I would like to see the steps how to modify a smart material by some custom maps and save result material to the library for future use. Lets say I have applied a smart material of metal with painted surface and scratches. Now I want to replace its solid color of painted metal to some camouflage texture and keep all scratches how they were. Then I want to save new material to the library. I have made such steps myself but I have a sense that I made it not in a right manner.
In practice, this is pretty simple. You could just duplicate the base material so that you have two with the same pattern overlay, then apply the camouflage mask to the copy, change it to the wanted color and clip it down to the base layer with a clipping mask. It would now have the exact same detail pattern and not show up outside of the base layer.
This is how I did the camo on the vehicle preset in the GDC trailer.
..... You just put the decal inside the Photoshop document like you would with any other image or project in Photoshop...
That's actually the bit that is confusing me How? In what Layer? When I open a DDO project, a lot of different documents open up, do I put my decal in the aldebo (is that what it's called) document, and if so, where does it sit in the layer stack? And does it matter? That's the kind of basic issue I have with doing this. You guys (that know what they're doing) are Photoshop gurus, I have a basic understanding of what I'm doing
It shouldn't matter which document you put the image into. In the DDO options menu, you can Copy Layer to All Masks to copy it out to the other documents you'd like.
It can also sit wherever you want in the layer stack. I usually put custom stuff at or near the top so I can see it better.
Billy goes over that in a little more detail near the beginning of the tutorial on the last page.
I've got one question. In billy's tutorial where he bakes the Curvature from high poly (which is the only way I'm working) his curvature is really smooth. I assume you have exported it with AA settings. On my hand, as soon as I put 2x in the Anti Aliasing options, the render takes bloody forever, and the curves are still not as smooth as the one on Billy's one.
Would you guys mind uploading a screenshot of your bake settings? Would be interesting to see, as well as what machine you are exporting them on.
I've got one question. In billy's tutorial where he bakes the Curvature from high poly (which is the only way I'm working) his curvature is really smooth. I assume you have exported it with AA settings. On my hand, as soon as I put 2x in the Anti Aliasing options, the render takes bloody forever, and the curves are still not as smooth as the one on Billy's one.
Would you guys mind uploading a screenshot of your bake settings? Would be interesting to see, as well as what machine you are exporting them on.
Thanks!
I think I only use 1x AA, and also my settings are on a screenshot in the tutorial. I think it's just a matter of my model being stupidly high resolution in this case ;P. Try to smooth it some more and see if it helps.
Ah yes sorry i missed it! Cool, my poly is crazy high too but I still get some jaggered curved edges when I use only x1 AA
This is with x2 AA
And this is with x1 AA
You can notice the slight differences everytime there's an arc or a curve.
My only problem is that it's really taking forever to bake those maps, and i'd like to bake them on the highest quality i can.
I don't think there is a way to get around the fact that you need more calculation time if you want to bake higher quality maps. The reason I get away with 1x AA is probably just because I never bake less then 8k textures and therefore have way more pixels in the curves.
I guess one solution would be to bake bigger maps with 1x AA and just scale them down later, that is probably faster in the end and would probably have a similar result.
It may be too advanced, but I'd like to know how I would build an export preset. I use Octane, and there isn't one that works well for it. I have to tweak the specular and the glossyness (roughness) to get it to look anything like it does in 3DO. Unless that is, there is an Octane preset coming
I was having issues with anti-aliasing in my colour ID's .. namely I couldn't create a map without it unless I edited it by hand and with my current workload thats not going to happen.
So if you can limit yourself to 8 colours; red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, black and white as Id's .. you can use the following Photoshop action to remove the anti aliasing and give you crisp hard edges to your colour ID's and add a slight blurring to the alpha later.
gordon Robb that´s a really good idéa! Might take a bit more time since non of us graphic-monkeys know how to do it, allthough I´m hoping for support for octane soon, but regardless it would be good with a guide!
zogthedoomed - Did that plugin resolve all your issues?
I have been thinking about mini-tutorials for smart materials. If someone wants to request something specific we could do a quick guide on how to create that specific material, from a description or ref-image?
