Painter - process question about baking multiple materials to a single texture set

turbovulture

Hi there,

I have a general question about the texturing process with Substance Painter. This is not a specific problem I am having but more of a process that I can't work out. So, let's say for example that I am modelling a prop, a sword for example.

The sword has 3 material types, a steel blade, a leather grip and gold pommel and now I want to texture the model in Substance Painter. In order to make the asset game-ready I need the prop to use only one texture set, not 3.

I use Blender for modelling and UVs and my current workflow would be to UV unwrap the model and then create vertex groups for each different material type (Steel, Leather, Gold). Then I would assign a material to each vertex group and give each material a basic RGB value to aid in ID map baking in SP, let's say RGB(255, 0, 0) for steel, RGB(0, 255, 0) for leather, RGB(0, 0, 255) for gold.

I export the mesh from Blender as .fbx and import it into SP. Now, here is where I get a little confused. SP expects me to bake an ID map to properly isolate each material type and so at this point SP knows that I have 3 materials assigned to the mesh. So, I bake the ID map and can now texture each different part of the mesh before finally exporting the materials to the filesystem. Naturally at this point, SP wants to export 3 texture sets.

Now, I know that this is not optimal, especially for smaller props, but I am not too sure how to merge the textures into one set. The ID map workflow makes sense to me and allows me to isolate each part of the mesh. The ID map workflow also seems to be mandatory in SP, so there is clearly something I am not understanding about the SP process whereby I can isolate each material type but end up with just one texture set when it comes to using the asset in-game.

- is this something that I need to set up in my DCC when I am UV unwrapping or exporting my mesh? If so how would this work with the ID map workflow?
- or is there a setting in SP where I can bake all the materials into one texture set when exporting from SP?

Maybe I am wrong with both these suggestions so would anyone be kind enough to explain the process that they have followed for using a single texture set for texturing assets that comprise multiple materials, as per the sword example described above.

Thanks very much in advance to anyone who can put me on the right path!!

Lewis

Taylor Brown

Assigning different materials to a game ready asset is generally only done in specific instances like setting up multiple tileables / material layering or if you need a part to have a certain shader applied (glass for example).

For a standard prop though, you'd export out your game ready mesh with one material only. You can apply any amount of materials to a high poly and bake that ID map down for texturing.

As far as I am aware, it is not possible to merge texture sets within painter. It is possible to do it manually by compositing everything in an image editor (Photoshop) but it's a really inefficient process.

To avoid a ton of rework for your sword, group all the layers youve made for each texture set and create a smart material for each. Then reimport your mesh with a single material applied. Now you can add those smart mats on and color select mask them. You'll likely lose any hand painted layers / masks but it should get you most of the way there.

I would seek out some high quality tutorials on the subject of prop work. Check out Dylan Abernathy's free type writer tutorial or one of Simon Fuchs'. They will demystify / set straight the misinfo you've inadvertently picked up.

turbovulture

Thanks a lot for your reply!

So I think I understand a bit more now. I have been using the same mesh for baking the ID maps and texturing because it was a bit more efficient from a learning perspective and allowed me to focus on the SP basics without getting too bogged down with the bake setting technicalities. I guess I now need to setup the bake settings to use the high-poly to generate the ID maps to mask out the different parts of the low poly.

In any case I will checkout out the tutorials you posted, that is probably best

Thanks for taking the time to answer, this was a useful tip, thanks. 😊 

Taylor Brown

Just know that an ID map isn't mandatory. You can create masks perfectly fine without one.. It's more of a time saving feature.

Hope that all helps

turbovulture

Good to know. It does help, thanks again for your reply