Working with Custom Materials

[00:00:00] So, we're going to start by coming over

[00:00:00] to our layer stack, and we're going to

[00:00:00] click this button, which is going to

[00:00:00] create a new fill layer for us. So, I'll

[00:00:00] click the button, and you can see I now

[00:00:00] have a new fill layer. And if I double

[00:00:00] click, I can name the layer. So, here

[00:00:00] I'm just going to call this uh metal

[00:00:00] hinge.

[00:00:00] Okay. So, now I have a new layer. So,

[00:00:00] we've already discussed how this fill

[00:00:00] layer fills the channels with uniform

[00:00:00] color values. And so what we want to do

[00:00:00] is in this case make our own metal

[00:00:00] material from scratch instead of relying

[00:00:00] on one of these uh base materials that

[00:00:00] we already have in our assets folder. So

[00:00:00] first things first, what I need to do is

[00:00:00] set my color. So here again I'm going to

[00:00:00] grab my color picker and this time I'm

[00:00:00] going to come over here to I have Adobe

[00:00:00] Color open and I'm going to use that

[00:00:00] same orange swatch. So we'll select

[00:00:00] that. Don't forget, you could also just

[00:00:00] copy and paste the hex color or change

[00:00:00] the colors manually. Okay, so now we've

[00:00:00] set our color. And the next thing I'm

[00:00:00] going to do is set this roughness value

[00:00:00] down to be pretty low. We want this to

[00:00:00] be reflective. And we need to set this

[00:00:00] as a metal material. So I need to take

[00:00:00] this metal slider. I'll move it from

[00:00:00] black all the way here to white. And

[00:00:00] this makes a metal material. Now, what

[00:00:00] you'll notice is that well, while we do

[00:00:00] get a a metal material, we are also

[00:00:00] still seeing all of the textural detail

[00:00:00] that is in the smooth opaque silicon

[00:00:00] material that's underneath. And so, the

[00:00:00] layer stack works by processing layers

[00:00:00] from the bottom up. And one of the

[00:00:00] things that can be confusing, especially

[00:00:00] when you're first getting into Painter,

[00:00:00] is, hey, this layer is on top. Why am I

[00:00:00] seeing some of the values from the

[00:00:00] material below? Oh, it shouldn't it

[00:00:00] overwrite? Well, the answer to that

[00:00:00] question is that some of the channels

[00:00:00] and we'll say height and normal

[00:00:00] specifically are trying to blend

[00:00:00] together and it's set that way by

[00:00:00] default. And that's why you have this

[00:00:00] little drop down here at the top of the

[00:00:00] layer stack. This here is called the

[00:00:00] view mode. And I can set this to

[00:00:00] different channels. Now, because

[00:00:00] Substance Painter works across multiple

[00:00:00] channels, it's just a UI option to be

[00:00:00] able to say, "Hey, even though this

[00:00:00] layer represents multiple channels, all

[00:00:00] the ones that you see here, I want to

[00:00:00] pull out and work with some blending

[00:00:00] modes for a specific channel. So, that's

[00:00:00] why here I might choose something like

[00:00:00] the height channel." So, I'm using the

[00:00:00] view mode to select height. And this is

[00:00:00] going to change my settings here for the

[00:00:00] blending modes and the layer opacity.

[00:00:00] And you'll notice that it's set to

[00:00:00] linear dodge by default, which means

[00:00:00] it's just going to combine with the data

[00:00:00] below it. That's exactly what's going on

[00:00:00] here uh in this situation. So, for

[00:00:00] example, if I now come over to the

[00:00:00] blending mode, I'm going to set this to

[00:00:00] normal. You can see that that fixes the

[00:00:00] issue. We have said that, hey, we want

[00:00:00] to have just normal, meaning no

[00:00:00] blending. The height is enabled on this

[00:00:00] channel and the height is enabled on the

[00:00:00] channel below it. Notice that the normal

[00:00:00] channel is not enabled. Normal is like a

[00:00:00] bump channel basically kind of similar

[00:00:00] to height. But in this case, all I need

[00:00:00] to do is just override that height

[00:00:00] information using the view mode. Now,

[00:00:00] you can leave it at height. Usually, I

[00:00:00] just set this back to color just out of

[00:00:00] habit. It doesn't matter. Like I said,

[00:00:00] just know that these view modes is only

[00:00:00] allowing you to change or select the

[00:00:00] blending mode and the layer opacity for

[00:00:00] a given channel. So, like I said, I'll

[00:00:00] just keep this back to base color. Okay.

