Sand Rocks (1/2) | Height Map | Beginner Substance Designer Tutorial

[@GetLearnt]

For my mobile users out there, running free in the world like the renegades you are: 00:17 - Project Setup 01:51 - Rocks Geo 13:10 - Rock Erosion 16:44 - Rock Cuts 22:03 - Rock Parameter 28:02 - Sand Geo 35:41 - Sand Blur N' Grain 39:22 - Rock/Sand Blend 43:43 - Sand Buildup 47:56 - Bird Footprints

[@nothingspeaks]

Are u using the newest version of substance?

[@GetLearnt]

As far as I know I am. :D Substance Designer 2018.2.1 is what this tutorial is using.

[@nothingspeaks]

@@GetLearnt ok they released a new version 2018.3 (it has a space person as the splash screen now) and it has icons next to the nodes to tell you which one is viewed as a texture (in the 2d) and which one you have the properties for (i just noticed this right now) and another thing I just noticed that has changed is you get an option (in the node toolbar) to turn on 'highlight flow' and this allows you to click a node and everything behind it that's connected to it will be brighter than the rest

[@GetLearnt]

Well shoot, guess it's time to upgrade. Thanks Cory! I saw today actually that they had a new PBR node, I'm excited to see what that's all about. :)

[@nothingspeaks]

Get Learnt awesome! can't wait to see more tutorials, you are by far the best substance designer tutor I have ever come across, you explain what everything does and go slow enough to follow but not to slow that it becomes a snore fest and you have a cool way of incorporating jokes like when you said "crank bank" haha (which now that I think of it sounds a little like something else >.>

[@Gibshooter]

I gotta say, for somebody who was used to do all this in Photoshop before, this tool is like high-octane gasoline for your productivity, while Photoshop is the old-timey police guy who would put a wheel clamp on it, to drag you down. Everything I always wished for seems to be there. Thanks a lot for the tutorials!

[@GetLearnt]

I started doing textures in Photoshop as well, but I certainly would have never dreamed of doing full blown materials! It really is a new age for texture creation. Thanks for checking them out, I'm happy to help out! :)

[@andrewmajewski1756]

LOL, it's kind kind of funny that you made a tutorial on sand rocks since I'm gearing up to do an environment inspired by some of the deserts out in Arizona. I look forward to starting on this series later in the week! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[@GetLearnt]

I seem to be reading minds more often, as of lately. I'm glad you decided to check out the two part series, and would love to see the end result whenever you conclude! :)

[@lucianblack5874]

Another great tutorial. Pace and explanation are perfect. Thank you!

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks for the feedback, Lucian! Im looking forward to even better tutorials in the new year! :)

[@Just00ful]

Such an incredible teacher. Absolutely love your tutorials and the way you describe each node, thank you so much!

[@GetLearnt]

Thank you for the feedback! Pacing is a crucial component, so I can rest assured that Im going at a good one. Im happy to help out. :)

[@PeppiGaming]

hmm there is no vector warp node anymore? theres only a vector morph, what else should i use just a standard warp?

[@GetLearnt]

Weird, which version of Designer are you using? And ya, I'd personally use a Directional Warp. Gives you a higher quality warp compared to the regular one. :)

[@arashi8876]

You deserve more subs from Digital artists out there. Thanks a lot sir for this SD tutorials

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks friend, I appreciate it! I'm making my way there, one sub at a time. For now, the important people are here to see my videos. ;D

[@EduardoOliveira-jd8pq]

Man, i'm a newbie in 3D and texturing, but your tutorials really helped me, thanks.

[@GetLearnt]

Ha, it certainly gets easier, but I can't say it ever gets easy! Happy to help, man. Always feel free to leave any questions, I try to answer as much as I can. :)

[@janvisagie231]

Duuude, SAND, BEAUTIFUL SAND. I have yet to watch this tutorial in full, but I fuck*ng love the look of your sand and it is exactly what I've been looking for (fingers crossed it's still applicable to new substance designer). Sub gained.

