Custom Material Generation with Substance Player

[Ridge_Runner]

One caveat using ACME's tool - the files can get quite large if you make a large array or rows and columns; many of mine are 8-10mb or so, but they don't show "banding" or the terrible repeat problem many textures create.

[DianneDSC]

18 hours ago, CADustin said:

If you have a sec, can you tell me what all you would need it to do?

Top of the list:

*** Brick patterns / materials for use around arched and half round windows that display correctly. *** 

 

Other than what you listed:

Multiple coursing options - regular, stacked, soldier, multiple solider courses (half over full, etc.)

Solider brick created to match the brick / mortar material

Control over the size of the soldier brick (half or full brick)

 

8 hours ago, Ridge_Runner said:

Arched brick would be on my list at the very top!

Agree!!

[Guest galbrecht71]

If you go to Poliigon.com you will find a few *.sbsar options already created for building brick, blocks, floors etc. Also go online to substance source and check under their free options. you can score some useful *.sbsar files from there as well

[Lakeside-E]

Hey Dustin, was playing around a little bit with the wood builder, i found the import image very interesting... what I couldn't find though was a way to change the image orientation within the substance player program itself. I could manipulate the base image outside, but maybe an extra tool within the image manipulation menu (crop, scale, etc...) would be handy. Great work and thanks for putting these out there for us to use!

 

Also, will the updates you talk about for these *.SBSAR files always be on page 1 or is there another place to get the latest and greatest from?

[CADustin]

Hey gang, great info...

 

- Thanks for the brick list, I'll look into a brick builder next time I get into a brick catalog for Chief or the next time I get a window of time.  If anymore ideas come up just put them up on this thread and I'll re-review before I start it.

 

-Lakeside, Good catch.  I'll look into adding a rotator to the image input, till them you can just open the image in windows basic picture viewer (or apple equivalent) and rotate it there before added it to the wood builder.

[Lakeside-E]

33 minutes ago, CADustin said:

-Lakeside, Good catch.  I'll look into adding a rotator to the image input, till them you can just open the image in windows basic picture viewer (or apple equivalent) and rotate it there before added it to the wood builder.

i did try this but i did not notice a change in how the image presented within substance player??? I am attaching a link to the file I tried since it exceeds 25MB. I am not sure how to tweek it to make it look good... there are many more like it so if you have suggestions I am all ears... 

[CADustin]

I see what you mean...

 

I rotated it in windows picture viewer and sure enough, it didn't rotate in substance player but when I rotated it in photoshop, it DID rotate in substance player.

 

After trying it again, in the windows picture viewer, if you click the "Edit and Create" and Drop down to "Edit" that gets you to a more robust edit screen that also has a rotate button.  Rotating it here then "saving a copy" on the bottom right DID work correctly in substance.  Just gotta save a copy in the edit screen I guess for it to make an actually rotated copy instead of windows trying to fake it.

 

See Attached.

 

Let me know if it' still giving you issues.

[CADustin]

Also, sorry I missed the question...

 

Yes, the newest versions will always be on the first post of this thread.  The second post will have updates listed by date, and usually I'll make an announcement in this thread just to bump it to the top and let people know.

 

If you think you are missing an update, e mail or msg me here on ChiefTalk and I'll check it for you and get you a fresh copy.

[CADustin]

Tile Builder.sbsar got an update today (grab it from the first post on this thread, same place you got it the first time.)

Let me know if you guys are finding any issues or bugs, don't call Chief tech support, this is my responsibility to fix and maintain.

 

Changes Made...

-Added some new Shape options

               Changed Large Tile to 1:1 Large Tile

               Added a 2:1 large Tile

               Triangle Pattern

               Elongated Hex

               Elongated Diamond

 

Added image inputs on each material drop down

-You should see a slot to add your image appear when selecting ~image input in the “Tile X Material” dropdown.

--This is a little tricky under the hood and whatever you add will still go through the color blenders, I'm still chewing on how to mitigate this since there's a lot more going on under the hood with the tile builder compared to the wood Builder.

 

Added a Material Invert for those that want white marble with grey veining instead of Black marble with White veining, etc.  I hope to eventually give you guys more control over the colors of these kinds of things but that's a heavy lift.  Till then this should help you guys get darker veins on white marble.

[Lakeside-E]

Thanks for the updates. I'll have to experiment with the rotate in wood builder tomorrow as I just came back to this thread today.

