[RESOLVED] Substance in 3ds Max (2.3.2) - Substance to Corona Converter

[cjwidd]

After rendering basically every permutation of the material using Substance renderers (Yebis, Iray) in various Substance material authoring / texturing softwares, I think I have to backpedal on my earlier assertions, because it appears I've misunderstood or miscalibrated Substance Designer.

Looking at the various renders (displacement exaggerated for effect) it appears that Substance Painter Iray render and Corona (tonemapped) render are the most visually similar to the preview renders from Substance Source. 

The Substance Painter Yebis and Iray renders differ significantly in terms of the normal map response - AO response? It looks like the self-shadowing is completely different, perhaps because the shadows are being calculated from the normal map in Yebis but from the geo with Iray?

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substance source preview

vpq_substance_source_preview_1


vpq_substance_source_preview_2


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vpq_corona_linear


vpq_corona_tonemap_5.0cm


vpq_corona_tonemap_1.0cm


vpq_substance_designer_iray_cw


vpq_substance_designer_iray_default


vpq_substance_designer_viewport_cw


vpq_substance_designer_viewport_default


vpq_substance_painter_iray


vpq_substance_painter_viewport


vpq_substance_player

[cjwidd]

Maybe the real question is, "What's going on with the Substance Designer Yebis / Iray rendering and why does it look so much different from the others?"

[cjwidd]

The "issue" basically sums to user error:

1. The HDRI that was used for testing produced a soft light that did not reveal the specular intensity of the surface compared to some other alternative, e.g. Tomoco Studio
2. There is an OpenGL shader sampling option in the 3d View preference of Substance Designer that has a dramatic effect on visual quality in the 3d view

for more information, see Substance Designer (10.1.1): Yebis vs. IRay vs. Corona Renderer

[romullus]

How is this user error if it's caused by bad software design (faulty default settings)?

Do you know if painter has similar settings to look at?

[cjwidd]

I'm sort of willing to accept the onus of responsibility with respect to this issue in particular because there was an established setting available in the software to curtail the issue I was specifically asking about. Substance Designer is a deep software, but perhaps if I had read the manual more thoroughly (etc.) I would not have reported the issue as a bug in the first place.

Regardless, it seems to alleviate the issue - and for that I am grateful - but at the moment I cannot say whether a similar setting is available in Substance Painter. For SP, it appears that the Iray render does produce a comparable result to what can be expected from Corona Renderer, but if I find there is a quality setting that improves the SP viewport representation, then I'll report back here in case it helps someone.

Good news is that the Substance in 3ds Max plugin does not appear to be at fault for this issue, nor Corona Renderer.