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Substance Painter - How to use with Sansar

Chris Jackson

August 05, 2017 18:44

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I just bought Substance Painter after using PS for many years. And with the advent of PBR, there are many like me who have some things to learn about how to use PBR shaders, how to best unwrap for Substance texturing, etc.

Since I am totally new to this type texturing and using Substance Painter, I thought this might be a good time to lay down at least a basic walk-through of sorts with Sansar-specific info.

A materials showroom/display is suppose to be in the works for Sansar to show how various materials look but I'm not sure if there will be any "How-to" info.

Tips on how to best use Substance Painter in relationn to Sansar?

39 comments

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  Chris Jackson August 05, 2017 18:48

  Here's a link to the Allegorithmic video series...(not Sansar specific)

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d819Y_-mLKo&t=1s&list=PLFB6-u4nBzSlPDnwB6bIFlgFoQAN-WXVO&index=6

  Edited by Chris Jackson August 05, 2017 18:48
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  Chris Jackson August 06, 2017 18:36

  Substance artists? I know your out there!

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  Agustine August 06, 2017 19:44

  ..there are SP users in Sansar..mostly on Sansar's slack... I have and used Allegorithmic's B2M which basicly tweaks your texture maps to desired settings.. so just watch standard substance tutorials ..there on you will learn how to export the texture maps... only 4 needed in Sansar.. Diffuse/Albedo, roughness, normal map, and metalness

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  BlackNewsMan August 06, 2017 20:21

  THANKS FOR THE INFO

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  Chris Jackson August 06, 2017 21:23

  Yes, thank you.

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  Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 06:39

  Well, I was hoping some would at least share their experiences with Substabnce in Sansar,

  The tutorials are good, but its always better to talk directly to somebody.

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  VR Architect August 08, 2017 12:16

  I will be learning too. I bought SB but not started to use just yet. I saw some of their tutorials and they look good. 

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  Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 15:33

  Well, we can learn together. I've messed with but not much more than open it so far. Looks simple enough. I've watched a few videos and I'm just amazed at what it does compared to what we had to do over 10 years ago texturing with Photoshop.

  I haven't been in a rush to start making high quality textures since things are still changing, just wanted to get the basics built and see where we are at.

  I look forward to the marterials display thing they say is coming.

  Edited by Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 15:33
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  nebulae August 08, 2017 15:44

  it's been pretty easy to create with Substance painter, I create my blender model and assign materials to the faces, then export that as fbx and open it as a new project in substance painter.  Bake the textures then apply / paint layers onto the materials. you can add an emissive channel, or other channels, then bake the textures again.  Once you're happy, export the textures and use those generated images as the material images when you upload the model into sansar. 

   

  You need the Material_base_color, Material_normal, Material_roughness, and Material_metallic images that were exported. Emissive / additional channel images as well, if you created extra channels. 

   

  This works well for me. 

   

   

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  Malakina August 08, 2017 16:10

  you can use the tutorial videos of allegorithmic for the workflow.. there is really everything covered. In ways of Sansar I can hand you a export setting and a setup for the background to have the right export setup and visuals..

  so for the export settings you go on File --> Export Textures, and there on the Configuration tab. Press the little + button to create a new export setting.I named mine SansarBase and SansarEmisive, I made it two settings because the emissive should be a EXR file.

  So this is the base

  

  and this is the emisive

  

   

  ok one more setting to get the reflections as you got them now in Sansar:

  In the main window you go to "Viewer settings".. by default you would have the textureSet Settings open in that field, so you switch tab. For the Environment Map  you choose this  Soft_1LowContrstFront_2Backs. It is a studio light setup and is just black and white and that way you get a dull result on your materials like you would in Sansar. That way you cna also check out how it would look once you got refelctions here ;)
  
  

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  Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 16:10

  Is there a specific video tutorial from Allegorithmic (or others for that matter) you might recommend?

  I'd like to stick with those that are most related to what Sansar requires or is possible.

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  Chris Jackson August 08, 2017 16:13

  WOW, Malakina, much Mahalo! Dat da kine info brah!

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  Malakina August 08, 2017 16:17

  hm it depends on what kind of knowlege you got previously. You can use all information about texturing. I cant think about anything in that software, that you wouldnt need in Sansar. and they really start with basics like how to unwrap your object in the best way, how to prepare your models for a good bake and so on

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  Malakina August 08, 2017 16:18

  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB0wXHrWAmCx994Cb7iRFSmupYHFw5DTx

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  Malakina August 08, 2017 16:28

  oh right. there will be a update on how to use the roughness map on hair, which isnt covered here.. but basicly its like you got the Roughness information in the R channel and by fliping either the G or B channel you can control in which direction the reflections go. This was a workflow to get propper reflections on hair, revealed by Jason. But you wouldnt be able to display that properly in Substance Painter I think.. Not such a big deal though.. you can just make your setup so that you got the roughness only in the R channel and do the switching of one channel in Photoshop or whatever tool.

