Substance and Sketchup Workflow

Rich O Brien · 25 Jul 2015, 18:23

The easiest and fastest way is to not map textures in SU.

I know you love SU but there are times when you can't tighten a nut with a hammer.

But if export only mesh data to another app that handles numerous uv methods then your better placed.

I mention Blender only because it's free. You can use anything mentioned already.

But to come back to the dilemma.

In SU you paint a seamless brick material 1024x1024. This for obvious reasons can't target edge wear or grime.

So to target those in SubStance you need to unwrap everything that inherits that texture. To maintain texel density you could end up with an 8kx8k texture.

Now you need to factor in the resource cost this texture has on your rendering app.

Designer is an amazing tool. So is Filter Forge and Knald.

Different horses for different courses.

JQL · 25 Jul 2015, 20:13

First of all I love it when the pros come here and enlighten us. I really do think this is what makes a community strive!

I deeply appreciate every advice you gave so far, including this one.

If I find out that I can't run away from a 3rd party unwrapper I will use blender for all the reasons you pointed out and because that would make me have a strong reason to simply try it and learn some potentially useful stuff.

@rich o brien said:

Now you need to factor in the resource cost this texture has on your rendering app.

For sketchup, I would use a very low texture wich is enough for my needs, even if it get's blurred as it can be.

I see no software problem with Thea that could make that texture hard to handle.

Hardware wise I've gotten myself a Titan X with 12Gb and that should handle that kind of textures well enough...

For interactive work inside substance I could work with low resolution most of the time and what I aim to do seems simple enough so I don't expect to waste much time there with a hanged computer when resolution raises...

Considering it all, I see no failing in your argument, but I'm expecting it will work in my case.

@rich o brien said:

So is Filter Forge and Knald.

So will I investigate those too.

I'm concerned about Substance Designer just because I heard great stuff about Substance B2M, that was the first app I considered buying from them, for creating my materials. When Thea Substance Converter preview came out, I found out about how the added procedurals would enhance Thea materials. Then I found out what Designer could really do. Then I thought about posting a thread here to see if it was possible to use it along with sketchup anyway. Then all this mess of a discussion came up and me and Kris got in the same boat though with different aproaches.

This seems to have potential to turn out quite well and just because of that I already feel very close to substance.

Why the hell would you have to bring those two apps!?

jason_maranto · 26 Jul 2015, 10:55

I think you are suffering from an overly simplistic idea of how things work regarding UVs. You must have UVs to apply a 2D texture to any standard polygon-based 3D model (we are ignoring voxel and poly-painting techniques which require high polygon resolutions, and are technically part of the geometry itself). SketchUp creates UVs (as it must) -- it just does not do a particularly efficient job with them, nor does it allow the user direct control of UV space. SketchUp also can support models which have UVs externally unwrapped (via plugin), however it can sometimes cause a big slowdown in SketchUp performance, and bloat SketchUp file size.

Substance Designers Tri-planar projection can resolve seam issues regarding how your model UVs are set up, but it does not UV unwrap your model for you. What this is doing is using the existing UVs to bake World Space Position and Normal Maps (2D textures), which are used to eliminate seam issues. But the UV's still must be in place to bake the 2D texture in the first place.

Now due to the seam compensating nature of Tri-planar projection, SketchUp default UVs may be workable in some instances. You will most likely find SketchUp UVs will result in resolution issues (and other possible issues). Part of unwrapping a model is about packing the UVs in such a way as to make efficient use of the texture resolution. But you may be able to at least bypass the seams as an issue using Tri-planar projection. SketchUp does odd things sometimes, and just because something can work in one instance does not mean it will always work in every instance.

That is assuming you can export your model in a format that Substance Designer can bake from without issues. Substance Designer will not make any changes to your model, so the idea that you can use it for any modeling operations (including UV layout) is fruitless. It is a one way export from your package to SD. You will only be bringing the 2D/texture portion of the Substance back to SketchUp/Thea.

So what I am basically saying is you are going to have to resolve yourself to setting up your UVs before you go to SD -- whether that be inside SketchUp or otherwise (some Ruby plugins might be helpful here). Substances do not free you from worrying about UVs, in fact the opposite is true. At the very least you will need to use some of the UV helper ruby plugins, and will most likely need to use an external UV unwrapper at least part of the time.

Frankly I am getting a bit tired of playing with "what-ifs" -- you are just going to have to use the software's together and work out for yourself whether this pairing can become a usable workflow for you or not. Nobody else can answer that for you because only you know how far you are willing to go to make it work. The only thing I can say for sure is: compared to more robust modeling packages you will definitely find a SketchUp based workflow to be problematic. So you will need to be willing to potentially put up with alot of workarounds/plugins to find a usable workflow. Which is not true in the Substance supported modeling packages, where the workflow is straightforward.

JQL · 26 Jul 2015, 12:25

Thanks Jason, that clears it all. I'm still watching tuts but for what I seen I totally understand everything you're saying.

I had also set my mind to that jumping in aproach wich I feel it's fundamental!

However, I really appreciate your willingness to help me see the broader picture before I waste too much time with something that clearly will never work.

In a matter of fact I thrust what you guys are saying here so much that I've started by blender and UV unwrapping and how to fit that in my workflow as seamless as possible.

If that doesn't work for me though, what I seen about the materials that can be created from a substance by itself, wich I clearly know I can simply use straight forward in my current workflow and toolset, might be already enough to justify using substance designer.

I'm sorry for being a pain, but I can only say thanks for bearing with me!

