No .dds export unfortunately, but we have support for .ico
Joke aside, I think you can export in dds using the batching command line tool that comes with the commercial version. I'll double check.
For those of you having issues with the Dota2 shader, we found the cause, a fix will be pushed with the next update. In the meantime, here is a hotfix:
For those of you having issues with the Dota2 shader, we found the cause, a fix will be pushed with the next update. In the meantime, here is a hotfix:
I had another question, haven't had much time to mess around with it yet but will be on the weekend How does SD handle seams? For example, if you used a procedural texture for metal wear but some of the detail is overlaid over the seams (therefore the detail being 'cut off' at a UV seam so to speak), will this be really apparent?
Right now SD doesn't do anything specific for seams. You could easily create a filter that would kind of blur the seams a bit if it was really too visible, but there is nothing built-in. We have some ideas about that issue, but nothing short term.
i am trying out the trial right now and i am genuinely interested to give this tool a second chance.
however, here are few of my main issues with it so far:
1. no layered PSD output (every single client i have wants final textures in organized PSD layers)
2. UV seams are not textured in a seamless manner. i still have to go to mudbox to paint base maps that work accross multiple UV seams in a seamless manner.
3. quality of native curvature map generation seems very poor/ugly compared to Knald.
4. if i get SD4, do i still need to buy B2M or any of the other tools. i feel like if i buy SD4 it should include everything like substance player, b2m, substance painter etc. it should be once complete package.
5. the samples included with the trial are a real turn off. they look very poor quality compared to what is possible in half the time in Photoshop (if you know photoshop well enough).
1. Indeed a lot of things SD does can't be "converted" to Photoshop actions, so we can't really output a PSD, what we want to do soon though is to allow you to export only the outputs in a PSD with one layer per output.
2. SD is a 2D texturing app, and like photoshop it won't take care of the seams indeed. We may have solutions for that in the future at some point. Also the addition of Substance Painter should allow you to paint the base maps without leaving SD.
3. The curvature should actually give you an almost pixel perfect copy of what you get in Knald. Did you use the baker to do so or the node that transform a normal map into a curvature?
4. These tools are all stand alone even though they can work together. We will very soon announce a suite that will get you all the good stuff at once. (Also the Player is free and there is a lite version of B2M in SD that you can use as a starting point to create your own).
5. The samples are indeed not the best, they haven't been updated in a while and we are planning to put some new ones in there for the next update. In the meatime, you can check out those substances at the bottom of that page: http://www.allegorithmic.com/download
They are much more advanced than the stuff in the samples which is 100% procedural.
regarding the curvature, my comment is purely based on what i am seeing on the videos(cymourai one for example) and sample files included in trial. they seem very aliased and poor quality over all.
i did check out the scar and hotrod sample and they seem very unpolished to me, and generally poor quality. it has that same kind of dirt noisy feeling like you would see from ddo textures.
1. Indeed a lot of things SD does can't be "converted" to Photoshop actions, so we can't really output a PSD, what we want to do soon though is to allow you to export only the outputs in a PSD with one layer per output.
when you say one layer per output do you mean only diffuse, normal, spec, roughness etc. ?
because that is the same as final textures and would seem redundant to put that in PSD.
it would be more useful to put some of the instances into layers and have them use appropriate blending modes and masks inside the PSD.
a flattened PSD is basically of no use other than saving out uncompressed files. there is no editability without unflattened layers.
You should try the curvature bakes by yourself The Cymourai stuff is almost 2 years old now.
Yes, I meant one layer per output. It is simply impossible to convert a substance graph into a PSD. There are too many things Photoshop cannot do.
We already talked about letting people expose only some of the nodes in a PSD, but still it would be quite a complex process. It may work well for the Gun template for example, it will be almost impossible on more complicated graphs.
This is a new AO node that mimicks the ouputs of AO maps in X-normal from a flat texture standpoint. This is an expensive node
and highly editable for different results. The base settings should be alright for most textures.
-RO Overlay Grayscale-
This the same just optimized for gray scale use. I like having a grayscale version of every tool since it makes it easier to make graphs it
also makes sense to clean my workflow as I go. I created this based on the allegorithmic version for my personal use.
I tested it and it is slightly less expensive than version inside substance.
