Introduction to Substance Designer

Hospital Tiles:

During this time we practiced using Substance Designer to create textures; mainly being the use of different kinds of tiles. To being this we first started out by creating a project in Substance designer and figuring out what kind of tiled texture we wanted to create.

We first started out by using uniform colour nodes for each of the 4 starting nodes that we needed. Such as a turquoise green for the overall mesh colour. Within the uniform colour node there is also an option to change it to grey-scale, which we used to adjust the metallic and roughness values for the mesh to make seem more like a tile and less like a polished piece of metal. Finally we used the RGB numbers 127, 127, 255 to create the normal map colour for our information to be projected on, and then which could be used for textures in game.

 The first step was to create a pattern of tiles with a setting in mind. For my texture I wanted to create an old mouldy type of hospital tile. To do this is first made a multiplied my tiles to fit the cube in a 10x10 pattern; then by using a tile generator, this made a got rid of random tiles to make the some of the tiles invisible to give it more of an organic look, as if tiles had fallen off over time.

As Substance designer works similarly to Photoshop, where the designer can uses masks to only let certain texture information though, this process took a while to understand. As well as this, most textures we learnt use a blend function, where information would be places on a foreground and background, with the option of having another kind of information work as its opacity to let even more particular information through.

SP Graph close up

Once the tiles has been randomly generated, we also used another function to make the tiles look as if their sides were rounded; which also used masks and the process of blurring the edges of the squares, giving them a more realistic appearance.

The main focus of this was detail, as rather then created a tiled wall in something such as Maya, UV mapping said wall and then texturing it, this process takes a lot less time but also needs a certain amount of time needed to make the textures worth while.

Overall Map

The background of the mesh (which the tiles sit on) was a combination of different layers of textures. The very ground of the mesh was created by combining different colours projected through different Noises. These are pre-rendered textures that give detail to the surface they are projected onto. Alone with standard detail, these Noises can also be used to seemingly subtract or add height detail onto the mesh. Although it would all be on one flat surface, it would give the illusion of depth.

Taking into consideration of what wall tiles uses, I also needed to create the adhesive used to place the tiles on what walls. To do this is created my adhesive as a random tile generator again, however this time also randomising the shape of each square. I did this in a few different kind of variations to not only misshapen the outer edge, but to also project grime and detail within each square, again having its detail be randomised to create an organic piece.

Once I was happy with the result, I place this into a blend with the pre-existing tiles, having the adhesive sit between the green tiles and the background.

As I wanted the piece to look less uniform, I used a function within the colour choosing system within Substance Painter that works similarly to the Colour Picker in Photoshop, in which I could use a existing image, and run the mouse along the image. This would make a gradient like palette, which could then be used on the mesh. I used an image of mould for the adhesive and some form of old stained wall for the background.

Once all this was done, I needed to create some kind of watermarks on the tiles as its realism would keep with the mould and moisture of where this texture could be used. This was near enough the same process as the others where I could take the random generated tiles, decrease their size, warp their shape and then make place them only on top of where the green tiles were. Because of the mask from the beginning (which was created after the Tile generation) most information could be used from there, is made to say anything within it that is black is in the background, while anything that is white would be in the foreground. With this I could make it so that the watermarks were only project onto the white (which was the green tiles).

SP Render

Close-up

For this trial with the software I mainly only used the 3 of the main 4 starting nodes, with that being colour, normal and roughness. Although I would have liked to work on this texture more, such as experimenting with the height information of the tiles, I am happy with how this first time use of the program came out.

Mayan Tiles:

When it came to creating the Mayan influenced tile we used a similar process to when I created my hospital tile texture. I began by setting the uniform, normal map, roughness and metallic colour and values to be something similar to stone. Rather then creating a uniform texture pattern this time however, I created a pattern but this time experimented with differently shaped tiles; using squares and rectangles of different sizes.

Like the hospital tiles, I smoothed the edges but this time trying to make each tile as unique as possible, as while a the hospital tiles would be uniformly cut, these would have been made of stone and would each have a slightly different shape. Using various Noises and Blend nodes to project the shape of the squares through them and distorting their shape achieved all this. I was also able to change the overall distance between the tiles in the tile generation sequence, which was possible in the settings.

Mayan Graph Close-up

 Once this was complete, I moved onto adding smaller amounts of detail onto each tile. Within this experiment the detail was achieved by taking the tiled pattern and projecting some form of damage onto them. The overall shape, the damage around the edges and the damage on the inside of each tile was made by projecting different variations of Noise details onto select parts of the texture, with some adding information and some taking information away.

With the overall detail of the tiles finished, I added a background colour to the mesh as well as setting the tiles to give height information rather then simply projecting the tiled pattern. This gave the texture a form of depth, making the tiles look like they were carved into the surface.

Overall Graph

To add to the aesthetic of the tiles, I used an existing image of a tribal skull to make add another level of detail into the texture. I inverted the black and white colour scheme to do this and then by using Substance Designer’s nodes I was able to isolate the information needed. I was then able to project this onto the tiled pattern and make it look like it had been carved into the stone by having the image subtract height from the mesh.

