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By Nasok
#394647
Hey guys. I've searched the forum and it turned out that few of usage starting to get into Substance texturing toolset - and of course Substance is PBR, which is almost opposite of unbiased rendering.
But, have to admit, you can get pretty cool results with PBR. What could be better ? Is to have the ability to use PBR (ish) textures within Maxwell Render.

Currently I'm doing one game props (read - low-poly) and texture this in Substance. So I was wonder how would I apply those textures (and masks) in Maxwell Render.
Lightsaber3_Yoda_Iray.jpg
Lightsaber3_Yoda_front.jpg
Lightsaber3_Yoda_back.jpg
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User avatar
By Nasok
#394648
Lightsaber3_Yoda_ML.jpg
I tried to Match camera's angle in Maxwell and Substance - but it turned out to be quite challenging.
So the entire model uses only 2 maxwell materials.

Oh, and sorry, the models are low-poly and textures are only 2K :)

Would love to hear your suggestions on how to improve, and always ready to share my workflow if anyone interested.

P.S. - I work with Maya, but technique is general so could be applied to any software and, of course, to the studio.
Cheers,
Tim.
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By Mihai
#394653
Don't get too stuck on buzzwords like PBR, it's simply suggesting the approach to rendering is based more on how materials work in the real world. So the Maxwell material editor has always had parameters which coincide with that the textures that a "PBR workflow" would give you, notably a roughness textures, albedo.

The only slightly confusing thing is the "metallic" map you can get from a PBR workflow which designates what is metallic and what is dielectric. This map is in 99% of cases not painted using greyscale values but only fully black or fully white (which makes sense since you can't have a half plastic/half metal material). So to mimic something like painted scratched metal, in the bottom Layer BSDF, create the metallic BSDF, and on top of this layer, create two more layers that mimic the typical additive plastic approach, and use the metallic map from Substance as a layer mask for these. So:

Layer Additive, T
--BSDF (Shiny part of additive plastic) Here you can also add any roughness map you may have
Layer, Normal T
--BSDF, Main color of plastic (use here your main albedo map from Substance).
Layer, Normal
--BSDF with the Nd and K settings of the metal you're trying to mimic. Add here also your main albedo map. And also any roughness map you may have
User avatar
By Nasok
#394658
Hey Ya. Yup - totally agree on everything you wrote here.
I'm aware that PBR is more of a phong based renewing than "physical". I'm a Maya user so Metal Rough and Spec Gloss are Blinn and Phong respectively - I'm very familiar with those. But you can't deny that even though entire PBR workflow is not physically accurate - it can provide pretty nice results.

Substance is used for game props, and I just wanted to re-use some maps.

Um, I don't really agree here that Metallic Map could be only black and white :) nope :) it might have a mid value for car paint, metallic paints, for example :) Generally metallic map give an indication of a Fresnel reflection. White means full scale, black means no at all. However even plastic has a little meatless in it .. it goes to 0.04 - super small but big enough to make it not a solid black.
Because in substance it is impossible to define ND and K - they use metallic map for it. Which is, actually, a pretty cool idea.

Regarding the workflow - yup - I used pretty much the same scheme. I ended up adding quite a bit of contrast for roughness texture in maxwell colour-correction tab. But I guess that for my personal liking rather than for necessity.
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By Mihai
#394671
Not sure how the metallic map is generated in Substance, but in 3DCoat for example, it is always black and white. Because you're not specifying a generic "metalicity" of a substance itself, you're defining a blend between two different materials. In *addition* to this metalness map, you define layer masks in 3Dcoat to define where a paint has partly faded away. But the metalness map itself always remains b/w. Whether something behaves as a metal, or as a plastic does not have to do only with the fresnel reflections. You can easily try this: make a super shiny plastic that has a base texture, vs make a metal with the same texture. The reflections should not blend in the same way with the texture. And there is no physically based instance when this metal behavior "blends" with a plastic behavior *in the same physical material*.

So if you want to stick to the PBR workflow, a metallic map should always be completely black or white and I guess in this way 3DCoat makes more sense. Substance Designer says instead that, you can have small values of "metallic" to describe a dielectric (I'm not sure, but I'm guessing from a physically correct view, this doesn't make much sense), or stuff that's above a metal surface, like dust. I think the way 3DCoat deals with such cases is better: they simply use layers in a material, more like what the Maxwell material editor does.

EDIT: From reading this page:
https://www.marmoset.co/posts/pbr-texture-conversion/

Towards the bottom where it says "TEXTURE CONVERSION: SPECULAR -> METALNESS"

It seems to me what I would do (in the case of working with Substance Designer), is use this metalness mask as an inverted layer mask for any dielectrics you may have on top of the metal. So your grey areas in this metalness map will represent areas where paint or other insulators are partially faded away which is what they are saying anyway on that page.

