Its funny to see all the "omg I'm obsolete" posts here, this sort of tool is all about improving your workflow. It can't make the art for you, as always, when it comes to creating materials taste is going to be the most important aspect.
It can't take an artist with bad taste and turn them into an artist with good taste.
To me it seems like its just a set of much faster tools to do the grunt work that you would normally do when creating materials, just automating more of the boring stuff.
Its funny to see all the "omg I'm obsolete" posts here, this sort of tool is all about improving your workflow. It can't make the art for you, as always, when it comes to creating materials taste is going to be the most important aspect.
It can't take an artist with bad taste and turn them into an artist with good taste.
To me it seems like its just a set of much faster tools to do the grunt work that you would normally do when creating materials, just automating more of the boring stuff.
Yeap, It's like gardeners saying mowing machines are gonna take away their jobs. People need to realize this kind of apps are tools, not auto bots.!
Thanks for the mirror Equil, really appreciate it, i couldn't seem to get a complete download of the main site.
I'm all up for quickening the workflow and laying down base textures. Yes, you could make a complete texture set with this, but I feel it would take some of the artistry out of a beautiful texture map. However... for mask generation, and color schemes... now that will save SO much time on a day to day basis instead of hand painting all those masks. Plus, all photoshop based! That's the only reason that I'm not yet up to speed with Substance Designer, that weird node workflow, while very powerful ( and really cool to just be able to ship out that substance shader into your engine) is just counter intuitive to my texturing workflow, which is ( as I would guess for most texture people) very photoshop oriented.
Wont be able to touch this for a couple days, but I'm hoping it works as promised, would be FABULOUS to be spending less time on tedious standardized PSD setup and more time on creative stuff in my workflow. Thanks Quixel!
dDo has been a fantastic tool and part of my workflow for the past few months. Keep up the great work Quixel! I know everybody will benefit this because of you :-)
I like the idea, I'd like to make my own game one day and this means I could texture multiple characters in the time it takes to texture one, it's the same reason I use world machine for terrains.
If anyone thinks it's a job killer - the next time you make a character or organic surface, use subd modeling only, don't "cheat" with a sculpting app.
i love that it just organizes all of your files and groups... that in itself is mega useful. More time just focusing on art than on misc tasks of setups.
Now... was the obj i loaded supposed to appear in the preview? or what is it for?
my obj wont appear in the model viewer pretty useless without that, anyone got a fix to this? a certain way to export obj's perhaps? apart from that, this is awesome
really? thats it? i feel i am the only one who feels kinda dissappointed?
first of all, why the heck couldnt i even upgrade if i wanted to? I paid a lot for nDo, now they want to force me to buy a totally new license for something that has nDo+ a few more features?
then, on the other hand, why would i? is it really that powerfull? i mean, i am using the substance designer since a month or something and i am very capable of achieving the same, if not better results in there. the argument that it is "too complex" or whatever doesnt count. Really, everyone who does not understand this program is just too lazy.
Also their support is awesome, every question gets answered fairly fast.
Also, look at their price! The full commercial version costs 500 bucks.
Substance Designer was at 400 when i bought it. And this is a full fledged software. dDo is only a plugin for already expensive photoshop.
This color mask thing is no magic, in fact, its even the same way both workflows work. In SD you cna even generate this map within the program. Didnt try dDo yet, but do you have to do that baking in your 3d app there?
The edge wear and tear system works exactly the same as in SD, yet there you are able to transform it any way you want.
You can indeed make presets like that in SD, too, where you plug in your map on one side, adjust a few sliders and it comes out worn on the other side.
IN fact Sd is even better, you can save out a subtance and flag different properties of your shader to be changeable. So if one is doing a few char variations i would like it better to be with sd rather than with dDo, as even a non artist can tweak it in the end.
So basically i would not get why everyone is so flattered and hyped about this.
I just dont get it
really? thats it? i feel i am the only one who feels kinda dissappointed?
first of all, why the heck couldnt i even upgrade if i wanted to? I paid a lot for nDo, now they want to force me to buy a totally new license for something that has nDo+ a few more features?
then, on the other hand, why would i? is it really that powerfull? i mean, i am using the substance designer since a month or something and i am very capable of achieving the same, if not better results in there. the argument that it is "too complex" or whatever doesnt count. Really, everyone who does not understand this program is just too lazy.