[@GetLearnt]

Fantastic, I've got my fingers crossed too! Thanks for checking it out, hope it ends up working for you. 🥰

[@wittywonka123]

Incredible tutorial! Everything is so very well explained that it was a breeze to go through. As an absolute beginner with no background in Substance Designer, just knowledge of game development and computer graphics, prior knowledge would help, but is by no means necessary. I can sincerely say you are better than half of the "professional instructors" out there and you should consider putting up a whole tutorial on Substance Designer to get some more attention. Thanks again!

[@GetLearnt]

Man, thank you a ton for your kind words Zhivko! I am happy to know I am on the right page when producing these tutorials, and your feedback helps tremendously. I'm looking at more fully fleshed courses in the (hopefully) near future, so hopefully you will stick around for those! :)

[@wittywonka123]

@@GetLearnt That's great! I've already subscribed to your channel and I'm looking forward to any new uploads!

[@ben_angel]

if it's so great, why am i stuck 1 minue and 44 seconds in then? :D

[@wittywonka123]

@@ben_angel Maybe your internet connection dropped. 😉

[@ben_angel]

@@wittywonka123 you try and follow it again in the latest version then...

[@cosmotect]

You can click on a node after which you want another node to be inserted, then you hit Spacebar and choose the desired node from there. Gets rid of the rewiring! :D

[@GDi4K]

Thanks for doing this. This is awesome. I was using the Shape Splatter node to get these pebbles (rocks) effect. This is much easier.

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks for checking it out! There truly is just so many ways to do it, it comes down to what works the easiest. 😂

[@GDi4K]

@@GetLearnt Yeah! Got it.

[@armingivili]

Thanks for this tutorial..very useful ! really thanks !

[@GetLearnt]

Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching. :)

[@petertremblay3725]

Hey nice to see the best substance designer teacher around!

[@GetLearnt]

Oh Peter, you know how to make a girl feel special. ;D

[@petertremblay3725]

lolll@@GetLearnt

[@Dj3ndo]

Very good material. Thank you very much for uploading these. I have one comment about the direction of the sand buildup though. You have it set the same as the direction of the dunes. But the dunes are created because the wind is blowing at a 135 degree angle, thus creating the dunes. So setting the rock buildup at 135 would be more realistic. Other than that, the tutorial is very well executed!

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks for the feedback, that totally makes more sense. Always good to have such an eye for the details! Thanks for watching, you taught me something as well! :)

[@Dj3ndo]

@@GetLearnt No problem! My result ended up being a lot less nice though. I don't exactly know where it went wrong haha. Now trying to get it to work in Unreal Engine 4. It would be nice to have a good tutorial about implementing your sbsar/bitmaps into Unreal and reach the same effect as my material looks different in Unreal.

[@GetLearnt]

@@Dj3ndo I've been thinking of doing a few tutorials on using different engines to render out materials. I already have one using Marmoset Toolbag 3, so definitely one to check out if you are interested in Marmoset! I'm going to be taking a look at Unreal in the future, I truthfully don't even know it well myself. :)

[@Dj3ndo]

@@GetLearnt I will definitely check it out! And i think you will love Unreal!

[@nabeeliqbal9504]

You are back

[@GetLearnt]

For December at least. Still have four months of school left, so my schedule will be rocky until April. :)

[@PeppiGaming]

he this is a new person question but when i bring these into substance and apply them there massive, and tiling them seems to just make them "blurry" do you know how i can tile them without them getting that blurry effect? also great tuts ive made 2 so far and they look so cool

[@GetLearnt]

Hey Peppi, bring on the new person questions, I love to help :) I reckon you mean when you bring them into Substance Painter, right? Do you know what resolution you are working in for your graphs? Also I'm not sure if you deleted your other question but I can't find it to respond! :( I hope you were able to figure it out.

