Lena Rivera
Substance Painter is a powerful tool for creating and editing highly detailed 3D models. It acts as a universal material editor, allowing users to create effects that will look identical across different render engines. While Substance Painter is a great tool for painting 3D models, it can be slightly awkward compared to Photoshop due to its procedural nature. However, with the right tutorials and practice, anyone can learn to paint impressive models in Substance Painter. In this guide, we will cover the basics of how to paint a model in Substance Painter, from preparing your model to creating textures and using the various tools available.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Software | Substance Painter, Adobe Substance 3D, Photoshop, 3D Coat |
| Models | Requires UV unwrapping, a UV map, and a 3D model |
| Textures | Hand-painted textures are created using multiple layers for gradients and shadows |
| Tools | Fill Selection Tool, Vertex Colors, Commander |
| Tutorials | Available on YouTube, Skillshare, and Reddit |
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What You'll Learn
Preparing your model
To prepare your model for painting in Substance Painter, you will need to follow a few important steps. These steps will ensure that your model is ready for texturing and painting in the Substance Painter software.
Firstly, you need to ensure your model is UV unwrapped. This is a requirement for working with Substance Painter. If you are unfamiliar with the process, you can refer to tutorials that can guide you through the latest UV tools and methods. Alternatively, you can use a pre-made 3D model that is already UV unwrapped to follow along.
The next step is to create a new material for your object. This will save you time once you transition to Substance Painter. Select your object and navigate to the Polygons section. Using the U+F keys, switch to the Fill Selection Tool. Now, you can choose individual parts of your object. Hold down Shift and switch to points, allowing you to drop in a vertex color. To bring up the Commander, hit Shift+C and type in "Vertex". Your object should now appear completely in black.
Now, you can choose your color scheme. Pick a color from the program files to ensure your color scheme is correct. Before importing your model into Substance Painter, go to File > Export > FBX. In the export window, ensure the Vertex Colors box is selected. Choose a save location and confirm by clicking OK.
Open Substance Painter and import your FBX file by dragging it into the program. Ensure that Auto-Unwrap is deactivated and that your Template is set to Metallic Roughness before clicking OK. You should now see your model and UV map. To test if everything is functioning correctly, try drawing on the model, and you should see the markings reflected on the UV map.
The final step in preparing your model is to bake it. Navigate to Texture Set Settings and scroll down until you see Bake Mesh Maps. Click on it to open a small window where you can bring in your high-poly mesh, such as a Zbrush model, and bake it down.
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Baking your model
Baking is the process of saving information from a 3D mesh to a 2D texture file (bitmap). This typically involves two meshes: a high-poly mesh and a low-poly mesh. The high-poly mesh contains a large number of polygons, which enable it to display intricate 3D details. However, it is expensive to store and render. On the other hand, the low-poly mesh has significantly fewer polygons, making it cheaper to store and render.
By transferring the information from the high-poly mesh onto the low-poly mesh during the baking process, you can achieve a highly detailed model that is also lightweight and easy to render. This technique is particularly useful when creating models for games or real-time applications, where performance is a key consideration.
To begin the baking process, adjust your settings to match your needs, such as output size, anti-aliasing, and dilation width. Choose how the high-poly details should be transferred, with "By Mesh Name" being a commonly used method to ensure corresponding parts of the meshes are correctly aligned.
Select the maps you wish to bake, such as Normal Maps, Ambient Occlusion (AO) Maps, Curvature Maps, and Position Maps, and click "Bake". Substance Painter will process the high-poly details and apply them to your low-poly mesh.
Once the baking process is complete, you can refine and apply additional textures, such as base colours, roughness/metallic maps, and smart materials and masks. Finally, export the texture maps for use in your game engine or 3D application. Substance Painter offers versatile export options to support various formats and workflows.
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Using hand-painting techniques
Substance Painter is a powerful tool for creating highly detailed 3D models, allowing for hand-painting and the use of procedural tools. Here are some tips for using hand-painting techniques in Substance Painter:
Firstly, ensure your model is UV unwrapped. This process can be done in Cinema4D, and there are tutorials available online to guide you through the UV unwrapping process. Once your model is UV unwrapped, you can open Substance Painter and import your FBX file, ensuring Auto-Unwrap is deactivated and your Template is set to Metallic Roughness.
Hand-painted textures typically start with one base layer, and additional layers are added for gradients and shadows. It is recommended to create three layers for each material: a neutral tone, a light tone, and a dark tone. This process requires strong painting skills, but not extensive software knowledge.
There are various software options for hand-painting textures, and some artists prefer to use Photoshop or ZBrush for this purpose. However, Substance Painter offers the ability to author your own highly detailed materials and edit them within the program. This versatility allows for creative freedom and the ability to focus on the artistic aspects of hand-painting.
