Substance Painter Tutorial - Fundamentals 05: Baking textures | Adobe Substance 3D

[@syntenel2283]

Finally a company that developed the software making the tuts, I am so sick of dealing with a bunch of random third party ones that always do stuff differently. Thank you substance

[@Substance3D]

You are most welcome! Check out our free learning site here. academy.allegorithmic.com/

[@DATECStudio]

Also He is a great instructor

[@GetaVe]

Just want to say that this series is absolutely fantastic. The information in these videos goes beyond simply Substance. I think every aspiring 3D artists should have to watch these videos. (at least until new tech comes out... lol). Thank you so much!

[@Substance3D]

+Mike Jarvis Thanks very much Mike. I greatly appreciate it. That is very rewarding to read : )

[@Jiggywatt]

Do you think someone can make a tutorial on ID maps in particular? I know how to use the vertex colors method but I dont really see when the other options would be used and there's not much to learn from the documentation: support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/ID

[@overnightgrowth]

You guys just get it man, highly informative! It's awesome to see the company, which actually made the software, make tutorials for everyone to learn from.

[@fiendish55]

This tutorial series is super helpful and this teacher is one of the best, he explains everything without skipping important stuff!

[@Substance3D]

fiendish55 Thanks so much! I greatly appreciate it : ) Very great to hear you like the videos.

[@mazenezou]

@4:14 yea i almost thought he will skip like every one does on tutorial's videos, then he explained the hell out it :D

[@svivan20]

Wonderful tutorial! The only tutorial out there that fully explains the way you create textures in Subtance Painter! Thank you

[@Substance3D]

Thanks very much! So glad you like the videos. I'm updating this series soon as well

[@abenoit722]

That Match by Mesh Name thing is just absolute genius.

[@cwidd1929]

5:33 Baking diagram 16:02 AO 16:34 Curvature

[@Substance3D]

I'm sorry, not sure what you are pointing out. Do you have a question or is there a problem in these areas?

[@cwidd1929]

I just tagged the minutes so I can quickly find a certain part of the video. No issues :)

[@ponimania]

Allegorithmic - there enough sayed about baking normals problems and nothing about AO baking problems. I mean those beautifull white lines in the corners, appears all over the place. prnt.sc/jggqlj - example

[@DigitalSalt]

Holy cow this is such an all compassing tutorial! Thank you so much for also jumping into Maya to further demonstrate how your meshes were set up and show naming convention to work in Painter. If you didn't include that, I would have likely been missing that piece of the puzzle and it would have driven me crazy!

[@ellenshelley5066]

I actually get excited learning this stuff. Great tutorial series :)

[@Substance3D]

+Ellen Shelley Thanks very much!

[@theindiegospel8063]

Your style of teaching is so intuitive and as an added bonus your enthusiastic presentation tone makes these videos all the more engaging :)

[@Substance3D]

Thanks very much! That really means a lot to hear that. Thank you : )

[@naomilafaekurz1560]

Man this has been some of the best information that is needed ever.

[@Substance3D]

Thanks glad to hear it was helpful.

[@zoranmilutinovic9890]

Exactly what I needed, I struggled with some of these options for months now. Mostly did trial and error without understanding the logic behind it (and it took away to much time). Thank you for this very valuable information!

[@Substance3D]

Glad to hear the video was helpful!

[@akhileshd2016]

The way you explained about max and min frontal distance is just awesome. Thank u.

[@Substance3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@davidbrinnen]

Having watched many tutorials for a lot of different software, I just wanted to add my praise for the way these are presented and put together. These are the best composed tutorials for any software I've yet seen (and I have seen a lot). Well done, sir! I should of finished work a couple of hours ago, yet I am captivated to learn more. Thank you. Best wishes, David.

[@Substance3D]

Thank you so very much! I really appreciate it and glad you liked the videos.

[@reaktorleak89]

The small tip on setting curvature to "Per Vertex" when there's no high resolution model in use was very helpful. Thanks!

[@Substance3D]

Cool! Glad that was helpful. Thanks!

[@navinrakesh986]

The best video for baking till date. you guys are awesome!

[@Trait74]

This video is a lifesaver Had no clue what I was doing before this

[@bluujelly]

Thanks for this, I've just been baking without knowing why or what it does and I decided to find out because of some errors that I didn't know how to fix. Crazy how this video is still useful 5 years later, thanks again!

[@Substance3D]

You are so welcome!

[@lveronese]

finally a tutorial that shows with proper graphic how the baking works.. well done

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! So glad it was helpful.

[@Gr1mmReap3rT2]

You are more than just helpful my man, you are actually fun to listen to which makes the learning process that much better, these are some of the best tutorials on youtube.

[@videotopology6587]

first of all i Unable to thank . this video it`s old but i don`t see something like that simply before really all my respect for each effort on that Thanks guys ♥

[@Rno71]

I find this series of tutorial for Substance Painter really good! Straight to the point and clearly explained, it has been an invaluable help in my learning of the program so far. One of my favorite features has to be the "Match by Name" function. Thank you very much for the efficient tutorials! Now I am however facing an issue that I can't seem to find how to solve and it involves the Curvature map which always turns out black. All the other maps are baking just fine except that one. I've read somewhere that it might involve something with the GPU but I tried on 2 different machines (Intel then Nvidia) only to get the same result. I have also tried to freeze the transformations of both my high and low meshes before import with no success. Aside from this little issue I am looking forward to pursue my learning of this pretty neat software. Thank you once more for all the nice explanations!

