When are World normal, Curvature, Position and Thickness maps used in SP?

bitinn

I am still new to SP, and I know roughly how Normal, ID (for color selection) and AO should work.

I am not quite sure about the others. I don't see them being used in the export setting, I wonder under what situation would you need them (or, basically when can I safely skip baking them?)

Thx in advance.

lotet

The other maps are used by Substance Painter itself.  they are needed for SP to correctly predict and distribute scratches, dirt and other modifiers and generators.

without them you would get very bad results from basically all of SP features.

bitinn

lotet said:

The other maps are used by Substance Painter itself.  they are needed for SP to correctly predict and distribute scratches, dirt and other modifiers and generators.

without them you would get very bad results from basically all of SP features.

Thx. Thickness map does bake slower so it would be nice to know when is that applicable?

Or, actually, do I just need a solid understanding of Substance Designer to figure out which maps I need (when using procedural materials)?

lotet

I dont think you need to learn designer just so you understand the maps, but you could always read about them on the wiki to understand how they work better.

thickness maps takes longer to bake for me as well. if your having trouble with it, you can use the lowpoly model instead of your highpoly for the thickness and direction map baking process.  

If I have a particularly heavy highpoly model I sometimes make an extra version just for the thickness and position maps. you can use zbrush or a similar application to decimate the model quite heavily and still get the detail needed. 
for the normal, AO and curvature maps I like to get the most out of my highpoly detail, but I find the curve and position turns out fine even with a less dense model.

Zack Maxwell

Smart materials in general use them. Which ones it actually uses depends on the material, though,

like Lotet said, it helps the material accurately place things like scratches or rust.
I think the thickness map in particular is very rarely used. So if you don't like how long it takes to bake, you'll be safe just ignoring it 99% of the time