LogInIntroduction
Hi, my name is Dave Miragliotta. I've been in the game industry for over 10 years. I've worked at Respawn Entertainment as a Senior Environment Artist for the past 6 years. I've had the pleasure of working on two Star Wars titles, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Since my last interview for my Lego Project, I've been expanding my knowledge of Substance 3D Designer and getting into the Pixel Processor node.
I was inspired to start my Train Car project because my family and I were taking holiday photos, and they happened to be on a train. I was looking at the exterior of the train, and I thought it could be a fun project to do in 3D Designer. I took some pictures of the train before we left and away I went creating the material.
The Train Car Project
For this material, I wanted some painted metal damage with some rust incorporated in. I started with the base color. I originally chose a greyish-blue color, but I decided to go with green instead. I liked the way it looked with the rust I would add later.
For the rust damage, I started with a Clouds 2 node with a Threshold node to get some sharp shapes. Once I got the shapes I wanted, I duplicated that setup and adjusted the Threshold node to get a bit of an outline of the shape I already made. This would give a sort of bubbling look around the original shapes. I also wanted to set up some color variation to the paint so I used a Dirt Generator node with a custom mask to add in some dirt/grunge detail. Adding the rust and dirt weathering details, I think really made the material more interesting.
As for graffiti decals, I made them in Photoshop and added them to 3D Designer. The dirt and rust setups were probably the most time-consuming. Getting the right look for both of these things was huge for the overall look and how I wanted the material to look.
This material does not have many parameters to adjust. I was just trying to see if I could get the look of a train car as is.
Rendering
The Marmoset Toolbag setup was pretty simple. I figured out which backdrop I wanted to use, which ended up being an alley construction highway. I then created a cylinder, sphere, and plane camera. Then, I configured each camera's settings to get the best look for each shape. Some of the key settings I adjusted were exposure, mid-tones, clarity, and saturation.
This material took about four hours to complete. The main challenge was getting the look of the painted metal rust damage. I really wanted this material to have some interesting weathering detail. Getting the look of the dirt and grime was key also. It took a little bit to get the look I wanted, but I think in the end, it came together. I would say getting the look of the weathering and the graffiti was what I enjoyed the most about this project. Adding these details was important because of the interest it added to the material.
Conclusion
For anybody trying to get into Substance 3D Designer, I would suggest watching tutorials by Daniel Thiger. His tutorials taught me so much when I was first getting into making materials with 3D Designer
After watching them, experimenting on your own is really important. I love getting in there and trying some new ways to use certain nodes and I can't tell you how many times I've had happy accidents. At the end of the day, it's all about practice. The more materials you make, the better you'll get.