Hi Eric. No It was a great set of tools but didn't solve the anti aliasing issue. I'm using my action for that but for low res game textures its not proving as useful as I hoped.
But thats the least of my worries now. Quixels constant crashing and flakey response is making me reconsider its usefullness for my current plans. Mind you I'm only using the free evaluation version to test its suitability so it might not be as robust as the release but it feels like I'm spending more time fixing errors and restarting PS and QS than building textures.
I'd like to see how to place bullet hole decals using a similar method to the paint masking tutorial that was posted earlier. Maybe there's a clever way to automate a process like that?
We have no artist at the moment working with Octane, so I don't have anything to show right now, but the goal is to support Octane, any information on how that render behaves is greatly appreciated!
I have been thinking about mini-tutorials for smart materials. If someone wants to request something specific we could do a quick guide on how to create that specific material, from a description or ref-image?
We have no artist at the moment working with Octane, so I don't have anything to show right now, but the goal is to support Octane, any information on how that render behaves is greatly appreciated!
What would be the best way to give you that Eric? It uses (for example) diffuse, specularity, roughness and Normal/bump maps. I can get DDO to output these, but they are nowhere near a way that makes the Octane render look like the 3DO render. Not sure if that's a brightness, gamma or what issue.
Is there a process you recommend going through to set them up the same so that when you export then imput the maps, theres an easy way to understand what needs to change? Other than trial and error I mean.
What would be the best way to give you that Eric? It uses (for example) diffuse, specularity, roughness and Normal/bump maps. I can get DDO to output these, but they are nowhere near a way that makes the Octane render look like the 3DO render. Not sure if that's a brightness, gamma or what issue.
Is there a process you recommend going through to set them up the same so that when you export then imput the maps, theres an easy way to understand what needs to change? Other than trial and error I mean.
And it won't work with Spec map. Spec fresnel is coded with PBR shader for real time rendering, whereas for offline rendering you need to specify it yourself. So, for V-Ray or Octane it's better to work with Metalness workflow. Just use 51, 51, 51 RGB for Reflection color of dielectric materials and use Albedo Metalness texture for metals with manually set fresnel value. Metals should be masked with Metalness texture.
And it won't work with Spec map. Spec fresnel is coded with PBR shader for real time rendering, whereas for offline rendering you need to specify it yourself. So, for V-Ray or Octane it's better to work with Metalness workflow. Just use 51, 51, 51 RGB for Reflection color of dielectric materials and use Albedo Metalness texture for metals with manually set fresnel value. Metals should be masked with Metalness texture.
Most of those terms don't apply to octane. It only has 3 base types of material. Diffuse - completely Matt, Glossy - shiny, used for anything that is glossy, from slightly, to chrome. Speculate - clear go for glass etc. This material you are showing here could be done a couple ways in Octane. Simplest would be using Aldebo, spec and roughness.most advanced would still use the same but blend materials using the same maps, but wit different index (IOR) values. Blended most likely with the spec image.
It should be coming! we're working together now with the creators of the most common renderers to do proper export presets and there will be guides coming as well! In the meantime if someone wants to post their Octane shader chart it would be awesome!
I was having issues with anti-aliasing in my colour ID's .. namely I couldn't create a map without it unless I edited it by hand and with my current workload thats not going to happen.
So if you can limit yourself to 8 colours; red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, black and white as Id's .. you can use the following Photoshop action to remove the anti aliasing and give you crisp hard edges to your colour ID's and add a slight blurring to the alpha later.
Final_fight is correct, your IOR has to be set manually in Octane. So currently the only way to nail your look is to use a separate glossy material for each unique IOR value and then use a number of mix material nodes and masks to piece them together.
The devs have said that with OpenShadingLanguage support coming in V3 it could be possible to write a shader that can take a greyscale texture input for IOR instead of just a single float value. I think the DDo IOR map is just an empty placeholder, but maybe it could be calibrated for this purpose in the future.