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! So glad you like the training : ) Can you please post in our forums and I can help you with the curvature issue. I haven't seen that happen before. I've seen the normal bake as black when the meshes don't overlap. This comes from there being data on the mesh transforms. The curvature should be baked from the normal. Do you get an normal map?

[@Rno71]

Thanks a lot for your answer! Yes I do get a normal map. I've just made a test with a simple cube in case the issue came from my mesh but the curvature map still bakes completely black. I believe that there is a workaround to get a curvature map from a normal map "manually" in photoshop but might as well try to make this function work in Painter directly! I am going to post on the forum. Thank you lots once more!

[@Substance3D]

Yes, please post on the forums and we can help. The curvature shouldn't be black like this.

[@zkworks3915]

You make the best tutorials about this software ! Thanks)

[@Substance3D]

Thanks very much! I greatly appreciate it.

[@TonyOFN]

Love this video, helped me understand baking better! Thanks!

[@TheAndrewBen]

5:33 I feel like this video is the holy grail on learning how all of this works, lol.

[@IconW]

Wow. Mind blown. Thanks for the awesome tutorial!

[@voidgirlash]

Awesome! The chart really helped understanding the raycast behaviour!

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! So glad to hear the video was helpful.

[@samking7174]

Fantastic breakdown, cheers!

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! Glad to hear it was helpful.

[@ezydenias8505]

17:25 "use your low poly mesh" I love that word, especially if you only have a high poly mesh to paint. My 1 mio triangle low poly mesh.^^

[@Substance3D]

Hehe, yeah different meaning of low indeed : )

[@aniekoltsova9703]

I think I've understood max frontal/rear distance! Thanks!!

[@Substance3D]

Awesome, glad the video was helpful. : )

[@Beloudest]

Awesome, I just need 2 screens to make following easier :) All this 3D stuff is overwhelming sometimes, kids in the future will spend a life time learning it all and these videos made it easier for me.

[@Substance3D]

+BELOUDEST Thanks! So glad to hear these videos have been helpful : )

[@mordecai1484]

Very informative. Thank you!

[@specialkayah]

It appears that the rest of this series is no longer available. Is the playlist hidden or deleted?

[@Substance3D]

It is hidden as it was years and years out of date, too much info was incorrect.

[@pyrotechnick420]

21:10 So how did you set up your red Painted Metal lambert on your high res mesh? Is there a shortcut or did you just tough it out?

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

This is fantastic! Thanks.

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! You are most welcome.

[@antohardns]

Exactly what i need to know!

[@heminrasul]

I've fully utilized the utilized :)

[@Substance3D]

Sorry : ) Will try not to repeat it for future videos.

[@zubizaretta397]

GREAT TUTORIALS Substance!!! At 18:05 You mention that ''remove the HP in order to bake AO from normal map''. Can we bake an AO map with combination of normal map + low poly geometry?

[@Substance3D]

You can, you need to have a normal in the mesh map slot in the Texture Set settings and to bake the AO without a HP and with the Normal baker disabled.

[@zubizaretta397]

@@Substance3D Thank you so much!! Yes, I tried this way and got great result!!

[@TheVeryEnd87]

Great, so I though I finally understood a bit how textures work, by doing some normals and specular / roughness maps. Then I stumble across this tools, and I am being obliterated by all these new maps, utilities and possibilities! Great guides tho, and nice having an positive sounding person learning me this instead of some tired KZbinr which could need more sleep.

[@Substance3D]

Thanks so much! Very glad to hear I don't sound very boring : ) Please let me know if you have any questions about Substance.

[@TheVeryEnd87]

Allright, you asked for it so - and I know these things probably are answered in one of the videos, but I am just a bit lost: 1: Usually I create my bump / normalmaps (the same thing, or not?) with tools such as CrazyBump, as I am not very comfortable with the normalmap maker method in 3ds Max. This means I can skip the whole highpoly / lowpoly method. However, SP demands the other method, as baking textures require the a high poly version. Any way around this or will I just have to let 3DS Max have it's way? 2: When baking textures, usually two outcomes happens: The new normal map will be completely flat / no details, as well as a range of errors due to missing color maps etc. What are the best approach to create these color maps? I have both Gimp / Photoshop and 3ds max, so it's just a matter of making it "the right way" 3: Tied to #2, with normal map it should be possible to bake all the other maps, or is this where I misunderstand? Should I import both a colormap / normal map at the start of the project before baking the textures? Sorry long post, but hopefully the numbering makes it easier to answer on :)

[@Substance3D]

No problem : ) 1. You don't need to use a high poly for baking AO, Curvature, Position and Thickness. SP uses the bakes for the generators. If you go to the bake, just leave the high poly blank, deactive normal and use AO and Curvature. You can then use the generators with these bakes. 2. Lots can go wrong with normals : ) Seems like you don't have a high poly or the meshes don't intersect. Please take a look at this video for more info. tutorials.allegorithmic.com/courses/516b0dc3c0e6ec89eb36c6b448ac6d04/youtube-gR3r7Xmhmlk. You need to bake a normal map. I wouldn't recommend trying to manipulate or author it manually. 3. If you already have a normal map, you can import it and then add it to the normal slot in the texture set settings. Then when you bake, disable the normal baker and the other maps such as World Space, AO and Curvature can be generated from the normal map you imported.

[@TheVeryEnd87]

Thanks for taking the time going into the details! I'll dig down into it right away. PS: Smart Materials is the best thing that have ever happend in my texturing life! For easy folks like me that focuses on learning 3D but want it to have textures without using photoshop etc. this tool is the best!

