How to Create Hand-Painted Lighting Using Substance 3D Painter

Introduction

I'm Matheus Elias, a 3D Environment/Prop Artist with professional experience in 3D since 2020. My passion for video games and art started at a young age and shaped my career path. I owe my entry into the game industry to friends who guided me through the PBR pipeline and helped me understand the intricacies of creating art for games.

Throughout my career, I have gained valuable experience working on projects such as Horizon Chase 2, Miraculous – Paris Under Siege, Park Beyond, God of Rock, Override 2: Super Mech League, and Project Wingman. Currently, I am part of the team at Ignite Games Studios, where I contribute models for games. These experiences have allowed me to enhance my skills in PBR, hand-painted, gradient map, and tileable texture techniques.

The Hand-Painted Revolver Project

I started this project with the goal of learning hard-surface techniques in ZBrush, which I later intended to use for painting studies. I followed Milad Kambari's excellent course to learn the hard-surface modeling pipeline in ZBrush. 

During the process, I made some adjustments to the model to incorporate the techniques I learned, ultimately preparing it for texture painting.

Modeling

I use Maya for retopology and UV unwrapping. For this specific model, I chose to preserve as much of the silhouette from the high poly as possible. When I started the model, the main goal was to use it for hand-painted texture study. For the UVs, my focus was to maintain consistent texel density, and I applied the Straighten tool to all the UV shells.

Retopology using Maya:

Straighten UV Shells:

Texturing

For the start of a hand-painted texture, I use a smart material in Substance 3D Painter to create the base. Typically, I configure the generators to rely only on curvature and ambient occlusion (AO), opting for slightly darker colors. This approach gives me greater flexibility when adding hand-painted lighting later.

When starting a painting, I like to break the process into clear steps:
1. Add lighting
2. Refine the edges (highlight and border)
3. Final details

Here's a tip for painting lighting: use the light generators in Substance 3D Painter as a reference to guide your work. They're great for creating a base, but you don't need to follow them 100%. It's always a good idea to experiment and tweak the lighting to achieve the best possible result.

Now comes the fun part! Using the light reference, I like to start blocking out the initial shapes of the painted lighting. Always remember to check the macro view of your painting – zoom out to make the model small and ensure the overall readability of the design is still working.

Be patient and try adding the lighting gradually, making sure to illuminate the entire model. Avoid getting stuck on one part of the model for too long.

For highlights, I prefer to avoid straight, continuous lines. I try to follow the same logic as the base lighting, adding details gradually and constantly checking how they work on a macro level.

At the final stage of the model, I like to introduce subtle color variations in specific areas. I typically use colors in overlay mode, carefully adjusting them to ensure they blend harmoniously and enhance the model's overall look.

Lighting & Rendering

When rendering hand-painted models in Marmoset Toolbag, I usually remove all light influence from the skylight and set the base color as emissive. Then, it's a matter of making the necessary post-effect adjustments, and it's ready for rendering.

Conclusion

I believe that the first step for creating cool and engaging models is to work on something you genuinely like or find appealing. If it's for study purposes, focus on projects that offer valuable learning opportunities. For beginners, it's essential to concentrate on consistent practice and seek out people or communities to get constructive feedback and guidance for improvement. And most importantly, have fun!

Matheus Elias, 3D Artist