But if you're doing personal work you can be lazy and just export uncalibrated albedo, spec, gloss (inverted in octane to roughness), and normal, then play with an IOR around 3-5. You won't get accurate fresnel obviously, but the roughness, normal, and spec make it look interesting enough IMO. (although maybe my eyes are just crappy ) For example:
I would think you could get away with the same spec and roughness map, but just have them used in seep rate materials with different IOR settings.
I'm happy with the results ingest just doing it the simple way you suggested, I would just like DDO to output a spec and roughness map that does not need tweaked to hell to get it to look anywhere near right.
i found this tutorial image: https://i.imgur.com/Ur5iz4H.jpg), but its for udk, is there something like it for ue4? I dont know where its taken from, could be a webpage. for some reason images like that are easier to follow than a webpage though.
i found this tutorial image: https://i.imgur.com/Ur5iz4H.jpg), but its for udk, is there something like it for ue4? I dont know where its taken from, could be a webpage. for some reason images like that are easier to follow than a webpage though.
The workflow for creating content for UE4 is exactly the same.
i discovered that menu, just not sure what extra thing it does that i cant do without the plugin, from what i understand emissive maps are just brighter sections in a black background. There must be something more to it that im missing. and in quixel i dont know how to see the albedo map as i color in the bright spots and it doesnt really 3d preview the way it should.
hah, it's very simple. To see bloom from emissive you actually have to blur your lights through Gaussian Blur filter or layer styles (outer glow), you'll get that halo.
BUT
if you want to plug it in UE4 you SHOULDN'T blur your lights, you have to modify emissisve strength in UE4 material. Blur setup will work with Unity. Also there may be some way to enable bloom in Quixel previewer but I haven't looked into it.
cant quixel do it for me automatically as an option just so i can preview it? the blur makes sense so will do that only to preview it though. Would be great to have that streamlined a bit more. also would it be possible to take the normal map made in quixel and turn it into emissive map automatically and just paint into each layer rather than me having to go through it myself if that makes any sense?
Hey guys, follow up question to my original. So I used the reimporter to change my material id map then i hit re-render. It said it successfully re-rendered everything, but when I check my material id's in 3do, it's still showing my old map. Did I miss something?
Edit: I figured out a work around. When Reimporting, the update sometimes doesn't show up unless you press the "Links..." button. If that doesn't work, change the file name of the ID Map and that should do it.
Try clicking Full Curves instead, see if that helps. If that doesn't, if you could, send your project to me at jonathan @ quixel . se and I'll take a look at it!
Hi! I posted this in Technical Talk too, but this may be a better place.
Below is the LP grip of a sword that I've modelled off this
reference. I want to add the detail outlined in the first image in the
normal map but I am confused about the best way to unwrap the mesh to do
this.
Do I unwrap the faces to be detailed separately to have straight UV islands to apply the detail to (like in image #2)?
Or
can I unwrap the mesh as I normally would? And if so, how do I go about applying the detail evenly and distortion-free?
Replies
In practice, this is pretty simple. You could just duplicate the base material so that you have two with the same pattern overlay, then apply the camouflage mask to the copy, change it to the wanted color and clip it down to the base layer with a clipping mask. It would now have the exact same detail pattern and not show up outside of the base layer.
This is how I did the camo on the vehicle preset in the GDC trailer.
That's actually the bit that is confusing me
It shouldn't matter which document you put the image into. In the DDO options menu, you can Copy Layer to All Masks to copy it out to the other documents you'd like.
It can also sit wherever you want in the layer stack. I usually put custom stuff at or near the top so I can see it better.
Billy goes over that in a little more detail near the beginning of the tutorial on the last page.
I've got one question. In billy's tutorial where he bakes the Curvature from high poly (which is the only way I'm working) his curvature is really smooth. I assume you have exported it with AA settings. On my hand, as soon as I put 2x in the Anti Aliasing options, the render takes bloody forever, and the curves are still not as smooth as the one on Billy's one.
Would you guys mind uploading a screenshot of your bake settings? Would be interesting to see, as well as what machine you are exporting them on.
Thanks!
I think I only use 1x AA, and also my settings are on a screenshot in the tutorial. I think it's just a matter of my model being stupidly high resolution in this case ;P. Try to smooth it some more and see if it helps.
