Substance and Sketchup Workflow
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@jason_maranto said:
Edge effects are all controlled by geometry baked textures, so resolution would be an issue for larger models and UVs will become an issue if not properly handled. That is also assuming the SketchUp created geometry is intelligable to SD/SP... which could be the fault of the model creator or SketchUp itself.
Well I really have to try. I know how to texture a model in SU as preciselly as possible and only that unwrapping slips my grasp. My main objective is to keep everything inside sketchup as long as I can and just jump out of it when I really need.
Of course I'm open to a broader frame of mind if that does pay off.
Thanks for all your help Jason.
Let's see where this leads to...
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@krisidious said:
watch this tut starting at the time set.
I don't get it. At a certain stage the guy is trying to make squares fit together quite precisely, then, suddenly he starts dragging and scaling things around in what seamed a random way to me.
In the end the squares didn't fit together, obviously, so why did he do that in the first place?
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4096 is as high as the maps go.
they do already have procedural choices like tile size and dirt and aging. you can apply it in the converter then apply the texture to the model.
But it doesn't seem to map correctly on it's own.
He's doing that because the car is to scale and the image is pixels. the larger the mode detail of course and the uvw unwrap doesn't actually have to touch all over.
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Yeah... Thea Substance Converter is pretty cool! I love hitting the randomize button!
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without the real substance studio I think you will have to use maps and you will not get any of the options to affect the map procedurally.
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@krisidious said:
without the real substance studio I think you will have to use maps and you will not get any of the options to affect the map procedurally.
That's true and that's almost what I have right now. I'm used to create my own maps with an image editor and I like the control I have, but it takes me so much time fine tunning everything.
I recently found awesome bump and it serves it's purpose very well and is also able to generate all the pbr maps one needs and name them with any convention.
Basically that emulates the B2M workflow and it can also be used with Thea converter to automatically create a PBR material.
So it really is the ability to tinker with procedurals inside Thea Substance Converter that is ticking me to dive into Designer.
However, if you think of it that way, you're not getting much as the final result is a static material.
So substance designer only really starts paying off if you use it for procedurally and non desctructivelly texture a specific model.
Let's assume we can get a sketchup model to export nicely to Substance Designer, using 3ds or collada or obj. (as Jason pointed out it's not clear that even this is easily achievable...) But let's assume we can, then it all comes down to what Rich pointed out initially. UV mapping or ultimatelly UV unwrapping.
If I can deal with that in my workflow, I can justify using Designer as it's the UV unwrapping that will allows me to place the effects I want, in the right place of the model inside Substance and then turn that substance into a material I can replace with a thea material inside sketchup.
I'm willing to take the long shot and I hope I'll have an as streamlined as possible workflow in the near future (with just the enough details we need in architecture) to share with you guys.
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Ok I just got the trial of these programs because they are so cool that not only do they offer the Thea thing for free and not only is it a great program but it's priced to fit small business budget. Kudos allegorithmic.com
So Now I'm trying the procedurals.
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Great to see that you guys have lots of fun...!
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with the Designer, or with the Painter or with just our converter and the library of materials on their site I thing the procedural will work fine. And as you and Jason said or suggested. you can output at low quality each texture to lighten load which is not even a big load for nice cards.
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This is going to work...
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Kris,
It's great you've downloaded that already!
Let me ask some questions:
Are you only creating materials with Substance, then converting to Thea and then applying them inside SU or are you importing the house model to Substance designer, applying the textures there and then somehow bring everything back to Sketchup?
Did you unwrap that house?
If you have your house model inside Substance Designer, could you try the edge procedural?
I'm exploring blender and unwrapping...
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Are you only creating materials with Substance, then converting to Thea and then applying them inside SU?
***So far I've edited samples from them. And saved them as Thea Mats. Then added them to my model.
I've also added some of my own and edited them through the standard side. you can't edit the kool settings like for the Substance Designer materials, you can only add the all the multi layered effects maps if you have made them already or you own them from somewhere else...(this is a drawback because this is where the procedural taxturing is.)***
or are you importing the house model to Substance designer, applying the textures there and then somehow bring everything back to Sketchup? You only use your mesh inside Project Designer/Painter in order to see what you're doing and to provide a mapping environment for the procedure. You don't have to re-import your model back to sketchup, you just have to use the SD texture on that mesh and it will recognize it. Both make maps and so does the converter. You never even have to make the map from what I can tell. it creates it on the fly.
Did you unwrap that house? No, I did not... It's just a live procedural stone texture and concrete below.
If you have your house model inside Substance Designer, could you try the edge procedural?
I didn't bring my mesh in... I'll be testing with that kind of thing later.