-RO Cavity Better-
I called it Cavity since more people understand that term than curvature, but it is a curvature map maker. Using a tangent space normal
map it outputs a cavity with several options and outputs such as peaks and valleys. The current Curvature map in substance designer
creates a lot of micro noise which is horrible for composting onto of color or base textures with. I created this version to reduce the
noise and get a cleaner output than the ordinal version. This node is more expensive than the substance native curvature node, but It is
still pretty optimized and has more options.
-RO Dirt Position-
This node creates dirt based on the worldspace/position of the asset. Very helpful for dust, sun bleaching, and many others.
-Ro Dirt Position Streaks-
This node creates streaks/leaks like water stains or grunge based on the worldspace/position. works well for rain or grunge dirt marks.
-RO Dirt Cavity grease-
This node creates grease with cavity included you can get different grunge like results with the properties.
-RO Cavity Chips-
This node creates paint like chips for areas with cavity.
-RO Dirt Cavity Streaks-
This node creates streaks based where the cavity starts this works well for detailed leaks based on cavity peeks or valleys.
-RO Position
-this node is a helper node for using on tile able textures to have the function of direction based streaks or grunge. If your making a unique asset use the baked out position if your using a tile able texture you can use a black and white gradient or this position node to plug in into position.
This video below shows the masks in action. This nodes work with tile able textures and unique bakes.
I did tweak some of the nodes like Cavity and AO slightly so if you were using the old ones please know that it may change your output look and tweak accordingly.
Next plans Ill actually make a project to show these all off and record the steps as I go I will most likely make some kind of techdoor or something that would take too long to hand create dirt and wear by hand so some kind of complex hardsurface sample mostly environment style.
Interested in how you do the stuff with position and such, need to look inside your graphs later.
Having a hard time getting into the mentality of using substance, bought the no commercial edition not long ago
Having a hard time getting into the mentality of using substance, bought the no commercial edition not long ago
Yes I see this a lot with people that are new to it at work. Unless you devote yourself to mastering it, it will keep feeling unfamiliar.
That said, once you know what you're doing with it, it's sooo nice to have limitless possibilities!
I started doing some procedural pixel art with it even; stuff that took me weeks to code before now happens in mere hours...
Here is a fun one.
It's an animated substance that creates some kind of 3D tunnel. I just exposed a few parameters and it allows to create all sorts of effects, with only 2 nodes. Different inputs could also create totally different results.
Not sure if it is useful for a real test case, but it's good fxmap learning material and it can come in handy if you have someone to hypnotize.
That looks like a lot of fun, see if you can make flowmaps out of it. Also at some points it looks like fur, I wonder if you could use it to generate a few layers for shells and fins.
You should try the curvature bakes by yourself The Cymourai stuff is almost 2 years old now.
Yes, I meant one layer per output. It is simply impossible to convert a substance graph into a PSD. There are too many things Photoshop cannot do.
We already talked about letting people expose only some of the nodes in a PSD, but still it would be quite a complex process. It may work well for the Gun template for example, it will be almost impossible on more complicated graphs.
Sorry but maybe i am missing the point but after all, all you do is complex math combined by simple math, things that hold stuff together will always be, add, multiply, lerp, simple math PS can read - a merge to layer node would be the easiest fix for all this. you have complex noises PS can't read? fine output that as one layer, the result will most certainly be blended over something else with simpler functions.
It will definitely need people to plan their stuff better for PSD output, but as said earlier, this lack is deinitely a dealbreaker for many companies - and not the small ones small studios are easier to get to use new tools.
I bought it 2 times for our studio, not going to use it for any clientwork i am afraid, the potential is huge but without PSD output it us almost useless.
2. SD is a 2D texturing app, and like photoshop it won't take care of the seams indeed. We may have solutions for that in the future at some point. Also the addition of Substance Painter should allow you to paint the base maps without leaving SD.
