Texturing

Use of Gradients

Gradients are a powerful tool for guiding the viewer's eye across the model. I found they add subtle visual flow and help highlight areas of interest, something I plan to use more deliberately in future projects.

Blending Smart Materials and Generators

While Smart Materials and Generators are very effective, they often look messy or obvious at UV seams. Careful blending and masking are essential to make these effects feel natural and seamless.

Anchor Points for Layer Referencing

Anchor Points are extremely useful for allowing generators and filters to reference data from earlier layers, adding more depth, complexity, and control to the texture workflow.

Subsurface Scattering

I was surprised at how easy it is to set up subsurface scattering in Substance Painter. However, I'm not sure I used it effectively this time, and I’d like to explore its potential more confidently in future work.

Tutorials

Leal, A. (2024, May 15). Stylized textures tutorial | Hand-painted style in Substance Painter [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT5PJKMPTdg

Hungry Team: Yolu's Tutorials. (2022, July 15). How to draw (paint) eyes? In Substance Painter [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_kRRC_9MBw 

Import into Substance Painter

Importing your 3D model fbx into Substance Painter making sure UVs are correctly laid out, and the mesh is optimized and ready for texturing.

Bake

Use the Bake Mesh Maps function to generate maps like Normal, Ambient Occlusion, Curvature, and World Space Normals. these are used for smart materials, generators, and masks to react properly to your model's geometry.

Masking Out Areas

Apply masks to isolate parts of your mesh so different materials or effects can be applied without affecting unwanted areas use black-and-white paint, polygon fill, or mesh ID masking for precision.

Applying Generators and Smart Materials

Drag and drop Smart Materials and using fill layers with generators to automatically add complex effects like dirt buildup, edge wear, or rust based on the baked maps. This helps add surface depth quickly.

Applying Filters

Use Filters on specific layers to adjust color balance, blur, sharpen, or apply stylistic effects like stylization or grunge overlays. Filters help tweak material appearance non-destructively.

Layer Blending

Adjust blending modes (e.g., multiply, overlay, add) and opacity settings between layers to create more nuanced and visually rich textures, allowing layers to interact in subtle, creative ways.

Exporting

Once you're satisfied with the texture work, export your texture maps using the appropriate preset for your rendering engine or pipeline (e.g., Unity URP, Unreal Engine, Arnold). Be sure to double-check resolution and channel packing settings.