Pixelated textures in Substance Painter

TrevorEugeneArt

Hi All,

Hopefully someone can help me! I've modeled a basic pipe (you will actually see through the images that I have redone it a few times, changing things to hopefully find a solution). The problem I am having is that no matter what I do, I am getting very pixelated textures when up close.

I am using 2048 for my maps and the SP exports.

I am new to UV mapping so I know I have bad seams and my UV's could use a layout touchup. With that said though, I've seen SP tutorials with a similar pixel density that still look great when viewed as closed as my pictures are.
My current workflow has been modeling in MODO/Maya (currently trying the Maya trial), doing high res in Zbrush, baking my maps in Toolbag 3, and then importing my low poly with the maps into SP to texture.

The application itself does not run slow, but would my GPU have anything to do with this? I'm using an XFX R9 270x.

Is there possibly a bad step I am taking when importing the maps from Toolbag into SP?

Here is a list of what I have tried to fix it:
1. Update GPU drivers
2. Uninstall and reinstall SP
3. Remap UV's (the picture below are the updated UV's)
4. Change UV scale on materials used

PolyHertz

Your UV layout is the problem. It's pixelated because you're wasting the majority of your texture space.
The fewer pixels your UVs cover = the more pixelated your textures will appear.

TrevorEugeneArt

Thanks for the reply PolyHertz! Do you have any tips for how to lay this out? I've placed it to get even pixel density across the major pipe area, though I do have bad seams.

Should I chop the pipe up into smaller sections and make them larger on the UV map, then use a triplanar projection for the metal material?

hildner

I would cut the pipe in two shells where the junction is. There you could place a nice seam?