How can I create this wood panel pattern in Quixel Mixer?

Oblivion2500

I'm trying to create this material in Quixel Mixer. I'm remaking DM-Tutorial from Unreal Tournament GOTY 1999 in UE4. There are a few walls with wood paneling. The pattern is unique. It got a square in the center, then four rectangles around it, and then an extruded bar of wood with a gold indentation. It also looks as if the center square is flat and the four rectangles are extruding a tiny bit while the planks/wooden bar is on top of it connected together with the gold indentation clamp.

BagelHero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnB3XP1c930
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psYSC6kUchg

You watched these yet? I think this method should be able to get you a pattern like this, and this pattern would probably be a really good candidate to learn how to build these kinds of materials w/o image input.

Oblivion2500

BagelHero said:

You watched these yet? I think this method should be able to get you a pattern like this, and this pattern would probably be a really good candidate to learn how to build these kinds of materials w/o image input.

Yeah, I have watched those videos last week. Maybe it would be just easier to model the pattern in blender and then create a heightmap out of it. Then import it to mixer base material. Then work from there. 

Oblivion2500

I managed to make this in quixel. Needs some work. I started off making the centerpiece first then creating a separate material in the mixer to create the bars of wood and imported the panel material thus combining them. I just used a bunch of square patterns and projection masks. Tons of masking and wood layers too. 

BagelHero

There we go! Looking good.

I'd give this another pass, and try to refine some things.

 - Try and get the rotating tiles evenly sized and the bars on top evenly between them.

 - More height on those planks. & I think the center squares are also seperate wood tiles, so some depth/separation on those would also be good. Don't forget the bevel mask modifiers, either.

 - Get the grain on the vertical bars going vertical.

 - Make sure the wood grain normal/displacement info isn't showing on the gold area.

 - Try to think about where you can optimize and reuse things. Stuff like how you can take masks and invert them to fill shapes, like in the first tutorial. Grouping, layer clamping and modifiers, etc. And making use of the add layer/mask mode so you don't have to go through the hassle of messing around with too much importing or recombining.

Basically, consider how things are actually built IRL. This wouldn't be a flat wooden plank with the smaller stuff stuck on top, they'd be slotted between each other like tiles or a mosaic and you have to "build' it in that same way. The Gold areas, too, need a bit more ... are they indented, slotted in there? pinned on top? around? Gotta take into account how that actually looks so it doesn't just look like a 3D extrusion. But a great starting point nonetheless.

I'm glad you gave it a proper shot. Hopefully you're starting to see why this method of creating things is so powerful? If you only use the nodes/masks system, and no image imports, it's scalable too. You should be able to make this 256px or 4k without having to reauthor anything if it works like substance, for example.

edit: I will note that I gave this a shot on my own to try and understand where you might be getting caught up. I have never used Mixer before this point but it's totally possible to make this efficiently. Just have to invest yourself in learning it properly to get the look and effects you need with minimum hassle.