Enhancing Material Workflow with Quixel Mixer 2020

Introduction

Hey guys! I'm Christopher Evans, a 3D artist based out of Orange County. Currently, I'm working at Turtle Rock Studios as an Environment Artist/World Builder. In the past, I have shipped such titles as Street Fighter V and Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite as well as worked on VR titles The Walk VR Experience and The Martian. I am currently working on Back 4 Blood. I got into 3D art when I enrolled in The Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood, CA. Not knowing what I wanted to do during school, I eventually landed on game art due to my love for gaming and the pipeline behind it.

Discovering Quixel Mixer

I got into Mixer by just being a curious artist. It was a new tool at that moment and I wanted to see what it could do.  At the time it was just the scanned materials and the ability to blend between them to make custom surfaces. Using it at work for quick iteration was nice and easy. 

Then they started to introduce some procedural items to the Mixer, which caught my eye. It was nice to have a procedural tool that allowed you to paint in detail manually. Also, you can utilize their scans to enhance your procedural materials while using the procedural stack to mask things in and out. They go hand in hand together quite well. It's extremely non-destructive and you can learn it within a day or two just by playing around. I initially thought of it just as a way to blend scanned materials or bring in your own textures and finesse them, but it grew to be so much more.

Mixer 2020

The newest installment of the Quixel Mixer is just plain AWESOME! Like I have said. before, it was a tool to help me finesse my materials. Now it's become one of my primary software to create them. One of the biggest takeaways would have to be that I don't need to leave the program to finish anything. 

I can always bring stuff in if needed but I don't have to rely on external sources. It’s quite nice not to bounce back and forth between programs. Also, I can now send my work directly to my rendering engine of choice utilizing the Bridge. 

The new Mixer 2020 can now aid any type of texturing pipelines that you need it to, from material blending to texturing full assets. The UI is extremely simple and things are easily findable, not cluttered and straight to the point. Not only do I think it is one of the best libraries to use for texture, but it also has the ability to resurface its scanned models. Or even turn a realistic scanned model into a stylized one. 

They have some great smart material presets that are easily adjustable, similar to what was in the Suite. This also goes for tillable materials. It's easy to import your own surface, import sculpt data and even images. Using all of what Mixer can do to push it further with rapid iteration and tools you can make some sweet art.

General Workflow for Materials

I always gather reference first and make sure I understand what I'm looking at. Then I start my process by quick iteration in Mixer. It's just a bunch of back and forth until I get the desired look. My workflow is quite simple. It all just starts with some basic shapes with multiple layers.

Mixer's Possibilities

I believe that a lot of materials can be created using Mixer whether they're procedural or not. The possibilities are almost endless and there are very few limitations. You get the option to use scans, 3D paint, or generate materials procedurally. When it comes to the texturing side of things, we have seen just how powerful and awesome this software can be both in realistic and stylized art. There will always be a learning curve, but I think that Mixer has a small one.

Christopher Evans, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Kirill Tokarev