Answered: Why Quixel Suite?
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Hi everyone. This is a sincere post. I've mostly been using Substance Painter and recently discovered Quixel Suite 2 and the new Mixer (looks amazing!). I'm wondering, are there any main benefits to using Quixel Suite vs Painter? I'm not trying to make this a "which is better thread" - but more so looking to understand what Quixel Suite can offer that Substance perhaps cannot?
A couple questions off the top of my head, because I haven't found a good way to do this in Painter.
1. Is it possible to take any brush and paint normal detail with the Suite?
2. If adding height details with an alpha, or equivalent, can you apply procedural masks with good results if the detail was already baked to the normal map? -- I guess this question is irrelevant if you can easily paint on the normal map?
3. Because the Suite is inside Photoshop, does having more RAM become more beneficial for performance vs a high end GPU?
Thanks!
A couple questions off the top of my head, because I haven't found a good way to do this in Painter.
1. Is it possible to take any brush and paint normal detail with the Suite?
2. If adding height details with an alpha, or equivalent, can you apply procedural masks with good results if the detail was already baked to the normal map? -- I guess this question is irrelevant if you can easily paint on the normal map?
3. Because the Suite is inside Photoshop, does having more RAM become more beneficial for performance vs a high end GPU?
Thanks!
Replies
I'm hardly unbiased here (although I did start working at Quixel because I love the software, not because I was recruited to say good things about it) but I'll answer as best as I can. Obviously I can't (and won't) comment on competitor software just because it's not my place.
1. Of course! NDO allows you to 3D paint normal detail directly on your model. Check my NDO tutorial for more information.
2. All of the masks DDO generates are procedural with a mix of scan data added to break up the surfaces.
3. More RAM is always good, regardless of the program you use. I work with 32 GB. Photoshop is a RAM-intensive tool and as such the more you can feed it, the better it will perform. However, this is subject to certain limitations. I cover a lot of performance issues in my DDO tutorial.
The Suite (NDO/DDO) is a very straight-forward program with some quirks that can be exploited to produce quick, accurate results. There are some limitations to it, and some issues you'll undoubtedly encounter, but I'm always here to assist if you have any questions or concerns.
PS: I edited your thread slightly. Quixel is our company, not our product.
I forgot to add another question. Is it possible to create a texture map in Quixel Suite, and have your brush tile, (repeat) off the canvas? Similar to zBrush wrap mode? To better explain what I am talking about, this is an exact example.
Just wondering if it's possible.
Thanks again! Look forward to getting Quixel Suite now
In terms of texture paint tiling in the Suite, that's unfortunately not possible the way ZBrush does it. You would need to look up offset painting for texture tiling in Photoshop to set up that sort of approach. Shouldn't be hard!