Paint on Normal Map: Painterly Texture Maya/Substance Painter

If you want a cool 2D painterly style on your 3D character and are struggling with how to get that in Subtance Painter and Maya then this tutorial is for you! I used this method for my senior capstone short.

[@LCURRY48]

I hope this video blows up!!! Not only are you the only person I’ve seen demonstrate how to paint DIRECTLY on the WORLD SPACE NORMAL MAP in SUB PAINTER, but you also applied this technique to Maya rather than blender like most 3d Artists! Wish I could have watched this video a month ago!🤣🤣🤣 THANK YOU😮‍💨

[@arilizart9375]

Thanks for the kind words friend! I'm glad I could help

[@ElSebas2305]

Hey, ive been working on some handpainted normals recently and wanted to share a tip with you (or anyone in comment section) Instead of clicking the color picker, you can press "P" if youre on a paint layer. This is specially usefull because you can even sample de color of the normal map when seeing the whole PBR Material. When working with normal maps it can quickly become unsure how the colors are being interpreted by the software, so painting while watching the PBR material can be really useful. Great job and thanks for sharing !

[@raylights]

you saved my life

[@DavysArtCorner]

You mad lad! I think this is the only video on youtube that explains how to paint normals like this in Substance Painter and not in Blender! Thank you, you saved my life!

[@mkarts-g5l]

Yh you are right 👍

[@mevaniel3010]

this really deserves more recognition. I'm a new 3D artist and we're using maya for school, I've been really curious on how they made textures for TMNT, Spiderverse, etc. They've all been demo-ing in Blender, so thanks a billion for doing this video ❤

[@SalphythePhisher]

If anyone is having trouble with the eyedropper tool when painting normals, make sure you project configuration has been set to OpenGL not DirectX

[@marlenetavenard4223]

Does anyone know why when I put the World space normal in the normal channel, suddenly the edge of my uvs mapping are showing directly on the model ? Like a straight line clearly splitting my normal, exactly where I cut my uvs ? helpp

[@harthaababon5117]

Hi! Is there a way to make the normals visible to maya view (in the same way that makes it react to light?) if I can't use Arnold render?

[@Less_1515]

Heelloo miss, what version of substance painter is this?? I think I have a older version of it so I dont have all these baking options

[@kavishamutucumarana7037]

Thanks so much for this :) If I was to export the textures into Unreal Engine would it still be dilation + Transparent? or would I need to set it to something different?

[@ahmaddimas9439]

Hello, I found a problem when coloring a normal map, such as lots of dots appearing in the area I colored, do you have a way to fix that?

[@danielaortizb]

Just wanted to drop a quick note to say thank you for the tutorial! It was really helpful and I appreciate the time and effort you put into it ☺

[@savannah3244]

This tutorial is about to single handedly get me through my finals fr fr

[@alvinli1283]

Thank you so much for doing an in-depth tutorial on this!

[@daeni7333]

thank you so much

[@SaenGaems]

thank you

[@DeltaVuk]

Great demo! I worked out a different method for painting on the world space normal in Substance, but I think yours is a bit more intuitive to pick up since mine requires a custom channel to get started.

[@safak.]

god thanks for substance painter explanation !

[@motionfxli9273]

great job

[@dodo3884]

Amazing tutorial!

[@FredMarcassoli]

Hi ! Thank you so much for your tuto, it's really cool. However, on my side, the color I pick is never the same when I paint it than it looked in the color picker. ( violet is yellow for example ) It only happen when I'm in Normal mode. Did you enconter this problem at some point ?

[@arilizart9375]

Great question! That can happen when something hasn't been set to "normal". Double check that your brush is only coloring using normal, that the layer you are coloring on is set to normal, and that you are looking at it through the normal view

[@arilizart9375]

Also thank you for your kind words :)

[@FredMarcassoli]

thank you for you response, I doubled cheked but it doesn't seem to be the case sadely @@arilizart9375

[@eppezwez5836]

@@FredMarcassoli same, I am having the same issue :(

[@victoriagomez2348]

@@arilizart9375 i still have the same problem, love the video btw.

[@chitzy6610]

im getting darker spots and dots as i continue painting on the model in substance painter... any idea on why that occurs? i followed every step you've shown but it keeps appearing no matter what i do 😭😭

[@arilizart9375]

I can think of two reasons why this may be happening. 1, if I am understanding you correctly you have painted on your normal map texture, and have moved on to painting color on the character correct? The darker areas are places that the normal map says should be darker. You could try recoloring areas of the normal map so that they don't appear as dark. 2, it could be an issue with your UV. I know substance does auto-unwrapping of UVs, but perhaps there are areas of the mesh that are being weird. Examine your mesh for holes, overlaps, and ngons, and consider remeshing what you're painting. Hope this helps!