[00:00:00] So now we have this metal hinge material

[00:00:00] overriding this silicone material that

[00:00:00] we added previously. What we need to do

[00:00:00] at this stage is start to mask. So just

[00:00:00] like we would add a layer mask in

[00:00:00] Photoshop, we need to do that here in

[00:00:00] Substance Painter. So to do that, we're

[00:00:00] going to jump back over here to the

[00:00:00] layer stack and I have this button here

[00:00:00] which is going to allow me to add a

[00:00:00] mask. And we have different types of

[00:00:00] mask that we can add. Typically I start

[00:00:00] with a black mask. So we're going to

[00:00:00] create a black mask that creates a layer

[00:00:00] mask. And you'll notice that black

[00:00:00] meaning completely transparent. So we

[00:00:00] see through to the layer below it. And

[00:00:00] that's precisely what we're getting here

[00:00:00] in our viewport. We no longer see the

[00:00:00] metal because we've basically set the

[00:00:00] whole thing to be black. We're seeing

[00:00:00] right through to this silicone material

[00:00:00] that's underneath of it. Now with this

[00:00:00] layer selected, one of the things I'm

[00:00:00] going to do is jump back over here to my

[00:00:00] layer stack and I'm going to grab this

[00:00:00] little magic wand tool. This is how we

[00:00:00] can add effects. And if we click this,

[00:00:00] there's lots of these effects. We can

[00:00:00] add like a special generator, like a

[00:00:00] filter to create a mask for us. We can

[00:00:00] add a fill. We can do a paint. This is

[00:00:00] what I want to do. I want to add a

[00:00:00] paint. So now we'll add this paint

[00:00:00] effect into here. And what I can do is

[00:00:00] once I've added this paint to my mask

[00:00:00] layer, I now have a paintbrush. So, just

[00:00:00] as we discussed before, we can jump over

[00:00:00] here to our paint properties and we can

[00:00:00] choose things like our brush size,

[00:00:00] spacing, flow, jitter, all these things.

[00:00:00] Typically, for a mask, I'm going to use

[00:00:00] just a default brush like this. Now,

[00:00:00] there's a couple other things that we

[00:00:00] can do. I mentioned earlier that if you

[00:00:00] hold down the command or control key and

[00:00:00] move the mouse button left or right,

[00:00:00] that will increase or decrease the size.