[@Substance3D]

Thanks very much! More to come : )

[@Renzsu]

Getting more into realtime asset creating, the software you guys make looks absolutely amazing. Now I just need to learn more about creating good UV layouts :) Any plans on creating something for that? (I come from a design background, where we take our high detail models into Keyshot and just slap a boxmapped texture on things and let materials do the rest. Having good UV tools would be amazing not just for realtime assets).

[@Substance3D]

+Renzsu This video shows some tips for UV layout. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKjYpK2ko9CFrtE

[@Renzsu]

Allegorithmic Thank you! It's been a long time since I've been this excited about learning new software :)

[@pablovelasco3d]

Eyyy, thank you very much for the tut!! Awesome! Just one question. According to your graphic, should the low poly be a little smaller than the high poly? I understood that it doesn't matter, and we can control it with the cage or the distance value. But in your graphic the Low looks so small in comparation with the High... And for me, I use to apply a mesh smooth for getting the High Poly, so it is always smaller than the low... Any comment about that? Thank you very much!

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! Glad you liked the video. The low and high poly should match closely in size to overlap. The graphic is more illustrative in this sense and doesn't represent that the low should be smaller than the high poly. If you apply the smooth mesh and the high is smaller than the low I think you will get missing details in the raytrace. The key is to have both the high and low match as close as you can.

[@AdamJanz3D]

18:25 in Substance Painter 2018.3.1, inside the "Position" baker, the axis is set to "X" by default, while in the video the default was shown to be "Y". Is "X" indeed the new default for this baker? Thanks.

[@Substance3D]

Yes, it's X. We do many UI/UX updates. It's always based on feedback but can be confusing.

[@AdamJanz3D]

@@Substance3D Okay, great; thanks for clarifying. :-)

[@MegaDobrich]

How do I read position map. Its very confusing. What I discovered so far is that magenta nuances of colors are lower geometry, and higher geometry is kinda cyan in color. I was up to use position map with chanell shuffle to isolate upper areas to apply dust somehow, but I dont feel confident to do that. Is there any video with the info on that. p.s. I have made some wood, rock, brick substances of mine. Can I upload them somewhere on your website, or are there any forums where people give away their substances for assessment, or download?

[@jintarokensei3308]

I'm a confused, I thought materials are recognized as texture sets. How do the materials in your highpoly model not create a separate texture set and are instead used for the ID map? I gotta say though, amazing tutorials so far. The quality is master tutor level. Bravo.

[@Substance3D]

+Jintaro Kensei Thanks! So glad you like the videos. The materials are recognized as texture sets. So in your low poly you are painting on in SP, you want to minimize the sets. You can use as many as you like, but for game assets, you don't want to have many materials on a single asset. So if you want to have a min number of materials, but have an ID map with many material areas to help with masking, you can bake the ID map from the high poly that has more or different IDs than the low poly. You can also load in a different version of the low poly (in the high poly section) with different IDs and bake the ID from that. This is just a way to get a more complex ID map to help with masking using color selection but keep the actual project mesh with a set number of materials.

[@darkkartist]

thankyou so much for this ♡

[@ezydenias8505]

2:42 can you beliefe the actually support .blend files, now I don't know if it is like unity which just makes an intern conversion to fbx or if they actually support it but isn't that just great? Why does cinema 4d not support .blend files?

[@Substance3D]

We don't actually support the .blend format. We are not actively supporting any native file format for 3D apps and I'm sorry to say but this will be removed in a future update. We received a lot of feedback that using .blend is crashing painter. We recommend using FBX or OBJ

[@manublanquillo9252]

Hello awesome tutorial, I was wondering if you could help me fix something weird, I'm a beginner and I was baking a normal map, with the "always" option I got the seams as shown in the video, and when I switched to the "by mesh name" option it did remove them, however the normal map instead of being purple it turned black, I really don't know what this is as I'm just getting started, so do you by any chance know what this situation might be? :)

[@crismil]

Awesome tutorial, better than some "not free" tutorial i've seen on the subject. i've a question about this. Does the high poly geometry have to be bigger than the low poly? what if i have the two intersecating each other. I'm getting bad results and i'm wondering if is because of this.

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! Glad you liked the tutorial. There could be many reasons for having issues with normal baking. The high and low should match as close as possible. However, if you are getting seams, it could be issues with smoothing, UV seams etc.

[@nadimkazi87]

I was getting same issues today then I found out it was cuz of my model vertices, my robot model had double vertices on top in some areas and I was getting very annoying results but I removed those doubles and now its cool looking!

[@Fiiirelord]

This video series are super helpful. Thanks to the team. BUT one thing is missing in the tutorial. What if I have more that one OBJ for highres mesh and just one mesh for lowres and I want to use "match by name" ?

[@Substance3D]

+0MIIID Thanks! You can load multiple meshes into the high res bake mesh and you follow the same rules for naming the mesh layers in the OBJ.

[@Paulieinspiration]

I'm really having a hard time where to start learning this program I am a cad modeler and know nothing of baking, unless its with my friends at 4,20 why do you bake why do you need a low poly and a high res poly how do I make a low poly mesh from my model.. any advice where to start would be great.

[@InquisitorSama]

Again great tutorial. One question: How can we export the baked maps and import them inside a game engine?

[@Substance3D]

For the baked maps, we have an export preset that will save them. The baked maps are currently embedded in the Painter project

[@carldun2923]

No wonder Digital Tutors only has more or less 10 courses for Substance Painter, you guys did an immensely better job than them. I've watched a handful of their courses but your fundamentals series gave me more information than all of their courses combined. You even had a 1080p resolution, at paying $400/year, one would think that they would at least have a 1080p resolution but no, they cram it in 720p where some options even appear outside the recording area.