 

Outsider looking in here... I have not worked with algorithmic software outside of substance player so i do not know what all goes on under the hood or how easy some changes are to implement. that being said, is there a way to create a tile builder where a user could select a pattern, how many variants to use (up to a reasonable number), and then select a tile image for each variation's base color? The player would then randomly place and rotate the variations within the overall pattern? The thought behind this is that in the manufacturing process, there are usually a few variations of a tile manufactured and they get boxed randomly then installed at random with each other. It seems like a simple way (from an outsider's perspective) to be able to generate any  manufacturer's tile from a series of downloaded images. Not sure if I described well what is in my mind, but it may be worth the thought. 

[CADustin]

Wood builder update is still forthcoming, I found some crossed wires I gotta work out first, so just the tile update first...

 

For specific tile patters/shapes/rotations/layouts I have to manually build them and feed them into the builder which can take some time, so the best practice is to add the shapes/features that add the most bang for the buck as we add more and more options.  We try to cover the basics as best we can with the player, but if you're hyper focused on tile or materials in general, maybe take a look at substance designer for custom stuff.

 

If you wanted to take a deeper dive, substance designer can make anything you need, but it's what I use to make chief materials so there aren't any grout sliders or tile drop downs.  You have to make everything yourself.  Substance player is just letting you tinker around with what I've already made so if I haven't made it for a chief catalog yet, it won't get added to the player.  It's super fun software though, so if you find yourself always looking for a specific tile, maybe its worth an afternoon to try and make it yourself with the trial and hit me up here at chief if you have any questions.  It's neat software, especially if you're kitchen/bath focused.

 

Maybe we can start feeding other peoples tile layouts into the builder too

 

[Lakeside-E]

On 10/21/2020 at 4:27 PM, CADustin said:

Wood builder update is still forthcoming, I found some crossed wires I gotta work out first, so just the tile update first...

 

For specific tile patters/shapes/rotations/layouts I have to manually build them and feed them into the builder which can take some time, so the best practice is to add the shapes/features that add the most bang for the buck as we add more and more options.  We try to cover the basics as best we can with the player, but if you're hyper focused on tile or materials in general, maybe take a look at substance designer for custom stuff.

 

If you wanted to take a deeper dive, substance designer can make anything you need, but it's what I use to make chief materials so there aren't any grout sliders or tile drop downs.  You have to make everything yourself.  Substance player is just letting you tinker around with what I've already made so if I haven't made it for a chief catalog yet, it won't get added to the player.  It's super fun software though, so if you find yourself always looking for a specific tile, maybe its worth an afternoon to try and make it yourself with the trial and hit me up here at chief if you have any questions.  It's neat software, especially if you're kitchen/bath focused.

 

Maybe we can start feeding other peoples tile layouts into the builder too

 

My main focus presently is Exterior work but my renderings have come along way since I've started branching into custom materials. I am familiar with the algorithmic software functionality but don't have much time or budget to get into substance designer just yet, but am definitely interested in it in the future. thanks for the work you do in creating these sbsar files so my work is just a bit easier.

[CADustin]

Wood Builder update is live, please download the new version from the link on the first post of this thread...

 

-Added a vertical/horizontal orientation selector.

 

-Added resolution sizing - It auto defaults to 512, so be sure to bump it up if you need better clarity/smaller seams.

 

-The Image input slot now hides itself unless you select image input on the wood species drop down.

 

-Added "Weathering" category

  -Age - Ages the wood, looks pretty rough and low resolutions, better at 1024+ 

  -Paint level - adds paint as a ratio of chipped paint over the wood, max paint just covers everything.

    -Paint Color colors the paint.

  -Lichen - Yup.

  -Mold - Gross...but yup.

[Lakeside-E]

1 hour ago, CADustin said:

Wood Builder update is live, please download the new version from the link on the first post of this thread...

 

-Added a vertical/horizontal orientation selector.

 

-Added resolution sizing - It auto defaults to 512, so be sure to bump it up if you need better clarity/smaller seams.

 

-The Image input slot now hides itself unless you select image input on the wood species drop down.

 

-Added "Weathering" category

  -Age - Ages the wood, looks pretty rough and low resolutions, better at 1024+ 

  -Paint level - adds paint as a ratio of chipped paint over the wood, max paint just covers everything.

    -Paint Color colors the paint.

  -Lichen - Yup.

  -Mold - Gross...but yup.

Sounds awesome, Thanks! Will check it out!

[Designer1]

I just found this chief topic today and clicked on the substance player link but now it appears to be an adobe product that you have to buy as it say "try" for free.  Does anyone know of another program or version that you spoke about earlier when this post started that is freeware?

