I often struggle away making tileable brick and paving textures eventually arriving at a reasonable result but when I come back to them I usually think I could have done better. More recently I had a license of Mighty Tiles for Photoshop which really helped distribute individual bricks and pavers over a large texture and it also generated masks for grout and spec that I could manipulate further in photoshop. But alas this is no longer and my license expired. I'm really annoyed that the developer just pulled the plug with no way of keeping the existing software. I'm on C4D so no Omni tiles for me.
So im looking for a new tileable solution for arch viz materials and have noted substance designer from afar which seems to have rapidly progressed in a very short time! When I looked at it originally it was very nice but the results did look a bit procedural CG rather than photoreal. However, googling stuff now and watching some videos, some of the results are looking very impressive but I have a few questions for anyone else that uses it...
1. Many of the examples I've seen only seem to show a small sample area / cube which if exported out for use in Corona for example just wouldnt be enough area. Is the workflow for this just to work on a smaller area and then generate out large maps at the end when you have got the look right? Is it easy to scale the working preview up and down as your working on it to see it as a larger map?
2. Do the results stand up to scrutiny once used in Corona? I know there is the ongoing debate about the PBR material which sounds like its being implemented in Corona, but in general is it possible to get excellent tileable results that are indistinguishable to real materials in Corona? Certainly some of the best examples I've seen online are really terrific - if a little small on the area size but I suppose it gives a good close up of the detail.
3. Some of the resulting node graphs are monumental!! But once you get into the workflow does this become less challenging and easier to understand?
4. Can you specify a random pattern of three fixed sized pavers? or can you only have either regular or completely random sizes (ranged)? This would be critical for some paving systems.
5. Did you guys just teach yourselves or purchase some of these video tuts that are touted about - any recomendations?
Thanks for any input you might have on this,
Rob