Also their support is awesome, every question gets answered fairly fast.
Also, look at their price! The full commercial version costs 500 bucks.
Substance Designer was at 400 when i bought it. And this is a full fledged software. dDo is only a plugin for already expensive photoshop.
This color mask thing is no magic, in fact, its even the same way both workflows work. In SD you cna even generate this map within the program. Didnt try dDo yet, but do you have to do that baking in your 3d app there?
The edge wear and tear system works exactly the same as in SD, yet there you are able to transform it any way you want.
You can indeed make presets like that in SD, too, where you plug in your map on one side, adjust a few sliders and it comes out worn on the other side.
IN fact Sd is even better, you can save out a subtance and flag different properties of your shader to be changeable. So if one is doing a few char variations i would like it better to be with sd rather than with dDo, as even a non artist can tweak it in the end.
So basically i would not get why everyone is so flattered and hyped about this.
I just dont get it
Mostly because Substance Designer is yet another app in a app overflowed workflow. You have to deal with file conversion etc. With dDo and nDo you just stay in the app that _every_ artist out there already know and hopefully are familiar with.
This is one awesome tool in our 3d artist toolbox. I love the layer naming and organizing functionality that it brings, because I hate naming all my groups and layers
Love all those effects that you can apply to selective portions of your map, love the material presets for spec/gloss combos. Quixel... I'm in love.
Mostly because Substance Designer is yet another app in a app overflowed workflow. You have to deal with file conversion etc. With dDo and nDo you just stay in the app that _every_ artist out there already know and hopefully are familiar with.
hmm... lets see.. the workflow is:
make a model, unwrap it, load it in sd, make your texture, back to your renderer or game.
only thing might be that you want to make some tiling textures in photoshop in the meanwhile.
sd can load and save every file format i can think of.
I paid a lot for nDo, now they want to force me to buy a totally new license for something that has nDo+ a few more features?
I don't think you've even looked at any of the videos or know what dDo actually is. It does not just contain a "few more" features. It's an entirely different application.
Mostly because Substance Designer is yet another app in a app overflowed workflow. You have to deal with file conversion etc. With dDo and nDo you just stay in the app that _every_ artist out there already know and hopefully are familiar with.
Exactly. As awesome as SD is, I loathe leaving photoshop to get things done. As you said xXm0RpH3usXx it is just a plug-in, but I feel that's all we need. There are way too many softwares and apps out there that you can do stuff in quickly, but it's always a pain to export and import away from photoshop. Having everything just.. right there is a blessing.
I do understand one of your point as there should be some kind of upgrade path to NDo to DDo. I never got NDo2 although I was planning on it some day, but If I had and saw DDo's pricing, I would be saddened that I was not being offered a discount of some sort to get it. Maybe it's something the folks at Quixel will think about before the full release of it.
do you have any point, or did you just want to post something, cordel?
edit after cordels edit: i fear you did not use nDo extensivly then. Because i would be able to reproduce everything even with nDo. Only thing i need is a Cavity Map, which i can noise around to make a mask for my edge wear. then i need some scratches, which i can produce with nDo aswell and then bombine everything and generate the other maps with nDo.
Yes, i get dDo is making these steps automatically, but does it really justify its price? Its not that inventive as it seems for my taste.
autarkis, you dont even need photoshop anymore, thats the point.
this is no program hopping, if you use sd in your workflow. you go into sd and you stay there most of the time.
actually thats the philosophy of the tool, to be a texturing hub, not a plugin.
i can see that from a company point of view dDo makes more sense, you dont need to invest 3 weeks into your artists to learn a new software. But there are so many provate people here who just scream in enthusiasm without even evaluating alternatives.
do you have any point, or did you just want to post something, cordel?
I think he made his point. dDo is a completely different tool from nDo2, with an all-new rendering engine to boot. It differs from Substance Designer in that it doesn't require the artist to leave Photoshop, which in turn speeds up workflow.
Regardless, having two companies try to tackle the same issue (competition) will only lead to better and faster solutions in the long run (innovation). It isn't really a matter of which one is better or worse in general. It's a matter of which one fits your personal workflow best.
