STARR Method
Learning goals worked on: This was an unplanned task that I took over, it could be an extra Learning goal 4- Learning how to texture environmental prop assets.
Research methodology used: Practice-based research
I conducted practice-based research on how to integrate Substance Designer in my texturing workflow by creating custom materials and using them to uniquely texture assets inside Substance Painter.
I also deepened my knowledge of using Photoshop together with Substance Painter for speeding up my texturing workflow when having to create custom, more complex textures like signs and texture decals.
Situation: During week 17, I had to finalize the textures and models for the foliage from week 16 as first priority. After that, I worked on UV unwrapping and texturing the environmental props, modeled by Talitha. I was responsible for implementing the assets inside Unreal Engine 5 too, so Mark could procedurally scatter them and populate the city. Task(s): My main goal for this week was UV unwrapping and texturing all of the provided props by Talitha. Besides that, I was responsible for polishing out the foliage textures and texturing the backyard model for the house models from the previous week. I worked closely with Mark on deciding the textures that we needed for the props. I also assisted with implementing my work inside Unreal Engine 5.
Action(s): I started off the week by quickly finishing off the pending task of polishing the foliage from the previous week. I quickly added some textures to the tree models and created a grass texture which was used texturing the houses' backyard models. This (having backyards) was a concept we pitched couple of weeks ago to our client, Timothy, who liked the idea, so we made sure to implement it. The backyard model was provided by Talitha and I did the texturing part ( Figure 01).
Figure 01: A quick test to preview if the foliage and the backyard models were fitting well the art style
For texturing the fences, I tried out a new technique- I created wooden planks tiling texture in Substance Designer which I then used as a 'smart' material (material that can be mapped onto any model) inside Substance Painter ( Figure 02). This saved me from the pain of having to create the material from scratch in Painter. Definitely a technique I would use in the future when texturing !
Figure 02: The wooden planks material that I created and used for the fence model
With the foliage taken care of, I started working on UV unwrapping and texturing the props that we were going to use to populate the city with. I decided, after some research and for the purposes of optimization, divide the props into groups and make them share the same texture map. This way, instead of each prop being its own unique model with its own unique map, I could combine several props, all of them sharing the same texture maps. This technique saves on texture memory and draw calls made by the CPU (Figures 03,04 and 05).
For the texturing part, I tried out a technique for adding decals and text inside Substance Painter using anchor points (essentially a tool which reuses masks between different layers). This was mainly used for adding the garbage signs on the garbage bins.
Figures 02,03 and 04: Combined sets of props, all textured inside Substance Painter + Photoshop for adding decals and sign texts
Results: In week 17, I managed to finish texturing all of the environmental props together with the final polish pass of the foliage textures.
Reflection: During week 17, taking on texturing all of the props within limited amount of time proved to be challenging. I was also having some issues with baking the textures inside Substance Painter which was slowing me down even more. However, I did manage to finish everything on time. I also got more comfortable using Substance Painter together with Photoshop for texturing since I found specific use cases for each of the software which made my workflow a lot faster.
Resources used:
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