[@PeppiGaming]

@@GetLearnt hey. Yes i meant in substance and im using 2k res. I did delete a previous question because i realised i missed something haha

[@GetLearnt]

@@PeppiGaming Ah, gotcha! So, it may be because the mesh you are using might require a more efficent UV unwrap, OR you might want to consider working in a higher resolution project in Painter. The more you tile, the smaller the detail your mesh has to render. But if you're working in a Painter project that is lower resolution, at some point the detail will become blurry because there just simply isnt enough space for detail. Try working in 4k to see if that changes it. :)

[@PeppiGaming]

@@GetLearnt ah i get you thanks alot

[@mentallahrefae6251]

hello, Thank you so much for ur tutorials. I have problem when I connect the uniform color with the blend the line is getting red I don't know how to solve it can you help please! thank you!

[@GetLearnt]

Hey, thanks friend! I'm happy you think so. :) As for your issue, it sounds like you are trying to blend a color and a grayscale node. If you're trying to use a grayscale node as a mask, make sure that you aren't accidently plugging it into the background socket of your blend node.

[@mentallahrefae6251]

@@GetLearnt Thank you!!

[@Zelticon]

Ahh! Perfect timing! You saved my feathery butt. Brilliant work sir.

[@GetLearnt]

This is the comment I've been waiting for. :D

[@bhbh711]

Great as usual! Thank's for your good job! from me and two new fans of your lesson) Hope you will also go with snow creation in the future. Just hope)

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks friend! Ive got it on the list, so now I just need to find the time. :) Im hoping I can get to it as well!

[@Amauwan]

Hi ! Nice tutorial, really helpful ! Can you do for a next one, a tutorial using Triplanar Nodes ? (for how / when / why use it) Thanks and keep it up !!

[@GetLearnt]

I honestly can say I've never used them myself! I've got it down on my list, and once I get around to looking at and understanding them, I will see about sharing that with you guys. Thank you for the suggestion! :)

[@Amauwan]

@@GetLearnt Ok great ! Thx for your answer ! :)

[@TRuohan]

Hello! Awesome tutorials! How to set the viewport 3D mesh material to the grey material you used from the beginning of the video? Mine is like low roughness black material which is kindda hard to see details. I added a Uniform color (grey) into the base color, however, I don't think that's the case.

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks friend, glad you like them! Below is a tutorial I did to mimic the same starting template I use for all my tutorials. Take a look and see if this helps you out! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGS7naeQibOUqZY

[@TRuohan]

@@GetLearnt Awesome :) happy holidays!

[@GetLearnt]

You too!

[@TRuohan]

@@GetLearnt I ran into an issue while connecting the flood fill random greyscale node in the rock amount param section. White values seem to get distorted with noise while changing the number of rocks by using the histogram scan position. Here is a screenshot imgur.com/wBGNbVD

[@GetLearnt]

I run into that a fair bit. The Flood Fill can be a little finicky sometimes. I've not really been able to quite pinpoint what the issue is as there doesn't seem to be any clear visible problem outside of the result. My best guess would be to play around with the amount of rocks you are implementing and see where the problem no longer exists. That's at least my method, sorry it isn't too scientific! D:

[@Shubham-fk5oq]

51:01 instead of making whole decal in designer, why not we can use bitmap? What exactly the purpose of importing bitmaps in designer?

[@GetLearnt]

I try and keep as much of my tutorials in Designer as possible because that is the what the lessons are centred around. That being said, you can absolutely bring in a bit map if you'd prefer. The only shortcoming of that is possibly losing more control over the image in Designer, say if you wanted to add a fourth toe on the print and make it look organic to the rest of the shape. That would likely have to be done outside of Designer. Good question!

[@assasssin5328]

Thank you for tutorial. How did you manage your environment map (HDRI) to look like that? Mine is kinda blurry compared to yours

[@GetLearnt]

Hey there, happy to help! :) Is there a specific time in the video you are referring to? I believe I was just using the default HDR images that come with SD, so I don't think I did anything extra!

[@assasssin5328]

@@GetLearnt Hey, thanks for responding. There is no specific time in the video, it is from the beginning. Your edges and later rocks look much darker than mine and there is more roughness if I am not mistaken. Did you tweak any settings for HDRI so it could look like in the video?

