Thursday 29 October 2015

Substance Painter to Vray Tutorial

More than a few people have been asking me how to export and use texture maps from Substance Painter in Vray, so here is a quick tutorial.

Step 1
Before we start texturing, we need add in additional maps Vray uses. Glossiness, ior and Reflection. I'd recommend doing this before applying any materials as I have noticed that sometimes the additional maps can export as blank. If you already have a custom material then save it and reapply after setting up the additional map slots.

Step 2
Apply your materials as you normally would. I purposely used two materials that will have different Glossiness, ior and Reflection values so we can clearly see some variation in the maps. A pure black or white map could be a result of the material having the same overall value OR step one wasn't setup correctly (blank maps)

Step 3
Export the textures maps using the Vray preset.

Step 4
In vray we just need to plug in the corresponding texture maps. Although I'm using Maya the standard Vray material attributes are the same in other programs like 3ds Max etc.

Here is the final result with zero tweaks. Just plug in the texture maps and render. Done!
I hope this helps anyone having issues using Substance Painter maps in Vray. If you have any questions then please ask :)



37 comments:

  1. Thanks! I"m also interested in output for Arnold (possibly Mental). Do you imagine the maps would plug in similarly? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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    Replies
    1. I'm pretty sure SP has an Arnold export option, but I assume it may use the same if not similar maps.

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  2. Hi Darren, what about ROUGHNESS map? Isn't it the GLOSSINESS inverted? If I try to invert it in Photoshop I get different maps.... And what about METALLIC? No use at all? Let me know, thanks!

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    1. If the Vray export setting works you don't need to adjust any maps, they're ready to go. No metallic maps aren't used in Vray

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  3. Hi!I am using the vray export maps too and I can't wrap my head around the fact that the reflection map is white for the none metallic material, do you know why?

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    1. Same here....when I generate my reflection map using the dielectric node, it generates a completely white map...Cant figure out for the life of me why this is happening...

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    2. Checkout the post below by Nic, might find some answers :)

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  4. Why do you have 3 shaders in SP, could you share your max scene with material setup?

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    1. Do you mean the TextureSet List? separate materials applied before importing into SP will be retained in SP. This is an easy way to apply seperate materials to certain areas of the object(s) without masking etc

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  5. I got every map to convert right from the roughness, metallic workflow except for the Ior. Do you have to paint the Ior your self?

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    1. No the IOR map is automatically generated at export. Check out the post below from Nic, has great info.

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  6. Going to be trying this tonight for a project. Are people still having issues?

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  7. So I just tried doing this and for some reason my results seem REALLY washed out once I get them into Maya. Anyone else getting that?

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    1. Washed out maps are probably a gamma issue. If using Vray be sure to set the correct gamma settings for your maps. In Maya I only need to adjust the diffuse/color map. Turn on Texture Gamma input in file attributes

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  8. Hey, I'm the guy who "made" the converter.
    It's not necessary to add the additional channels as described in step 1.
    The gray export preset converts the basecolor/roughness/metallic maps to diffuse/specular/ior and glossiness. Here is what happen behind the scene:
    - where metallic is white:
    . Diffuse is set to black
    . Specular is set to basecolor
    . Ior is black (ior is actually 1/ior) so it results in an infinite ior
    - when metallic is black (dielectric)
    . Diffuse is set to basecolor
    . Specular is white (dielectrics have a non colored spec, materials are 100% reflective at grazing angle, reflectance and normal is driven by the ior (fresnel))
    . Ior is set to 1/1.5 = 0.666 (when read the texture it makes the invert division 1/0.666= 1.5)

    And the roughness is inverted to get a glossiness.

    It's critical to set the gamma input for ior and glossiness to 1.0 (2.2 for diffuse and specular). And to set the brdf to "Microfacet GTR (GGX). Otherwise you get the same result as in SP.

    Keep in mind these maps are converted to get the same visual result as in SP, it's normal the maps don't look the same individually as in SP and it's normal you no longer have a metallic map.

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    1. Thanks for the info Nic! awesome insight!
      The version I was using at the time if I didn't do step 1 those additional maps exported blank or a flat colour. Well that was the only way I could make it work back then but maybe I missed something. Haven't had a chance to use the program since to checkout the updates.
      If I get a chance soon I'll update SP and try again, I'll also update the tutorial. Surprising amount of people contacted me having issues converting export for Vray.
      cheers.

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    2. What are the gamma input settings/value for the maps and what are your render settings?
      My current render is coming out fine and pretty close to what I got on substance painter..using the same hdr. The problem is the vray passes. Diffuse is really dark so there isn't much detail to work with in the light passes. The color is too much dependent on the reflection.

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    3. Having the same issues, the transfer from Substance to VRay/Maya is fine but render passes don't composite properly in Nuke/Photoshop (get darker composite compared to beauty), any pointers would be appreciated.

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  9. This is very useful post. I like your blog. Thanks for sharing.

    flats at korattur

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  10. Thanks for this short and clear export tutorial! Nice one:)

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  11. Too old program as for me. You can see that a lot of description about it. Here is website 3d-kstudio.com/product-category/plugins/ . For more information and it is much better than this.

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  12. CREO QUE E ENCONTRADO LA FORMA CORRECTA pero no puedo colocar imágenes de l proceso que es sencillo. les doy una mano a los que necesiten, escríbanme artfutura3d@gmail.com

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  13. Hey Darren!

    I been working on a jackhammer and have textured it using substance painter. Sadly I get some strange problems when i export it from substance. First my model http://imgur.com/nfuXQOJ is painted orange in substance painter, also with dirt at the buttom. Now when i connect all the textures inside maya, it looks like this. http://imgur.com/h3gdYhh

    I have no idea why, i have gamma currected the model. Also strange that the dirt is gone. Do you have an idea what can be wrong? I export it with Vray settings.

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    1. Hey,

      That is weird, but from what I can it looks like a gamma issue. That image from Maya looks like a screen grab of a view port rather than an actual render. How does it look when rendered? Also if you look at the diffuse map in photoshop (or whatever) does it look yellow or orange? If that is just a screen grab then take note that the diffuse map from substance painter doesn't always look as you'd expect it to on it's own, especially with metallic materials. A red chrome for instance could have a grey diffuse but a red reflection map etc.

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  14. strangely I do not get an IOR pass exported. what can I do? in my vray preset it is not listed. thanks

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. you need a value of 1 in the reflection. In this way you can have something wrong.

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  17. What happens about Texture Input Gamma? Do I have to enable input texture correction or do I leave it like it comes from Substance Painter?
    I see something weird in my normal map...

    Thanks!

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  18. For those of you looking to automate the process between substance painter and v-ray. http://hocuspocus-studio.fr/tools/product/substance-to-maxvray/#comment-2818

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  19. Should it work if I am using Spec/Gloss workflow or it works only with Metallic/Roughness ?

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  20. Thanks for this. Im using Vray4C4D and this is the workflow iv been using also, seems to work. The only area that seems off for me is the normal map, it just dont look right. Do you have to flip or switch the R,G,B for normal maps?

    Thanks Dan

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    ReplyDelete
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