Oh damn, I just finished uving and baking my textures aiming to take it all into substance designer but didnt realise I needed to preserve edges in my uvs so now its nicely flattened but no good for substance designer I guess I will just do my texturing in 3dcoat instead as I can paint in 3d over edges in there.
a: it can generate nice masks for edges all by itself
b: there's nothing in the world stopping you generating your own nice masks for edges and importing them
regarding PSD support -
it would be nice to have PSD export from substance either each output as a flat PSD or all outputs in a single layered file - simply to save a little iteration time
if you want a layered PSD for manual editing of grunge/layering etc then I'd suggest you're not really using substance properly and you're probably better off with DDO
a: it can generate nice masks for edges all by itself
Dont know if you are refering to my comment but what I meant is , how do I add nice scratches and weathering over an edge if I have split the uvs along that edge into 2 seperate uv islands? I split the edges in order to get a nice flat uv map with even pixel density, maybe I will have to redo my uvs and rebake with a more messy pixel density but less uv islands.
in those cases I paint a mask using a 3d paint app and bring that into substance - which is what I used to do when using photoshop for my textures.
you literally paint all the tiny scratches as a mask? why bother with substance designer at all then? I thought the whole point was using baked maps - curvature, normals etc to generate a nice set of detailed textures.
i think you see it too much as a per object application Ged, but what it instead potentially can do, is unify workflows for tons of objects but still giving you the chance of doing details by hand, polish stuff.
If you are not happy with the result you certainly CAN create your own masks, but with photoshop alone you CAN'T automate anything, unless you have scripters at hand.
i think you see it too much as a per object application Ged, but what it instead potentially can do, is unify workflows for tons of objects .
Yeah I know what you mean and I can see how that is invaluable for a studio but for my personal home use I was more interested in just using SD to generate some good textures like ddo does.
Also as for scratches and edge wear. I start with substance do my mask with procedural tools if it has problems with edges on uv islands I take it to a 3d app and tweak it further. Effectively I saved myself a lot of time from painting it all of just leaving me with a little bit of tweaks to be made. Same as any other tool that is the same steps I took in photoshop and Ddo you are forced to do the same. So the uv island not matching up is not new like said before.
I do agree with Neox about the psd capability this would be very good for outsourcing we did manage to get outsources to use substance so the layering is all in substance and readable the problem with this is studio nodes vs nodes from outsourcing studios being different also. The portability of .sbs files are not as portable as assumed when stress tested. Also atm it is still not practical for outsourcing to use substance so we stick with the psd workflow for the majority of our stuff.
I really think people are saying this tool will kill that tool kill this other program etc. Substance will effectively kill Ddo for me...(I did not really care for ddo from the start it was killed for me from the get go almost) but I still go to Ndo (for some quick stuff) So my point being I still see 3Dcoat, Mudbox, Mari and many other tools being very effective tools for texture painting but Substance has become where all my textures go to.
Really the only thing substance did for me is make all the boring tasks 1 click actions and kept my stuff more organized. Almost any workflow will fit substance and that is the real value of substance.
you literally paint all the tiny scratches as a mask? why bother with substance designer at all then? I thought the whole point was using baked maps - curvature, normals etc to generate a nice set of detailed textures.
No man, you can do that, but it's not "the one holy" workflow. If you want to do this then you have to accept the limitations of 2D unwrapping and work with it a bit.
The main advantage in substance is the non-destructible, interlinked workflow, and the fact that you can branch out into further automation if you want to. Even if you build textures by just layering hand-painted masks and modified photos all the time, it's still a much nicer, faster workflow than PS. What Rogelio says pretty much.
Re. Python:
I asked them a bit, and I caught on that it's not planned for now. That said they are adding some more scripting in other areas I think. Also if a lot of people want it (I would like it but don't feel it's a must, for now) they might consider it more. Like how they seem to be considering PSD support more now that people voiced their opinion about it. (python scripting would be a much better solution though )
edit: oh sorry I didn't realize you worked for Allegorithmic too, Froyok. I sound stupid repeating things now.
The main advantage in substance is the non-destructible, interlinked workflow, and the fact that you can branch out into further automation if you want to. Even if you build textures by just layering hand-painted masks and modified photos all the time, it's still a much nicer, faster workflow than PS. What Rogelio says pretty much.
Ok I wasnt going to try to use SD like that but as you guys say it is quite capable I will give that workflow a try. Im just concerned that it wont be as fast as just doing it in photoshop, perhaps that doesnt matter if you know you are going to re-use the graphs and save time. I guess I will just treat it as a learning excercise.
@Neox, you are right that most of the simple operations in SD could be converted to Photoshop equivalent.
