Toy train

Rules for this week were simple: create an object in Blender and paint it manually in Substance Painter. No pre-made materials, no procedurals, just brushes. And a lot of patience. So, how did it go?

Well, I failed. I painted TWO objects. Heh.

I created the rug as an afterthought, but I thought it would be interesting to see if I could also hand-paint it. Turns out I can. But let's explain things in a proper order.

I modelled the train in Blender 2.8. I was curious to see how far they've got with stabilising it. And I have to admit I'm really impressed. Maybe I got especially lucky this time, but I didn't experience a single crash. I also had a really good time creating the shapes. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that they are not the most complicated shapes in the world, but still. I really enjoyed it. And it's even more surprising when I consider that I returned to the right-click select. I watched a few videos explaining the benefits and what I saw persuaded me. The most compelling reason for me is to be able to use the new tool system they are making for 2.8 where you can assign one of many tools to your left mouse button, semi-permanently. That could be a real time-saver once I get the hang of it.

Another reason why I wanted to use 2.8 in this project was that each primitive object now comes with default UVs. I thought I could use this to speed things up, but in the end I had to place the seams myself and unwrap everything manually. Somehow, the default UVs didn't update and showed quite a bit of stretching. That's a shame, but I wouldn't give up on it just yet. It's perfectly possible that it will get improved in the stable version, or, more likely, it was a mess up on my part. Let's wait and see.

One more thing I wanted to say about the UVs is that thanks to the multi-object editing in 2.8 I didn't need the UV Atlas (it is likely not yet updated anyway). I just selected all the objects and refreshed the UVs. Everything got a nice place in the grid and I could export to Substance. Only not in fbx format. That seems to have issues at the moment, so I used obj. Not much of a difference except for the export setup. Painter handled it gracefully enough—but it seems that the exported camera is not recognised in obj and I'll have to make without it until the fbx is back in the arena.

With just the ID maps baked in Painter, I finally started stretching my brushes. I needed a tutorial refresher on how to go about things, but in the end it was mostly me getting a proper feel for things. (Read: lots of CTRL+Z and swearing). I made three texture sets: one for the train, one for blocks and one for the rug. Here is an overview of the train one:

That's not so bad, is it? Well, they are mostly folders, mind you, so who know what's hiding in there?

Holy brush with a blunt end, that's a lot of layers! Didn't you say you were just going to paint things? Yeah, and I did! But I also wanted to be able to adjust colours later, which is something I wouldn't be able to do if I just started painting into the first layer that came for the ride.

I'll walk you through it. Every wooden piece has two parts: base wood (made up of base solid colour and two layers with darker lines) and a paint finish (made up of base colour, colour variation and a height information for the peeling effect). The "Damage" layer specifies where the wood is poking through the paint—and yes, that is also hand-painted. (Pain in the palette, really.) To stop things from spreading uncontrollably, I had to use the ID mask and isolate each part through the colour selection. That did keep things under control, but it also increased the number of folders and layers (you DON'T want to see the full tree). And, as a (rather disgusting) cherry on top, I painted a layer of dirt, giving it that extra bit of realism. Or so I hope.

I did something slightly different for the rug (I started this project mainly to practice things, remember?). I picked a nice flower-like alpha, loaded it into a brush stencil and quickly covered the whole piece with the pattern. Then I just increased the height, and voilà, a rug was born. I really expected it to be harder. Huh. 

So, there you have it. My first purely-for-practice project (that didn't turn half as bad as I thought it would). I think I'll do more of these in the future. But next week it's going to be the start of the lighting class. Not sure what to expect yet, so I'll have to wait until Tuesday evening to find out. And then panic because I had a slow start and don't know what to make. So, business as usual. See you next week!

P. S. As a bonus, there is the first render I made, thinking it was a final one. Silly me. (It does show some of the areas in a better light, though.)