[@Substance3D]

Thanks very much! So glad to hear you like these videos and the quality. We have opened Substance Academy which is free and organizes all of our training. Lots of new videos planned for this year. tutorials.allegorithmic.com/

[@fusion5329]

So it is required to have a high definition mesh to create a ambient occulsion?

[@Substance3D]

No, you can bake the AO from the project mesh as well : )

[@debilnypesdedinskysvaty1188]

the substance baking options should be visible somewhere in the interface of SP, like some handy cheat or something.. what do you think?

[@Substance3D]

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean information on the bakers?

[@debilnypesdedinskysvaty1188]

the diagram at 5:35

[@latestsongsandmoviesforyou]

i wanna know which maps are important and require for realistic texture for character and other

[@gelbuilding]

Excellent, Thanks

[@Substance3D]

George Gelbuilding Thanks George!

[@SkilledYetTalentless]

Is there a way to deal with those aforementioned artefacts when your overall model is made up of a couple hundred different elements (3DSMax terminology for parts of the same mesh which aren't directly attached to each other)?

[@Substance3D]

You can use the match by mesh name feature to isolate the ray cast so that it will only compute the mesh names that match. So for you high and low, you can use the default suffix of _low and _high. For example, you could have arm_low and arm_high. In the bake, only the bake only looks at the mesh names that match.

[@InquisitorSama]

A quick question: Is combining the mesh parts affect the bake process in anyway ? Like, combining low parts on their own, and high parts on their own?

[@Substance3D]

If you combine the mesh parts, you won't be able to use the match by mesh name feature.

[@pyrotechnick420]

Can someone explain the difference between the MG Mask Editor from 2018 and the new Mask Editor in 2019? I can't seem to get the same effects going on

[@czesiek77PL]

I am just starting using SP, on your video you are using one object with two UVs, but how can you have multiple parts of it with "_low" ? I dont quite understand how you did that, that the model is divided and till uses same UV

[@Substance3D]

The multiple parts are just sub objects or mesh parts. Each part has it's own UVs but the parts are grouped by material. Painter sees a material as the texture set

[@czesiek77PL]

Allegorithmic Thank you very much :-)

[@czesiek77PL]

Allegorithmic Thank you very much :-)

[@yans.d.4174]

Hey Wes, I noticed under pretty much same settings, baking in Substance is faster than in Maya, other than that, would you say Substance is better/preciser in baking Normal maps than Maya, or other software like zbrush, xnormal ? Thanks !

[@Substance3D]

+Senna Mortensen Hi Senna. I use Substance for all baking. I think its faster and the main point for me is that its integrated into the software so I feel its much easier to work with as I can quickly bake and directly use the textures.

[@InquisitorSama]

Hey there. Is there a tutorial for how to bake assigned textures on the model so that after we're done in Painter, there would be only 1 texture map that would include everything we've assigned to the model?

[@Substance3D]

Yes, I think you can find what you need here. tutorials.allegorithmic.com/courses/06b7361bcd1b5895ecbcf7b31055a603/youtube-qjREE42LLOk

[@InquisitorSama]

Yeah, I see what you mean. The thing is, my model is large and complex. So, I had to use a lot of materials in order to increase texel density. I have lots of unwrap groups with more texel density and different materials assigned to them. So, with thiss setup; can I export painted textures as a single texture pack after I'm finished in Painter. Like, only 1 base color, 1 normal, 1 roughness map etc. And once I apply them in Unity, all the textures I've assigned to different unwrap groups would be seen on the mesh.

[@InquisitorSama]

Btw, I love your community engagement. I've been watching your tutorials for quite sometime and you always respond to questions. Even below relatively old videos such as this one. Thanks again for the tutorials and responses alike.

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! So glad you liked the videos : ) For the texture sets, Painter doesn't merge them on export. The materials you assign to the project mesh will always be the amount of texture sets exported. Indeed having to lower the material count on large objects will affect the texel density. In these cases you end up with having to make a balance between texel density and material count. Please let me know if I misunderstood the question.

[@InquisitorSama]

Yes, you understood the question correctly. I'll have to sacrifice a portion of the texel density in order to decrease the material count thn. Thank you very much. (Learned the texel density from you as well. Thanks for that too) :)

[@InquisitorSama]

Do we have to unwrap (unfold) both the high poly and low poly models before baking the texture?

[@Substance3D]

No need to unwrap the high res mesh. You only need to have UVs for the mesh you are baking to.

[@InquisitorSama]

Thanks :)

[@raphu604]

How can I ignore a mesh part for the AO baker? I have for example an H&K MP5 model, and I want to bake the ambient occlusion for its magazine texture set (the mag is seated inside the mag well). Substance Painter is now baking a shadow onto the upper part of the magazine (since that's the bit that is fully surrounded by the darkness of the receiver). That's obviously not what I want (I want a clean AO for just the magazine). I don't want to go back and export an exploded version of my mesh; is there a way I can ignore the receiver for baking the AO? Disabling the receiver's texture set effectively hides the geometry inside the substance painter scene view, but it doesn't prevent the baker from covering my magazine with unnecessary shadows.

[@Substance3D]

You can use the match by name feature. You don't have to explode the mesh. Just go back to 3D app and name the mesh parts that you want to make sure evaluate in the ray cast. For example, on the low res mesh, take the magazine and call it magazine_low, then in the high res, call that mesh part magazine_high. The names match, but contain the _high and _low identifiers. You don't have to explode the mesh parts. Just name them. Now in Painter, se the AO baker to use Match> By Mesh Name and it then the ray will only intersect the matching mesh part names for the high and low.