While Substance Painter is excellent for procedural materials and effects, some users find the painting tools lackluster. The program records each stroke separately, allowing for lossless texture scaling, but this can make brush tools act awkwardly, and layers cannot be merged. Despite this, it is possible to achieve successful hand-painted results in Substance Painter, and there are tutorials available on platforms like YouTube to guide you through the process.
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Creating textures
Prepare the Model
Before importing your model into Substance Painter, ensure that it has been UV unwrapped. This process involves laying out the UV coordinates of the model, allowing the software to correctly map the textures onto the surface. You can use tools like Cinema4D or follow tutorials for specific software to achieve this. Additionally, make sure that the UV tag is activated on the model.
Importing and Setting Up
Open Substance Painter and import your model by going to File > Export > FBX. In the export window, ensure that the Vertex Colors box is selected, then hit OK and choose a save location. In Substance Painter, open the FBX file, ensuring Auto-Unwrap is deactivated and the Template is set to Metallic Roughness.
Baking the Model
Before texturing, it is essential to bake the model. Go to Texture Set Settings and scroll down to Bake Mesh Maps. This is where you will bring in your high-poly mesh, such as a Zbrush model, and bake it down. Baking in Substance Painter is a fast and strong capability.
Substance Painter offers a wide range of materials to choose from, and you can also create new ones by adjusting parameters and settings or using the Substance Designer. You can import your own "Texture Maps" or utilize the provided smart materials as a base and modify them to your desired look. For example, you can use the Wood Chest Stylized smart material as a starting point for creating a wood texture.
Texture Application
Once you have created or selected your desired textures, you can start applying them to your model. Ensure that your UVs are clean and properly mapped to avoid issues. Use the smooth tool to eliminate any distortion. Then, create your texture sets by selecting the desired pieces and using the layout option, preserving the 3D ratios. Finally, drag your texture files onto the correct fields within Substance Painter.
Final Adjustments
After applying your textures, you can make final adjustments to the materials, such as scaling and rotation. Additionally, you can enhance the lighting and atmosphere of your scene by using environment fog or other effects to create a desired mood.
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Exporting your model
Firstly, it's important to ensure that your model is properly set up for export. This includes verifying that your model has been UV unwrapped. UV unwrapping is essential for accurately applying textures in Substance Painter. If you're unfamiliar with this process, there are tutorials available to guide you.
The next step is to check if you have assigned materials to identify the texture sets in Substance Painter. Proper material assignment will streamline the texturing process. Once these two critical steps are completed, you can proceed with the export.
To export your model, go to "File > Export Textures" and select the output template, file format, resolution, and destination folder. You can also use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + E" to access the Export Textures dialog. This dialog box offers three tabs: Settings, Output Templates, and List of Exports. The Settings tab allows you to enable or disable the export of specific texture sets and adjust settings accordingly. The Output Templates tab is where you can manage your templates and select or create the appropriate template for your model. The List of Exports tab shows the maps that are currently set to export.
Additionally, Substance Painter supports various file formats, and you can choose the bit depth depending on the file format. Higher bit depths provide higher-quality textures but can significantly increase file sizes. Some applications may not support high bit depths, so adjusting the value may be necessary.
If you're exporting to specific platforms or engines, there are a few extra considerations. For example, when exporting to Unity, ensure that your project settings match the output template used. If you used the Unity HDRP template, you need the High Definition Render Pipeline package installed in your Unity project, and the colour space should be set to Linear. Similarly, for Unreal Engine, if you used the Unreal Engine 4 Packed template, set the texture format to BC7 and the sRGB option to false. For Maya, you need to use a compatible renderer and shader. For Blender, the Cycles or Eevee renderers and the Principled BSDF shader are required.
By following these steps and considerations, you'll be able to successfully export your model from Substance Painter, ready for further texturing or platform-specific adjustments.
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Frequently asked questions
Substance Painter is a powerful addition to your C4D workflow. It allows you to author your own highly detailed materials and edit them inside C4D. Think of it as Photoshop for 3D models.
First, ensure your model is UV unwrapped. Then, go to File > Export > FBX. In the export window, ensure Vertex Colours is selected, and save the file. Open the FBX file in Substance Painter, ensuring Auto-Unwrap is deactivated and your Template is set to Metallic Roughness. You should now see your model and UV map. Test that everything is functioning correctly by drawing on the model.
Hand-painted textures usually start with one layer, and then additional layers are added for gradients and shadows. You can use brushes in Substance Painter, but they may act slightly differently compared to Photoshop due to the procedural nature of the software.
Yes, there are several free tutorials available on YouTube. You can also take a beginner-friendly class on Skillshare that teaches texturing in Substance Painter.
