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Quixel Sale $79 for Indie. CAN be used commercially.

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
Yes, I know, I'm posting a ton. I just wanted to point out that Quixel will create a PSD for each map for each mesh group. Here's a list of mine with the above modified G3F open. This is why I advise to narrow down your mesh groups to the uv maps and use color ids. Ideally, for things like game assets, props, most clothing, you'd only have about 4 PSDs since everything would be laid out over a single non-overlapping UV map.

photoshop_psds.jpg
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Can I create the materials in DS? Or won't that work? I know how to create new surfaces in DS...I think I may have to open up either Silo or hex otherwise.

Sorry only just saw last post...yep that would be way too many.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
The materials in DS are the material zones that you'd most likely want to use to create your color IDs. I think I remember attempting to bake them out straight from DS, but I don't remember how I did it. They didn't come out the greatest so I stopped using it.

I don't know Zbrush, and the bf who does isn't online atm. If Zbrush can bake textures out from either texture painting or assigning flat diffuse colors to material zones, you could go that route as I know you're a Zbrush user.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
I don't know if I can do it in Zbrush. I can set poly groups and even colour them but I'm not sure if that will work with quixel. I could probably do it in Hexagon. I'm not really sure about baking textures as I've never done it before. As I said I'll probably need a step by step for dummies. I'll sit down and check out the manual once I've gotten the presets for Diva's texture done. Also sit and watch some of the tutorials and see if I can makes sense of it. The nDo part isn't too bad I've sort of worked out how to do basic normals but need to really explore it further. Mainly bought it as I'd used nDo to create the normals for Diva so needed to have the licence.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
If zbrush's polygroup colors can be baked to texture maps then that will work. It's the colors on a texture map you want, whether the mesh remains colored or not doesn't matter post-bake.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Should be able to do the colours on the texture map...I'll give it a try when I get through with Diva.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Indeed, you can manually color the UV map islands if your modeling program can't do it for you, but remember to give it some leeway margin of at least 16 pixels or else your texture's background color may bleed into the character seams. The margin size depends on how large your textures are. For example, 4K textures may need even larger offsets.

Has anyone seen someone making clothing textures with Quixel Suit? That's a longstanding question I have.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Thanks Ken...yes...I normally make it a bit bigger. I can tell you that they were making textures for a loin cloth in one of the videos that I've been watching and it does have a fabric section in it's materials. I haven't got to the point of actually doing much yet. I've been watching videos and downloading some samples to look at.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
I haven't seen any workflows per-se where the artist admits to using Quixel, at least not for Daz/Poser specific content, but according to Midnight_Stories, he used Quixel for these textures for a suit: Quixel & Daz Studio

Basically you can texture anything you want in Quixel. Just like Substance, it's only limited to your imagination and what you try to achieve with it.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
I usually paint my textures in either Paintshop or zBrush, but I was wondering if Quixel would offer anything specifically advantageous for outfit texturing. I probably doubt it can make better normal maps than zBrush, but maybe it can do it without having to subdivide a model to millions of polys before a texture can be painted? Does it allow painting directly on the model like in zBrush, or is it 2D only?
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
I'm going to advise you watch their videos. Most of your questions can be answered just by doing that. Quixel is PBR painting, similar to Substance Painter, but from right within Photoshop. Yes it has mesh painting, but you can also minimize/close the viewport and do some detail work directly on the PSDs if you chose, and they'd be updated in the viewport as well.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
Thanks for the info, Vaskania! I have some experience painting models on PhotoShop, and found it rather cumbersome to move the model around- even with a 3D mouse. Having to move the light around was also cumbersome. I wish they would make it easier to visualize and move the models around. I actually have Substance Designer, the Indy version, which now has been turned into a subscription. I have used it more for game models than Poser/DS.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
You can actually paint in detail directly on to normal maps as well as being able to paint on the maps from what I've seen in the videos Ken. In the one I watched on dDo he actually added detail onto the normal map creating vents and also writing a number on the wing.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
@Pendraia I have to take a closer look on that. When I first bought Substance Designer, their tutorials were rather generic, and always geared towards hard surface models, like vehicle and robots. Organic models and outfits don't benefit from cracks, scratches and rust stains, if you know what I mean. I wish I could see something more geared towards what I do with outfits.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Understand totally...I'm interested after watching a video to see how it does with skins for characters. The orc one I watched they did an excellent job with. I mainly bought it for it's ability to convert diffuse into a normal. They aren't perfect but it certainly gave me a good starting point which I then worked with.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
I agree, Photoshop's internal 3D viewport is garbage. Quixel's (3dO) is completely separate and made with Unity iirc.

Substance Designer I get how it feels geared more towards hard surface, Painter however can be used for whatever. Aeon Soul uses it in their pipeline. Second and Third tweets show both hard surface and clothing via Substance Painter. Aeon Soul (@AeonSoul) | Twitter

I do have both Quixel and Substance (I haven't upgraded to SD5 or SP2 yet, however). I just happened to take to Quixel easier. While I'd pimp out Quixel to anyone, just go with whatever you're comfortable with. It's been a while, but I *think* Quixel allows for trialing the software w/o entering a key.
 
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