Edward Quintero, who was a part of the Robo Recallteam, published a post on using Substance Painterfor the creation of the Epic Games’ first VR title. The challenge here was to make a VR game that doesn’t look like a VR game. Creating hiqh-quality AAA visuals for virtual reality isn’t easy as VR is about higher technical constraints. Some people can get nauseous in VR if the game isn’t running at a high frame rate, so the team had to choose the right tools.
,
,
One of these right tools was Allegorithmic’s Painter. The team chose it because of its ability to visualize the materials and textures of the assets in a PBR lighting workflow.
,
,
One of the first lessons was learning how to design effective materials for VR. Having the ability to walk around your design was a total trip that put things in a whole new perspective, so the challenge was making the characters pop in the virtual environment.
The solution was creating a variety of materials with varying specular attributes. This meant that creating a balance of what is shiny vs dull, makes a world of difference in creating a feeling of dimension in VR if done successfully. As you walk around a character for example, your eye catches the varying difference of glints and surface details that help sell realism.
Smart Masks
,
,
Another important feature of Painter was the use of Smart Masks. These are procedural masks that give you a formulated way to create scratches, including wear and tear. I was amazed how quickly you could create a complex look without having to manually paint every surface of your 3D model.
It’s not to say that Smart Masks are a complete solution though. The masks get you a quick result, but it was up to me to manually edit to fight off a procedural look. Smart masks are a fantastic tool, but ultimately it was my responsibility to direct the results and inject personal style into the work.
Source: 80.lv