There are multiple isues though:
- A grah can have and will have several branches, it can branch in and out multiple times in a graph and keeping that aspect in a layer stack, which is by definition linear, is simply impossible. You will have to bake a ton of stuff and duplicate a lot of these elements which will make your psd very big and unpractical.
- Some stuff can't be done by photoshop (warps, channel shuffling, noises, blurs do not work the same way) or will result in creating a series of Photoshop actions for each node.
I'm not even talking about duplicating all of this for the different channels, it's a nightmare. At that point you are better off using Ddo.
The only way I can think of is to tag a few blend nodes on your main branch that will be exported as layers, but then you lose almost all the advantages of substance and you are back to step 1 where you have to manually edit everything, duplicate changes in all your channels in PS, etc.
I understand that using substance all the way is not practical for outsourcers as you have to deliver psd files.
What I would advise is then to use it as a side tool to generate quickly masks, bakes, effects and simply copy paste those in PS, wherever it can help you save time.
As more studios start using Substance though, more outsourcers are requested to hand over substance files, and hopefully this trend will continue to grow
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I'll give it a go.
@Neox - I want to understand WHY you need the PSD in the first place. Is it because clients demand it - because they want/need to tweak things after you deliver it?
Isn't substance player for this kind of thing? You could expose parameters in the substance that let them tweak/configure everything, and export it for Substance Player. Substance Player is free, and would let them tweak all the dials and knobs.
I know it's not the same, and convincing clients to install software might not be easy...I was just curious if this had been considered.
I decided to give Substance Designer another try. My results:
I really started diggin it. When I started to treat the program like math program with images, it all become much more clear now. It's not best result, but it's better than anything I have made in SD before .
I think I start using it more. As once material is setup, it is easy to tweak it, or pack functions and export for further use.
I still can't really grasp entirely procedurally generated textures (bricks!) but I guess I get to it sooner or later.
Don't mine big black circles. These are scrubs and for reason I can't even begin to fathom, Unreal refuse to pick up metallic reflections on them on this scene. although it works on other.
if we would get a PSD file with about 20 layer it would be fine...
we dont need a PSD with hundreds of layer for the client...
just a clean small one where a artist can go in and repaint some stuff from hand...
a production PSD i do in Photoshop has also hundred of layers but the client gets a clean one with only 20 to 50 layer... but i keep the production one if something changed down the road...
same would be with a substance file we would keep it for the client..
I've just started playing with substance designer, I bought it in the Steam sale over Xmas and I've got to say I'm loving it so far and looking forward to it's potential
I've been having some trouble with crashes though, or at least I think I've probably misunderstood something rather than problems with the software itself
So ideally I'd like to have a separate output for specularity and reflection (I'm not using PBR here btw) but it seems like the specular output controls both the spec and the reflection. If I create a reflection output and connect it to the environment channel in the relief shader I get a crash. The funny thing is it seems to display in the 3D view momentarily before it crashes.
So is this a problem with the software (or my hardware) or am I going the wrong way about doing this?
Thanks!
EDIT: I should clarify I'm after a standard cubemap-like reflection, rather than a physically accurate reflection, is this where I'm going wrong?
Hey guys, awesome thread really excited to use SD4 for my texturing couple of questions:
is it possible to bake a "gradient mask" such as the one demonstrated in the dota2 art guide?
by that I mean a map which shades the mesh from black to white on the vertical (Y) axis. since there is low poly information and normals, this should be possible? not sure if it's possible to achieve this through using nodes alone
I have a graph which processes my baked maps and runs them into the shader outputs. is it possible to make this into a "template" graph, so I can drag and drop it into new graphs for similar objects where said template would be one node with map inputs, exposed params of the nodes inside it and outputs which could go into the shader or further worked on?
Hi Toku,
You can use the "Position" baker and select the apprioriate axis (Y) if you only need one axis. You can also bake them all (XYZ) in a RGB map.
If you want to create a template, just replace your bitmaps by "Color image input" (or "Grayscale image input") nodes. You can then use your graph as a "filter", and drag n'drop it in another graph. You can disable the computation of your filter (if you don't want it to be generated by your .sbsar file) by changing the "Output(s) computation" boolean in the graph properties.
So ideally I'd like to have a separate output for specularity and reflection (I'm not using PBR here btw) but it seems like the specular output controls both the spec and the reflection. If I create a reflection output and connect it to the environment channel in the relief shader I get a crash. The funny thing is it seems to display in the 3D view momentarily before it crashes.
