Questions about Substance Painter

Hi,

Is there anyone using Substance Painter ? I didn't tried the tool but i try to understand what it can do really. In the past texturing was a pain. But i see now this new way to texture.

So it is a tool that literally can be used with low poly models to apply live painting on them with lots of effects ?
Does it have buit-in material ?

As an example, if i made a 3D tank in Blender, can i literally use a specific color metallic materiel with grudges effects on it (provinded by the software) in no time ?

That the questions i try to find an answer.

Thanks!

 

Yes to all them questions, and you can also get Substance Designer and make new Materials as well.
it comes with all kinds of standard materials and effects, and even has Smart Materials which are neat.

Also has Tri-planer mapping before you export to your UV's which is even better

 

We started to use it. We don't anymore. It was more trouble than it was worth for our needs.

 

Interesting. Thanks for your input!

Which trouble exactly you had ? What else did you use ?

 

You can paint textures on objects for free in blender 3d.

With something like this:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?368168-Unity-Standard-Shader-like-Cycles-Material

Or similar node setup that mimics Unity standard shaders, you'll be able to paint pbr textures as well, and preview them in semi-realtime.

However, you'll be only able to paint textures, and not produce "substances". As far as I know the idea behind substance designer is making shaders using nodes and then importing those. You won't be able to do that in blender.

 

Substance painter is great, I can recommend it. Definitely something you need to know for PBR texturing. There are also some other solution out there, such as quixel, or é en 3D coat can paint real time PBR texturing onto low poly models, maybe mud box can do that ad well... (not sure though). It's a tool, so sometimes why use a hammer when you just need a screwdriver. The right tool for the right job.

 

If it wasn't for Substance painter I'd be stuck making even more crappy textures.
I can model, just not so great at texturing until I got my hands on Substance Painter.

 

Would you mind letting us know?

 

Two things really. At first it was a pain because the metal maps didn't play well with standard shader, so it took extra time to adjust to get to look right. But we eventually ditched he standard shader. The second, not all the artists dug it. And it didn't make sense having to either slow down the artists that don't use it, or have everyone use different tools. (Consistency of appearance). There were really no benefits that made it worth switching or ramp up time or forcing artists to use it for no good reason. It wasn't horrible or anything, just didn't add anything.

 

@zombiegorilla would you recommend it for a hobby artist? I like playing around with art even though i am a programmer

 

In the end you have to like it. In my opinion their model software renting is very fair. You can cancel at every time and once you have spent so much that you could have bought the software, they actually give you a perpetual license. (At least that's what it was when I checked the last time)
So why not simply try?

 

Out of curiosity, what are you using now?

 

@zombiegorilla :
I see.
Just so you know, they fixed the discrepancies with the metal map. The only substantial difference still left is Unity using Blinn-Phong and Substance using GGX.

@BFGames :
I can wholeheartedly recommend it to you.
His points don't apply to you if you don't...

• ...work with other 3d artists who don't want to use Substance
• ...are trained in using other tools and not flexible enough/willing to switch

 

Cool will give it a try when im less busy at work

 

Isn't 5.3 supposed to fix this by switching to ggx aswell? At least it was mentioned in one of the unite videos I randomly clicked and it wouldn't make sense to talk about it if it isn't in the next version...

 

Oh sure. I would recommend to use whatever works best. It wasn't broken or anything, the shader issue was more on unity than sp. it was dropped mostly due to lack of interest.

 

Fair enough. Will give it at try when i got time for my new hobby project i got planned

 

It was none of these things, we always look for better solutions. That just wasn't it. They even sent folks to our studio to demo and answer questions. It just didn't add enough value to warrant adoption. It's cool though.

 

I enjoy using Substance Painter just for fun. I have the whole suite. I have played around with Bitmap2Material and Substance Designer, but I'm not really very good with them.

 

So basically its like shader forge but with a painter to paint the "substances" on your 3d models ?

From what i understand you are a studio with artists that already have a working workflow. Adding Substance would not increase that workflow speed for them. This is understandable offcourse. If they are good enough to texture in the first place then maybe that tool is out of place.. but for indie that might be a good option.

I know how to model.. but i was looking at an easy solution for texturing the problem is that i am not a photoshop artist or anything good enough to texture my own models. I was looking for an intuitive solution for this.

 

You won't need to be a Photoshop artist to make textures in Substance Painter, but you will need to be a Substance Painter artist. I find Painter and Designer to be great tools that greatly increase my workflow. The masks they generate for things like edge effects are a massive time saver. But, like anything, you are going to have to have or develop some artistic skill in order to make the most of the software.

 

Yeah its like a photoshop for 3d artist to me.

Great, thanks guys for your comments! Really appreciated.

 

It utilizes a lot of the same concepts of Photoshop like layers and masking, and even interfaces with photoshop, but it's certainly a different discipline / skillset.

The quality if your UV and normal maps that you import will also make a big difference in what your end product will be with substance painter. I like to use XNormal and bake out a high quality normal map.

 

I would say this pretty much on the money. All of our artists are top notch seasoned industry vets, maya, ps, coat generally. Add to that our art direction is very tight, so even very simple things like concrete, has to exactly match the style of everything else in game. So it is faster having the same artists painting everything in the same style. Substance is great at to good looking general textures very quickly, but slower to get a very specific look that can be painted quickly by a skilled artist.

Yea, great for indies, but also great for teams where the style is suited for what substance does best. Which is probably a fair amount of games.

Also we tested using it after the style was locked. Had we started using it from the start, the result may have been different. It just wasn't a fit for our team at this time and this project.