MDL, Studio and Substance Designer
swordvisions
Posts: 124
in The Commons
I noticed that Substance designer 5.5 allow you to create mdl materials. Has anyone experimented with that and then brought them into Studio as mdl presets?
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In the log of DS beta RC2 substance designer is mentioned, but it is not a "protagonist" being mentioned in the beta thread
The batch tools are not the same as a Substance Player plug-in.
MDL Import should work - provided, and this is the big issue, the MDL is not calling the Substance libraries made by Allegorithmic. To use an MDL file in DS it needs to be in an MDL directory (as set in the Shader Mixer preferences) and dragged into Shader mixer as a custom brick.
Just curious, I have created a few custom textures in designer and I have just started learning how the mdl thing works in designer, Just wondering if it was worth the effort to try to bring it into studio
I'm not sure how much easier it is to build a shader in SD and import it that to build it in Shader Mixer, but I'm fairly sure people have had success (it's not a feature I have explored - SD is one of several tools I have bought and not had time to explore in any depth).
@ Shader Mixer
0_0
Try to create something basic like
a simple square checkerboard pattern using two different colors or possibly two different image textures
in the DAZ Studio Shader mixer.
-> There is a mace of hundreds of pin connections. Even after you find the corresponding MDL node for checkerboard you will have a very hard time creating any kind of "organized" node layout that can be quickly customized. There does not seem to be any way to group nodes to "metanodes" or "Node Groups".
-> Pretty much any way of importing must be simpler than trying to create shaders in the current version of the DAZ Studio Shader Mixer.
Are there any plans to update shader mixer to make creating shaders from scratch a bit more userfriendly somewhere down the line?
- - -
@ MDL import - export
In any case I would be very interested about the details of the limits and possibilites of MDL import and export
It would be great if MDL materials could be easily imported and exported between different software.
Even Otoy announced that they plan to support MDL in some form in OctaneRender.
This thread by @esemwy has some good information about importing MDL (not using the uber base). It covers some of the things you need to set up like the MDL directory manager in Shader Mixer, getting sliders to show up for params, etc.:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59018/playing-around-with-iray-mdl/p1
Hope this helps.
- Greg
It even make more interesting, because OctaneRender will be available for free in Unity next year.
has anyone successfully created a shader in substance designer and then imported that into DS?..I keep hearing it's possible but I never had any luck,and I can't find any examples on the daz forum where someone else has got it working.
I haven't...almost, but not quite...I need to get back to it to see where I've gone wrong, before my Substance trial runs out. Seriously considering purchasing it, as it does natively run in Linux...and runs great on my system.
I believe you can export *.mdl in SD5 (needs the iray renderer, so not possible in version 4). https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=7048.msg33966#msg33966
From there, try messing with one of the methods linked above: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59018/playing-around-with-iray-mdl/p1
MDL is not Iray specific (that's the whole idea), but the obvious additional complication would be any other dependencies that are referenced in the exported MDL (and whether or not plugins would be necessary to handle these). Also, it may be possible to to import some exported substances into DAZ, but not others.
I would be interested in any first-hand experience with this as well.
- Greg
Hi. I have tried that yesterday, but could not get it to work, yet. The MDL file does not show up in that directory, the only way was to drag it from the Windows Explorer.
I have noticed, that there is a .resources directory, created together with MDL file, in Substance Designer 5.5. Does it need to be also copied to the Source libraries, as well?
MDL itself is not Iray specific, but to export MDL from Substance Designer you need a version that has Iray implemented because the function in SD is within the Iray renderer.
Dargged from an OS window is what I meant.
I'm not sure what is in the Resources folder - is it images? Or is it the Allegorithmic MDL libraries that their shaders call on?
Yes, the resources have to tag along....and for me, putting them exactly where they will be found again is a bit of an experiment everytime. With other mdls I've imported, I've edited them to make them more 'generic' as to looking for the files...not tieing them to a specific path and then putting the images/resources in the same folder as the mdl and that seems to work.
Also certain functions like any Float2 inputs need to be manually set up instead of using the auto function on the User Input brick.
Yes, I meant dragging the file from the OS window. Now I could not find this .resource folder.
The big problem is still the following errors (from the log file in Daz Studio), when I try to drop the MDL file on Shader Mixer window:
could not find module '::alg::base::core::material_root' in module path
'alg::base::core' is not a package or module name
And all MDL files created in Substance Designer have such definitions, so I do not know, how to proceed further.
import ::alg::base::core::material_root;
I have checked Allegorithmic forums, but there are no informations for Daz Studio users.
It will be awesome, if someone describe step by step procedure of creating simple MDL file in Substance Designer and then importing it to Shader Mixer in Daz Studio.
Right now, I think, I stick with creating regular substances in Substance Designer and test them in iClone or Unity.
Both of these programs have native support for them.
I need to get some practice with Substance Designer anyway.
The quick and dirty method...
Look in the Substance folders for that material root mdl, copy it to the folder you've set for your MDL folder in Shader Mixer. Then open the mdl you've created and chop out (do a search and replace) the path info for the import line....
Go from this...
import ::alg::base::core::material_root
To this...
Also check the material_root mdl for any import functions and if they are NOT 'standard'/are custom mdls, do the same thing as above.
import ::material_root
This should make them work, but they won't be redistributable.
What it appears to me to be doing is Shader Mixer will ONLY look for things (resources/import mdls) that are either in the 'roo' Iray folder in Studio OR the folder you have defined for mdl work. It won't search anywhere else.
I believe SD can create MDLs without using the Allegorithmic library - which is what I was rferring to above - but I'm not sure how easy that is. You cannot, as far as I know, redistrubte an MDL that does depend on the Allegorithmic library.
To redistribute one that relies on the Substance libraries would require that those libraries are in the folders added to Shader Mixer and that the recipient also have Substance installed...that way those libraries would not be distributed, but just called. In other words, it would be a small group that would potentially find it useful.
Thanks a lot. That's made the trick and I even got similar looking render from Daz Studio.
May be, one need to contact Allegorithmic and ask them, if it is possible to distribute their mdl library files with one's own shaders.
Not bad, I have just started using Substance Designer one day ago and thanks to this forum thread members, got my substance transferred to Daz Studio.
Hi! Since I'm interessted in Substance-Designer... I didn't quiete get how the workflow works. I create the shader in SD, then save it as MDL, and then...?
Maybe I shouldn't be asking this in an old thread, but I'm just coming at this now, and this thread seems pretty informative, if maybe outdated. What is the current status of designing shaders in SD for import and use in DS? Is it still the complicated process it seems to have been in 2016 when the comments above were made? Is it true that nothing one makes in SD is able to be sold/redistributed? Or am I misunderstanding something?
Hey, I'm not trying to bump this needlessly, but since it's buried down on the third page already and nobody answered my question, I'm really curious to know. What is the current status of MDL's Studio and Substance Designer? What, if anything, has changed since this thread ran in 2016? Anyone at all?