[00:00:00] Notice that with this default brush,

[00:00:00] there's this nice fall-off. Now, if I

[00:00:00] want to change that, I could come over

[00:00:00] here to the brush properties and change

[00:00:00] uh basically the hardness of the brush

[00:00:00] and that and you're going to find that

[00:00:00] setting here on the alpha. So, we have

[00:00:00] this hardness of the brush. So, I'm

[00:00:00] going to hold down the command or alt

[00:00:00] button and then use my right mouse

[00:00:00] button and then move the mouse up or

[00:00:00] down. And this is going to control that

[00:00:00] hardness. It's another shortcut that I

[00:00:00] can use just to quickly control the

[00:00:00] hardness of the brush. So, I don't want

[00:00:00] it to be like super soft fall off, but I

[00:00:00] don't want it to be very very crisp and

[00:00:00] hard on the edges. So, just, you know,

[00:00:00] slight little feather. That's usually

[00:00:00] how I'll work for this. So, again,

[00:00:00] command or control right mouse button

[00:00:00] left to right is going to zoom or scale

[00:00:00] down my brush. I could also use my left

[00:00:00] and right bracket keys if I need to as

[00:00:00] well. And so here I could go in and I

[00:00:00] could start to paint with this brush and

[00:00:00] I'm painting with a value of white. So

[00:00:00] where is this coming from? Well, I

[00:00:00] mentioned earlier that every time you

[00:00:00] have a brush, there's a material

[00:00:00] associated with it. And that actually

[00:00:00] holds true even when you're working with

[00:00:00] a mask. So if we look at the paint, we

[00:00:00] have again our brush settings. We have

[00:00:00] an alpha and then you have we're going

[00:00:00] to skip this stencil. We're not going to

[00:00:00] cover that in this course. But if we

[00:00:00] come over to this last option, this is a

[00:00:00] grayscale gradient. So because we're

[00:00:00] working in a mask, which is black and

[00:00:00] white and kind of grayscale values, we

[00:00:00] don't have a material per se in that

[00:00:00] there's base color, metal, rough. We

[00:00:00] don't have that. But what we do have is

[00:00:00] a value. And that's I guess it's kind of

[00:00:00] like a material, just black and white.

[00:00:00] And so you can see that is if I'm

[00:00:00] painting a black transparent mask with

[00:00:00] white, that allows me to mask the

[00:00:00] material. So, if I wanted to come in

[00:00:00] here and paint like this, I I could do

[00:00:00] that. Now, you can see that, well, my

[00:00:00] paint job is not too great. It's kind of

[00:00:00] bleeding over into the cover. So, what

[00:00:00] could I do? I could grab the slider.

[00:00:00] Let's set it to black. And now, I could

[00:00:00] go in here and try to paint and and

[00:00:00] really get down in this edge. And I can

[00:00:00] use a keyboard shortcut of X on the

[00:00:00] keyboard. This toggles between white and

[00:00:00] black. Kind of a a great way to to to

[00:00:00] mask. Another really cool shortcut,

[00:00:00] especially if you have like a hard edge

[00:00:00] like this, is you can uh let's see,

[00:00:00] let's set this. We'll keep this at

[00:00:00] black. We'll click once, hold down the

[00:00:00] shift key, and then now I'm going to

[00:00:00] have this like what's called a straight

[00:00:00] line tool that's part of the brush. And

[00:00:00] this will allow me to create just a

[00:00:00] straight edge. So now if I click once

[00:00:00] more, that could be a good way to mask

[00:00:00] this out. But again, if I zoom in close,

[00:00:00] it's not perfect. I could go back and

[00:00:00] forth on this all day long. And you can

[00:00:00] see, oh no, look, I've got a little gap

[00:00:00] here. Hit X to invert. Let's go back and

[00:00:00] try to fill that in. So, you could do

[00:00:00] this if you wanted to. Like I said, one

[00:00:00] thing you'll learn with Substance

[00:00:00] Painter is there's so many different

[00:00:00] ways to work. So, I'm not going to go

[00:00:00] this route. Here's what I'm going to do.

[00:00:00] We're going to kill that paint effect.

[00:00:00] Let's go and add another paint effect.

[00:00:00] And this time over here on my toolbar.

[00:00:00] So, this is your toolbar. We've been

[00:00:00] using the brush tool. We have an eraser.

[00:00:00] We have a pen tool. There's lots of

[00:00:00] options here, but I'm going to use this

[00:00:00] one, which is called a polygon fill

[00:00:00] tool. This is like the fill object in

[00:00:00] Photoshop. So, when I select this with

[00:00:00] my paint effect, we get a couple fill

[00:00:00] modes. So, you have uh what's called

[00:00:00] triangles, these little faces that you

[00:00:00] see here in the wireframe view. You have

[00:00:00] faces, you have object, and then you

[00:00:00] have UV, which is basically UV shells.

[00:00:00] Uh we're not really messing too much

[00:00:00] with UVs in this course, so we're not

[00:00:00] even going to worry about that. What

[00:00:00] we're going to use is just this polygon

[00:00:00] fill object mode. And so it's set to

[00:00:00] white. And then now because this

[00:00:00] geometry, if I zoom in really close, you

[00:00:00] can see this geometry is actually a

[00:00:00] separated mesh part. What I can do now

[00:00:00] is just click. So I'll come into here

[00:00:00] and I'll click and click on this part.

