Improving my abilities using Substance Painter

During Semester A I had been introduced to Substance Painter 2. The software allows you as an artist to create and view textures in real time. For example I could paint details onto the texture map for a model and see the end result all within the same piece of software. I found this to be an incredible time saver. Where before I would create all textures in Photoshop, save each texture map out of the program, load the saved texture maps into 3DS Max, create a new material, hook the relevant textures into the material, apply said material onto the desired model and then render the model to see the effects of the texture maps. If there were any mistakes I would repeat the process over again until I was happy with the results. Substance painter allows you to bypass this lengthy process by showing you the results of your texture maps on the model within the program. It even allows you to light the model in real time, so that you can pick out the details of things like normal maps and adjust them until you get the desired result. It truly is an innovative piece of software.

 That being said however... Whilst I could see the obvious benefits of using Substance Painter, I still found the textures I created within the software to be somewhat lacking. The projects I created throughout Semester A yielded mixed results, and I was never truly happy with what I had been able to create in substance. I had learned key techniques such as hard surface transferring, whereby I was able to bake the details of a high poly model onto a low poly equivalent, but when it came to the look of the textures themselves I wasn't satisfied. With this Rewind brief and to a much greater extent the major project, I am hoping to get better at using Substance painter and create realistic looking materials in Unreal Engine.

I have started the process of exporting assets from my 3DS Max scene into Substance Painter and will be texturing the models this week. I am hoping by the end of the Rewind brief I will be at least somewhat competent with using Substance Painter effectively.