result, or you are fine with simple shading, etc.

Maya should have both physically based and non physically based shaders though.

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura
 Well, I'm doing my very first 3D model so I'm not going to use it for anything specific, it's just to learn the basics you know and to become a bit less of a noob xD

So what I wanted to learn with this first little project was :
- Modelling something in maya
- Creating the textures from scratch in Substance Designer (even if they end up looking terrible, everyone needs to start somewhere haha)
- Putting the house in unreal engine if possible ?
- Rendering everything

I know I'm not going to have an amazing result so I will be fine with something simple and I will try to improve next time.

So if I understand correctly, I need a "shader" to combine my 4 "nodes" or however those things are called ? xD

Obscura

In Unreal, both raw substance and separated textures works. To import the raw substance, you'll need a similar plugin to the Maya one. You can find it on the Unreal Engine marketplace. Unreal uses a physically based shading model with "metallic" property. You can check out the documentation on the Unreal engine site, or the tutorial about physically based materials, on the Marmoset site/tutorials. Terminology is the same and general. 

Anyways, Unreal would want base color, metallic, roughness, normal and ao maps. Still, all of them are optional, and you can simply not plug anything into the one that you don't want, or just plug a value instead of a texture.  Once you make a material in unreal, you will see it will have similar inputs to what you saw in substance. So there will be an "end node" with different inputs, where you can plug your textures one by one.

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura I didn't understand everything but I think I got the main idea haha. I will do some more researches when I will put the textured house in unreal engine and see if I'm able to make it work ><

So, I am trying to add my 4 things I previously did in Substance Designer to Maya right now and I was able to put them in that "hypershade" window (I watched youtube tutorials and people were using the hypershade window thing so I guess that it's how you add textures right ?) :

http://prntscr.com/h0i7qp

Now I don't know how to combine those 4 stuff into 1 shader like you told me to do ? (on every tutorial I find on youtube they only have like 1 pic of bricks, wood or whatever  they found on the internet so they are not combining anything T_T)

Obscura

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geqK1gk2qWE

Obscura

I don't use Maya so can't really help more than this. Good luck.

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura Yea I already found this video and whatched it but he is using a pic of some dirt floor, he doesn't have like several pics like I do T_T

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura Okay, thanks a lot for answering my annoying questions haha, it was super helpfull !
By the way, I saw the link to your artstation page, damn dude that stone material is amazing ._.

Obscura

Thanks. Could be improved a lot, still.

Hopefully some Maya guy will notice your thread and can give more insight about how to set up maya materials.
You can also try finding videos on yourube that are about using a normal map in a maya material. Because in that case, he will probably also apply color and other maps.

TheLazyScarecrow

@Obscura Yea I will keep watching tutorials and hope for the best. But yea, i don't understand most of what they are saying so I need to find a very specific tutorial so I won't get lost halfway

Anyway, thanks again

throttlekitty

Hi, I'd like to back this thread up to what you've got going on in Designer first. You mention wanting to get the nodes you've called out as textures (Normal, Histogram Range, Ambient Occlusion and Blur HQ Grayscale). Normally what you'd do is connect those to the final output nodes, and export them all in one shot in the outliner or the cog icon.

Now to wire up a material in Maya. From your screenshot, if you look at the lower left of the hypershade and into the Surface group, you can middle mouse drag a Blinn or Arnold material into the graph. You can drag output dots from the textures to inputs on the material. But for the normal map, you need to first create a 'bump2d' node (under the utilities category) and set it to Tangent Space mode, the normal map file plugs into the bump2d, which then goes to the bump map/normal camera input on a material.

Some people find it easier to start with a material, there's a checkerboard icon in each slot that lets you pick a file right from the attribute editor without going into the hypershade, this also handles the bump2d node for you.