I personally enjoy not having to leave Photoshop. That, and how much software like this will help speed up content creation workflows, makes the ROI more than enough to justify the price point.
do you have any point, or did you just want to post something, cordel?
autarkis, you dont even need photoshop anymore, thats the point.
this is no program hopping, if you use sd in your workflow. you go into sd and you stay there most of the time.
actually thats the philosophy of the tool, to be a texturing hub, not a plugin.
i can see that from a company point of view dDo makes more sense, you dont need to invest 3 weeks into your artists to learn a new software. But there are so many provate people here who just scream in enthusiasm without even evaluating alternatives.
You will always need a proper painting program.. Substance and dDo is great, but creating stuff from the ground and up, you will need a proper 2d editing program.
The current workflow for a "normal" asset now a days involves nearly 3-4 apps like Zbrush, Topogun, Headus UV Layout(may no be that relevant), Photoshop, Mudbox, Crazy Bump, Photoshop, nDo(now also dDo), external bakers like xNormal... It's not a pipeline that needs _yet_ another external tool. Constantly opening and leaving applications constantly costs time.
I've evaluated Substance Designer a few months ago when they came out with the new version. I was really loving it, but learning a new texturing workflow from scratch just wasn't worth it. That's the whole point of DDo, not to have to get away from something that we all know and love to work in.
I agree with you that mainly everything that DDo does, Substance Designer does, but it does have the added possibilities of Photoshop bundled in.
If you read feedback threads about SD, you'll see a lot of artists wishing that it was more like Photoshop than something so completely alien in terms of workflow that they never use it. It's all about time management and what I'm comfortable working in, and I'd rather stay in the cozy embrace of Photoshop
Really digging it so far. Just been exploring all the different preset options. The fact it saves it all out as new layers is huge for me. Looking forward to some documentation going up as well.
cant get the model previewer to preview my obj. Its using some box. How?
Have you specified it in the automation hub or loaded it using "Load Mesh" in the previewer option (press space in the previewer)? Also, you could try closing and reopening the previewer window, that did it for me!
ya, the model previewer doesnt wk for me. I press spacebar to open up options and click on the button to import mesh, select my obj, and nothing happens. Im stuck with the box. is there a fix?
even closing and opening the program doesnt help.
I'm having issues with a lot. My mouse thinks it is on a button when it is a good centimeter below the button in question. Makes clicking things near the bottoms of windows near impossible.
Also, I have to shut the model viewer to get it to load my models.
Another thing, how do you switch the rendering of normal maps to y-, or y+? Mine is inverted, but I can't see the option anywhere.
Also, how do you pronounce these? Is it "N Doo, D Doo" "N Doe, D Doe" "N D O, D D O", or something else entirely?
thanks for the thoughts guys. its probably the old maya or max question, only with different programs.
I'm with you. IMO substance designer is definetely the way to go. Ndo2, ddo beta feels clunky, and I dont like to use photoshop anyways. I paint in 3d with mudbox or use gimp....
wanted to test it real quick on my laptop, but it keeps crashing..
maybe i have to wait 2-3 days until my fixed hardware returns for my desktop and then give it a go
...
Now... was the obj i loaded supposed to appear in the preview? or what is it for?
Gonna check it some more.
Yes, this is the only thing I havent been able to figure out. So far I love the results. I also find the workflow much better than Substance Designer. Ive yet to throw some stuff in game though. I'm going to try the trifecta of engines tonight, Unity UDK and CE3.
Fun tool! has some definite potential to save a lot of time. Only messed with it for a little bit, because honestly its pretty slow/unresponsive. Was able to get some decent results after a bit of messing with it, and waiting 15 min for it to set up the file :P However! the results in the time spent are awesome!
The PSD produced is super nice, really love that. With proper set up of the color zones it'll be great for setting up and starting a piece [relatively] fast.
For a quick test, I tried recreating the Incendiary Grenade texture from Gears 3. I had done the entire texture for Gears 3 pretty fast, about 4 hours on diffuse, 3 on spec and 1 on normal. Was able to get about 60% "there" with dDo on the base diffuse, and think there are some areas that were handled a bit better! Some areas however, not so much, but since the PSD is set up so nice (layers need merging tho), it'd be super simple to go back in and spend a few hours making the final texture. Also, I did very little slider tweaking in dDo, just color shifting and some contrast adjustments. My color section map going in was ok, but not perfect.
