Feedback needed about materials

[Doug Hunter]

I have a question: I’ve been considering the pros and cons of;
1) Setting up individual materials zones on an item and applying the various materials to each of them OR
2) Using Substance Painter’s polygon fill tool to mask off the areas and paint on them.

Choice 2 gives more flexibility to change the overall look of each material set whereas choice 1 locks you into painting on the zones as defined.

But choice 1 would make it easier for an end user to apply whatever materials they have at hand to the item, given that most people don’t have access to programs like Substance.

I can think of many pros and cons which I won’t bore you with here and in the end I conclude that choice 2 is best for my work-through, however in a conversation I was having with Miss B I’m now revaluating this and thought I’d ask for other people’s input.

With the outfit in the attached renders; the three steampunk styled materials were done in substance painter and the other three was where I set up the material zones and threw on some materials I had in my library.

And yes I know the zones I made are the same as the polygons that I picked in Substance, so they do have that similarity; however in Substance I’m not restricted to those zones.

For me choice 2 has some huge advantages, particularly when it comes to using displacement maps like I have in the collar and wristband. … well now it sounds like I’m asking people to just give me the opinion that this is the best choice (which, let’s face it, that’s obviously what I am doing) BUT I would like your feedback on what work-through you each prefer.

 

[Doug Hunter]

 

[Doug Hunter]

 

[Dakorillon (IMArts)]

The ones with the steampunk materials look much more "flat", ie, not real.
Yes, you need some sort of bump map on them, to help break up the "shiny".

Lastly, as a texture artist, I would far rather work with the first, rather than the second.

Don't know if that helps you.

 

[Doug Hunter]

Very helpful, thank you.

 

[Dakorillon (IMArts)]

Very helpful, thank you.

I guess I should have said that the steam punk materials are very cool, though, they just need a little more work.

 

[Rae134]

I'm not sure how SP work but if you are asking if I prefer shaders on mat zones to actual textures, I like both. I think having heaps of mat zones to change using shaders is great, but I also like being able to put my one fine details to a certain area (like you have the steampunk stuff).

 

[Doug Hunter]

I increased the bump maps on the steampunk outfits and yes they do look better, good eye there Dakorillon .

What I’m now thinking I could set up the .obj files with say around four or five material zones. Then for my own mats I could make just one set (base_colour, normal, roughness, etc.) and load that same set into each zone. This will allow people to do like I have in the first three renders and still leave me to get the same result as I have, albeit with much more mucking around.

As far as I know loading the same files into each individual zone shouldn’t take up any more computer resources. Can anyone clarify this?

Further to this; Substance now supports UDIMs and as far as I am aware, so does Poser (I think Pauline is set up that way). So if this works well it may well make a further change to my workflow for future projects.

 

[Miss B]

I'm not positive about the computer resources question, but I can't imagine it being harder on your computer, as once the textures are loaded, you're just copying them to another material zone, not loading them up a second, third or fourth time. You're just reusing the textures that are already there.