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  Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 08:20

  I started my first sub project...sawhorse. Got it unwrapped and UV's laid out, set two materials. I think it's ready for SP.

  

  Did I mention unwrapping sucks? I've always hated this part. Biggest thing is trying to keep track of what part is what, and determining which direction parts are pointing. Needless to say, I haven't done a lot of complex unwrapping. Never had a real need for it till now.

  Edited by Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 08:24
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  Malakina August 09, 2017 10:25

  well, I found it most easy in Blender. You can imagine the 3d object like made out of paper or cardboard. Now you want to cut it open to lay it flat out onto the desk. So you plan which edges to cut in order to have little ammount of seams and no tensions. Imagine a ping pong ball. you could cut it in half , put it on the desk, but its still not flat. So what you do? you smash it with a book. That's what is happening with  tensions in the UV unwrap. So if you would cut half into the half sphere, you could already with ease erase those tensions.

  So in Blender you mark those seams where you want to cut and get a easy to see red line on the model, then you press U ---> unwrap and already got all the uv isles layed out within UV space. Now you could select all the isles and try to pack it again with UVs ---> Pack Islands. Often that way you can already get a better use of the UV space..  and then you could look if there are ways to manually optimize the use of space.

  The way it looks you unfolded or projected each face/side seperatly? Try to get used to the thought of cutting paper =) it will make your life easier and allows easy changes later on

   

  (or did you just switch the color theme for the marked seams? XD I can see something fat marked there)

  Edited by Malakina August 09, 2017 10:26
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  Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 10:59

  Indeed, planning on where you want seams, etc is key and it really is the same as flattening out a box, etc.

  Yes, it is seamed. I have a different profile for Blender and some colors are different than default.

  This model I did smart unwrap, then manually move stuff around so I could put stuff where I want and also get the scaling right based on the checkerboard so there is no "tension" in the texture.

  Agreed, the map is not efficient in its layout. It has not been packed obviously, but I know where every surface is and how its oriented.

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  Malakina August 09, 2017 11:42

  the good thing about substance painter is, that you dont really need to know about the positioning. you can hover your brush above the 3d model and see where you are on the map. you can draw on 3D and 2D viewport, having the same result. Unless you tell substance painter to, nothing is projected. the brush always alligns to the surface by default. That way even seams dont matter while painting. They matter though for repeating patters. But even for that there is a sollution. You can either choose to use the UV layout or a tri planar projection on materials. It's still better to have a propper UV layout, but seams are not as big of a problem as they used to be.

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  Malakina August 09, 2017 11:46

  If you like we can have a appointment, so I can showcase a few of the posibilities you got on a live stream. How about 1PM PDT at https://picarto.tv/Malakina ?

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  Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 16:38

  LOL, you know, that actually dawned on me later, that I don't really need to know what parts are what in the UV map seeing that I can work directly on the model surface in SP. I'm so used to not being able to do that. I remember back over 10 years ago there was talk of integrating Photoshop that way so you could paint on the model.

  Watching SP videos of work being done I'm just amazed at what can be done now versus when I graduated college in 2005.

  YES< I would be very interested Malakina, that would be very nice of you.

  I'm Arizona time (same as PST for now), so no problem.

  Thank you.

  Edited by Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 16:39
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  Malakina August 09, 2017 16:41

  yea you can actually paint 3d in Photoshop, but it doesnt work with such ease like in Substance Painter. Allright. See you at 1PM then (I live in Germany by the way.. but since everyone is counting PDT here for the meetups and stuff I stuck to that timezone xD )

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  Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 16:54

  Cool.

  LOL, see, I'm so far behind. Didn't know that. My budget can only afford so much, so I have been using the free version of Photoshop CS2 for a few years now in hobby stuff. But for Sansar, I decided to get serious and try to learn and do things the right way.

  My main goal is for my exp to load fast and look right. And hopefully some folks will want some stuff.

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  Malakina August 09, 2017 19:14

  I have to correct myself. I never knew if Sansar was openGL or directX standard for the normal map.. so I searched in the forum and found a discussion where they came to the conclusion that Sansar uses OpenGL.. so in the export settings you would have to use the OpenGL setting instead of DirectX... shame on an unprecise documentation.

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  Cat August 09, 2017 19:28

  Maybe it is possible to watch what you streamed later?

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  Malakina August 09, 2017 19:30

  Anyone can join. I dont have a pro subscription though as I dont regularly stream and so the recordings are not saved.. hmm.. I will see if I can upload it later

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  Chris Jackson August 09, 2017 19:37

  If you don't mind Malakina, I'm going to attempt to record it via OBS, then post to my You Tube channel.

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  Malakina August 09, 2017 19:53

  ok yes.. you can do that.

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  Cat August 09, 2017 19:54

  You guys are awesome. Thanks a lot.

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  Malakina August 09, 2017 19:57

  ok I will start the stream and get started in 3 minutes