Understanding new Textures feature (1.69+)

Tips, Tutorials and Help
1

Hey all,
Holger demo’s this new feature on his YouTube vids and I was pretty excited.
Why?
Previously I’ve used sketchfabs PBR workflow (with varying success) which I think is based on my limited understanding of the process of how texturing works. (It’s a broad topic etc)

Up til recently I’ve also been using, shaper3d to model something, brining it in to ProCreate to paint on. Which is also impressive and a great workflow.

But seeing this new nomad feature excited me.

From polyhaven.com I’ve downloaded maybe about 200 sets of 4K textures.
In each, I have a DIFF, NORMAL, ROUGH, DISPLACEMENT map.
Files app in iOS can’t open the NORMAL file (.exr), understood.

Looking at the import / select options in nomad, I can see ability to import NORMAL maps.
But when I do so, I get this, which … is either not working, or… I don’t understand a next step to take.

image
image1920×1439 237 KB

A 7min vid (sorry!) of my attempts with these features, to explain the problems:

So, it might just be that my texture sets are a bit hit and miss (possible), though Polyhavens demonstration of the textures (they preview them on a sphere on their website) look amazing, with all the depth and height you’d like.

Am i just expecting too much too soon here? Unrealistic expectations (it’s a new feature).

In summary, this is how I’m doing things:

  • bring DIFF map in to COLOUR slot (looks great, though some orientation issues)?

  • bring ROUGHNESS map in to `ROUGHNESS slot (imports ok, but , even after moving a light source around it, I can’t see too much difference)

  • the other 2 maps I have in my packs are:

  • a DISPLACEMENT map (which I’m not sure how to use exactly)

  • and the NORMAL map (which had the problem I screenshot above)

Other options are the METALNESS and EMISSIVE slots>

Can anyone, pardon my bad joke, shine a light on this for me? :man_facepalming:
Any help appreciated guys. Many thanks for reading.

1 Like
2

Use png instead of exr

3

Import texture is a Awesome function! Thanks, Stéphane!

4

You can choose the format while download from Polyheaven.com,I download them all with PNG format.

Snip20221130_24
Snip20221130_24680×1208 134 KB

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5

I think these PBR textures from the likes of Polyhaven will only become truly viable if Stephane implements a triplanar projection system such as that used by Substance Painter so that textures are mapped evenly and seamlessly over the object regardless of how disjointed the UV layout is.

very-exciting-the-matrix

4 Likes
6

Not sure I understand what you mean.
Are you referring to that problem I mentioned above when I talked about the way they don’t look quite right (that stepped graphic issue) I showed in my video?

7

Thank you, I’ll try it.
I began doing this but then quickly easier how huge even 1 single download can be. (Eg 400mb for 1 tecture pack in PNG format). It would fill the iPad storage in no time so I’ve opted for JPG for now.

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8

Thank you for the tip. As mentioned below, I’m going to go with JPG downloads I think as the PNGs stack up to gigabytes very quickly.

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9

If you look at the UV layout of your box you’ll see that layout will have sections that are twisted in UV space, your texture is projected onto those cut out UV ‘islands’ so they will never line up.

Substance Painter Summer 2018: Transform manipulator Triplanar - YouTube this explains the principles of Triplanar projection (not yet available in Nomad) but you can see that texture is projected onto the object from all angles and wraps to the object seamlessly regardless of the UV layout.

without triplaner projection you’d need very neat and perfectly aligned UVs

sorry if that doesn’t make sense, easier to demonstrate in substance but don’t have time to spare for a screen record

10

You can take lower resolution, 1k or 2k.
Note that in 3d the image are uncompressed, so a jpg or png will take the same amount of memory in your scene.

Otherwise yes it’s all about uv.

11

Greatful for the explanation.
I tried to understand but yeah, without seeing the distorted or trusted image right in front of me in having trouble grasping the idea.

The triplanar projection video you linked I understood no probs. In use example, it’s kind a kind of shield model/getting and he just drags the sliders to map the texture.

SketchUp had something like this in a plug-in form. This kind of method looks ideal. I guess it still really days right now but glad to see the textures feature getting underway.

Got some reason, my brain just keeps forgetting the usual nomad method of mapping… I get confused as to which tool to pick, be it brush, Clayton, stamp. And then which nervy at the top to choose to start picking your texture file.

I think it might be a case of: you know when you don’t take the time to learn a foundational workflow because it doesn’t fit your usual way of thinking, scenarios…

I need to go back and relearn really.

Question to the developer…
Do you intend adding slots for bump maps?
In my limited understanding, bump maps can give greater depth than normal maps?

12

Bump maps aren’t really a thing anymore, displacement maps are more useful when it comes to accurate sculpt detail…

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13

Thanks for this link mate, it really helped my understanding. :open_hands:t3::open_hands:t3:

14

Hey folks, hope everyone okay out there today, as Jack Burton would say.

Thanks to your great help, I’ve been re-downloading 4K jpg textures from polyhaven.

I’ve been trying out various textures, flooring etc. and currently have a question about a mud texture I’m playing with.

Wonder if anyone can help?

15

Make a new layer, tap the 3 dots to drop down menu of channels, drop colour to 0, select paint brush and change colour to, say black, and drop roughness to 0 so that the paint in is gloss black then paint where you want wetness - colour will be ignored

Ideally there would be a spec/gloss map in that texture bundle but that isn’t catered for in nomad yet.

Hope that helps

1 Like
16

Hi there, I like the logic here. Very smart!

I might be doing something wrong however, as I can’t seem to get a result:

17

Your brush is set to erase on the left hand slider bar

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Textures completely override vertex painting, except for color that is multiplied against the texture.
So smudge and paint can only works on vertex color.
Layers only handles vertex painting, not textures.

You are probably looking for texture editing but you can’t do that in Nomad.
Procreate allows you to paint color, roughness and metalness.

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I don’t think that’s how it works.
If you paint with active textures on a layer with vertex color, then you cannot change the roughness of the roughness texture. At most you can create a kind of multiply effect, that’s why Stephan also outsourced the copy of the vertex colors to a hidden layer when baking the texture. I think.

20

Sorry, my bad! I didn’t realise the vertex painting techniques were nullified by using UVs I don’t personally use them due the hassle involved in retopo and UV layouts