Once all this had been completed (the tiled pattern, different levels of damage and the tribal carving) I once again used the colour picker function to choose realistic colours from an image of sandstone and after a few variations I was able to find one that made the texture look as realistic as possible.

SP Render

Close-up

Although I am happy with this piece, I would have liked to figure out a way to fix the tribal carving projecting onto the background of the texture and only be on the carvings. Although this is only visible on close inspection of the texture, and could be fixed by slimming the gabs between each individual tile, I would still like to fix this in the future.

Georgian Tiles:

With this task we were given more freedom to pick a type of tiled design to create. Originally I was planned to take inspiration from Bloodborne and create a cobbled street, however I realised that the shape of the tiles would be fairly similar to the Mayan tiles, I designed to go with a more stylised type of design.

I looked into Georgian tiles and their complex pattern design and decided rather then placing more attention into the overall shape of the tiles themselves I wanted to create more detail for what was on the tiles. 

I began by going with the usual format of first setting my parameters of uniform colour, normal map colour and grey scales for my roughness and metallic maps to get the basic look. Similarly to the hospital tiles I made a tile generator, this time however going 5x5; then going back to my uniform colour and using a blend with my tile generator to set the colours for the foreground (the tiles) and the background (which would later be the adhesive and grout).

Once all the basics were set I moved onto creating my pattern by using the shape and transform nodes within the substance painter graph. This took some time, as each shape would need to be made individually or moved to make a symmetric pattern. For the blue diamond pattern for example I first made the square pattern, and then by using the settings within the certain nodes. I was able to make a more complex pattern. I did this as well for the flower and then leaves, using functions within the nodes to try out different patterns that would work together.

Once each was complete I blended them all together into a single transform and moved onto colour. I made each one a different colour, using the green and red/pink for the flower to achieve the most contrast and becoming the most eye catching. 

Now that this was complete I needed to move on to adding damage and other forms of aging to the tiles. I first started on the background as this would be more prominent then the watermarks. I use a randomiser mask on the tile generation to remove tiles bring more of the background through so I would be able to view the background easier.

Georgian Graph Close-up

Rather then using just two random noises to create a texture for the background, I looked at each of the different textures and tried to imagine how I could combine them in a more complex fashion. I test multiple combinations until settling on a final one, which could be the overall background and then moved onto the adhesive what would be stuck under the tiles. I found two noises that made a cross pattern I felt would work well, and using a few other textures I was able to make a seemingly organic type of background, as I felt that went well with the time period of the tiles.

Using what I learned from the hospital tiles I was able to take a second set of 5x5 tiles, make them smaller and warp the shape of them, creating an organic looking adhesive. Once this was all created I simply needed to use masks and blends to project the different information onto the adhesive and background. By using a gradient colour picker I was able to find a combination of colours I felt worked well with the foregrounds tiles. With the combination of the cross pattern and the other textures I felt that this worked well in making a realistic background for my tiles.

Overall Graph

Creating the watermarks for the tiles was surprisingly similar; as with grout I started by combining different noises and textures to create an over texture. I then use a levels node to enhance the lights and darks so the watermarks would be more visible. I then projected this texture on top of my tiles and plugged it into my roughness map rather then the base colour. At first the watermarks were projected over the entire mesh including the grout, which was not what I wanted, but by using the tile generation as a mask (as this showed exactly where the grout and tiles were respectively) I was then able to project the watermarks onto only the tiles.

Now that the tiles were created and had all the damage I wanted done to them, I exported the overall textures as to types, the first where the tile was completely intact and the second with the missing tiles and background damage. I did this as I was going to load the texture information into UE4 as use vertex painting to freely paint the damage onto the texture. This is a very useful process as rather then copying and pasting the same damaged texture over and over again which would look stagnant and repetitive, this process would let me choose which tiles were missing. This process also has a lot more potential as more layers of damage could be applied to the tiled texture and by using different RGB channels in UE4 a lot more variation could be applied to different parts of the texture, rather then it being repetitive.

UE4 Graph 1

UE4 Graph 2

UE4 Graph 3

UE4 Graph 4

To start this process I loaded all the textures into UE4. Then I created a HeightLerp node, which acted as my foreground and background (also, as I was only using a single channel, with having the tiles either clean or completely broken, I only needed to use the alpha and not the different RGB channels.) I used this method of the metallic, roughness and normal maps as well before plugging them into the respective final node. Once complete I then exported the random tile generator as a height map and plugged it into each of the HeightLerp nodes. Finally I set up the vertex colour map to allow me to add and take away the foreground tiles it the material was complete. 

Example of Vertex Painting

Watermarks Close-up

I found this project to be very interesting, as it has shown me another skill that can be used within the industry. Although at the moment I have only been looking at tiled textures there is a lot of potential that this process could be used for such as micro detail on meshes that wouldn’t cost polygons but could still achieve depth and results. I am happy with each of the textures and enjoy the concept of vertex painting; where instead of creating multiple textures to sit onto of each other, an artist could use substance painter to create a single graph of multiple layers, such as the grout, main body, grime, watermarks, burn marks etc, and then use vertex painting and different RGB channels to apply different detail where necessary.