[00:00:00] And there you go. I get a perfect mask

[00:00:00] based on the geometry. I'm going to go

[00:00:00] back to the brush. And there we go. So I

[00:00:00] didn't have to spend a lot of time

[00:00:00] painting. I've got that perfect mask in

[00:00:00] place. If we want to see what the mask

[00:00:00] looks like, if I hold down the alter

[00:00:00] option key here and I just click and I

[00:00:00] clicked on the mask itself, this allows

[00:00:00] me to view what I just created. So with

[00:00:00] this metal hinge layer, we have this

[00:00:00] mask which is now showcasing white is

[00:00:00] what the metal is. And everything that's

[00:00:00] black is going to show the layers

[00:00:00] underneath of it. If I want to get back,

[00:00:00] I can click this icon or click or press

[00:00:00] M on the keyboard to take me to material

[00:00:00] mode. And so there we go. We can now see

[00:00:00] that is how we can apply a fill layer to

[00:00:00] create our own custom material. And we

[00:00:00] can use layer masking. So we can start

[00:00:00] to get a little bit more sophisticated

[00:00:00] in how we work with our materials by

[00:00:00] blending multiple layers on top of each

[00:00:00] other in this layer stack. So now let's

[00:00:00] start looking at texturing the actual

[00:00:00] phone case itself. And since I like this

[00:00:00] silicone material, I could simply just

[00:00:00] copy and paste it. So I can, you know,

[00:00:00] just use normal copy and paste. Command

[00:00:00] C, control C to copy it or rightclick

[00:00:00] here. And you can choose to, you know,

[00:00:00] copy layers. So we'll do that. And then

[00:00:00] here I'm going to select the case, which

[00:00:00] is the texture set. Now, as I said

[00:00:00] earlier, now you can really see this

[00:00:00] come into play where these materials

[00:00:00] have or the yeah, these materials will

[00:00:00] have their own texture set. So with this

[00:00:00] case selected, I'll hit uh commandV or

[00:00:00] controlV. This is going to paste in. And

[00:00:00] now I have this new material. So, what I

[00:00:00] want to do, of course, you probably

[00:00:00] already guessed it. I want to change the

[00:00:00] color. So, once again, I'm going to grab

[00:00:00] my color picker, choose this color value

[00:00:00] from my color theme, and I'm good to go.

[00:00:00] All right. So, now that we have our

[00:00:00] material and our color, I want to show

[00:00:00] something here. So, I'm going to zoom in

[00:00:00] on this area. And if you take a really

[00:00:00] close look, you can see that, well, we

[00:00:00] get, you know, a little bit of

[00:00:00] distortion here in the detail that's

[00:00:00] coming from this material. Uh, and in

[00:00:00] this particular case, it really comes

[00:00:00] down to that projection mode. So, again,

[00:00:00] with my layer selected, and if I look at

[00:00:00] the properties, I'm on the fill tab, and

[00:00:00] there's projection. Like I said, it's

[00:00:00] it's based on UV by default. And in this

[00:00:00] particular case, the way the UVs are

[00:00:00] laid out, it's causing a little bit of

[00:00:00] this issue. Now, a way to fix that

[00:00:00] pretty quickly would be to again set it

[00:00:00] to triplaner. We talked about this a

[00:00:00] little bit earlier. Like I said, mainly

[00:00:00] UV and triplaner, the two options I'm

[00:00:00] using. But if I just set this to trip

[00:00:00] planer, you can see that it pretty much

[00:00:00] fixes it. So it looks pretty good now.