[@raphu604]

Hm, it works! Thank you for the detailed and very helpful answer :) Greetings from Switzerland

[@Substance3D]

Awesome : ) No problem, happy to help.

[@awsbasim8240]

can i texture it without uv unwrapping?

[@Substance3D]

Painter requires there to be UVs for painting. You will have to perform some type of unwrap. You can use auto-unwrap or mapping and then later go back and redo the UVs, reimport and Painter will reproject the strokes to match the new UV layout.

[@MajorKreissack88]

And why would you do such a thing? I mean, instead of unwrapping first. I find it's the first thing I do after modeling...it also helps in case you want to use it in photoshop for further refinement

[@ahtiandr]

After Some testings I have a question. When I use "By Mesh Name" feature what exactly happens to the cage ? Lets say I have a complex mesh which consists of many small pieces and the cage file also consists of the same amount of small models and when the baker bakes each piece separately how the cage is represented ? Does it show only cage part of the one piece or does it load whole cage all the time ? I am a bit confused here. Should I rename cage pieces also in the same way as low poly pieces? Also if I leave "avarage normals" unchecked, does this mean that the baker will use exported normals for baking ? My model has a lot of hard edges/polygroups and I need to keep them while baking.

[@Substance3D]

+ahtiandr Averaged normals is only used when using the max frontal and rear distance ("the virtual envelope"). Average normals doesn't have an affect with a cage mesh. You don't need to work about breaking up or naming parts of the cage mesh. The match by name is only going compute the ray that intersects with the high and low poly with matching names. The ray is just "shot" from the cage mesh.

[@ahtiandr]

+Allegorithmic thank you for quick response! I think I got it and now I can enjoy the baking in one go =)

[@StefWillemse]

+Allegorithmic Yes but see, if i have 2 cubes next to eachother with 2 seperate cages, those cages will intersect with eachother, i can use match by name to bake the normal map but it is gonna use intersecting cages. This might be a problem right? So when you use Mesh by name you are probably forced to work with frontal and rear distance

[@ahtiandr]

+Stef Willemse actually it will bake the cages separately one by one if you use mesh by name option. I have baked full characters with 30+ meshes and each mesh had its own cage and cages were intersecting but the result was perfect. I think when it bakes by name it uses cage vertexes which are matching the low poly mesh vertexes and ignores everything else.

[@StefWillemse]

ahtiandr that is awesome, thanks!

[@bboybestiaTT]

in substance painter did you have the lowpoly right? (i mean the withe one is the lp)

[@Substance3D]

I'm sorry do you mean the low poly model in the tutorial files?

[@bboybestiaTT]

yes, that one is the lowpoly right?

[@Substance3D]

Yes the mesh that is used in the Painter project is the low poly.

[@hectornavarro1839]

sooo about the high poly parameters 0.o... I only have one mesh. I don't really wan to model the model from scratch. Do i really have to 2 meshes?

[@hectornavarro1839]

nvm ill mess with the per pixel setting or ill check to see if i save a version prior to turbo smoothing, which should be the case since i had incremental saves.

[@Substance3D]

You don't need 2 meshes. You can bake maps from the single mesh. Please check our latest course which uses only a high poly asset. tutorials.allegorithmic.com/courses/a97b433a5997fd800b5ed300d783cc41/youtube-IGGQl9kVB1M

[@MotionPunk]

Hi, i do not work in game industry so im kinda new to baking stuff. Sometimes i have very detailed models directly from zbrush and not proper low poly version of em. (cause details are lost).So my question here is: Can i still bake all my maps within substance without having a low poly as a reference object? thanks

[@Substance3D]

+Thanos Kagkalos Yes, you can bake without having to have a low poly. You wouldn't bake a normal map. However you can bake the ambient occlusion, curvature and position maps. For the curvature settings, set the algorithm to Per-Vertex.

[@chowelinic]

I'm having problems with the ambient occlusion baking, for some reason the baker is applying the occlusion on weird places on my model and some parts that dont even need occlusion are turning gray or complete black, the weird part of all of this, is that the baker was working fine but with the new updates, this keeps happening, can you help out?

[@Substance3D]

+chowelinic Please post in our user forms and I'd be happy to help. forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?board=20.0

[@BENBOBBY]

If always using a high poly model and are rendering in 3D software after do you need to bother with baking? Im kinda confused what the point of it is.

[@Substance3D]

No, you don't need the baking if you are just using high poly. However, the bakers can still be used to generate specific maps used by the mask generators. The generators help to quickly create various wearing effects. You could use your high poly, bake AO and Curvature from the vertex and then use these maps to help in the texture process through generators. You don't need a normal map. You can also choose to not use generators at all and just paint the high poly.

[@BENBOBBY]

Allegorithmic Ah I see, thanks for the explanation :) Just to double check, if I bake the AO then export and render in say Cinema 4D with AO enabled in the scene will I effectively have double AO or is the AO data not exported (unless specifically selected)?

[@Substance3D]

The AO is just a map that is supplied to the shader in Painter. You are not baking the AO to the vertices. In C4D you can use the AO in a material channel as a texture.

[@sahibzadaasfandyarnoor4517]

Hello, these videos are really amazing,short videos with too much information. I am new to SP, my question is("if the" Match" is set to by "Mesh name" the high poly mesh name would be "Crate_high" and the low poly would be "Crate2_low". Will it work?

[@Substance3D]

Thanks! No it will not work. You need to have the same name. It would need to be Crate_low and Crate_high. Using Crate2_low will not match Crate_high

[@sahibzadaasfandyarnoor4517]

+Allegorithmic thank you for quick reply. I may ask some more silly questions in future. I hope I ll get answers.

