Intro to Substance Painter - Creating Normal Maps

Name: Intro to Substance Painter - Creating Normal Maps
Rating: 4.5 (15 reviews)

Creating Normal Maps for Hard Surface Objects

Created byDavid Bittorf

Last updated 9/2020

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

How to Bake Maps
Use Mirroring
Radial Symmetry
Import Custom Text
Create Straight Lines
Use Stroke Spaceing
Filters
Exporting Maps

Course content

1 section • 12 lectures • 1h 41m total length

Introduction0:38
Learn to create normal maps in Substance Painter by detailing a motorcycle, using selection, mirroring, radial symmetry, filters, and masking, with Photoshop integration for precise normal map placement.
001 Overview6:08
Explore normal maps to add depth without modeling. Compare the difference and learn to create and manage texture sets in Maya and Substance Painter, including UV layout and FBX export.
002 Baking Maps9:55
Bake maps for the motorcycle model in Substance Painter using a 4096 resolution. Bake all texture sets to generate normal maps, world space normal, curvature, and ambient occlusion.
003 Substance Normal Intro12:01
Begin with the normal map workflow in substance painter, using height and normal channels on a selected texture set, painting bolts, grooves, and masks with alpha brushes.
004 Normal Mapping Motor13:00
Enhance the motor’s normal detail by adjusting the normal map and height, adding bolts with circular alphas, and using symmetry in 3d and 2d views to refine texture and grip.
005 Using Photoshop14:27
Create tire tread patterns in Photoshop, export as PNG, and bake them into a normal map in Substance Painter using a height map on a fill layer.
006 Radial Symmetry7:39
Learn to create evenly spaced radial patterns in Substance Painter by configuring the symmetry plane, centering the axes, and expanding copies to 16 while using height and normal only.
007 Stitching3:41
Apply stitching to a basket by selecting a stitch brush, enabling symmetry, and placing stitches along the bottom edge with precise stroke spacing.
008 Custom Text14:17
Create custom text in Photoshop for a license plate, export as a PNG, and apply it as a height/normal map in Substance Painter using a fill layer.
009 Frame Start9:03
Continue painting normals on the frame with symmetry enabled, stamping handlebars and bolts, masking overlaps with black masks, and refining with 2d and 3d views and radial symmetry.
010 Frame Finish7:39
Create frame normals and height, apply mirror symmetry, draw straight lines and X marks with brushes and spacing, then apply blur and filters on new layers to enhance depth.
011 Exporting Maps3:15
Export normal maps from Substance Painter by exporting textures for the motorcycle, organizing into a normals folder, and removing non-normal maps to keep only the normals.

Requirements

None

Description

Creating Normal Maps - Substance Painter Tutorial
[1hrs 41min] Project Files Included

This tutorial will walk you through how to create normal maps inside of Substance Painter. Learn how to Bake Maps, Use Mirroring, Radial Symmetry, Importing Custom Text, Masking, Creating Straight Lines, Using Stroke Spacing, Exporting Maps and more. By the end of the lesson you will have the skills necessary to create complex normal maps on your own hard surface models.

Files:
FBX, Maya (2020) files and Photoshop files.

Video Tutorials
There are 11 Video Tutorials averaging about 10 minutes per video. These can be viewed in order or feel free to jump into any lesson to just learn a specific technique.

This is part of the Creating Advanced Hard Surface Vehicles in Maya Series:
The series is designed to show the workflow from Modeling to Rendering and Lighting but any part can be viewed as a stand alone lesson. Other Lessons that will continue on what you learned here will included Modeling, UV Mapping, Creating Color IDs, Materials in Substance, and Rendering and Lighting. You will be provided the proper starting files to follow along.

Who this course is for:

Beginner to Advanced Substance Painter Students