//edit:
also dDo, you win file size game. your psd was 196mb, and mine was 209mb
Alright, the issue with the .OBJ not showing in the previewer has been found. The issue is caused by .OBJs exported with no normals. When you export, make sure you include normals for now!
Replies
It can't take an artist with bad taste and turn them into an artist with good taste.
To me it seems like its just a set of much faster tools to do the grunt work that you would normally do when creating materials, just automating more of the boring stuff.
Yeap, It's like gardeners saying mowing machines are gonna take away their jobs. People need to realize this kind of apps are tools, not auto bots.!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18782680/dDo_release.exe
I'm all up for quickening the workflow and laying down base textures. Yes, you could make a complete texture set with this, but I feel it would take some of the artistry out of a beautiful texture map. However... for mask generation, and color schemes... now that will save SO much time on a day to day basis instead of hand painting all those masks. Plus, all photoshop based! That's the only reason that I'm not yet up to speed with Substance Designer, that weird node workflow, while very powerful ( and really cool to just be able to ship out that substance shader into your engine) is just counter intuitive to my texturing workflow, which is ( as I would guess for most texture people) very photoshop oriented.
Anyway, can't wait to play with it! Woohoo!
If anyone thinks it's a job killer - the next time you make a character or organic surface, use subd modeling only, don't "cheat" with a sculpting app.
Can someone please point me to the "make awesome" button?
But seriously this is going to save a decent amount of time and help a lot with consistency.
Thanks for cranking out the tools that everyone needs.
Now... was the obj i loaded supposed to appear in the preview? or what is it for?
Gonna check it some more.
first of all, why the heck couldnt i even upgrade if i wanted to? I paid a lot for nDo, now they want to force me to buy a totally new license for something that has nDo+ a few more features?
then, on the other hand, why would i? is it really that powerfull? i mean, i am using the substance designer since a month or something and i am very capable of achieving the same, if not better results in there. the argument that it is "too complex" or whatever doesnt count. Really, everyone who does not understand this program is just too lazy.
Also their support is awesome, every question gets answered fairly fast.
Also, look at their price! The full commercial version costs 500 bucks.
Substance Designer was at 400 when i bought it. And this is a full fledged software. dDo is only a plugin for already expensive photoshop.
This color mask thing is no magic, in fact, its even the same way both workflows work. In SD you cna even generate this map within the program. Didnt try dDo yet, but do you have to do that baking in your 3d app there?
The edge wear and tear system works exactly the same as in SD, yet there you are able to transform it any way you want.
You can indeed make presets like that in SD, too, where you plug in your map on one side, adjust a few sliders and it comes out worn on the other side.
IN fact Sd is even better, you can save out a subtance and flag different properties of your shader to be changeable. So if one is doing a few char variations i would like it better to be with sd rather than with dDo, as even a non artist can tweak it in the end.
So basically i would not get why everyone is so flattered and hyped about this.
I just dont get it
Mostly because Substance Designer is yet another app in a app overflowed workflow. You have to deal with file conversion etc. With dDo and nDo you just stay in the app that _every_ artist out there already know and hopefully are familiar with.
Love all those effects that you can apply to selective portions of your map, love the material presets for spec/gloss combos. Quixel... I'm in love.
Pretty sure I'll preorder today
^ This. Is that one of the videos to be released later in December? Right now I'm just using what I saw in the trailer as a sort of how-to.
Awesome, awesome tool Quixel folks! You should be proud
hmm... lets see.. the workflow is:
make a model, unwrap it, load it in sd, make your texture, back to your renderer or game.
only thing might be that you want to make some tiling textures in photoshop in the meanwhile.
sd can load and save every file format i can think of.
I don't think you've even looked at any of the videos or know what dDo actually is. It does not just contain a "few more" features. It's an entirely different application.
Exactly. As awesome as SD is, I loathe leaving photoshop to get things done. As you said xXm0RpH3usXx it is just a plug-in, but I feel that's all we need. There are way too many softwares and apps out there that you can do stuff in quickly, but it's always a pain to export and import away from photoshop. Having everything just.. right there is a blessing.
