3D Creative December 2015

3DCREATIVE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 124
Discover Substance Painter
with Andrew Finch…
In this tutorial I will guide you through the
process of creating a Viking shield inspired
by the TV show Vikings. In the last tutorial
we UV mapped a low resolution mesh of the
shield and baked the high resolution data to
a normal map. We also set up the Substance
Painter project ready for us to begin texturing.
In this tutorial we will use Substance Painter to
texture the Viking shield to almost completion
using a lot of the powerful tools it has to offer,
such as the Substance materials to generate
wear and tear. We will also explore painting
the PBR textures and adjusting an already
existing normal map. At the end of this fourpart
tutorial series all the assets we create will
be imported in Marmoset Toolbag 2 and set
up in a quick scene to show off our model; but
instead of rendering out still images for your
portfolio, I will show you how to use the new
Marmoset Viewer tool to create an interactive
portfolio piece, which is a new very impressive
way to display your artwork to potential
employers, giving them the ability to examine
your asset interactively.
Updated base layer: In the previous
01 chapter I showed you how to import an
already existing texture to use as our base layer. I
thought this texture was a little too plain-looking
and so I decided to add some detail and color;
most Viking shields have a pattern on them, so I
added a red background and a white outline to
the wooden cross shape. I think this looks much
better and traditional. All of the other elements
that make up the shield will be textured using
Substance materials. These materials utilize
texture maps to define how they behave and are
very powerful and quick at producing realistic
seamless textures.
Geometry Decal tool: We will be
02 using the masking tools a lot during
the texturing phase and Substance Painter’s
Geometry Decal tool makes creating masks very
easy. You have many options for selecting areas
to mask in or out such as UV islands, elements or
polygons. You can drag and select elements in the
3D viewport or 2D viewport, and press F1, F2 and
F3 to switch viewport modes. If you’re working on
a complex shape that’s hard to select, use the 2D
UV window to easily select the UV islands.
You are also given a grayscale slider to pick
the color of your masked areas; the same rules
apply as any other mask texture, where black is
removed and white is drawn.
The base layer is an already existing diffuse texture from Photoshop
Substance Painter’s intelligent masking tools easily mask out unwanted areas
Baking out textures to take full advantage of the Smart Material capabilities
Baking new texture: Smart Materials
03 are a group of folders and layers used to
create advanced effects for your textures. In order
for these materials to work correctly they require
certain textures; AO maps are used to tell the
material where dirt can build up, for example. A
new texture which you can bake out in Substance
Painter is the curvature map, which gives curved
edge information to the material. This is good
for wear and tear – areas that will be subject to
weathering and general use. Under the TextureSet
Settings, click Bake Textures and you’re presented
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