This is with x2 AA
And this is with x1 AA
You can notice the slight differences everytime there's an arc or a curve.
My only problem is that it's really taking forever to bake those maps, and i'd like to bake them on the highest quality i can.
I guess one solution would be to bake bigger maps with 1x AA and just scale them down later, that is probably faster in the end and would probably have a similar result.
Thanks billy!
So if you can limit yourself to 8 colours; red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, black and white as Id's .. you can use the following Photoshop action to remove the anti aliasing and give you crisp hard edges to your colour ID's and add a slight blurring to the alpha later.
http://wp.me/p17aZI-12n
My own workflow is currently Lightwave - zBush - xNormal - DDO.
Hope it proves of some use.
Pat
zogthedoomed - Did that plugin resolve all your issues?
I have been thinking about mini-tutorials for smart materials. If someone wants to request something specific we could do a quick guide on how to create that specific material, from a description or ref-image?
But thats the least of my worries now. Quixels constant crashing and flakey response is making me reconsider its usefullness for my current plans. Mind you I'm only using the free evaluation version to test its suitability so it might not be as robust as the release but it feels like I'm spending more time fixing errors and restarting PS and QS than building textures.
http://www.alanauto.com/pics/xc_cav_seats2.jpg
Thanks, Eric!
What would be the best way to give you that Eric? It uses (for example) diffuse, specularity, roughness and Normal/bump maps. I can get DDO to output these, but they are nowhere near a way that makes the Octane render look like the 3DO render. Not sure if that's a brightness, gamma or what issue.
Is there a process you recommend going through to set them up the same so that when you export then imput the maps, theres an easy way to understand what needs to change? Other than trial and error I mean.
And it won't work with Spec map. Spec fresnel is coded with PBR shader for real time rendering, whereas for offline rendering you need to specify it yourself. So, for V-Ray or Octane it's better to work with Metalness workflow. Just use 51, 51, 51 RGB for Reflection color of dielectric materials and use Albedo Metalness texture for metals with manually set fresnel value. Metals should be masked with Metalness texture.
I didn't understand any of that
Render:
or have I missed it, hmmm.... possible
DAMN. Is there any way to get more than those 8 colors? I regularly work with more than that
The devs have said that with OpenShadingLanguage support coming in V3 it could be possible to write a shader that can take a greyscale texture input for IOR instead of just a single float value. I think the DDo IOR map is just an empty placeholder, but maybe it could be calibrated for this purpose in the future.
But if you're doing personal work you can be lazy and just export uncalibrated albedo, spec, gloss (inverted in octane to roughness), and normal, then play with an IOR around 3-5. You won't get accurate fresnel obviously, but the roughness, normal, and spec make it look interesting enough IMO. (although maybe my eyes are just crappy
3DO
Octane
I would think you could get away with the same spec and roughness map, but just have them used in seep rate materials with different IOR settings.
I'm happy with the results ingest just doing it the simple way you suggested, I would just like DDO to output a spec and roughness map that does not need tweaked to hell to get it to look anywhere near right.
The workflow for creating content for UE4 is exactly the same.
http://prntscr.com/81ku9q
look for emissive in this long list
BUT
if you want to plug it in UE4 you SHOULDN'T blur your lights, you have to modify emissisve strength in UE4 material. Blur setup will work with Unity. Also there may be some way to enable bloom in Quixel previewer but I haven't looked into it.
Edit: I figured out a work around. When Reimporting, the update sometimes doesn't show up unless you press the "Links..." button. If that doesn't work, change the file name of the ID Map and that should do it.
sorry for my English.. take a look at couple of pictures I've created
Below is the LP grip of a sword that I've modelled off this reference. I want to add the detail outlined in the first image in the normal map but I am confused about the best way to unwrap the mesh to do this.
Do I unwrap the faces to be detailed separately to have straight UV islands to apply the detail to (like in image #2)?
Or can I unwrap the mesh as I normally would? And if so, how do I go about applying the detail evenly and distortion-free?