So is this a problem with the software (or my hardware) or am I going the wrong way about doing this?
Regarding the cubemap, there is not native shader that support that in Designer at the moment with a specular and gloss input too (outside of the PBR shader, but that's quite different). You can try to edit the shader yourself if you have the knowledge.
Regarding your crash, I don't think that's normal. Could you explain how it happened (your steps preferably) ?
Thanks for the reply, that might be something I'm capable of I know a little about shaders so I'll give that a go!
01: Substance working fine with inputs.
02: Add an output, add an item and change its usage to "Environment" put a map into the input node.
03: Right click on the output, click "View in 3D view" and select "Environment" from the drop down
04: Crash.
I haven't had a chance to try this on my laptop yet, will give it a go tonight and see if the result is the same
afaik that's not the way to work with it. Don't use an environment output in your graphs.
rather, link an HDRi (EXR) image (like what you'd use for Vray or Mental Ray) into your substance package, then drag it from the package and drop it onto the 3D viewport. Pick Panoramic map when it gives you a list of options.
Log file is here. Should be able to try this out on my laptop tonight, see if I can reproduce it. Shader is the relief shader, but it actually crashes using any shader I think.
Log file is here. Should be able to try this out on my laptop tonight, see if I can reproduce it. Shader is the relief shader, but it actually crashes using any shader I think.
you literally paint all the tiny scratches as a mask? why bother with substance designer at all then? I thought the whole point was using baked maps - curvature, normals etc to generate a nice set of detailed textures.
yes
The point for me is to not have to repeat the same exercise across 6 4k maps every time I want to make a change - which is often because we are very picky round here.
substance allows us to unify our material definitions and make rapid (relatively speaking) iterations on maps. We've gone down from taking a week per map on an asset to a week for all the maps.
you don't get good results for free - you just get them faster.
Replies
Joke aside, I think you can export in dds using the batching command line tool that comes with the commercial version. I'll double check.
ill check tomorrow and if it turns out to be that i will hang my head in shame
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9804576/dota2_hero.7z
Uncompress that folder in your "Substance Designer\resources\view3d\shaders" folder and you should be good to go.
Thanks, shader works now!
edit: Go to vimeo link below to watch HD
https://vimeo.com/85016170
[vv]85016170[/vv]
however, here are few of my main issues with it so far:
1. no layered PSD output (every single client i have wants final textures in organized PSD layers)
2. UV seams are not textured in a seamless manner. i still have to go to mudbox to paint base maps that work accross multiple UV seams in a seamless manner.
3. quality of native curvature map generation seems very poor/ugly compared to Knald.
4. if i get SD4, do i still need to buy B2M or any of the other tools. i feel like if i buy SD4 it should include everything like substance player, b2m, substance painter etc. it should be once complete package.
5. the samples included with the trial are a real turn off. they look very poor quality compared to what is possible in half the time in Photoshop (if you know photoshop well enough).
1. Indeed a lot of things SD does can't be "converted" to Photoshop actions, so we can't really output a PSD, what we want to do soon though is to allow you to export only the outputs in a PSD with one layer per output.
2. SD is a 2D texturing app, and like photoshop it won't take care of the seams indeed. We may have solutions for that in the future at some point. Also the addition of Substance Painter should allow you to paint the base maps without leaving SD.
3. The curvature should actually give you an almost pixel perfect copy of what you get in Knald. Did you use the baker to do so or the node that transform a normal map into a curvature?
4. These tools are all stand alone even though they can work together. We will very soon announce a suite that will get you all the good stuff at once. (Also the Player is free and there is a lite version of B2M in SD that you can use as a starting point to create your own).
5. The samples are indeed not the best, they haven't been updated in a while and we are planning to put some new ones in there for the next update. In the meatime, you can check out those substances at the bottom of that page: http://www.allegorithmic.com/download
They are much more advanced than the stuff in the samples which is 100% procedural.
i did check out the scar and hotrod sample and they seem very unpolished to me, and generally poor quality. it has that same kind of dirt noisy feeling like you would see from ddo textures.
when you say one layer per output do you mean only diffuse, normal, spec, roughness etc. ?
because that is the same as final textures and would seem redundant to put that in PSD.
it would be more useful to put some of the instances into layers and have them use appropriate blending modes and masks inside the PSD.
a flattened PSD is basically of no use other than saving out uncompressed files. there is no editability without unflattened layers.