[@chitzy6610]

@@arilizart9375 thank you so much for your help!! i tried tampering with my uv and i noticed some overlaps it works great now!! also this is such a good video 😭😭 I'm a slow learner so having a step by step tutorial is such a godsent! thanks so much for such an in-depth tutorial 💖💖💖

[@artsydreamz9147]

This is great! Only problem I’m having is that when I color pick from the normal map it’s picking the opposite color. If you know what I’m doing wrong lmk!!

[@arilizart9375]

Double check that your brush settings are set to normal and that it is only drawing on normal Hope this helps!

[@artsydreamz9147]

It did! I am having another issue where my colors get significantly duller when I change the base color to a color filter. Is there a way to adjust this?

[@arilizart9375]

@@artsydreamz9147 I’d have to experiment more with this, I used flat brushes or texture brushes when using this effect

[@elollo9904]

hi I have the same issue here, did you find a way to fix it ?

[@Kiraykell]

Amazing!, i really archive a great look in my Metal Helmet with this techinque

[@RadiantMantra]

Cool effect, thank you This plus a nice painterly shader will make some amazing scenes

[@travisissoocool]

Your gamma is off for your world space normal, have you figured out how to fix that yet? You can tell because the colors at 9:30 don't match the colors at 5:45, which are lighter versions of those rainbow colors. Also there are shading seams when you import the world space normal. If the gamma was correct, the shading wouldn't have changed when you imported the baked world space normal into the layer. I'm not super knowledgeable about Substance but I have a feeling it's treating the baked world space as SRGB instead of linear, or maybe something gets broken with the bit depth being 8 instead of 16. Other than that one arcane technical issue, your technique is excellent. I'm going to have to try this.

[@sassuskrassus3166]

Really interesting approach Never seen anything like that

[@mkarts-g5l]

I have subscribed to your channel kid You have helped me found my art style after so many years

[@SONlCSPEEDRIDER]

I´ve learned a lot, like this is the best tutorial ever, thanks a lot

[@mingzhuLI-p9o]

Miracle! ! I have always been curious about how to create this oil painting-like effect, and finally found it, thank you for sharing! !

[@mingzhuLI-p9o]

Love you so much, your videos help me so much!

[@FLowerK-ek8mj]

Hello!!! I really like this video and it's giving me a lot of new thoughts of substance painter! I have a small question about it after I tried, is that in "normal" view, my color is coming together very smoothly, but when it turns into "material" view, the UV line will be very clear, it will be divided into two parts (or more) at the UV line. Do you know how can I fix it? Thank you soooooo much!!

[@arilizart9375]

Thank you very much for your kind message! I wish I had a good answer for you but unfortunately, I don't :/ I've had that happen to me as well, and so far my "solution" to it has been to try and cover it up with the paint strokes. They always end up looking way better in maya than in the substance lighting

[@FLowerK-ek8mj]

oh...okay!! I guess I will try to hide my UV cut line and make it harder to see. Thank you soooooo much for your reply!@@arilizart9375

[@witheredharp]

this is a known issue with substance painter unfortunately. i remember seeing a forum post about it, as far as i saw there's no solution

[@sketchstella]

I’m having this same problem. I’d love to hear if you have found a solution!

[@sketchstella]

Update: when I imported my textures into Maya I’m not seeing any of the UV seams! Not sure why it was looking like that in substance.

[@yusufdmrbs6593]

Good Video

[@icentev8452]

This is a great video, but can SP convert world normals to tangential normals? The browser I am using does not support world normals

[@sarah.elghadouini]

You can convert it using handplane

[@icentev8452]

@@sarah.elghadouini hi, is handplane a new software? I can't find anything on youtube

[@sarah.elghadouini]

@@icentev8452 its a bit old but it did the job for me, just search "handplane baker gumroad" the accounts name is "handplane3d" its free for non commercial use. Theres also some people who talked about it on polycount and blenderartists if you need more information. im not sure my last comment was able to be send bc of the gumroad link, so im trying again :>

[@PierreAlexandreDucos]

@@sarah.elghadouini What is "Handplane"? Is this something in Substance Painter, or is it a function in a different software (IS it a different software?)

[@sarah.elghadouini]

​​@@PierreAlexandreDucosattempt 4 of replying: its a seperate converter, not part of substance painter unfortunately