Textures workflow - Substance Painter and Neosis

[koojinn]

Sigh... I'm trying to use the SPainter metallic materials and it keeps giving me gray glossy paint instead. I have no idea what to do. I messed with the normal and spec maps as much as I could and not even close.

 

I wish we had the note from the texture people to work. Like if there is a sweet spot for the gray that activates the metallic properties.

 

 

 

I toggled the metallic effect on the metal and we got a match. Desaturating the _s will bring the gloss up on the carbon and fabric. Metal is the issue.

 

 

 

I wonder why the metal is not transferring over.

 

[FlaconOil]

It's just because Fallout 4 isn't using Metallic PBR workflow. it's a "Metal/Spec gloss" and not sure that it is PBR at all. It also use "_palette" maps for certain metallic objects (like weapons) for special effects. That's hard to understand how it really works.

You could try using the "Specular Gloss PBR shader" for Painter. it's downloadable here : https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/15

i don't know how it works, but it can be better in case that metallic isn't good at all.

[koojinn]

Cool that works.. it lets me know what will happen in game. I wonder how people get metal with the PBR spec gloss then.

[FlaconOil]

Cool ! Then have you create your project with spec/gloss maps or metalic/rough maps ? It can change a lot

[koojinn]

I'll have to test it out later today I just have to figure out how to do metals using spec gloss. Edited December 21, 2015 by koojinn

[FlaconOil]

So, just for information :

If you work in Spec/Gloss worflow, you need to add the specular map in RGB mode (and not sRGB). and the "glossiness map" wich is auto on "L32F" (is black and white)

Don't miss to delete the metalness and roughness map.

Also, it is possible that the albedo need RGB instead of sRGB, you need to test it too. Because Fallout 4 engine is really ... strange.

A good workflow will be probably a lot of pratice, I wish you good luck :)

[koojinn]

Sadly the effect is still happening. I found out how to get a metal look using just the spec and gloss.

 

 

Metal and Roughness channels were deleted.

 

All channels were set to RGB8, then 16, then 32. No difference.

 

The project is set to DirectX

 

Export is custom preset:

 

 

 

 

 

Diffuse and Normal (DirectX) RGB.

 

Specular Greyscale in Red channel.

 

Gloss Greyscale in Green channel.

 

All exported in 4k.

 

 

Conversion in photoshop:

 

Diffuse saved in DXT 1.

 

Normal and spec both saved using Intel Texture Works BC5 compression. Spec saved as Normal map as well following TrophyHunter's guide on compression found here.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1045?

[FlaconOil]

The result is much better than with metal workflow.

I badly expressed myself about glossiness. it need to be on L32F and not RGB. (it can change a lot when export).

For the albedo, you could also try sRGB. In fact, you could try all if you want, cause we don't know how fallout 4 works really.

Also, i have read informations about red and green channels can be switched. One object could have specular on green, and another object have the spec on red. So you could try it.

[FlaconOil]

I also think that your screen is not so bad, because you need to keep in mind that the lighting environnement is not the same.

If you had a identical lighting, i think you would be as good as you can.

 

I've done a quick test in painter and i've seen that you need to verify spec and gloss for each texture you create. Because when you create a fill layer with material or a smart material, almost all are generated for metal workflow.

So you need to check in every material if there's metal/rough and convert it in spec/gloss. it's very important because most of the time metallic worflow materials will came with only basecolor and height (you need to add spec and gloss).

it's just for info, in case of you don't have seen that.

 

Edit : Oh, and keep in mind that you'll lost all color information from the RGB spec map, because it's converted in gray channel. So the ingame screen cannot be the same as the painter screen.

Edited December 22, 2015 by FlaconOil

[pondcypress]

Sigh... I'm trying to use the SPainter metallic materials and it keeps giving me gray glossy paint instead. I have no idea what to do. I messed with the normal and spec maps as much as I could and not even close.

 

I wish we had the note from the texture people to work. Like if there is a sweet spot for the gray that activates the metallic properties.

 

 

 

I toggled the metallic effect on the metal and we got a match. Desaturating the _s will bring the gloss up on the carbon and fabric. Metal is the issue.

 

 

 

I wonder why the metal is not transferring over.

 

 

Have you edited the .bgsm file for the frame?

 

You can use the material editor, http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3635/? and find templates under Materials/Templates.

 

Open one up and look under the material tab. ( I use it as a guide rather than just doing material swaps. )

If you're taking a painted metal surface (vanilla) and trying to achieve a chrome look you're going to have a hard time unless you edit the materials spec values etc.

 

For example the spec multiplier for the frame is 1.00000 and the spec multiplier for the chrome template is listed at 0.33000

 

The only thing I hit a wall on was spec color. I tried to achieve a look similar to your top left image, which would involve changing the spec color in the material editor to a pink hue, but if I change the color nothing happens in game. In Skyrim I would just change spec color in nifskope, I tried that as well here and no go. So I can achieve a chrome look but not a tinted chrome, or tinted metal for that matter.

 

On top of that I don't believe the PA frame has material files for the individual parts of it, so altering spec values in the material file would blanket alter the whole frame. The workaround being careful editing of spec and gloss values in the _s.

 

TLDR, To achieve that pink chrome-ish look in the top left image you would need a dark diffuse, spec and gloss edited accordingly, then material values in the bgsm file for the frame edited to match values displayed in the MetalTemplate_Chrome.bgsm. I just cant get the spec color to change.

Edited December 23, 2015 by pondcypress