SOLVED: dDO: Edge scratches/wear

Utility

Hey guys, sorry if this has been already asked before (super newb question, bear with me): how can I generate edge scratches on my model? In the Suite workflow primer, after the model has the first smart material applied (which I can't find in my Suite - the closest is a green 'Scratched Painted Metal'), the neck part already has pretty neat looking paint wear on it. On my model, I've tried adding a masked layer on top, using either Edges or Occlusion to modify the mask- but it doesn't quite work. I can't seem to get the actual edges to get scratches/wear, yet the sides around them will get it.

tl;dr: How do I widen edges in masks so I can make some tasty scratches/wear on metal?

Eric Ramberg

Hi Utility!

Its all about the curvature

I would suggest you work your way backwards if you are unsure, select one of the included masks to se how they are set up. You can also select a smart material that you like and apply it to your mesh, go inside the mask for the scratches and see how they are made!

But if you want to do it yourself from scratch, you need to use cruvature and make sure that your model has inputmaps that will allow the suite to find edges Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with, Good luck!

grimsonfart

As Eric said, curvature is the mask to go with. Bring the thickness in post-process options up to 90+ and you will start getting tight edge highlights. Play around with brightness to make them more visible etc. Rest is up to you

Utility

Thank you for the reply! I'll try that, thank you. I was wondering if I needed any more input maps- I've got the mesh, colour, AO, tangent-space and object-space normals, and diffuse plugged in but, no curvature. I'll try generating one and see how it goes.

Eric Ramberg

If you used a low poly mesh with normal map it should be enough!

Utility

I tried making a curvature map in xNormal, and thought it came out alright - but in Photoshop/dDO, it looks blobby. I didn't have much time to mess with it this morning, but here's what it ended up looking like - any thoughts?

Martin_H

Maybe this is useful to you:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=145005#post2201592

Eric Ramberg

Utility - you can check in the wiki to see how all the input maps should be created and look:
http://quixel.se/usermanual/quixelsuite/doku.php?id=inputmaps

Let me know if this helps!

Utility

Thanks guys! That actually helped quite a bit. I think I need a bunch more practice to get where I want to be... but I've figured out some good stuff for how to use dDO properly. Let me know what you think:




I'm pretty sure I overdid it on the metal grunge- you can especially see it on the magazine in a few of the shots- it almost looks like it has artifacts due to the intensity. Also, here's what my curve map looked like (rendered in xNormal with search set to 3.5, ran through PS's highpass filter at 12px):



I'm going to take a step back to model a few assets to go with this (ammo box, shells, a table) before I come back and finish the project with some nice renders in either Toolbag or UE4 (super excite!).