Yes, I meant one layer per output. It is simply impossible to convert a substance graph into a PSD. There are too many things Photoshop cannot do.
We already talked about letting people expose only some of the nodes in a PSD, but still it would be quite a complex process. It may work well for the Gun template for example, it will be almost impossible on more complicated graphs.
Download
Substance nodes
-RO AO-
This is a new AO node that mimicks the ouputs of AO maps in X-normal from a flat texture standpoint. This is an expensive node
and highly editable for different results. The base settings should be alright for most textures.
-RO Overlay Grayscale-
This the same just optimized for gray scale use. I like having a grayscale version of every tool since it makes it easier to make graphs it
also makes sense to clean my workflow as I go. I created this based on the allegorithmic version for my personal use.
I tested it and it is slightly less expensive than version inside substance.
-RO Cavity Better-
I called it Cavity since more people understand that term than curvature, but it is a curvature map maker. Using a tangent space normal
map it outputs a cavity with several options and outputs such as peaks and valleys. The current Curvature map in substance designer
creates a lot of micro noise which is horrible for composting onto of color or base textures with. I created this version to reduce the
noise and get a cleaner output than the ordinal version. This node is more expensive than the substance native curvature node, but It is
still pretty optimized and has more options.
-RO Dirt Position-
This node creates dirt based on the worldspace/position of the asset. Very helpful for dust, sun bleaching, and many others.
-Ro Dirt Position Streaks-
This node creates streaks/leaks like water stains or grunge based on the worldspace/position. works well for rain or grunge dirt marks.
-RO Dirt Cavity grease-
This node creates grease with cavity included you can get different grunge like results with the properties.
-RO Cavity Chips-
This node creates paint like chips for areas with cavity.
-RO Dirt Cavity Streaks-
This node creates streaks based where the cavity starts this works well for detailed leaks based on cavity peeks or valleys.
-RO Position
-this node is a helper node for using on tile able textures to have the function of direction based streaks or grunge. If your making a unique asset use the baked out position if your using a tile able texture you can use a black and white gradient or this position node to plug in into position.
This video below shows the masks in action. This nodes work with tile able textures and unique bakes.
I did tweak some of the nodes like Cavity and AO slightly so if you were using the old ones please know that it may change your output look and tweak accordingly.
Enjoy
https://vimeo.com/85016170
[vv]85016170[/vv]
Next plans Ill actually make a project to show these all off and record the steps as I go I will most likely make some kind of techdoor or something that would take too long to hand create dirt and wear by hand so some kind of complex hardsurface sample mostly environment style.
Interested in how you do the stuff with position and such, need to look inside your graphs later.
Having a hard time getting into the mentality of using substance, bought the no commercial edition not long ago
Yes I see this a lot with people that are new to it at work. Unless you devote yourself to mastering it, it will keep feeling unfamiliar.
That said, once you know what you're doing with it, it's sooo nice to have limitless possibilities!
I started doing some procedural pixel art with it even; stuff that took me weeks to code before now happens in mere hours...
It's an animated substance that creates some kind of 3D tunnel. I just exposed a few parameters and it allows to create all sorts of effects, with only 2 nodes. Different inputs could also create totally different results.
Not sure if it is useful for a real test case, but it's good fxmap learning material and it can come in handy if you have someone to hypnotize.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9804576/Tunnel.sbs
[ame="
Sorry but maybe i am missing the point but after all, all you do is complex math combined by simple math, things that hold stuff together will always be, add, multiply, lerp, simple math PS can read - a merge to layer node would be the easiest fix for all this. you have complex noises PS can't read? fine output that as one layer, the result will most certainly be blended over something else with simpler functions.
It will definitely need people to plan their stuff better for PSD output, but as said earlier, this lack is deinitely a dealbreaker for many companies - and not the small ones small studios are easier to get to use new tools.
I bought it 2 times for our studio, not going to use it for any clientwork i am afraid, the potential is huge but without PSD output it us almost useless.
