Introduction and Project Setup

[00:00:00] Hello, my name is Wes McDermott and in

[00:00:00] this video we're going to take a look at

[00:00:00] how to use Substance Painter from an

[00:00:00] absolute beginner's perspective. So,

[00:00:00] we're going to texture a very simple

[00:00:00] asset and I'm going to cover all of the

[00:00:00] basic fundamentals on how to use

[00:00:00] Substance Painter. So, we got a lot to

[00:00:00] cover. So, let's get started. Now,

[00:00:00] before we jump right into Substance

[00:00:00] Painter, I want to take a look at the

[00:00:00] asset that we're going to be working

[00:00:00] with. And to do that, I'm going to use a

[00:00:00] new application called Substance 3D

[00:00:00] Viewer. This application's in beta. It's

[00:00:00] free to use. You can download it from

[00:00:00] the Creative Cloud desktop app. Now, if

[00:00:00] you're following along in the project

[00:00:00] files, there is a folder called meshes.

[00:00:00] And within that folder, there is a file

[00:00:00] called hardcase USDZ. I'm going to use

[00:00:00] this file. So, let's just drag and drop

[00:00:00] and place that here into viewer. And

[00:00:00] that's just going to open up the 3D

[00:00:00] model file so we can take a look at it.

[00:00:00] And here you can see that I'm going to

[00:00:00] be working with this phone case. Now,

[00:00:00] the main thing that I want to showcase

[00:00:00] here is that this 3D object has two

[00:00:00] materials assigned to it. So, if I

[00:00:00] select this cover, you can see that if I

[00:00:00] come over here to this appearance, we do

[00:00:00] have this material called cover that's

[00:00:00] assigned to the cover of the mesh. Now,

[00:00:00] if we look at the actual hard case

[00:00:00] itself, and you can see it's made up of

[00:00:00] a couple different 3D parts. We've got

[00:00:00] three of them here. And each one of

[00:00:00] these 3D parts has the exact same

[00:00:00] material associated with it. So, again,

[00:00:00] if I come over here and take a look at

[00:00:00] my appearance, there is a material

[00:00:00] called case, which again, like I said,

[00:00:00] is assigned to each one of these 3D

[00:00:00] parts. So once we get into Substance

[00:00:00] Painter and we start working with this

[00:00:00] 3D object, we will essentially be

[00:00:00] working with two materials. And as

[00:00:00] you'll see, each of these materials has

[00:00:00] its own layer stack. More to come on

[00:00:00] that in just a moment. Now, one last

[00:00:00] thing I want to showcase here is this

[00:00:00] particular 3D object is actually

[00:00:00] animated. So here in viewer, if I just

[00:00:00] scrub the timeline here, you can see

[00:00:00] that there's some animation associated

[00:00:00] here with this 3D model. When importing

[00:00:00] this USDZ file into Painter, I can

[00:00:00] select a frame to work with. This is

[00:00:00] ideal because I can choose the first

[00:00:00] frame so I can see all of the mesh for

[00:00:00] texturing. So now I have Substance

[00:00:00] Painter open. And we're ready to create

[00:00:00] our first project. So what I'm going to

[00:00:00] do is go to file and choose new. And

[00:00:00] this is going to bring open the new

[00:00:00] project dialogue. Now at the very top

[00:00:00] you're going to see template. Now, with

[00:00:00] everything set at the default, you

[00:00:00] should see this ASM, which is stands for

[00:00:00] Adobe Standard Material PBR metallic

[00:00:00] roughness. If you don't, you can click

[00:00:00] the drop down and then just choose it

[00:00:00] from here. But again, we're going to go

[00:00:00] with the default PBR metallic roughness.

