Blender cup 2018
This week I modelled a cup.
Wait, what? What year is it? 2017?
No, my dear readers. I went back to modelling simple shapes because a) I started gnawing my way through a new course at CG Cookie, and b) I finally decided to give Substance a chance. And since it is a very complex software, it would do me no good to start texturing a forest or a character in it, would it? Cups have now firmly established themselves as the artistic version of Hello world, so I might as well start there.
As a good obedient noob I started with a basic tutorial. Which ended up stealing most of my week. With just the weekend left to tackle the cup, I started writing a diary to document my progress.
Day 1: Imported the cup, saucer and table to Substance in an fbx file. Saucer looks weird. Went back to Blender and remodelled it from scratch. Twice.
Day 2: Baked the Substance project maps. Realized that I need two fbx files (high and low-res) if I want to bake normal maps. Deleted the Substance project, created files in Blender.
Day 3: Baked normal maps. They look weird. Tutorial suggests that high and low-res objects need to be in the same fbx file. Did that. Ended up with a cup that would seriously arouse Mr Picasso.
Day 5: Given up on normal maps and used only the high-res version. (Subsurf level 2 is not that bad.)
Day 7: Started painting the cup. The china material looks nice. Realized I have no way of selecting the inside of the cup. All attempts to isolate it have failed. Polygon fill tool selects polygons on the outside as well. Project scratched.
Day 12: Created two materials for the cup in Blender. Tried to bake ID masks in Substance but it doesn't recognize the materials. Materials identified as full containers instead. Burned the project.
Day 20: Returned to one material per object in Blender. Painted inside of the cup via vertex colours. Successfully baked the ID mask in Substance.
Day 25: ID mask shows occasional white spots. I'll fix that later.
Day 32: Created the basic coffee stains. Noticed a horrible seam inside the cup. Googled for half an hour and found nothing helpful except for "snap UVs to pixels". Project obliterated.
Day 40: Reworked UVs in Blender. Experimentally exported only the cup. It works! I'm saved! I have five hours of daylight left.
Day 47: Exported all three objects, re-did the cup materials. The seam is back! NOOOOO!
Day 48: I must have failed to save the Blender file before. Reworked UVs, exported again. Substance gives me an error. Forgot to tick "Only selected" when exporting. Exported again. Baked all the maps, re-created the materials. The seam is still there. Tri-planar doesn't help.
Day 150: Experimented with baking options of the masks. Accidentally removed the curvature map and the seam disappeared. I am onto something!
Day 213: Closer inspection revealed the option "Enable Seams" on the curvature map. Enabled by default. Why? Why would anyone do this? Are there seam-loving perverts hiding among us?
Day 325: Put everything else together in an hour. Sampled the colours from a picture of a coffee cup. Can't figure out the dark rim. I'm nearly out of time.
Day 367: Finally done. Exported the maps back to Blender and rendered a final image. The rim has odd artifacts but I have no strength left to investigate what caused them. Rendered another image in the Substance (Iray renderer) for comparison. All I want now is go to bed. But I feel I learnt something. I've become really good at... creating new Substance projects.
That's the short version of how well things went. In reality, there was about 20 more projects created and disposed off in an increasingly furious manner.
But the thing is... I really like Substance. Even though it might not look like that from the description above. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the lantern tutorial. (And I tweaked it a little bit: )
The problem seems to be the gray area between Blender and Substance. And between the chair and the keyboard. Yeah, mostly that one. I can't wait til I'm at least moderately proficient with the application. Then I'll be able to pull off all kinds of texturing magic—procedurally! Yeah. But until then I'm doomed to fail and fail again.
(That was an awfully gloomy ending, wasn't it. Well, what about some comparison to cheer you up, hmm?)
No, my dear readers. I went back to modelling simple shapes because a) I started gnawing my way through a new course at CG Cookie, and b) I finally decided to give Substance a chance. And since it is a very complex software, it would do me no good to start texturing a forest or a character in it, would it? Cups have now firmly established themselves as the artistic version of Hello world, so I might as well start there.
As a good obedient noob I started with a basic tutorial. Which ended up stealing most of my week. With just the weekend left to tackle the cup, I started writing a diary to document my progress.
***
Day 1: Imported the cup, saucer and table to Substance in an fbx file. Saucer looks weird. Went back to Blender and remodelled it from scratch. Twice.
Day 2: Baked the Substance project maps. Realized that I need two fbx files (high and low-res) if I want to bake normal maps. Deleted the Substance project, created files in Blender.
Day 3: Baked normal maps. They look weird. Tutorial suggests that high and low-res objects need to be in the same fbx file. Did that. Ended up with a cup that would seriously arouse Mr Picasso.
Day 5: Given up on normal maps and used only the high-res version. (Subsurf level 2 is not that bad.)
Day 7: Started painting the cup. The china material looks nice. Realized I have no way of selecting the inside of the cup. All attempts to isolate it have failed. Polygon fill tool selects polygons on the outside as well. Project scratched.
Day 12: Created two materials for the cup in Blender. Tried to bake ID masks in Substance but it doesn't recognize the materials. Materials identified as full containers instead. Burned the project.
Day 20: Returned to one material per object in Blender. Painted inside of the cup via vertex colours. Successfully baked the ID mask in Substance.
Day 25: ID mask shows occasional white spots. I'll fix that later.
Day 32: Created the basic coffee stains. Noticed a horrible seam inside the cup. Googled for half an hour and found nothing helpful except for "snap UVs to pixels". Project obliterated.
Day 40: Reworked UVs in Blender. Experimentally exported only the cup. It works! I'm saved! I have five hours of daylight left.
Day 47: Exported all three objects, re-did the cup materials. The seam is back! NOOOOO!
Day 48: I must have failed to save the Blender file before. Reworked UVs, exported again. Substance gives me an error. Forgot to tick "Only selected" when exporting. Exported again. Baked all the maps, re-created the materials. The seam is still there. Tri-planar doesn't help.
Day 150: Experimented with baking options of the masks. Accidentally removed the curvature map and the seam disappeared. I am onto something!
Day 213: Closer inspection revealed the option "Enable Seams" on the curvature map. Enabled by default. Why? Why would anyone do this? Are there seam-loving perverts hiding among us?
Day 325: Put everything else together in an hour. Sampled the colours from a picture of a coffee cup. Can't figure out the dark rim. I'm nearly out of time.
Day 367: Finally done. Exported the maps back to Blender and rendered a final image. The rim has odd artifacts but I have no strength left to investigate what caused them. Rendered another image in the Substance (Iray renderer) for comparison. All I want now is go to bed. But I feel I learnt something. I've become really good at... creating new Substance projects.
***
That's the short version of how well things went. In reality, there was about 20 more projects created and disposed off in an increasingly furious manner.
But the thing is... I really like Substance. Even though it might not look like that from the description above. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the lantern tutorial. (And I tweaked it a little bit: )
The problem seems to be the gray area between Blender and Substance. And between the chair and the keyboard. Yeah, mostly that one. I can't wait til I'm at least moderately proficient with the application. Then I'll be able to pull off all kinds of texturing magic—procedurally! Yeah. But until then I'm doomed to fail and fail again.
(That was an awfully gloomy ending, wasn't it. Well, what about some comparison to cheer you up, hmm?)
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