Oh damn, I just finished uving and baking my textures aiming to take it all into substance designer but didnt realise I needed to preserve edges in my uvs so now its nicely flattened but no good for substance designer
same here....
a: it can generate nice masks for edges all by itself
b: there's nothing in the world stopping you generating your own nice masks for edges and importing them
regarding PSD support -
it would be nice to have PSD export from substance either each output as a flat PSD or all outputs in a single layered file - simply to save a little iteration time
if you want a layered PSD for manual editing of grunge/layering etc then I'd suggest you're not really using substance properly and you're probably better off with DDO
Dont know if you are refering to my comment but what I meant is , how do I add nice scratches and weathering over an edge if I have split the uvs along that edge into 2 seperate uv islands? I split the edges in order to get a nice flat uv map with even pixel density, maybe I will have to redo my uvs and rebake with a more messy pixel density but less uv islands.
in those cases I paint a mask using a 3d paint app and bring that into substance - which is what I used to do when using photoshop for my textures.
I think I'm saying that this and one or two of the others mentioned aren't new problems
you literally paint all the tiny scratches as a mask? why bother with substance designer at all then? I thought the whole point was using baked maps - curvature, normals etc to generate a nice set of detailed textures.
If you are not happy with the result you certainly CAN create your own masks, but with photoshop alone you CAN'T automate anything, unless you have scripters at hand.
Yeah I know what you mean and I can see how that is invaluable for a studio but for my personal home use I was more interested in just using SD to generate some good textures like ddo does.
I asked about this but didn't hear anything
I do agree with Neox about the psd capability this would be very good for outsourcing we did manage to get outsources to use substance so the layering is all in substance and readable the problem with this is studio nodes vs nodes from outsourcing studios being different also. The portability of .sbs files are not as portable as assumed when stress tested. Also atm it is still not practical for outsourcing to use substance so we stick with the psd workflow for the majority of our stuff.
I really think people are saying this tool will kill that tool kill this other program etc. Substance will effectively kill Ddo for me...(I did not really care for ddo from the start it was killed for me from the get go almost) but I still go to Ndo (for some quick stuff) So my point being I still see 3Dcoat, Mudbox, Mari and many other tools being very effective tools for texture painting but Substance has become where all my textures go to.
Really the only thing substance did for me is make all the boring tasks 1 click actions and kept my stuff more organized. Almost any workflow will fit substance and that is the real value of substance.
my ramble
No man, you can do that, but it's not "the one holy" workflow. If you want to do this then you have to accept the limitations of 2D unwrapping and work with it a bit.
The main advantage in substance is the non-destructible, interlinked workflow, and the fact that you can branch out into further automation if you want to. Even if you build textures by just layering hand-painted masks and modified photos all the time, it's still a much nicer, faster workflow than PS. What Rogelio says pretty much.
Re. Python:
I asked them a bit, and I caught on that it's not planned for now. That said they are adding some more scripting in other areas I think. Also if a lot of people want it (I would like it but don't feel it's a must, for now) they might consider it more. Like how they seem to be considering PSD support more now that people voiced their opinion about it. (python scripting would be a much better solution though
edit: oh sorry I didn't realize you worked for Allegorithmic too, Froyok. I sound stupid repeating things now.
Ok I wasnt going to try to use SD like that but as you guys say it is quite capable I will give that workflow a try. Im just concerned that it wont be as fast as just doing it in photoshop, perhaps that doesnt matter if you know you are going to re-use the graphs and save time. I guess I will just treat it as a learning excercise.
There are multiple isues though:
- A grah can have and will have several branches, it can branch in and out multiple times in a graph and keeping that aspect in a layer stack, which is by definition linear, is simply impossible. You will have to bake a ton of stuff and duplicate a lot of these elements which will make your psd very big and unpractical.
- Some stuff can't be done by photoshop (warps, channel shuffling, noises, blurs do not work the same way) or will result in creating a series of Photoshop actions for each node.
I'm not even talking about duplicating all of this for the different channels, it's a nightmare. At that point you are better off using Ddo.
The only way I can think of is to tag a few blend nodes on your main branch that will be exported as layers, but then you lose almost all the advantages of substance and you are back to step 1 where you have to manually edit everything, duplicate changes in all your channels in PS, etc.
I understand that using substance all the way is not practical for outsourcers as you have to deliver psd files.
What I would advise is then to use it as a side tool to generate quickly masks, bakes, effects and simply copy paste those in PS, wherever it can help you save time.