Best regards and I wish I could retribute somehow, someday...

jason_maranto · 26 Jul 2015, 12:32

FWIW -- IMO the "jumping in" approach will serve you best. There really is no need to fear UV layout, or even using other packages. It is a pretty straightforward process once you get into it. And in the end you will be better off for understanding it... even if you come to the conclusion the workflow doesn't suit you.

Also, help will be easier to provide once you are dealing with actual issues rather than rhetorical concepts.

JQL · 26 Jul 2015, 15:15

True!

Krisidious · 26 Jul 2015, 15:38

I've found that Substance Designer is retarded when it comes to movement... I don't know why these companies cannot let me determine the uses of my mouse and navigation.

roland joseph · 27 Jul 2015, 07:24

@unknownuser said:

I don't see where this doesn't go the full distance

I'll be sure to keep an eye open for anything that comes out of this conversation.

Krisidious · 27 Jul 2015, 14:12

Yes, I was overly excited and mistaken. I've been experimenting all weekend, as well as breaking the importer. and... Yes, I think I got lucky on that stone and concrete. They happened to wrap the corners very nicely. My other tests have not had that result. UV's are indeed a wall that must be mounted and climbed before you can have any good result, not only that. but normals don't even seem to read correctly in SD. While this works well on flat surfaces and simple shapes, 90 degree corners and rather simple topography does not do well in most cases. Grass and Dirt hides the imperfections in SU's normal creation.

Now, I'm going to see what Thea's procedural mats and see what can be done with it.

And I'll be damned if I didn't install Blender...

JQL · 27 Jul 2015, 17:08

@krisidious said:

And I'll be damned if I didn't install Blender...

That's the only thing I did so far.

I managed to import a perfect model into blender using blend up (wich I highly recommend...);
I managed to create an Unwrapped UV layout very easily;
I managed to import it back to sketchup as DAE and the geometry was perfect. The thing is I can't seem to bring the UV unwrapped Material back with the model...

JQL · 27 Jul 2015, 18:01

@jql said:

@krisidious said:

And I'll be damned if I didn't install Blender...

That's the only thing I did so far.

I managed to import a perfect model into blender using blend up (wich I highly recommend...);
I managed to create an Unwrapped UV layout very easily;
I managed to import it back to sketchup as DAE and the geometry was perfect. The thing is I can't seem to bring the UV unwrapped Material back with the model...

I've managed after all, it was a simple matter of ticking a box in the Export Collada options: "Include UV textures"

Krisidious · 27 Jul 2015, 18:16

Awesome. that's why I installed Blender, not for this but for my Simulator Mod. Some guy over in that forum made a blender plugin to import and export the models, so I was testing it to replace Max... as I hate Max. next on my list was testing Blender's UV mapping & unwrapping.

Though, in the mean while I found something else... and it's kinda awesome. 3D Coat.

It also does some fantastic "re-topology"...

roland joseph · 13 Aug 2015, 21:11

These guys are very good...although I have not started, the curriculum looks really thorough and the approach seems to be for dummies like me. !

Looks like a great way to get to know the entire "Substance" science and application.

JQL · 13 Aug 2015, 21:46

Roland I've been following Substance Videos and although my own substances are still bitmap based, I really can tell this is big!

Nothing you can't do with it.

I'm taking advantage of Thea's Substance Converter so the simplest workflow for me is as follows:

Sketchup Model;
Export to Blender using Blendup (free for up to 1000 faces wich is not much so better buy it);
UV Unwrapping within Blender with Smart UV Project (wich is automatic, fast and easily tweakable);
Export as Collada;
Import collada into sketchup and run Cleanup3 to merge faces keeping UV;
Import into Substance Designer and work your texturing;
Publish your substance as high as 16k textures (If you have enough GPU ram, I have a Titan X)
Convert Substance to Thea material using Thea converter;
Apply material in Collada model using Thrupaint to keep UV modes.
Render!

Krisidious · 14 Aug 2015, 01:26

@jql said:

I'm taking advantage of Thea's Substance Converter so the simplest workflow for me is as follows:

Sketchup Model;

Export to Blender using Blendup (free for up to 1000 faces wich is not much so better buy it);

UV Unwrapping within Blender with Smart UV Project (wich is automatic, fast and easily tweakable);

Export as Collada;

Import collada into sketchup and run Cleanup3 to merge faces keeping UV;

Import into Substance Designer and work your texturing;

Publish your substance as high as 16k textures (If you have enough GPU ram, I have a Titan X)

Convert Substance to Thea material using Thea converter;

Apply material in Collada model using Thrupaint to keep UV modes.

Render!

roland joseph · 14 Aug 2015, 06:31

@unknownuser said:

Roland I've been following Substance Videos
The link leads to a new set of videos available as of yesterday so you haven't followed theses ones.

JQL · 14 Aug 2015, 09:15

I can tell you Kris, I can predict this becoming big at our office.

Materiallity is a big deal in architecture, there's no hatching or physical model that can replicate it!

I'm thinking of conceptual creative work based on procedurally generated textures with sketchup basic shapes and, in the future, maybe even blender...

jason_maranto · 17 Aug 2015, 09:48

I am glad you found a workflow that will allow you to incorporate Substances -- they are worth it IMO.

JQL · 17 Aug 2015, 12:13

@jason_maranto said:

I am glad you found a workflow that will allow you to incorporate Substances -- they are worth it IMO.

Thanks Jason,

Some procedural only work well at 4k, as they have to be upscaled for 8k or 16k. That is the only limitation I'm aware for now.

roland joseph · 24 Aug 2015, 08:18

Gee, I never thought I'd see an SU/Substance workflow but you guys are breaking ground....