[Designer1]

Eric, when I click on the first link this is what I see...  It says "try" for free.  Im not seeing the freeware version everyone is talking about.

 

 

[rlackore]

6 hours ago, Designer1 said:

Eric, when I click on the first link this is what I see...  It says "try" for free.  Im not seeing the freeware version everyone is talking about.

 

 

 

Try scrolling down just a little bit further:

[Kbird1]

The Player is Free , if you scroll to the very bottom you will see that info.

 

 

Substance's other Modules are not:

 

[Designer1]

Great thank you both for the clarification!

[Designer1]

EEK!  Have any of you read the user agreements?  Ill pass and wait for chief architect to integrate similar software into chief!

[davidstvz]

On 10/20/2020 at 3:29 PM, CADustin said:

I see what you mean...

 

I rotated it in windows picture viewer and sure enough, it didn't rotate in substance player but when I rotated it in photoshop, it DID rotate in substance player.

 

After trying it again, in the windows picture viewer, if you click the "Edit and Create" and Drop down to "Edit" that gets you to a more robust edit screen that also has a rotate button.  Rotating it here then "saving a copy" on the bottom right DID work correctly in substance.  Just gotta save a copy in the edit screen I guess for it to make an actually rotated copy instead of windows trying to fake it.

 

See Attached.

 

Let me know if it' still giving you issues.

 

Windows 8 or 10 introduced this feature which simply sets some kind of flag indicating a picture's orientation when the user changes it. It makes sense since rotating/changing an image requires it to be compressed again (this costs CPU time, battery life and may change a picture slightly if lossy compression is used). Phones probably started the trend for these reasons. Unfortunately, not all software honors the flag, especially older or professional image editing software.

 

To do this quickly with a Save (rather than Save As), my preferred method is: right-click and choose "Edit" to open in MS Paint, then Save (Ctrl+S) and Close (Ctrl+F4).

 

If using the Photo editor, just FLIP the picture twice to trick it into thinking a change has been made, then it allows the normal "Save" option.

[davidstvz]

I tried the substance player files for tile and wood and they're very nice. One thing I'd like to see is ability to define custom formats. If that isn't feasible, then I would add some "high-variation" format options for natural material like knotty woods. These would be formats that stuff a lot of individual tiles or planks into a texture to increase variation. They would be best used with higher resolutions to maintain details. Basically, it's the opposite of the large format tiles.

 

Even better would be the custom format option. You ought to be able to define the intended scale of the texture in inches (or metric), or else the width and number of the component tiles/planks and then have the program calculate and show the resulting scale (for later input into Chief along with the map associations).

 

Also, even if you can't define custom formats, you ought to be able to indicate the component width (or height as appropriate) and then it could display the appropriate scale.  For example, if you chose 2:1 tile and set the the width to 6", it could tell you the appropriate scale of the texture is 48" by 48".

[Lakeside-E]

1 hour ago, davidstvz said:

I tried the substance player files for tile and wood and they're very nice. One thing I'd like to see is ability to define custom formats. If that isn't feasible, then I would add some "high-variation" format options for natural material like knotty woods. These would be formats that stuff a lot of individual tiles or planks into a texture to increase variation. They would be best used with higher resolutions to maintain details. Basically, it's the opposite of the large format tiles.

 

Even better would be the custom format option. You ought to be able to define the intended scale of the texture in inches (or metric), or else the width and number of the component tiles/planks and then have the program calculate and show the resulting scale (for later input into Chief along with the map associations).

 

Also, even if you can't define custom formats, you ought to be able to indicate the component width (or height as appropriate) and then it could display the appropriate scale.  For example, if you chose 2:1 tile and set the the width to 6", it could tell you the appropriate scale of the texture is 48" by 48".

Not sure where the scale issue is... If you output a HD texture of a tile and you know you want the tiles to be 6" in "X" direction and the texture shows that there are 5 tiles in "X" direction do the math and correct whatever it says in Chief during the texture import. If it says it is 47 inches. Make sure "Retain Aspect Ratio" is locked and set "X" dimension to 30"

[davidstvz]

Oh certainly it can be corrected, you just need to know your tile/wood size and then manually count the number that appear in the texture.  I just thought it would be a nice feature.

 

Much more important are to have more formats or customizable formats.

[VixenPower]

I just found this Substance Player yesterday.  I downloaded and installed it.  Whenever I try to slide a slider or do anything really it shuts down.  Any idea why this is happening?

Thank you