[@Substance3D]

Ask away : ) I'd be happy to help.

[@tomaszneosapiens5111]

do you use fbx for low poly with multiple named parts ?

[@Substance3D]

+Tomasz Neosapiens Yes, I use FBX and there are multiple mesh part names that correspond to the mesh part names in the high res FBX.

[@tomaszneosapiens5111]

thanks ,now i am getting obj from zbrush converting to fbx , and i rather bake it this way , its much better , 16 mil polys bake down , seems to be foolproof

[@russelbalugo2071]

Hello! I was testing how to bake a normal map but the baked map comes up black and nothing happens. Would you know why this happens?

[@Substance3D]

This is caused by the high and low res meshes not being aligned. Make sure the meshes match up. Also, you may need to freeze the transform if the meshes were scaled.

[@RenanWerdan]

When te bake window was opened the bakers have a yellow exclamation mark in the buttons, what this means?, sometimes i have this too, and sometimes no, i can't find a reason for that.

[@Substance3D]

This yellow exclamation just means that a high res mesh hasn't been added yet. It's just a warning. You don't have to use a high res mesh for each baker.

[@litote9]

Could some kind soul shed some light on how to use the Max Frontal/Rear Distance parameters for the "virtual cage" to get a good Normal bake? The default values are 0.01. If I bake and find I need to adjust them, what sort of increments should I use... 0.02, 0.03? And should I match these for both parameters, e.g. Max Frontal Distance: 0.03, Max Rear Distance: 0.03?

[@Substance3D]

There isn't a specific setting as it depends on the meshes. The max and rear distance define the length of the ray and the length needs to be long enough to sample both the high and low meshes, but not so long that it hits other geometry causing projection errors. To be honest, I just play with the settings until I get the result I like. In the future, we will provide a function to better visualize the ray.

[@litote9]

Thanks for your reply. That would be an important update. If I use a cage instead, do I need to create a cage for each part of a mesh, e.g. if it is a gun with several overlapping, separate parts? Presumably you don't just create one overall mesh.

[@forestpump3]

Damn, YOU ROCK!

[@Substance3D]

Thanks!

[@RenanWerdan]

Hello, first of all, thanks for this videos, really really great. My qustion is, can i get Ambient Occclusion map from a high-poly mesh into a low-poly?, like bake the maps and the AO map being baked from the high-poly?,i tried, but i don't have sucess.

[@Substance3D]

Yes, you can do this. You can bake AO from the low poly or the high poly. Please let me know what is happening with the map

[@RenanWerdan]

Allegorithmic All right, let me tell my workflow for this, I don't know if I do it right. I open the project with low poly mesh, than i click the bake textures button, after, i select the maps I want and I put a high poly mesh in the common section, I hit the bake button. After the computing time ends, the AO map came with the AO from the low poly not the high poly mesh. Can you help me? OBS. If my low poly and high poly mesh share the same UV, I can bake the only the AO for the high poly, export this map, and open this map with a aditional map for The low poly in other project. Can I do this without this work?

[@Substance3D]

If you are using a high poly in the high poly settings, it should be using the high poly for the AO bake. I will need to check on this.

[@cgtipz1001]

plz unlock rest of the videos.....plz..plz...plz...

[@Substance3D]

The other videos are very old and out of date. It's better to take a look at the latest course. academy.substance3d.com/courses/getting-started-with-substance-painter-2018/youtube-IGGQl9kVB1M

[@cgtipz1001]

@@Substance3D FIRST OF ALL THANKS FOR YOUR QUICK RESPONSE. YES I KNOW THESE VIDEOS WERE OLD BUT IN THESE VIDEOS 1. YOUR EXPLANATION WAS TOO GOOD 2. IN DEPTH 3. SIMPLE AND CLEARER 4. STEP BY STEP. IF POSSIBLE PLZ MAKE SOME KIND OF ARRANGEMENT SO THAT I COULD SEE THESE VIDEOS. THANKS IN ADVANCE.

[@WehrmachtSoldier95]

I have a problem using Substance Painter as my RAM goes full-load at 100% when I bake textures. The software doesn't crash but it keeps my laptop heated and the texturing process really lagging. I use i7-7700HQ 2.8Ghz, GTX 1050 4G, RAM 16G and all necessary drivers are latest version. Is there something I am missing?

[@Substance3D]

This could be expected behavior if you bake several textures at the highest resolution. However, the ram should free up after the bake.

[@debilnypesdedinskysvaty1188]

Why there is no diffuse map baking option? Sorry, but if you want just to bake from 3d scan to low poly retopo there is no option for this. Why not ? Just tell me!

[@Substance3D]

We haven't added this baker to Painter yet. We do have this option in Designer. I will check to see what the plans are for Painter.

[@debilnypesdedinskysvaty1188]

Yeah, it will be great to have this feature. You know, I am jumping between 3 softwares to have everything that I need. I think there is also no option for baking height maps. 4k baking with possibility to save in 8k (experimental), why ? Even XNormal has option to bake 32 K.

[@chaotic3dartist690]

Hi, I'm having an issue with using the Match by Mesh Name option, I triple checked the naming conventions, but for some reason I'm still getting my baked out normal map as completely black? Any idea what might be causing this? Also I tried deleting history, freezing transformations. I'm using UDIMs, might that be causing this?

[@Substance3D]

This could be due to the meshes not being aligned. This can happen when there is transform data on the meshes. Make sure the scale and position is frozen before you export from your 3D app.

[@IlLoTAFV]

Hm . I didn't get with ID map . Do I really need it ? If my model has only one color , only one group of polygons . I really can't understand the benefits of this texture .