I would like to add that if you were unable to pay the Substance Designer or Painter programs for the $20 a month for 6 months, you could always use Awesome Bump. https://github.com/kmkolasinski/AwesomeBump it's free and will make the files to use the Substance Converter needs. But, you will not get procedural textures out of it. In fact, it would seem to me that the current texture tools we have inside Thea Material Editor surpass that. I think the main value if you didn't own the Substance products would be importing all your maps at one time and prepping them a bit on size before you bring them into Thea Material Editor.
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Kris, you're wrong about Awesome Bump.
AB can generate all PBR maps you need, from a base texture you feed into it. You can also manually tune many fine aspects of it.
It can generate the four main maps:
- Diffuse;
- Metallic;
- Roughness;
- Normal.
And several others quite effectively, like height maps...
In what concerns Substance Designer. It can also generate PBR mateirals, probably much better than AB and with the added procedural parameters.
However where it stands apart is in texturing the model directly using geometry related procedurals that act with relation to the model itself and it's geometric properties. This and the fact that it's all done in a nondestructive and interactive way it's what interests me the most.
Without being able to pull this off, I'll keep my workflow as it is right now...
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Wrong about it? I I said it can do that... I said it can't do procedural.
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@krisidious said:
But, you will not get procedural textures out of it. In fact, it would seem to me that the current texture tools we have inside Thea Material Editor surpass that.
Sorry, this was what you said that got me confused. I thought it meant that thea surpassed Awesome Bump at generating maps. But I now think what you're saying is that Thea texture tools surpass the limitations one would be faced by not having procedurals from Awesome Bump.
I'm still unsure if this is what you meant...
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@unknownuser said:
Let's see where this leads to...
I think this thread does add depth to the analogy "comparing apples and oranges".
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@roland joseph said:
@unknownuser said:
Let's see where this leads to...
I think this thread does add depth to the analogy "comparing apples and oranges".
LOL! But if you don't compare them how to know the difference?
The thing is that you do that when you're a child and you instantly know the difference there on.
You can consider us as CG artists babies!
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I am definitely a CG Baby... I thought you guys knew this. I am not a professional renderer by any definition of the word. I have never sold a render, I sell house plans, but I really enjoy rendering things, I do not go to anywhere near the length that people like those in this thread.
Now JQL, as for Awesome Bump, Thea and "SD/SP-Converter" and then separately, the SD/SP suites. Let me clarify.
Awesome Bump - AB cannot do procedurals in as much as I can tell, by what I have described as thinking procedural is. And that being a continued randomness in application of effects on a material. Yes, it can create AO's/Bumps/Normals etc... But not the moss, dirt, grass randomness of spacing and look that does not repeat in some form or fashion noticeably. Perhaps I'm wrong? But I believe that it cannot. Perhaps I'm wrong?
Substance Designer - True procedural materials, node based creation, map generation, baking etc. Everything in the candy store you ever wanted.
Substance Painter - application of SD materials on your mesh with editing of those materials live, on the fly and an incredible degree of control over materials, with effects, particles, raw paint... etc. BUT... SD creates those procedural materials.
Substance Converter for Thea - allows simple editing of SD materials. and it allows import of the separate importing of maps from your own library. things from Awesome Bump, like normals, bump, AO, roughness, basecolor, metallic, height map, glossiness, specular, emitter, alpha or displacement.
not all can be used at once, but no more than these can be use. AND... Most Importantly. You CANNOT EDIT your personal library materials in the Substance Converter for anything but size. NO SNOW, NO ICE, , NO DIRT, NO GRUNGE, NO SEEDS... NO PROCEDURAL EFFECTS Editing is allowed on your personal materials imported into Substance "CONVERTER". All it does with your materials that you made some where else or bought is combine and import all your maps simultaneously. And while bringing all my maps in at one time is nice, it does not offer me any expanded features that I do not already have in Thea.
Thea Material Editor - Allows me to add any thing that is made in Awesome Bump, Has layer, effects, emitters, scattering, procedural effects albeit somewhat limited... Just not to the extent that Substance Designer/Painter does.
In my opinion, the Substance Converter does not add any extended usability to Thea without Substance Designer. However, if you have Substance Designer or the subscribe to the rather massive Substance Library Database? You can use procedural effects like Moss, Grunge, Dirt, Aging, edit stone/mortar patterns on the fly. etc... To your hearts content and render it right in SketchUp.
And the "Indie" pricing options that allegorithmic.com offers with greatly reduced price and payment plans for small businesses like mine... It's a great deal.
Now, as I said when I began... I have no idea what I'm talking about, so if I misunderstand any of this, please let me know.
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