As more studios start using Substance though, more outsourcers are requested to hand over substance files, and hopefully this trend will continue to grow
@Neox - I want to understand WHY you need the PSD in the first place. Is it because clients demand it - because they want/need to tweak things after you deliver it?
Isn't substance player for this kind of thing? You could expose parameters in the substance that let them tweak/configure everything, and export it for Substance Player. Substance Player is free, and would let them tweak all the dials and knobs.
I know it's not the same, and convincing clients to install software might not be easy...I was just curious if this had been considered.
I really started diggin it. When I started to treat the program like math program with images, it all become much more clear now. It's not best result, but it's better than anything I have made in SD before
I think I start using it more. As once material is setup, it is easy to tweak it, or pack functions and export for further use.
I still can't really grasp entirely procedurally generated textures (bricks!) but I guess I get to it sooner or later.
Don't mine big black circles. These are scrubs and for reason I can't even begin to fathom, Unreal refuse to pick up metallic reflections on them on this scene. although it works on other.
we dont need a PSD with hundreds of layer for the client...
just a clean small one where a artist can go in and repaint some stuff from hand...
a production PSD i do in Photoshop has also hundred of layers but the client gets a clean one with only 20 to 50 layer... but i keep the production one if something changed down the road...
same would be with a substance file we would keep it for the client..
I've just started playing with substance designer, I bought it in the Steam sale over Xmas and I've got to say I'm loving it so far and looking forward to it's potential
I've been having some trouble with crashes though, or at least I think I've probably misunderstood something rather than problems with the software itself
So ideally I'd like to have a separate output for specularity and reflection (I'm not using PBR here btw) but it seems like the specular output controls both the spec and the reflection. If I create a reflection output and connect it to the environment channel in the relief shader I get a crash. The funny thing is it seems to display in the 3D view momentarily before it crashes.
So is this a problem with the software (or my hardware) or am I going the wrong way about doing this?
Thanks!
EDIT: I should clarify I'm after a standard cubemap-like reflection, rather than a physically accurate reflection, is this where I'm going wrong?
is it possible to bake a "gradient mask" such as the one demonstrated in the dota2 art guide?
by that I mean a map which shades the mesh from black to white on the vertical (Y) axis. since there is low poly information and normals, this should be possible? not sure if it's possible to achieve this through using nodes alone
I have a graph which processes my baked maps and runs them into the shader outputs. is it possible to make this into a "template" graph, so I can drag and drop it into new graphs for similar objects where said template would be one node with map inputs, exposed params of the nodes inside it and outputs which could go into the shader or further worked on?
You can use the "Position" baker and select the apprioriate axis (Y) if you only need one axis. You can also bake them all (XYZ) in a RGB map.
If you want to create a template, just replace your bitmaps by "Color image input" (or "Grayscale image input") nodes. You can then use your graph as a "filter", and drag n'drop it in another graph. You can disable the computation of your filter (if you don't want it to be generated by your .sbsar file) by changing the "Output(s) computation" boolean in the graph properties.
Regarding your crash, I don't think that's normal. Could you explain how it happened (your steps preferably) ?
01: Substance working fine with inputs.
02: Add an output, add an item and change its usage to "Environment" put a map into the input node.
03: Right click on the output, click "View in 3D view" and select "Environment" from the drop down
04: Crash.
I haven't had a chance to try this on my laptop yet, will give it a go tonight and see if the result is the same
rather, link an HDRi (EXR) image (like what you'd use for Vray or Mental Ray) into your substance package, then drag it from the package and drop it onto the 3D viewport. Pick Panoramic map when it gives you a list of options.
It shouldn't crash on what you are doing though.
Which shader is selected ?
Can you send me your log file ? Help / Export Log File..
Just after the crash.
Log file is here. Should be able to try this out on my laptop tonight, see if I can reproduce it. Shader is the relief shader, but it actually crashes using any shader I think.
http://www.meetup.com/London-Substance-Texturing-Artists/events/164428322/
Thanks for the log, we'll take a look.
yes
The point for me is to not have to repeat the same exercise across 6 4k maps every time I want to make a change - which is often because we are very picky round here.
substance allows us to unify our material definitions and make rapid (relatively speaking) iterations on maps. We've gone down from taking a week per map on an asset to a week for all the maps.
you don't get good results for free - you just get them faster.