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Guitar Amp (training/tutorial). Substance Painter Online. UPDATED: July 2021.

Updated: Jul 27, 2021



Substance Painter 20219 Essential Training on LinkedIn Learning.


Output - First Renders.





Final Output.






A very strange things happened when I went back into the file to take some more shots, the background started to get whiter and whiter instead of a bit darker.



A very confusing situation.


It seemed to get a little hazy the more and more I tried to make it clearer.


Chapter 1:


Model Preparation:

UV's and Texel Density

Material Assignment

Vertex Colour to Prepare ID Map





Make sure that you maximise as much space as possible when mapping UV's in order to get a clean result.


Material ID's. Assign them BEFORE bringing the model into Substance Painter.


Texture sets keep to minimum to avoid a large workflow and watch the Layer Stacks.


Masks and ID Maps are a good idea too. They give you a place to apply materials with vertex colours. Assign them before to help control the amount of texture sets.


Gallery.


Chapter 2:


Getting started with Substance Painter is quite daunting for two reasons.

  1. It's from Adobe and

  2. It's another brand new programme that I have to learn and get to know

The fact that it's Adobe based should be a good thing. I've been using Adobe Illustrator since November last year and After Effects since march though my experience with it has hardly been enjoyable (up to this point) at least though I do hope to change that within my own project as it will be very specific but, I do digress from the task at hand.


Learn Substance Painter!


LinkedIn Learning has been such a source of inspiration to me over the second and third semester that I really don't know what I would have done without it as we are all so far from the university campus and have only limited time on line with the lectures. This year of Covid restrictions and lockdowns has been not only a lesson in resilience but survival and one I will learn many lessons from.


Wes McDermott's 2019 Substance Painter Essential course was exactly what I needed to get me introduced to a new program really quickly. The biggest bonus was the model supplied. very high spec and beautifully crafted in Maya.


Wes McDermott's Guitar Amplifier Modled in Maya.

Chapter 2:

Creating a Project

Navigating the 3D/2D views

General UI overview

Understanding Display Settings

Setting up a Shader

and

Working with Texture Set Settings.


Nothing really too taxing in these files or complicated. Simply set up the project and import the FBX file.


Once the model has been added to Substance I checked out what the environments looked like.


and then it was time to begin adding materials.



Journal Notes.


Gallery.



Chapter 3:




So this chapter wasn't the biggest but, it did come with a lot of information.





First - located the file.

second - select the file

third - organise.








Again not to many problems at this point as I'm following the tutorial with a set of exercise files that have been pre-made.


Journal Notes.


Gallery.



Chapter 4


Get ready


Get set




Bake!

Ok so maybe not that kind of baking.


This kind of baking.



Journal Notes.


Gallery.



Chapter 5:


Chapter 5:


Working with Fill Layers

Painting Layer Masks

Applying Materials and using Colour Selection

Applying Additional Materials

Creating New Materials using Fill Layers

Duplicating Layers





This is where the magic starts to happen.


Note to self:

Materials that are "PURE" have value presets which you can create with another layer and set it to another value such as roughness.

and

You can toggle with the "x" key between black and white

and

ALT key with left click on the mouse is a short cut for sections.



In Chapter I discovered that I'd baked my mesh with a mistake. So I had to go back to a few steps and redo it. It was a simple error where I'd clicked the wrong button when setting up the original process.


Easily fixed and quick too. Moved onto chapter 6 when I'd redone and completed the rest of the videos in this section.


Journal Notes.








Gallery of My Workflow.



Gallery.




Chapter 6:



Journal Notes.


Gallery.



Chapter 7:




Journal Notes.















Gallery.



Chapter 8:


Using the Painting Tools:

Understanding the Brush Priorities

Creating a Custom Brush Tool

Using Symmetry to Paint

Using Stencils

Using Text Alpha

Using the Clone Tool





Journal Notes.

Gallery.




Chapter 9:













Journal Notes.





Gallery.




Chapter 10:








Journal Notes.


1st look studio photos.


These renders I felt were a little dark to begin with and the angle didn't seem quite right either.


These are the second renders that I attempted after completing the Guitar Amplifier Project. I still feel that the angle and lighting are not quite right but, this was my first time using I-ray so it will take some time for me to figure out the right levels to use and angels.



Gallery.




Conclusions:


For me this was a really fun and exciting project to do, it was also really quick to complete and I followed it with ease. The model was provided and of very high quality and colour coded which helped enormously in applying materials, textures and surfaces.


The instructor, Wes McDermott did chose the initial textures and materials I did take the liberty to use my own discretion over the specific values to achieve my personal desired look.


I will have to do some more investigations into Substance Painter, for example the Brush tool wasn't explained or explored in any great detail and I would like to have more practice with the Iray and Studio lighting and rendering.


The next tutorial I'll be looking into is another one by Wes McDermott on a Front-load Tractor which could help with game design.








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