[00:00:00] Now, the next thing that you need to do

[00:00:00] is choose a file. And that file is going

[00:00:00] to be the 3D model that you want to

[00:00:00] texture. So, that's the phone case that

[00:00:00] we just was taking a look at. So, I'm

[00:00:00] going to choose select. And then here,

[00:00:00] if you're following along in the project

[00:00:00] files in the meshes folder, we have

[00:00:00] hardcase USDZ. This is the file that we

[00:00:00] want to use. So, with it selected, I'm

[00:00:00] going to click open. And now that's set

[00:00:00] and ready to go. Now, I had mentioned

[00:00:00] before that I'm using this USDZ because

[00:00:00] I'm working with an animated file, and

[00:00:00] this particular format gives me some

[00:00:00] extra options. The thing that I'm most

[00:00:00] concerned about is this frame option.

[00:00:00] And with the frame set to zero, that is

[00:00:00] going to give me that first frame, which

[00:00:00] is the phone case completely folded

[00:00:00] open. That's ideal to work with because

[00:00:00] I can see the whole object while I'm in

[00:00:00] my texturing process. So, that's what

[00:00:00] we're doing here. Make sure this is set

[00:00:00] to zero. Should be that way by default.

[00:00:00] Now, the next thing that we want to take

[00:00:00] a look at is this document resolution.

[00:00:00] And there's a couple options here. I'm

[00:00:00] going to choose this value of 2048. And

[00:00:00] I typically start at this value. This is

[00:00:00] a really great starting point because

[00:00:00] you get good quality but it's also

[00:00:00] balanced with you know speed and

[00:00:00] performance on your machine. So

[00:00:00] Substance Painter is what we call

[00:00:00] GPUbound meaning that a lot of the

[00:00:00] computations happening on a GPU. So the

[00:00:00] better the GPU on your system the uh you

[00:00:00] know the better performance you're going

[00:00:00] to get. Now, in this particular uh case,

[00:00:00] I'm using a MacBook uh and I'm using an

[00:00:00] M2 Max Pro, and it works pretty awesome

[00:00:00] uh with this resolution, and I can also

[00:00:00] increase this resolution as well. So,

[00:00:00] I'm not stuck. Like, for example, if I

[00:00:00] said, hey, I want to work at 2048, but

[00:00:00] then maybe later down the road, I really

[00:00:00] want to export uh maybe a 4K texture, I

[00:00:00] can do that. That's the beauty of

[00:00:00] working in Substance. We are working

[00:00:00] with non-destructive resolution

[00:00:00] independence. So again, more on that

[00:00:00] later in the course when we go to

[00:00:00] export, but for now, just know that I

[00:00:00] can simply switch this to 4K at any

[00:00:00] time. But performance-wise, I keep it at

[00:00:00] 2K. Now, everything else I'm going to

[00:00:00] keep at the default. We just want to

[00:00:00] make sure that we're not changing any of

[00:00:00] these advanced options. One thing I do

[00:00:00] want to just bring to your attention, if

[00:00:00] I scroll down, just make sure if you're

[00:00:00] following along in this class, that this

[00:00:00] auto unwrap is not enabled. Now, just

[00:00:00] for your information, this auto unwrap

[00:00:00] is going to basically just do an auto

[00:00:00] unwrap of the 3D model. This is going to

[00:00:00] create what's called a UV map for me.

[00:00:00] So, if you get a 3D object and you

[00:00:00] haven't created any UVs, uh, Substance

[00:00:00] Painter can do that for you, and it's

[00:00:00] pretty awesome. I use it quite a bit.

[00:00:00] But, in this case, we have a specific UV

[00:00:00] layout, which you'll see as soon as I

[00:00:00] open uh, this particular project. But,

[00:00:00] we have that UV layout. It's part of the

[00:00:00] 3D model. I created that myself in my

[00:00:00] own 3D program, but just want to make

[00:00:00] sure you don't have this enabled uh

[00:00:00] because it takes some time and it'll

[00:00:00] kind of throw you off if this is the

[00:00:00] first time you've you've opened

[00:00:00] Substance Painter. Okay, so that's it.

[00:00:00] Just a few settings there. We're set.

