Substance Painter and Carrara.
DUDU
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Substance Painter seems interesting and there are some guys here who use it, also, I have some questions:
1 - Is the import of an object created in Carrara correct in S.P. (UV mapping...)?
2- Is it possible to import a complete scene and to make the render with the built'in IRay?
3- Does one find the same quality of textures after the importation into Carrara and what's the process ?
Thanks in advance.
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1. Have no idea, TangoAlpha might chime in with the answer, I believe he does his modeling in Carrara (I use Silo, and it works fine).
2. For now, only one object (with multiple meshes and texture domains) can be imported into Painter.
Well, I assume it could be the whole scene (if you have enough memory on your video card), but as one object, lol, there is no 3D manipulator, so objects within the mesh cannot be moved.
3. Only difusion and bump/normal maps translate correctly (it's PBR shading system), process is simple, you need to import texture maps into designated slots and play a bit with highlight, shineness and reflection for desired effect ...
Thanks, I'll give a try, it is not so expensive after all.
Q: What is "PBR shading system"?
Cheers !
PBR Physically Based Rendering (Iray, Lux and Octane) Though I am pretty sure you can export maps for 3DL like engines etc
For #1 the answer is yes - objects made in Carrara with multiple domains import fine into Substance Painter with their same UV mapping. One thing you need to be aware of though is that Substance Painter is very picky about normals, so double and triple check before export that they are all pointing in the direction you want.
Here's a sword I modeled in Carrara, imported into and very quickly textured in Substance Painter:
To add to what FifthElement answered on 3, there are a whole bunch of workflow options you can use in Substance Painter - I've been getting the best results with with the "non-pbr-spec-gloss (shelf)" settings. This will give you the option to export diffuse, specular, glossiness, height, normal and emissive maps.
By default the non-pbr-spec-gloss workflow does not include a metallic map, but I have been manually adding that channel so that I get one in my exported maps. I use this in Carrara to mix two multi-channel shaders. Here's my current "basic" setup for using the maps (you need to remember that the specular and glossiness maps are not the same in Carrara though and play with those alot in Carrara - sometimes I drop one or both of them entirely and just set up those channels from scratch in Carrara):
You will never get a perfect reproduction of the way it looks in Substance Painter in Carrara - so far I haven't found anything like a one-size-fits-all setup in Carrara but using the non-pbr-spec-gloss workflow I have gotten much closer and at least have a good starting point.
1. Yes. I find export as fbx works best, for some reason Substance painter doesn't seem to like the obj files that Carrara produces. It can also help to merge shading domains before you export, particularly if you've laid them all out on a single texture sheet. That way SP will produce a single set of maps (You can still keep the multiple domains in Carrara, in fact is probably essential, as you'll tweak the shader differently for each material. I've experimented with using a single shader across materials with not particularly brilliant results (see my cider press example in the other shaders thread)
2. You'd have to export the whole scene as a single fbx/obj simply to load it into Painter. That's not something I've ever tried (or really wanted to) - much more practical to take it into DS and render Iray there.
3. Define 'quality', and ask yourself, if you bring the shaders of any other render engine into Carrara, will they look perfect without tweaking? I dare say that someone with enough knowledge could probably define a preset that produces Carrara-ready maps (that person isn't me, lol)
Unlike Mark, I think I get better results with Metallic/roughness compared to spec/gloss, but it's up for experimentation. I had understood that Specular --> Highlight and gloss --> Shininess, although that's partly based on the notion that both specular and highlight allow the use of colour.
With metallic/roughness, the roughness channel inverted (Image->Adjustments->Invert in Photoshop) is a good fit for gloss.
For Normal mapping, make sure you have 'Use OpenGL normals' selected.
You can put the metallic map into reflection, with some tweaking (I find that multiply by around 20% works for unpolished metals like nuts, bolts etc). Play around with Fresnel too.
It's always worth playing around with the various maps, although you're unlikely to get the exact same result, you can still produce something that looks pretty convincing.
Not a strictly Substance Painter tutorial, involves Blender too, but this guy is easy to understand, he explains things well for the beginners ...
I'm very happy of your very detailed answers, I was afraid to touch at the little PA's secrets…
Yesterday, I installed and tested this program before reading your answers today and I also noticed that the exported .obj from Carrara do not load in SP, it should be also said that my graphic cart is a little weak for this program (Geforce GTX 750).
I thus tested with the lighter format .3ds and that seems to work well (for a simple object).
I will see with an export in .fbx and will follow all your other advices during my next tests.
I will also look at the tuto for beginner because, even if it looks like PS a little, it is all the same a new program to be learned.
With your answers, I will learn faster, thank you so much!
I created this thread because it's about a specific software but I will post my results in the WGDJohn's thread here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/113511/shader-creating-settings-for-carrara-q-a-come-one-come-all/p1
I like BlenderBrit's tutorials - they are usually pretty to-the-point and clear. He also has a nice little Blender Cycles node setup you can download free off his site for using Substance Painter maps in Cycles. I don't ever follow along exactly with most tutorials (because who wants to just duplicate what someone else did) but I like watching a lot of them for insights into how others approach their projects (and for concrete examples of how to use functions I rarely use). You can pick up a lot of tricks and tips that apply across software bywatching a good tutorial (Andrew Price's Blender tutorials are really good for this).