I do understand one of your point as there should be some kind of upgrade path to NDo to DDo. I never got NDo2 although I was planning on it some day, but If I had and saw DDo's pricing, I would be saddened that I was not being offered a discount of some sort to get it. Maybe it's something the folks at Quixel will think about before the full release of it.
edit after cordels edit: i fear you did not use nDo extensivly then. Because i would be able to reproduce everything even with nDo. Only thing i need is a Cavity Map, which i can noise around to make a mask for my edge wear. then i need some scratches, which i can produce with nDo aswell and then bombine everything and generate the other maps with nDo.
Yes, i get dDo is making these steps automatically, but does it really justify its price? Its not that inventive as it seems for my taste.
autarkis, you dont even need photoshop anymore, thats the point.
this is no program hopping, if you use sd in your workflow. you go into sd and you stay there most of the time.
actually thats the philosophy of the tool, to be a texturing hub, not a plugin.
i can see that from a company point of view dDo makes more sense, you dont need to invest 3 weeks into your artists to learn a new software. But there are so many provate people here who just scream in enthusiasm without even evaluating alternatives.
I think he made his point. dDo is a completely different tool from nDo2, with an all-new rendering engine to boot. It differs from Substance Designer in that it doesn't require the artist to leave Photoshop, which in turn speeds up workflow.
Regardless, having two companies try to tackle the same issue (competition) will only lead to better and faster solutions in the long run (innovation). It isn't really a matter of which one is better or worse in general. It's a matter of which one fits your personal workflow best.
I personally enjoy not having to leave Photoshop. That, and how much software like this will help speed up content creation workflows, makes the ROI more than enough to justify the price point.
You will always need a proper painting program.. Substance and dDo is great, but creating stuff from the ground and up, you will need a proper 2d editing program.
The current workflow for a "normal" asset now a days involves nearly 3-4 apps like Zbrush, Topogun, Headus UV Layout(may no be that relevant), Photoshop, Mudbox, Crazy Bump, Photoshop, nDo(now also dDo), external bakers like xNormal... It's not a pipeline that needs _yet_ another external tool. Constantly opening and leaving applications constantly costs time.
I agree with you that mainly everything that DDo does, Substance Designer does, but it does have the added possibilities of Photoshop bundled in.
If you read feedback threads about SD, you'll see a lot of artists wishing that it was more like Photoshop than something so completely alien in terms of workflow that they never use it. It's all about time management and what I'm comfortable working in, and I'd rather stay in the cozy embrace of Photoshop
Have you specified it in the automation hub or loaded it using "Load Mesh" in the previewer option (press space in the previewer)? Also, you could try closing and reopening the previewer window, that did it for me!
even closing and opening the program doesnt help.
I did a quick test with it...I really like it.
Also, I have to shut the model viewer to get it to load my models.
Another thing, how do you switch the rendering of normal maps to y-, or y+? Mine is inverted, but I can't see the option anywhere.
Also, how do you pronounce these? Is it "N Doo, D Doo" "N Doe, D Doe" "N D O, D D O", or something else entirely?
I'm with you. IMO substance designer is definetely the way to go. Ndo2, ddo beta feels clunky, and I dont like to use photoshop anyways. I paint in 3d with mudbox or use gimp....
wanted to test it real quick on my laptop, but it keeps crashing..
maybe i have to wait 2-3 days until my fixed hardware returns for my desktop and then give it a go
Yes, this is the only thing I havent been able to figure out. So far I love the results. I also find the workflow much better than Substance Designer. Ive yet to throw some stuff in game though. I'm going to try the trifecta of engines tonight, Unity UDK and CE3.
Seems like a cool tool, would love to give it a try.
The PSD produced is super nice, really love that. With proper set up of the color zones it'll be great for setting up and starting a piece [relatively] fast.
For a quick test, I tried recreating the Incendiary Grenade texture from Gears 3. I had done the entire texture for Gears 3 pretty fast, about 4 hours on diffuse, 3 on spec and 1 on normal. Was able to get about 60% "there" with dDo on the base diffuse, and think there are some areas that were handled a bit better! Some areas however, not so much, but since the PSD is set up so nice (layers need merging tho), it'd be super simple to go back in and spend a few hours making the final texture. Also, I did very little slider tweaking in dDo, just color shifting and some contrast adjustments. My color section map going in was ok, but not perfect.
//edit:
also dDo, you win file size game. your psd was 196mb, and mine was 209mb
Hope this helps!
No major problems and in a good state for a beta.
Looking really promising so far.
I own ndo2 and never ran the trial on this computer.