[@GetLearnt]

@@assasssin5328 Oh gotcha! And nope, that's likely a result of me tweaking some of the material properties. As well, I may have changed the HDRI that I used to see the material in different lighting scenarios. I'd highly recommend dropping in some of SD's default HDRIs as well if you haven't (which you can find in the Library panel in SD), it really helps you see what your material looks like with those different types of lights and reflections. :)

[@assasssin5328]

@@GetLearnt Alright, I’ll give it a try. Thanks for help pal!

[@GetLearnt]

@@assasssin5328 Anytime, man! Good luck. :)

[@peter486]

Hy whatever your name is. Thank you ive been doing sand all day until i found this tutorial a Huge thank you. one question how could you sharpen the edges of the sand, i think its in the tile sampler but im not sure :) maby curve nod? :)

[@GetLearnt]

Glad to help out! :) And I think I know what you're saying. To tighten up the edges of the little sand dunes, you could either alter the X/Y scale in the initial Tile Sampler, OR you could play around with the Curve node we run it through immediately after. I hope that helps.

[@peter486]

@@GetLearnt playing around with it now ill post the project when its ready :) ounce again thank you alot.

[@muzaffer.3d932]

Hello, what's going on at 11:50 , small pieces come out all of a sudden, it didn't work for me

[@GetLearnt]

We are using a Levels node to essentially increase the white values of the input grayscale image. You may want to check a littler earlier in your network at the Histogram Scan node, you may need to increase the slider so you can see the rocks better.

[@muzaffer.3d932]

@@GetLearnt thank you so much and thanks for the tutorial video:)

[@56bobo56]

Hello! I am on my journey of becoming a 3D environment (self-taught) artist and obviously I must be capable of creating my own materials through SD. I have a rather simple question. Can you tell me how did you start learning SD? Because for example I understand everything you're doing in the tutorials, but when I try to create something on my own I am not quite sure what node should I use next. So, is it just practice in the beginning or something else? Thanks in advance! And last but not least, thank you for the in-depth tutorials that you are making, they are extremely useful - keep up the good work!

[@GetLearnt]

Hi there, Boris. I hope my response is not too late, KZbin does a terrible job on updating me on people's comments. I had been introduced to a Node system with Blender's shader editor, so I was able to get comfortable with nodes there. When I am working in Designer, my mind is thinking like Photoshop (or any photo editing software). Understanding what all the blend modes do in the Blend node is a great place to start, considering it will be the node you use the most. From there, I try and think about my material from the most foundational level. What are my large-scale, defining features? Then I work towards my smaller scale features and try to flesh those out. The more you practice, of course, the more you will learn what series of node connections create what effect and you will be able to remember that later when you go to make a material. Often I will go about making one material and inadvertently create a node network that works well for a separate material. I will save that graph and put it away for later. Once you start understanding what a specific node does inside and out, you will naturally begin chaining more and more complex networks together. :) Again, sorry this took so long to respond. I'm happy that you've been enjoying the tutorials!

[@56bobo56]

@@GetLearnt Hey! Thank you very much for the response! A lot of things have changed for the past 8 months, for the better I think. I have improved and learned a lot, although I have "transferred" to modeling (Blender) and texturing via Substance Painter. Currently I will be attending a game development course in a private art arcademy (ARC Academy in Sofia) where I won a scholarship and hopefully I will be able to break into the game industry after I "graduate", which was my initial goal. Once again, thank you for your tutorials and the time spent answering us (the community).

[@GetLearnt]

@@56bobo56 That is tremendous, great job mate! It's good to get familiar with all aspects of 3D. Kick some ass at ARC and if you have an Artstation, I would love to give you a follow (if I haven't already, I follow too many people!).

[@56bobo56]

@@GetLearnt Yes, absolutely. I've just realised that I haven't followed you on Artstation, so I just did. :) Here's mine : www.artstation.com/b_simeonoff

[@inigoc]

Good tutorial! But I have an issue, I did the same as you did , and I can't view the basematerial in the 3Dview :O

[@GetLearnt]

Happy to help out! And if right clicking and dragging it into the 3D scene didnt work, you can also right click on the Base Material node so the menu pops up and you will be able to select "Display in 3D view" or something to that extent. It'll likely ask you which output you want to display, so select all that apply (like Albedo, Normal, Height, AO, etc.). :)

[@inigoc]

@@GetLearnt It seems like It's solved! Thanks m8!!!