I think the confusion comes when trying to use one map to define reflectance values for two wildly different materials - which seems to me you would need higher than even 16bit images to properly account for the range of possible values. Instead, avoid confusion and think of this metalness map as simply a mask, between two distinct and separate material types.

Carpaints is a bit of a special case because there are metallic flakes suspended in an insulator. I don't think you'll be able to convert a car paint shader done in Substance to work the same way in Maxwell, just using masks. The metallic flakes need to be "in" the paint and you can do that using a flakes normal map, and a BSDF mask for a metallic BSDF. That works very well actually (I'm almost finished creating a few carpaints this way).
By Eric Nixon 20170610100005
#394713
Thats the one thing I use substance for; the carpaint flake normal map generator, its free and the best I've found. Also you only need to install the substance player to use it

trying to test the image uploading..

16b image test, sry off topic but contains some pbr conversions; the tanks (from sketchfab) and the little white car - which came from blendswap, the other stuff is mostly from sketchfab, its raw scan data - it comes with just a diffuse map.

Is it possible to position the images on the page or resize them?
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By Nasok
#394729
@Mihai - well . in Substance it is a percentage from 0 to 100 :) that could be added to any layer. For instance if you wanna have materials like a "Jet-Metall" - or simply material that have meatless and refraction .. hmm .. like a sunglasses :) but you right - in majority of cases it goes pretty shard black and white - but generally - greyscale.
And well . in Substance you do defying "Metalicity" of a certain layer in your material layer stack.
You can easily try this: make a super shiny plastic that has a base texture, vs make a metal with the same texture. The reflections should not blend in the same way with the texture. And there is no physically based instance when this metal behavior "blends" with a plastic behavior *in the same physical material*.
- Yeah - this is the first thing I tried in Maxwell. Well, again, they don't have to be in the same material, it could be a plastic coated with metallic paint that was scratched away but not fully, not in all area ... for instance that could be observed on Christmas toys :) those a rare cases of course.

I'm not really into PBR much, at this point, I would rather use Substance as a texturing tool.
Substance Designer says instead that, you can have small values of "metallic" to describe a dielectric (I'm not sure, but I'm guessing from a physically correct view, this doesn't make much sense), or stuff that's above a metal surface, like dust.
- If only software could tell us something :)) right ? Well - you're right, PBR workflow was designed for GameDev mainly. And in their case for metal-rough shader for non metallic surfaces they used 0.04 value - which was a mid grey in linear mapping from 0.0 black to 0.08 white. Almost unnoticeable unless you have a very pronounced spec map, but it is there. :)) And it make sense .. however from Physically correct point of view - the entire PBR is just like you said - buzz words :)
It seems to me what I would do (in the case of working with Substance Designer), is use this metalness mask as an inverted layer mask for any dielectrics you may have on top of the metal. So your grey areas in this metalness map will represent areas where paint or other insulators are partially faded away which is what they are saying anyway on that page.

I think the confusion comes when trying to use one map to define reflectance values for two wildly different materials - which seems to me you would need higher than even 16bit images to properly account for the range of possible values. Instead, avoid confusion and think of this metalness map as simply a mask, between two distinct and separate material types.
- totally agree here. That how I used it also. The reason I posted it here is if someone would wonder on "how to" - :)
Carpaints is a bit of a special case because there are metallic flakes suspended in an insulator. I don't think you'll be able to convert a car paint shader done in Substance to work the same way in Maxwell, just using masks. The metallic flakes need to be "in" the paint and you can do that using a flakes normal map, and a BSDF mask for a metallic BSDF. That works very well actually (I'm almost finished creating a few carpaints this way).
- Oh man - I've seen those - they are awesome!! Have to admit - I'm quite jealous there :)

Well, anyway - this is a WIP thread, so I'll post more tests once I'll have a bit more time.
User avatar
By Nasok
#395090
Here is a new take on Substance to Maxwell process.

Image
low poly

Image
low poly

Image
high poly with displacement

And, well, sorry, couldn't resist :)

Image

This time the process was a bit more straightforward. Became more essential of types of masks and textures one would need in order to achieve the same(ish) look and feel as in Substance painter.

Cheers,
Tim.
User avatar
By Nasok
#395586
Chrome material ? on the Darth Vader's lightsaber ?

Too perfect ? ... should it be a bit more smudged or dusted ? or less uniform in reflectance ? I just tried to think about this as a nice and more or less clean version of a lightsaber as he is not a rebel and basically can maintain his saber in a clean, if not perfect condition. Having all the necessary parts at his fingertips not like rebels which are constructing theirs from the scrap metal they find.
User avatar
By Nasok
#395852
Here is a new ones

Image
Image
Image
Image

and ... as usual .. here is little animation :)

Image

More stuff to come :)

P.S. - Figured out a better way to export masks from Substance Painter, so rather than exporting the entire layer stack to PSD - right click on the desired mask and export it to file - boy it took me a few months to find out that this feature exists :)

Cheers.
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