[00:00:00] We're ready to go. Now, I just need to

[00:00:00] click okay. Now, Substance Painter has

[00:00:00] opened the project. And right here in

[00:00:00] the center, we're seeing our viewport.

[00:00:00] So, on the left side, I see a 3D model.

[00:00:00] And on the right side, I see a view that

[00:00:00] looks like a monster ripped open my 3D

[00:00:00] model and just flattened everything out.

[00:00:00] Well, this is what the UV coordinates

[00:00:00] are. And so, if I zoom out here a little

[00:00:00] bit, if you're familiar with UVs, uh

[00:00:00] this is what the UV looks like for this

[00:00:00] particular asset. Now, I'm not really

[00:00:00] going to get in and cover UVs uh in this

[00:00:00] course. Uh, so I'm not really going to

[00:00:00] use this 2D view, but as I had mentioned

[00:00:00] earlier, uh, if you need to have UVs

[00:00:00] created, Substance Painter can do that

[00:00:00] for you when you create your project.

[00:00:00] But for now, we're not really going to

[00:00:00] look at this 2D view. So, here at the

[00:00:00] top of the UI, I have this button and

[00:00:00] this is my 3D 2D button. And what I can

[00:00:00] do is just click on this, and I'm going

[00:00:00] to choose this option for 3D only. And

[00:00:00] that is just going to give me my 3D

[00:00:00] view. Okay. So, first thing we're going

[00:00:00] to do is learn how to navigate this 3D

[00:00:00] view because we're going to be doing

[00:00:00] that a lot. So, in order to pivot or

[00:00:00] rotate around the 3D object, I can hold

[00:00:00] down the alt or option key and use my

[00:00:00] left mouse button and I can just rotate

[00:00:00] and around the object like this. And

[00:00:00] wherever your mouse is, that is going to

[00:00:00] be the pivot point uh at which you

[00:00:00] rotate around. So, for example, if I

[00:00:00] have my mouse here, I use the alter

[00:00:00] option, leftclick, and now you can see

[00:00:00] I'm pivoting around that point. Now, if

[00:00:00] I want to pan the viewport, I just hold

[00:00:00] down the alter option and use my middle

[00:00:00] mouse button. And now I can pan the view

[00:00:00] around. So, we're going to use uh alter

[00:00:00] option, leftclick, rotate, and then

[00:00:00] click middle mouse button, and we can

[00:00:00] pan. Now, the last thing we need to do

[00:00:00] is zoom in and out. So, once more, alter

[00:00:00] option, and then use my right mouse

[00:00:00] button, and then I can move the mouse up

[00:00:00] or down to kind of zoom in and out here.

[00:00:00] And so th those are the three ways that

[00:00:00] I can really just navigate uh my 3D

[00:00:00] view. And like I said, we're going to do

[00:00:00] this a lot as we're working through our

[00:00:00] project. Now, here in the UI, you're

[00:00:00] going to see this section here called

[00:00:00] texture set list. And earlier in the

[00:00:00] video, when we first got started, I was

[00:00:00] talking about the materials that were

[00:00:00] assigned to the 3D object. And we had a

[00:00:00] case and a cover. Now, those materials,

[00:00:00] as I showed in Substance Viewer, are now

[00:00:00] available here to me inside of Substance

[00:00:00] Painter. However, Substance Painter

[00:00:00] calls it a texture set list. So, we have

[00:00:00] case and cover. Now, the important thing

[00:00:00] to understand at this point in the game

[00:00:00] is that each one of these materials is

[00:00:00] going to have its own layer stack. So,

[00:00:00] we're going to have two layer stacks,

[00:00:00] one for each material. And just to

[00:00:00] showcase this once more, you can see

[00:00:00] this is the case. If I toggle this

[00:00:00] visibility on and off, that is all of

[00:00:00] the 3D objects that have that case

[00:00:00] material assigned. Same thing here with

[00:00:00] the cover. And like I said, we're going

[00:00:00] to start working with the cover. So,

[00:00:00] I'll select it.