Leo Martínez
If you're looking to achieve high overlap height in Substance Painter, there are a few methods you can try. One approach is to adjust the blending mode of the layer above to override the height information. By default, the blending mode for the height channel is set to add. You can change this by switching from base colour to height in the channel dropdown, and then selecting either “replace” or “normal” as the blending mode. This will allow you to override the height values of the layers below. Another method is to use a shader that supports tessellation and displacement if you want your mesh to be displaced via heightmap while having a normal map on top. Additionally, when painting with a bitmap or substance on a height, the source is remapped from its original range to a [-1,1] range, allowing for the selection of values between -1 and 1 directly. It's important to note that issues with overlapping UV shells in Substance Painter have been reported, and ensuring sufficient padding in software like Maya might be necessary to address them.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| To override height detail of layers below | Switch from base colour to height in the layer window drop-down box |
| Blending mode | Set to "replace" or "normal" |
| Normal map | The height you paint is converted to a normal map in real time |
| Height channel | Uses an HDR colour format |
| UV overlapping issues | Could be due to multiple UV sets |
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What You'll Learn
Change the blending mode of the layer above to overwrite height information
To change the blending mode of the layer above to overwrite height information in Substance Painter, follow these steps:
- Access the layer stack by opening the layer window.
- Change the drop-down menu option from Base Color (the default) to Height. This will allow you to adjust the blending mode and intensity of the layer.
- By default, the blending mode for the height channel is set to "add". To overwrite the height information of the layers below, change the blending mode of the top layer to "replace" or "normal". This will replace the height values of the layers below with the values of the top layer.
- If your layers are in groups, go into each group and change the blending mode from Linear Dodge to Normal.
- Ensure that the height or normal channels are enabled for the materials you are working with, as changing the blending mode may not work otherwise.
By adjusting the blending mode of the top layer, you can control how it interacts with the layers below, either adding to or overwriting their height information.
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Switch from base colour to height in the layer window
To switch from base colour to height in the layer window in Substance Painter, follow these steps:
- Go to the layer window.
- Locate the drop-down box.
- Switch from Base Colour to Height in the drop-down box.
- You will now see all the layers in the height layer stack using a Linear Dodge as the merge operation.
- Change the blending mode of the layer above to overwrite the height information.
By default, the blending mode is set to "add" for the height channel. Changing the blending mode will allow you to adjust the intensity of the layer and the overall appearance of your project.
It is important to note that this functionality might not work with groups. Additionally, some materials might not have Height or Normal channels enabled by default, so changing the blending mode may not work for those materials.
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Use a shader that supports tesselation and displacement
To achieve height overlap in Substance Painter, one method is to utilise a shader that supports tessellation and displacement. This approach allows for the creation of intricate details and accurate height representations.
The first step is to ensure you have the latest version of Substance Painter, as true tessellation-based displacement was introduced in version 2019.1. With this update, artists gained the ability to visualise displacement directly in the viewport and Iray, providing a clear understanding of height and displacement values.
Within the Substance Painter interface, navigate to the Shader Settings window. This window offers control over shader parameters and geometry displacement parameters. Here, you can enable the Parallax Occlusion Mapping feature, which provides an additional way to visualise displacements.
When working with Substance Materials, it is crucial to check the Channels mapping section. Substance tends to assign the Diffuse or other maps for the Displacement component, so ensuring the Height component is included is essential. You can access this by going to the Viewer Settings panel and selecting the Shader section.
Creating a Shader Instance allows you to customise the parameters based on an original shader file. This flexibility enables artists to experiment and fine-tune their work to achieve the desired height overlap effects.
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Use 'replace' or 'normal' to blend and override height detail
To override height detail in Substance Painter, you can adjust the blending mode of the top layer to replace or normal. By default, the blending mode for the height channel is set to "add", which means that any height data in the top layer will be added to the height information in the bottom layer.
To change this behaviour, follow these steps:
- Open the layer window.
- Switch from the base colour to height in the drop-down box.
- You will now see all the layers in the height layer stack using a Linear Dodge as the merge operation.
- Change the blending mode of the top layer to "Normal" or "Replace".
Changing the blending mode to "Normal" will replace the height value of all the layers, effectively overriding the height detail in the layers below.
It is important to note that this method works when the "`existing height detail`" is actual height information in a lower layer. If the "`existing height detail`" is in the project's normal map, a different approach is needed. In this case, you need to switch the project's normal blending mode and manually update all the layers contributing to the normals, as they are now overwriting instead of blending.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning that this functionality may not work with groups. Even if you set the group and all layers inside to replace, the height might not be replaced. However, updating your software version or sorting your layers into folders might help address this issue.
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Convert to a normal map in real-time
To convert to a normal map in real-time in Substance Painter, you can follow these steps:
Firstly, understand that by default, Substance Painter computes the normal channel and the baked normal separately, not allowing you to paint over the baked normal map. To change this, go to your Texture Set settings and set the normal mixing setting to 'replace' instead of 'combine'. This will indicate to Substance Painter that it should only consider the normal and height channels when generating the final normal map.
Next, create a new fill layer and input the baked normal inside the "normal" slot, which can be found in the properties panel. This will cause the normal map to disappear from the viewport, which is expected behaviour.
Additionally, you can change the blending mode of the layer above to overwrite the height information. The default blending mode is set to "add" for the height channel.
If you are working with groups, it is important to note that even if you set the group and all layers inside to replace, the height may still not be replaced. To address this, try sorting your layers into folders, separating objects that create height from those that do not.
Finally, some materials may not have Height or Normal channels enabled by default, so changing the blending mode may not work.
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Frequently asked questions
To fix UV overlapping issues, ensure that you do not have multiple UV sets on your asset.
To override height detail, switch from base colour to height in the layer window's drop-down box and change the blending mode of the layer above to "replace" or "normal".
The default blending mode for the height channel is "add".
The Height channel uses an HDR colour format, allowing for the painting of positive and negative values without a limit in brightness.
To combine height and normal maps, use a shader that supports tesselation and displacement. Alternatively, export a combined normal instead of a mesh-map-normal.