[@GetLearnt]

Awesome! Thanks for watching. :)

[@Anonymous_User69]

The boss is back in the hood bois!

[@GetLearnt]

So no misbehavin', ya hear?

[@ksumbipetrova7860]

Thanks a lot for your tutorials!

[@GetLearnt]

I'm happy to help! And that dang bug captures a new victim! You're not alone, I have had that happen to me countless times, and if you are to scour my comments across my videos you'll see that many others have encountered it too... As far as I can tell, it's a bug that has persisted within SD for several versions at this point, assuming you are using the newest version that is currently offered. I've found simply exiting and re-opening to be the only solution, although that hasn't worked for some people I've talked to. Always worked for me, so it may be worth giving it a try! It's certainly annoying tho. Let me know if it persists!

[@HissYFiTs007]

What environment map do you use??

[@GetLearnt]

Very good question. For this tutorial, I just left it at the default (which I believe is corsica_beach). :)

[@TheWolv17]

subscribed!!!

[@GetLearnt]

Thanks friend!

[@MM-ku2cl]

I want a video about how to export the material from substance and import it from maya2018 and render it by Arnold

[@GetLearnt]

Interesting suggestion! The last time I've even touched Maya was 7 years ago, so I'm sure much has changed! Needless to say, I don't know much about it. I do want to do a general video on exporting our materials from SD, however I'm not sure I am the most qualified to be teaching Maya/Arnold (yet, at least). Im gonna jot it down into my list, and if the opportunity presents itself I will see what I can do! Thanks again for dropping a comment, friend. :)

[@ben_angel]

1 minute and 44 seconds in and i'm stuck lol. Why doesn't my scale thing do what yours does? and also why does my menu look totally different to yours?

[@GetLearnt]

The reason for the menu looking different is likely because you are using a newer of SD, this video is using 2018.2.1. The UI has changed over the years, as well I had my windows laid out a little differently compared to the default layout. As for the scale slider, in order for us to visualize height data we will need to plug in a grayscale texture into our Height Map output node. If you do not have anything plugged it, it's assumed a complete black image which will increase or decrease the height info on our 3D model uniformly. If you are following along and are using that Base Material node, try plugging some noise into the Height map socket. Otherwise, plug your height into the Height Map output node. You should be able to see something showing up on your 3D model.

[@ben_angel]

I've followed your base material node and the height scaler just increase the size and deforms the entire cube. as for grayscale texture ive no idea where to put that. It seems this video is out dated @@GetLearnt

[@bigocomputro6602]

you gotta zoom in i cannot see any of those other nodes

[@GetLearnt]

You just mean the names of the nodes?

[@keseybadgett7594]

Freudian slip?

[@GetLearnt]

Which part? :D

[@keseybadgett7594]

@@GetLearnt "Crank Bank"

[@GetLearnt]

It might have been. 👀

[@Flatrodon]

Hi! Once again, im truly grateful for your in depth tutorials, they are so useful. The only thing I have some issues with is that my 3D view render is not as HQ as yours. I ve finished your template making tutorial, tried to make some adjustments in camera editor, following every step in you tutorials, (my 2D view is the same as yours), played with the reflectivity, changing the light setting, rotating the light, etc. and nothing works :/ Do you have any solution/suggestion to this problem? Here is a comparison picture of my and your 3D view imgur.com/a/JnjkKJo

[@GetLearnt]

I can't say that I have an answer that is something you haven't tried yet. To me it looks as though it is either the reflectivity of the material (Base Material node that we are using to view in our 3D view) or the environment map.

[@zion51713]

get bank! lol

[@doreldidel23]

gosh darnit! can you make one tutorial that sucks?! ffs... geez... gawd damn!!! personal note: i need to git gud...