Strange edges in Substance Painter, please help me.

KotBigimot

Hey guys,

I have searched around how to solve this, but I'm quite new to 3d modeling and texturing, and don't even know what to call the problem I have here.

The model is imported from ZBrush. My textures look weird on some,but not all edges. This (red circle) is a perfectly straight, sharp edge in ZBrush. But comes out like this in Substance Painter. I think it's not the UV-mapping, that looks pretty good and even..right?

What am I doing wrong? And how do i solve it? (preferably inside Substance Painter so I don't have to start over with the texturing...)

If anybody can help me out, if only by telling what this problem is called, i'd be super grateful!

CheeseOnToast

Can you show an image with the model's wireframe on? Either in Painter, or in Zbrush with Draw Polyframe on?

I suspect it's an issue with vertex normals and triangulation.

The good news is that Painter is projection based. Even if you completely retopologize the model and redo its UVs, as long as it's the same size and position in space you won't lose the work you've done texturing.

KotBigimot

Thank you so much for answering me!

I'm not totally sure, but this is what you were asking for, right?

It was about half a million polygons, so i decimated it. I wanted to Zremesh it, but then i lost all the little details and even contour shape (and without contour shape i can not properly project the high poly version onto the low poly version). I didn't know how to fix it so I tried to export without doing it.

I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it now. So I guess that's were I was going wrong then? How do I fix it though? And how do i save my Painter projection to apply it again after retopology?

Kanni3d

If you're using that to bake from, that's most likely where your issues are coming from. You'd need some proper clean topology, and likely those tiny triangles along the edges are messing it up. I'm assuming this isn't really for a game art pipeline (would need MUCH cleaner/proper topology than that), so maybe run it through a zremesher, and project it against your high-res sculpt, re-uv and rebake?

KotBigimot

Thanks! No it's definitely not for anything official. I downloaded and started experimenting with this stuff a few weeks ago. I'm a traditional artist, but I want to learn this too. So thanks for the advice.

But actually this brings me back to where I was stuck in the first place. Let me try to be as clear about it as I can.

1. If i zremesh i lose the details (those rivets) unless the polycount is mental.

2. If I decimate first, the shape is fine, the polycount is fine, but my topology is this triangular mess.

3 If i zremesh after decimation it flattens all my details again, no matter my settings, unless the polys are going to be 600.000.

I haven't found a fourth option yet. But I'm sure there is one... So how can i get lower polycount, good topology And also preserve the details at the same time? I just can't figure it out...

Kanni3d

KotBigimot said:

Thanks! No it's definitely not for anything official. I downloaded and started experimenting with this stuff a few weeks ago. Want to learn it though. So thanks for the advice. I'll try that!

Awesome! And the term game-art doesn't necessarily mean that the work is within a production, loads of people make game art for portfolio/practices.

KotBigimot

Wait, help me out though! I edited my comment, I'm not sure if you get a notification for that. If you know what i can do, please give this noob some advice.

Please don't say i have to resculpt the whole thing. I was thinking I might have to. Resculpt the main form, get good topology and then sculpt the rivets again, and export as different subtools. But is that the best way?

Kanni3d

KotBigimot said:

Wait, help me out though! I edited my comment, I'm not sure if you get a notification for that. If you know what i can do, please give this noob some advice.

Please don't say i have to resculpt the whole thing. I was thinking I might have to. Resculpt the main form, get good topology and then sculpt the rivets again, and export as different subtools. But is that the best way?

No need to  resculpt. Have your high res sculpt, and duplicate it. With this new duplicated subtool, split the rivets into a further seperate subtool (use auto groups in the polygroups roll out, split by polygroups) and zremesh/project. Like you mentioned, it'll be impossible to retain the rivet details when zremeshing, and would require a ridiculously high polycount One subtool for the body, another for the rivets to preserve their shape/detail. 

However, you COULD bake the rivets down onto the body using a normal map, but it comes down to what fidelity you'd want for this. I'd suggest the previous method of seperate subtools, since the rivets are pretty prominent and do break the silhouette a bit.

KotBigimot

Dude! You have saved me! Why did i not think of splitting up via polygroups!!! Thank you SO much for explaining this basic stuff to me! I now have a different subtool for the rivets and i'm sure I can get better results now!