[@Substance3D]

You don't need it unless you want to use it for quick masking. Some meshes may have many materials but the mesh you load in Painter only has one material. This is more optimized as you have 1 texture set or material. However, you can then bake an ID map from another mesh that has multiple material IDs and can then use the ID map to mask out materials.

[@IlLoTAFV]

thank you very much!

[@Substance3D]

No problem : )

[@Jacentyfull]

I'm using version 2.5.0, and "Match by Name" function doesn't work for me. I've got the same model as in the tutorial. It's been downloaded from share.allegorithmic.com/libraries?by_category_id=72. I ve' tried to rename the separate meshes, export them without groups and it still doesn't work. Do you have any ideas?

[@Substance3D]

Can you please post in this thread? forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php/board,37.0.html We can provide better support there.

[@hansolpurr]

I know this is old but seems like it still applies. I'm wondering a workflow that uses ZBrush, Blender, Substance and UE4 (using substance plugin). As far as I can tell, to take advantage of the matching feature, you need separate objects in one fbx, all with the same material if you want one texture set. So, in ZBrush, have a folder of all UVd meshes labeled as high, export the hipoly fbx (blender couldnt handle the poly count). duplicate the folder. Export the duplicate at lowest SD all and bring into blender, rename to low suffix, change mat to match on all objects. Bring into substance. Bake with match by name. Save out mesh maps. Make a low poly fbx that has all meshes joined into one mesh. Import into UE (this would make it so it's just one static mesh, not a dozen). Send to substance via plugin. Manually import and enable mesh maps from previous bake and viola? The only issue i can think of is triangulation mesh coming from UE import (they're quaded in blender and Zbrush). Would that be an issue if the UVs aren't really changed? I'm fairly new to the whole process, so forgive the wordiness. Just trying to think out loud and see if I'm over complicating pipeline.

[@Substance3D]

This shouldn't be an issue if the UVs are not changed. However you can also change the UVs and Painter can reproject the strokes. docs.substance3d.com/spdoc/uv-reprojection-28737554.html

[@hansolpurr]

@@Substance3D i actually did some testing and discovered the mesh memory feature, super powerful. I had some odd overall UV shifts when putting the maps to the merged mesh in unreal (via plug-in) so i bit the bullet and set up a manual workflow between substance and ue, which actually isn't bad at all. Also i just learned that hi poly doesnt even need UVs to bake.. at least in my case. So much time wasted. Name matching is the best

[@InquisitorSama]

Hey, can you please tell me how do I activate my color ID? I can't find the "Mask to color selection tool" :(

[@InquisitorSama]

Found it. It seems I melted my brain with 15 hours of non-stop work :(

[@Substance3D]

Oh, glad you found it! Sorry for the confusion. Be sure to take a break : )

[@sanketvaria9734]

But what is the use of baking? I understand the use of normal and AO but other maps i don't get it.

[@Substance3D]

The other maps are used in the texture process with the generators. You can use curvature for edge wear and position and worldspace normal to place details at specific angles or directions such as snow or dirt collecting on the top of the asset.

[@司马光-q1k]

Why do I baked out of the ID is a solid color, how to solve it

[@Substance3D]

Check the parameter values for the ID baker. You need to set it to Material Color. It defaults to vertex color.

[@abiyyupanggalih854]

can I make the bake output size to 512x512 then export it to 2K/4K? when furnished the project? Help me :)

[@Substance3D]

That's not a good idea, anything based on the bakes will be low detail and blurry. It's better to bake HIGHER and Export LOWER!

[@sayakbanerjee4592]

I got exited when you talked about "pervert ex"

[@views-re2om]

i am new to this 3d world! why we need to bake texture? please explain to me as i am kid :)

[@Substance3D]

The bakes help in the texturing process. For example, having a curvature map will help you add texture effects to the edges of the mesh. A normal map will take details from a high res mesh and apply them to low res mesh to give it an appearance of having detail yet still be optimized for game engine.

[@ulipr2411]

For baking normal maps - anyone knows what are the complications of having high values for frontal and rear distance? does it impact computing time or any other known issues? Thank you!

[@Substance3D]

The issue could be that the ray projection goes to far and intersects multiple mesh parts. This can cause artifacts. To compensate for this, you can use the "match by mesh name" feature to essentially mask the ray to mesh parts.

[@karamveertawar4734]

I am getting this error " not enough data in the high poly to use selected baker. Baking has been canceled." What to do wirh this? My mesh is inported from max and has 2 iterations levels of mesh smooth. That i think is high. My mesh. Textures of some parts are baked fine but there is always one or more edit polys/ objects whose map are all black. Complete black? I even searched online for this problem but couldnt find anything helpful. 😟. Anyone .....who could help me?

[@Substance3D]

The data error sounds like it's coming from the ID baker. The ID baker defaults to vertex color and will produce an error if no vertex color exists on the mesh. For the black textures, this could be caused by having non-zero values in the transfrom. In 3ds Max, make sure you have the transform for the mesh frozen or zeroed out.

[@bethanybellwarts]

I can't use the Match feature because my highpoly is in zbrush and importing it into blender or maya would be extremely slow (it has millions of vertices). Looks like I'll stick to baking tonnes of different maps and combining them in photoshop :/

[@Substance3D]

+Jade “ghgghghjh” ok Actually, you can use zbrush : ) I work this way with zbrush as well. You will need to use the FBX export option in 4R7. You can separate the high an low into different subtools and you can name the subtools to match the naming convention for the match feature such as "arm_low" and "arm_high." Its basically the same workflow as what I showed in Maya. In zbrush you are separating the meshes into subtools.

