Mastering Substance Painter To Unreal Engine Texture Imports

To import textures from Substance Painter into Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), you need to first export the textures from Substance Painter. This can be done by going to File > Export Textures in the software. Once you have exported the textures, you can import them into UE4 and create a material that looks exactly like it did in Substance Painter. There is also a Substance Painter plugin called substance_painter2ue that allows you to export textures and automatically import them into an open Unreal Editor project.

Characteristics and Values Table for Importing Textures from Substance Painter into UE4

Exporting textures from Substance Painter

To export textures from Substance Painter, follow these steps:

• Once you are done texturing your mesh in Substance Painter, go to "File > Export Textures" (Ctrl + Shift + E). Alternatively, you can use a Substance Painter plugin like "substance_painter2ue" that allows you to export textures and automatically import them into an open Unreal Editor project.
• Define the exported texture resolution size. This is based on the Texture Set Size, which is the resolution you were working on in Substance Painter.
• You will get three different textures: Color, Normal Map, and a packed texture that contains Ambient Occlusion, Roughness, and Metallic. You may also export a fourth Emissive texture, but this is not covered in this tutorial.
• For a packed AO/Roughness/Metallic texture, use individual RGB channels instead of RGB output.
• Save the Material, and you are done with the export process. You can now import the exported textures into UE4.

Importing textures into Unreal Engine

Next, in the Export dialogue, scroll down to find "Unreal Engine 4 Packed". Set your desired resolution, such as 4K, and click "Export". Now, import the FBX file and the exported textures into UE4. The normal map should be automatically recognised, but you may need to manually assign the other textures.

There is also a Substance Painter plugin, "substance_painter2ue", that can simplify this process. This plugin allows you to export textures and automatically import them into an open Unreal Editor project. It creates a connection between Substance Painter and UE and sends a command to import the textures. To use this plugin, place the folder in your Substance Painter plugin folder, then open Unreal Engine with the project where you want to import the textures. Go to "File > Send To > Send To Unreal Engine", and a panel will open, allowing you to select the Unreal Editor you wish to send the texture to.

Creating a material in UE4

To create a material in UE4, you need to first export the textures from Substance Painter. This can be done by going to File > Export Textures (Ctrl + Shift + E) and defining the exported texture resolution size. You will get three different textures: Colour, Normal Map, and a packed texture that contains Ambient Occlusion, Roughness, and Metallic.

Once you have exported the textures, you can import them into UE4. In the Export dialogue, scroll down until you find Unreal Engine 4 Packed, set your desired resolution, and click Export. Then, import the FBX file and the exported textures into UE4.

Now, you can create a Material Instance in the Content Browser. You can customize the material in the Material Instance Editor. A Material Instance inherits the attributes of its parent Material, and you can create numerous variations from a single base Material. You can change the colour in the Default Value field or double-click the BaseColour node to open the colour picker.

You can also create a new material programmatically from Cpp code. To do this, you need to create a new UPackage and use a material factory to create a UMaterial. You can then add a UMaterialExpressionConstant node, give it a value of 0, and assign it to the specular expression.

Using a Substance Painter plugin

The francoisgfx/substance_painter2ue plugin for Substance Painter can be used to export textures and automatically import them into an open Unreal Engine project. This plugin creates a connection between Substance Painter (SP) and Unreal Engine (UE) and sends a command to UE to import the textures.

To use this plugin, first, put the folder in your Substance Painter plugin folder. The path could be one of the following:

• C:\Users\username\Documents\Adobe\Adobe Substance 3D Painter\plugins
• Path defined by the environment variable 'SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_PLUGINS_PATH'

Next, open Unreal Engine with the project where you want to import the textures. Go to File > Send To > Send To Unreal Engine. By default, this will send textures to the first instance of Unreal Editor found on your computer. In Substance Painter, go to Window > Views > Send To Unreal Engine (a panel will open). If you have more than one Unreal Engine open, use the first combobox to select the Unreal Editor you want to send the texture to.

Before exporting textures from Substance Painter, define the exported texture resolution size. This is based on the Texture Set Size, which is the resolution you were working on in Substance Painter. To export, go to File > Export Textures (Ctrl + Shift + E).

Assigning the material to a static mesh

To assign a material to a static mesh, you must first set up a project and a level to work with. If you already have a project, you can use that. If not, you can create a new one in UE4. Once your project has been loaded, locate your Content Browser.

Next, you will need to export your textures from Substance Painter. To do this, go to File > Export Textures (Ctrl + Shift + E). You will get three different textures: Colour, Normal Map, and a packed texture that contains Ambient Occlusion, Roughness, and Metallic. You may also export a fourth Emissive texture, but this is optional.

After exporting your textures, import the FBX file and the exported textures into UE4. The normal map should be automatically recognised. Now, you are ready to assign the material to a static mesh. There are two ways to do this: globally or locally.

Globally: This method assigns the material to every instance of the static mesh that will be used in the level.

Locally: This method assigns the material only to the copy of the mesh placed in the level.

To assign the material, double-click on the static mesh to open the Static Mesh Editor. Drag and drop the material into the Material Slot within the Static Mesh Editor, then save. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the material onto a static mesh that is already placed in the level. The material will only appear on that specific mesh.

Frequently asked questions