Yes, I like Andrew Price as well. This guy was pretty wonderful! Cool video. (Thanks for that, Fifth Element!)
Very crazy thing watching this - this is very similar to my workflow making shaders within Carrara.
I'll start with a basic shader for a start, then start painting into the various channels - not directly in Carrara, but using Howler. I make a mask according to what's needed in the project I'm on. For people, I'll often begin with on of the maps for that figure - one which I feel will get me close to what I ned to make - what sort of mask.
In doing this for years now, I have built up a few mask images and have those within my Runtime structure, in a Textures folder titled: "!dB", the "!" to keep it at the top of the list. Within that I have several leather color, spec and bump maps as well as for cloth and many other things - including a whole bunch of specialized maps I've made for individual models.
I've seen how we can 'stamp' right down into an object directly in Carrara's texture room, but I've still never done that. So far I guess I just haven't had to. I think I'm more of a trditionalist whom just immediately checks the UV Mapping and heads off to the image editor... but I'd still like to try those other tools (back to some of 3DAGE's and PhilW's tutorials) some day.
It might have been a while ago since I've started playing with Carrara's 3D Paint, but I still haven't done a whole lot of it. Some periods of the year more than others. It's awesome though! It has layers as well, which are really quite powerful. Like much of Carrara's more unique features, it can be a little finicky to get used to, but I see that SP can be as well.
Because of the PBR aspect along with my already fairly solidified methods that I'm already really happy with (especially being fairly new to Howler - gaining a whole new powerhouse full of tools), I've been staying clear of SP. It seems fantastic for the PBR necessity - that whole method of rendering seems to be crying out for a new method of material creation - this being a wonderful answer to that - I'm still mostly happy - sticking with my old-school render engine.
Now I'm reminding myself of watching the special on ILM, where Dennis Murin was amazed that the Film users would pick a less attractive frame taken from Film over a much more lovely frame done digitally, and said: "Okay we have a problem with pride, here".
I always looked at that thinking - thiose guys are c r a z y ! ! !
Now I see myself as that same artist - not wanting to 'let go' of my workflow in favor of another.
Luckily for me, Carrara can do an excellent job of rendering the old-school way, and I can always get my practice with PBR via Luxus and LuxusCore.
Hi Dart !
I also be a really fan of the render engine of Carrara and I want to use it everyday.
You use Howler, I use AE and PS, but they are sort of plugin for Carrara, for me anyway (I speak about creating textures here).
In Substance Painter, I can see something that we cannot do directly in Carrara, create all the layers for a very realistic shader that we can use in a project, and by working on the original 3D object.
I think that the shader room in Carrrara is an incredible tool, but to feed it with custom textures maps, AE, PS, Howler and Substance Painter are the way to go.
Right. That's what I do. Using Howler (or PS, PSP, whichever) I create maps while I'm working on the shader(s) in Carrara. It's not giving a real-time feedback as nice as SP, but neither is SP, when it comes to seeing Carrara results. The real-time feedabck in SP is awesome - but it doesn't apply to Carrara much. (EDIT: Unless we're using OR4C or perhaps LuxorCore)
I have specific "Base" scenes with nothing in them except for a background and a commonly used (by me) lighting situation that I use for creating shaders for new Figures and their support items, like clothing, hair, weapons, etc.,
I also use this Base as a starting point when I begin working on a new exterior scene - using content pieces, like those from Stonemason, TheAntFarm, Petipet, First Bastion, Jack Tomalin, and many, many more... and that helps to keep all of my Stage Scenes compatible with my shaders and figures I've saved to the browser.
It never takes long to take a look at the results of a shader in Carrara in this way. I see that some use the preview window in the Texture Room. I don't. I'm always popping back to the Assemble Room, Texture Room, Assemble Room, Ctrl+R for a quick Render.
For looking at Shaders-only, I find it very useful to add a Color backdrop and change that color to black - masking the background from the render, while keeping it for the reflections and possibly for Global Illumination, if I'm using that - which really isn't that often - but I do use it from time to time.
The really neat thing comes through years of practice. That gave me a sense of realizing more what I want or need to do - and where. Of course, we're always trying new things with different channels within the Shader system. So I guess I care less and less about having real-time feedback. I just go in and set things up - and have a look.
The real twist in all of this is seeing all of the extra functions that plugins add to all of this. That's where my head starts to spin.
Don't get me wrong though... these are all reasons why "I" am not jumping for SP... but I certainly am not trying to rip on SP or its use for Carrara or anything else!
That whole company is doing some incredible things for the world of 3D - things to be taken very seriously!
I'm in Carrara for something else. Not to always "go with the flow" in the ways of 3D trends... but to become a CG filmmaker. It has reached a point where I want to try to put more of a halt to studying and learning, and get back to just working with what I have and know! ;)
On the contrary, I find real time feedback to be one of the most helpful things in 3D since I started.
