Substance Painter to Corona C4D

[mrittman]

Okay so I seem to have gotten the Corona version pretty close. However, still getting artifacts/seams.

The artifacts seem to be related to the Normal map, because when I lower the bump strength or disable bump, it goes away. However, doing that also takes away from the nice subtle texture in my material. I can't figure out how to fix this :(

Also, I am still getting seams in Substance Painter, which is then in the final version when I bake it out. Where UV islands meet is where I am seeing them. Is there any way alleviate this? Something to do with the curvature map?

[romullus]

Those seams looks like normal map arefacts due to wrong baker settings. Did you bake textures with cage or with average normals?

[mrittman]

I guess average normals haha. I mostly left that stuff at default. I've attached my settings. Should I change something you think?

[romullus]

No, those settings are good, but you should go back to your 3D app and make sure that your lowpoly model has single smoothing group (don't know how it's called in C4D), export the model again and reimport it in painter via edit-update project menu. Another way would be keep smoothing groups intact and bake with cage.

[mrittman]

I'm wondering if I should delete the C4D Phong tag from my object before exporting. I have attached the FBX export settings for my model.

I apologize for all the questions. Thought most of this workflow would have just worked using default settings!

[romullus]

I'm not familiar with C4D, but i googled a bit and it looks like phong tag and phong breaks are equivalent to smoothing groups in 3ds max. In that case you should keep phong tag and make sure that model doesn't have any phong breaks. Also in your previous post, i missed the fact that you're not using antialiasing while baking. You should set AA to at least 4x4. You can lower it to 2x2 for AO since it takes ages to bake with higher settings.

[Eddoron]

Now I know what you meant by artifacts. The seams being visible.



I don't have the files anymore, so I can't test it and am not in the mood for that.

However, if you look at my first render result after just plugging in the maps except for IOR (metallic parts were absolutely black), the seam at the edges was only partially visible and in some areas merged so that it looked normal.
The only thing that I changed was the Dilation/padding.

Standard is 16px (@2048²) . I didn't change it because I didn't know if there would be a problem and set the padding from +infinite to +diffusion.

I'd say play around with the settings and you should come to your desired output incrementally closer.

BTW, I never said that you should use unreal or the unity shader, it was just to show you that even inside of SP, the look can vary dramatically. Not just colors but also the way metal is rendered.

[mrittman]

Definitely thinking some of the shading issues seem to be related to the phong tags/normals. I didn't really mess with any of that during the modeling process however, so I'm still trying to figure out why it's causing issues. Going to try selecting all geometry and try the "align normals" command.

Now I know what you meant by artifacts. The seams being visible.



I don't have the files anymore, so I can't test it and am not in the mood for that.

However, if you look at my first render result after just plugging in the maps except for IOR (metallic parts were absolutely black), the seam at the edges was only partially visible and in some areas merged so that it looked normal.
The only thing that I changed was the Dilation/padding.

Standard is 16px (@2048²) . I didn't change it because I didn't know if there would be a problem and set the padding from +infinite to +diffusion.

I'd say play around with the settings and you should come to your desired output incrementally closer.

BTW, I never said that you should use unreal or the unity shader, it was just to show you that even inside of SP, the look can vary dramatically. Not just colors but also the way metal is rendered.

I'll play around with the dilation/padding/diffusion settings.
That makes more sense regarding the unity and unreal shaders :D

About to say the heck with it and just use all Corona materials and ditch mapping/texturing altogether. Way too much trial and error. I just need the dang textures to work, and this whole Substance workflow has been very counter-intuitive.

[Eddoron]

Don't give up on Substance Painter. It's one of the most important programs out there, aside from S. Designer. If you can handle those very well, a lot of doors will open.

However, you can still use a vertex map or inverted AO to add those metallic lines.

[mrittman]

Holy cow, I didn't know you could create worn edges with a vertex map! I need to read up on vertex maps, as I don't quite understand their functionality.

I'll keep messing with Substance Painter. It's just a lot of back and forth to get it looking right haha.

[romullus]

Once you'll figure everything out, you'll see that actually it's very straightforward - you just export textures from Painter, plug them into Corona material and everything works! :]

[mrittman]

Yeah, right now I am just trying to figure out what the optimal settings are, so when I get to my real textures, it'll hopefully be pretty seamless. Was even thinking of creating a tutorial once I sort all this out :D

Also, I found this guide: https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Baking_Models_with_Substance_Painter_Workflow
Does the info here still apply?

[mrittman]

I think I've worked out most the kinks and have a good workflow between Substance Painter and Corona. Getting near identical renders now. Thank you so much for your help everyone! I'll definitely be keeping Substance Painter in my toolset :D

[Beanzvision]

Was even thinking of creating a tutorial once I sort all this out :D

I think many here would appreciate that ;)

[mrittman]

I have attached my final node tree for anyone wondering how it looks.

I am planning to do a full write-up on the process of creating a simple metal material in Substance Painter and bringing it into Corona for Cinema 4D. I may need some assistance on making sure I get the correct terms haha. I'm definitely no expert when it comes to PBR!