Node-Based Generation Vs Manual Creation

visoutre

Programs like World Machine, Substance Designer and Ddo seem to be used a lot now to create assets quicker and looking better. To get a satisfactory texture in UDK you need to connect a lot of nodes in the material editor. As a 2D artist, learning these workflows was a challenge vs painting in Photoshop or zbrush, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm just wondering if these procedural tools will replace things like photo bashing and hand painting textures in Photoshop? Why model something manually if you can generate it?

I'm just a student, so I have no idea where each method is used in practice and how things will change in the future. Would you recommend not worrying about the technicalities and just focus on making good looking art for now? I'd like to make 3D environments, like architectural scenes. I spent most of my time developing my design and drawing/painting skills which is probably a good first step. But with 3D there is a lot more to learn especially with these new tools changing traditional workflows. I don't mind learning the technical side if it's part of the environment artists job, but I enjoy the visual creation side more. Which is why I prefer painting manually over using the nodes.

It's overwhelming to decide what to focus on, if you have any suggestions it would be great to have your opinion.

EmAr

It's all about making efficient use of textures and triangles. You also need to make this in the shortest amount of time possible. Also, work must be done in an easy to edit manner in case you or someone else needs to change things later.

So, tools like WM, SD and Ddo are pretty useful. I can't imagine anyone painting realistic erosion into a displacement map instead of generating it in WM or something similar.

The style is also important. There is not an alternative to hand painting when making World of Warcraft style textures for example.

I'd just try to find what kind of environment would provide me the highest amount of motivation as an exercise/portfolio piece. Then the tools/skills you need to use should become more evident.

Also, check out the wiki when you get stuck(if you haven't already) :icon60:

visoutre

Yeah the thing I like about texturing with a program like Substance Designer is being able to make changes on the fly in the game engine and setting your own parameters. But setting up the nodes initial requires more study, for now all I can do is follow the tutorials. Maybe I'll use them to create tillable textures quickly and spend the extra time zbrushing a few unique architecture elements.

I did start a new modeling project for school. Got excited during the design phase, but it's pretty ambitious to model a section of a city. Guess it takes trial and error at first. I'll create a wip thread for it when I figure things out. Thanks for replying, it's always more motivating to hear it from someone else s point of view, haha. Hopefully there are more opinions too. I'm still curious to know how often a program like substance designer is used in the industry and what sort of fundamental skills a beginner should learn.

visoutre

Check out some of the Ice videos, looks amazing! But my school doesn't have licenses for Softimage, so I probably can't use it. It's awesome what the software can do these days.