Some plugins for Carrara are so expensive that Painter was actually more justifiable purchase, at least to me
...and I can understand that. Personally, I can gladly foresee the outcome of what I'm doing in Carrara's texture room. I really love how well laid out our shaders are. Very simple to program, very powerful.
Almost not related, since SP doesn't have any say what happens beyond the shader, like some plugins do. Terrain Tools, for example, might have a fairly tall price, but it determines where one shader's mesh intersects with another mesh. It's a different thing altogether.
Comparing painter to some other texture-creation tool is more on the mark - and Painter looks like one of the finest products on the market for that stuff. Alembic in general is doing some amazing work in these respects.
Intelligently, they're also gearing themselves for PBR. Heck, they're almost the leading authority on understanding PBR shader creation!
But that's the part that makes it a less obvious choice for me to consider adding to my workflow. I'm Art based rendering instead of Physically-based. I'm already aware that I'm falling behind the times by being this way... I am. But I'm enjoying it. I spent so much time figuring out this method.
If I were to convert to LuxusCore or OR4C, I's be all over the Alembic product catalog! Big time, and right away! Is Luxrender 1 also considered PBR? I do like that, even though I haven't spent much time with it yet.
I love how we can render directly from Carrara into 32 bit float using Luxus via OpenEXR! Very powerful stuff, that!
I actually tried and tested all the plugins from DGC (and from other vendors), so I know exactly what they are for.
I have VUE for all my terrain needs and I own it since Version 4, so terrain tools are not something I really need ...
SP shines in some other aspects (compared to what Carrara can natively do), which are not obvious imediatelly, like generating curvature and mesh thickness maps (anything Goos does something similar) or can paint lots of different procedural shaders or manual strokes in real time (procedurals similar to Enhance:C) in unlimited amount of layers and all with procedural or painted masks and it can bake normals and AO directly into the textures up to 8k resolution, and yes, it does have non-PBR export as well. Awesome 3D particle painting is something I always wanted as well.
All that said, well, lol, if you do not need it and you are more cozy with what you have, that is certanly your choice...
SP looks like a great product. Has a 30 day free trial. Always worth checking out a 30 day free trial. Unfortunately, I no longer qualify for educational discounts so the cost for a version with fun bells and whistles over the long run is non-trivial. Similar issue with Vue if I want 3d import/export and the various modules. Will be hard to justify Vue until I run into a landscape issue that I can't solve without it, unless I significantly rearrange my 3d budget. Sort of like Studio - it is free except one has to get a whole bunch of plugins, but once one has the plugins, affects how much improvement one gets from another software. If one has Studio and look at my hair (LAMH), and ultrascatter, and terradome, and hexagon and bryce (bridges to Studio), then the marginal improvement of Carrara over Studio is very different than just from Studio to Carrara straight. In the other direction, Carrara needs a plugin to match Iray and can't use the HD morphs.
Very informative thread. Looks like SP might be a better investment than a collection of plugins, but will have to look more closely at what DCG and others offer, and what I actually might use. Thanks for posting.
The other nice thing about SP is that the subscription deal is actually hire purchase. So after (I think) 18 months of subs, it's yours for keeps.
Right... but can it do all of that stuff for use in Carrara? Or do you need a PBR to make use of those SP features? Just wondering. To tell the truth, after hearing from others that it's based on (and works best with) PBR, I lost interest in the (I want this Now!) aspect.
That's cool!
Yeah, I have a friend that is just learning SP and he loves it. Well... and so many of the PAs going for it, and loving it - along with the other Alembic works... like I said... they're really rockin'! It's not 'them' that I'm against jumping into... it's the whole PBR thing. I'm silly - even ignorant - for not jumping into PBR - except that right now my Carrara renders are making me so darned happy - as is Carrara's Texture room! But that's just me!
It's not about PBR to me, it's more about learning to do things the right way, it changed my perspective on UV mapping and I think I'm getting better at it, importance of proper UV mapping is something I use to ignore before.
And it is about PBR, one day I will most likely completely switch to PBR shading and rendering, and I do not want to be forced into it by DAZ or anyone else, I just want to be ahead and do it on my own terms.
Yep, it is you (that is all it matters after all), if you like Carrara's texturing room, well, lol, you simply just like it ...
I do not, it gets way too messy in no time, I prefer nodal approach (like in Fusion, Vue or Blender), it is much cleaner IMO, and it just makes more sense to me
Well Dart you can use the Lux Core shaders as your PBR shaders and play with them that way.
I got this one to try in Lux core but have not had time yet to play with it.
http://www.daz3d.com/medieval-brick-collection-pbr-textures
I agree, it's taught me to think a lot more about my UV mapping (and spend more time unravelling the mess Carrara often makes - I suspect the programmer that wrote it never tried to use it in anger!)
Aha, I should get it just to sort out my uvmapping confusions, even if i don't uvmap in it!