[@1korax]

+Allegorithmic I tried but I simply can't rename the subtool in ZBrush with " _ " if i try the results is " - ", what i do wrong ?

[@bethanybellwarts]

KoraxArt I noticed that too with zbrush, but once you actually export them, the '-' change to '_'. I'm using separate .obj files for my high poly though, because when I do FBX, the scale of my model is completely off compared to my low poly.

[@1korax]

+Jade ok “ghgghghjh” yups same here, the FBX is totally out, I tried again with export obj for each subtool of my high poly and bake into a full low poly, but now when I click bake in sub painter give me this error [HighPolyMesh] Unable to load scene from Url 'file:///C:/Users/blablabla/body_high.OBJ' [Baking] Baking failed I'm pretty sure all it's ok, no idea where is the error Q_Q

[@jaanisk606]

Hey, you should upgrade Painters Baker to whatever Baker Designer is using because I'm getting far better results with Designer baking than I am with Painter Baking using the same exact model.(Curve Map from mesh)

[@Substance3D]

Yes indeed. The Painter bakers are a bit behind Designer. Designer is used as a pipeline tool a used to create custom workflows around the bakers.

[@jayjaygolden5123]

im sad you guys didnt go into thickness baking :(

[@percinatto]

[Scene 3D] 3D scene successfully loaded [Baking] Baking failed (Color Map from Mesh) Could not find vertex colors [Baking] Baking failed What now?

[@Substance3D]

In the Color ID baker, it's set to vertex color. You need to set this to material ID and it will then bake the color from the materials.

[@percinatto]

another question. Im making a low poly game, do i need to use high definition meshes? for now i am only using smooth textures and matte colors

[@percinatto]

and another error... [MapExporter] The input map 'Opacity' needed by the map 'Ficus 1_Madeira_AlbedoTransparency' of the texture set 'Madeira' isn't available because: 'Opacity' channel is missing in your texture set. [MapExporter] The input map 'Emissive' needed by the map 'Ficus 1_Madeira_Emission' of the texture set 'Madeira' isn't available because: 'Emissive' channel is missing in your texture set. [MapExporter] The map 'Ficus 1_Madeira_Emission' can't be generated for the texture set 'Madeira'. [MapExporter] The input map 'Opacity' needed by the map 'Ficus 1_Folhas_AlbedoTransparency' of the texture set 'Folhas' isn't available because: 'Opacity' channel is missing in your texture set. [MapExporter] The input map 'Emissive' needed by the map 'Ficus 1_Folhas_Emission' of the texture set 'Folhas' isn't available because: 'Emissive' channel is missing in your texture set. [MapExporter] The map 'Ficus 1_Folhas_Emission' can't be generated for the texture set 'Folhas'.

[@Substance3D]

You don't need the high poly meshes. You would use these to bake the maps such as normal , AO and curvature. These maps are used by the Smart Materials and Generators to produce wearing effects. However, you don't need to use these at all. You can work directly on the low poly. If you want to use the generators and smart materials, you can choose to bake the AO, WSN and Curvature without using a high poly. In the curvature settings, just set it to per-vertex.

[@Substance3D]

This error is just stating that the export preset you used contains exports for emissive and opacity but you don't have these channels in your document. That's ok, you can ignore them. You can also create your own export configuration that doesn't contain emissive or opacity if you are not using them.

[@shingAMarie]

I just want to texture a box and a cylinder. This is way too much detail for that. Is there a simpler, less wordy version than this? I think this should be placed more in the intermediate rather beginner process of baking. How about just starting with a box or something?

[@Substance3D]

Yes : ) Please check our latest course. tutorials.allegorithmic.com/courses/06b7361bcd1b5895ecbcf7b31055a603/youtube-Qk_YRkDsJrQ

[@leroyjenkins8627]

Hey, I'm having some trouble baking my normal maps. Whenever I try to bake them, I get little errors like this prnt.sc/a8d4rg prnt.sc/a8d62y prnt.sc/a8d6ag around intersecting objects. You touched on this in the video and you said to mess around with the Max Frontal and Rear distances until you get it to look right. You also mentioned to change "Match" to "By mesh name" Changing the Frontal and Rear distances all the way down to 0.0001 gets rid of most of these errors, but it also gets rid of most of the other things that I want baked onto the object prntscr.com/a8dcp2 while setting Match to "By mesh name" just sort of removes them completely prntscr.com/a8ddjj. Here's a screenshot of my current settings for baking the normals. prntscr.com/a8ddz2 Thanks for any help you might be able to provide :)

[@Substance3D]

+Leroy Jenkins hey : try to avoid pure 90 degres angles: it doesn't help for the baking

[@leroyjenkins8627]

Allegorithmic Alright, thanks, would the best solution be to just erase them manually on the normal maps?

[@Substance3D]

+Leroy Jenkins In this case, I would avoid using hard edges and edges with 90 degree angles. The 90 degree angle of the edge is not providing enough detail to represent the high res mesh.

[@leroyjenkins8627]

Allegorithmic So would say adding a turbosmooth modifier to the highpoly help?

[@Substance3D]

or just chamfer the hard edges ;)

[@dave77777777]

i keep getting a black texture map

[@Substance3D]

This is because your high and low res mesh most likely have data on the transforms. You need to freeze transforms of the meshes before you use them to bake in Painter.

[@dave77777777]

thank you!

[@yorickvlt1021]

To the ghost, perhaps me from an another universe: WATCH THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS WATCH IT DO THAT RIGHT NOW STOP WHAT YYOU'RE DOING WATCH IT