[00:00:00] Now, as I said earlier, you have this

[00:00:00] like little manipulator here that's

[00:00:00] trying to cover the whole object. And if

[00:00:00] I wanted to make any change to this,

[00:00:00] let's say on the Z-axis, I could just

[00:00:00] grab the manipulator on the Z-axis

[00:00:00] handle. It's this blue handle, and just

[00:00:00] move it. And you can see I can just kind

[00:00:00] of move this texture around. Don't

[00:00:00] really need to do it in this particular

[00:00:00] case, but what I'm going to do is just

[00:00:00] take the projection box and just kind of

[00:00:00] align it over the case section here. And

[00:00:00] this is the result that I'm getting. So

[00:00:00] you can see it looks a lot better. So

[00:00:00] just once more, this is what we had

[00:00:00] under UV and you're getting some of this

[00:00:00] distortion here. And then here is what

[00:00:00] we get with trip planer. Looks a lot

[00:00:00] cleaner. Okay. So now I would like to

[00:00:00] have a different color here on this

[00:00:00] right side of the case. So let's do

[00:00:00] that. We can come over here to our layer

[00:00:00] stack and we can duplicate. I'm just

[00:00:00] going to rightclick here on the layer

[00:00:00] and choose duplicate layer. And now I

[00:00:00] need to change the color. So let's come

[00:00:00] over here to the material tab. And then

[00:00:00] we have that silicon color. So now I can

[00:00:00] just grab my color picker. And since I

[00:00:00] already have this value over here on the

[00:00:00] case, I can just simply select and pick

[00:00:00] from this case color. So we'll do that.

[00:00:00] And you can see that that sets the

[00:00:00] color. Another option that you have, if

[00:00:00] I open up here the color picker, you can

[00:00:00] see that we can also create swatches. So

[00:00:00] for example, let's say that I had a

[00:00:00] color that I wanted to work with and I

[00:00:00] wanted to save this. this I can just

[00:00:00] click this plus button and that'll

[00:00:00] create a swatch for me. So in my case I

[00:00:00] did create a swatch for this orange

[00:00:00] value which I want to use. So I can just

[00:00:00] click this button and that applies the

[00:00:00] color. So now we need to mask this

[00:00:00] corner of the case and we could do that

[00:00:00] using a layer mask as I shown

[00:00:00] previously. So with the layer selected

[00:00:00] we can come down and create another

[00:00:00] mask. However, there's another way to

[00:00:00] create masks and that's called using a

[00:00:00] geometry mask. So here on the layer, if

[00:00:00] we take a look, you'll notice that we

[00:00:00] have this square with a dash line. So I

[00:00:00] can select this thumbnail and that takes

[00:00:00] me into the geometry mask. And depending

[00:00:00] on how the model was created, you may

[00:00:00] see some mesh parts. Now, in the

[00:00:00] particular creation of this model in the

[00:00:00] 3D program, these mesh parts are

[00:00:00] separated onto different layers, and

[00:00:00] every 3D program kind of handles that

[00:00:00] differently. So again, like I said, it

[00:00:00] really depends on how the model was

[00:00:00] created. But in this case, I created it.

[00:00:00] So I knew that, you know, I would love

[00:00:00] to be able to select based on these

[00:00:00] different mesh parts. So what I can do

[00:00:00] is just simply click in the viewport to

[00:00:00] just unassign or mask various mesh

[00:00:00] parts. I could also just click here on

[00:00:00] these little check boxes. Another option

[00:00:00] is that I can use my left mouse button

[00:00:00] and I can select mesh parts. And if I

[00:00:00] want to invert this selection really

[00:00:00] quickly, I can use the alter command key

[00:00:00] and let go of my mouse and that will

[00:00:00] quickly select just this part. So now

[00:00:00] you can see here in the UI up here in

[00:00:00] the corner we now have this geometry

[00:00:00] mask which is showing one meaning that

[00:00:00] one mesh part is being used to create

[00:00:00] this mask for this layer. And this is

[00:00:00] like I said a geometry mask. So to get

[00:00:00] out of this mode I just simply need to

[00:00:00] come over here to the material icon and

[00:00:00] just click on it once. And now I've

[00:00:00] masked based on the geometry information

[00:00:00] that's in the 3D model. Okay. Okay, so

[00:00:00] now I'm going to rotate around to the

[00:00:00] back side of the case. We're going to

[00:00:00] add some additional details. Now, real

[00:00:00] quick, if you orbit around the back and

[00:00:00] everything looks really dark, if you

[00:00:00] recall earlier, we would come over to

[00:00:00] our display settings and again just make

[00:00:00] sure this environment alignment is set

[00:00:00] to camera. That way, the lighting is

[00:00:00] being adjusted from this camera

[00:00:00] perspective. Okay. So, now we're ready

[00:00:00] to add some details here to the back of

[00:00:00] the phone