Old time wooden beer crate

So the purpose of today's post is to go through my Substance Painter (SP) workflow to help myself remember key points and problems as well inform anyone else going through the same learning process as me  :)   Below are some beauty shots of the final product I made using this workflow. 

I'll go through my process to achieve this in detail below.  Ready, set, GO!

NOTE: This process is going to assume that the model has already been built and finalized with a basic UV unwrap -- all that is remaining is UV adjustments (in Maya), normal baking (xNormal) and texturing.  Also keep in mind I'm still a very new 3d artist and if you have any feedback or critique as to how I can streamline this workflow PLEASE let me know!

1. Mise en place:

a.  The first thing to do is research the asset online and decide how many materials there will be on the model. For this crate in particular, there will be two -- wood and metal.  Compile a base texture library for the asset using whatever resources you prefer. Organize your resources.

Base metal

Copper rust

Base wood

Worn wood corners

Custom beer logo derived from Grain Sack .psd elements

b.  Next, decide how many texture maps you want to create for the asset.  I opted to create (2) 2048x2048 maps for this crate; 1 for each material.  The plan is to resize them to 1024x1024 for the wood and 512x512 for the metal because I have already built this asset on a single 2048x2048 and I want to explore different methods.  It is absolutely possible to texture multiple materials on a single texture in SP and I will make separate notes (identified by: 1T) throughout this workflow outline on how these steps differ.

2. Prepping the Model:

a.  Separate materials by UVs when and wherever possible.  For this crate, there are metal straps on the sides and screws/nails on the wood itself.  Since the straps are pretty straight forward, you can insert some edgeloops to create faces that can be separated as UVs to make texturing much easier.  You will want to cut these UVs and keep them as a separate shell from the wood crate as you can paint by individual UVs in SP. (1T:  You should keep these UV shells in place in relation to the adjoining wood crate shells because you can delete these faces later.)  As for the screws and nails, we'll just have to paint those in by hand as adding geometry for each one would be dumb.

Base mesh before separating UVs for texturing

Adding edgeloops for metal straps

b.  This next step ONLY applies if you're creating >1 texture sheet -- using the Hypershade, assign separate materials to each set of UVs that will be on a separate texture sheet.  The reason you do this is because SP gives you the ability to paint on different materials individually, almost like working on two separate PhotoShop documents.  This does however mean that SP will export as many texture sets as you have materials assigned in the model.  An example texture set = diffuse, normal, specular maps; therefore 2 materials = 2 texture sets.  As below I have 2 material UV layouts: wood and metal.

Wood UVs

Metal UVs

c. Import HP/LP assets in .fbx format and import into xNormal.  Bake normals.

3. Importing to Substance Painter:

a.  To import: File --> New --> Discard (default scene) --> Select... (find your mesh) --> Document Resolution --> (desired) --> Add --> (baked Normal maps) --> OK

4.  Setting up Substance Painter:

a.  On the left hand side of the UI you'll see "TextureSets".  This should have whatever you named your Hypershade materials.  If it's highlighted then that's the Material you're working on.  Above that you'll see "Additional maps" under the "Document Settings" window.  Click on Normal map and assign the pertinent maps to the pertinent materials.

b.  Next, go to File --> Import Image --> and find the textures and other image resources you compiled to texture this asset.

c.  If you're unfamiliar with the UI beyond this point, Allegorithimic has some great tutorials to get you warmed up right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DQZV9vOQpI&list=PLB0wXHrWAmCzhPKtFFF6xVEAOvfUJcV3s

5.  Base Textures:

a.  So to begin, choose a material to put a base on.  I started with wood because it's the primary material of the asset.  I first started by creating a Fill Layer and dropping my Wood texture into the diffuse channel. Then I adjusted the X and Y tiling below in the "Fill - advanced" Tool.

Base fill texture

Scaling Texture

b.  Looking at some of the wood grain, you can see that some pieces appear to be traveling the wrong way.  The next step is to create another Fill Layer and right click on it and select --> add black mask.  Select the mask as you would in PhotoShop, and select the Geometry Decal tool that is on the same tool bar as the Brush, Eraser, Projection, etc. tools.  Change the color to White and click the UV button.  From here we will step out of SP for a second to fix the wood grain direction.

c.  Locate your wood grain texture and right click --> Preview to open Photo Viewer.  Make a copy of the image and name it woodVertical_D. Next, use the rotate buttons on the photo viewer to rotate the image 90 degrees.  Import the vertical image into SP.

d.  On the Fill Layer with the black mask, select the Fill and attach the woodVertical_D image to the diffuse channel.  Next, click back on the black mask and press the "2D" view to view your UV layout.  Next, click on the UV shells that have the wood grain going the wrong way.  They will auto fill in with White and block transparency of the vertical fill layer.  You can also adjust the mask by objects, faces, and triangles if needed.  And like that, your UVs are painted and all wood grain is facing the correct direction.

Geo-Decal Tool

 2d View

e.  Repeat process (masking if needed) for the remaining base textures.

6.  Roughness:

a.  Painting in the roughness channel helps to customize and define the asset material.  Starting with the wood, I'll create a new layer above the woodBaseVertical mask and name it roughness and disable all Material channels but roughness, select a brush, and begin painting with the roughness uniform color slider as needed.

Wood roughness

Metal roughness

b.  Repeat across all materials as needed.

7.  Hardware:

a.  Next is to create hardware effects like screws, nails, bolts, etc.  SP Has some basic tools to help accomplish this but you can make your own as needed.  For this project I opted to use the "Bullet Holes" tool and painted in the metallic nails into the wood texture and opted to use the "Screw" tool for the metal bands.

Using "Bullet Hole" tool to make nail impact points

Painting in metal nail material

Using "Screw" tool to add height information to metal bands

8.  Accents:

a.  Next is to paint the texture accent layer.  In this case I'll use the copper rust texture to add some interest to the metal material of the asset.  Choose any projection material from the menu and then turn on or off any channels you wish to paint -- in this instance I will use diffuse and height as I have bitmaps for both.  Drag and drop your bitmaps into those channels and your stencil will update accordingly.  Holding "S" key will allow you to adjust your stencil as needed.  Go to town.  You can also adjust individual channels at any point when needed.

b.  Repeat across all pertinent materials.

8.  Grunge:

a.  I prefer to make a base grunge with substances and then painting in the details I want afterwards.  To start, create a fill layer and mask it out.  At the top of the Layers menu, clicking the Add Effects button will let you utilize substances -- for this I used the stock mg_dirt substance.  Adjust settings until you obtain the look you prefer.

b.  After creating a base grunge layer, create another layer and paint in custom dirt and grunge as desired.

Before crevice/custom dirt

After crevice/custom dirt

9.  Fresh edge wear:

a.  Finally, the last step is to create fresh edge wear and scratches.  I created another fill layer in my woodGroup just above the base wood layers.  I filled it in with the worn wood texture and scaled tiling 10x's.  Then black mask the fill layer and paint in grayscale where you want the worn wood to appear.  The end result is the finished images at the beginning of this post with the texture sheets below.

Wood Diffuse, Normal, Specular

Metal Diffuse, Normal, Specular