Setting Up LEGO Generator in Substance 3D Designer

Introduction

Hi everyone, My name is Rahul Bairagya. I'm 24 years old and I am from India. From a very young age, I have been doing art and sketching. As I grew up, I started playing video games and thought about how these things are created.

Later I learned 3D modeling and texturing and started my first job in Technicolor as a Junior 3D Artist. Currently, I'm working in Little Red Zombies as a 3D Character Artist with the mindset of creating high-quality materials and textures.

How Rahul Learnt Substance 3D Designer

I've learned Substance 3D Designer all by myself and created various types of materials. I am always willing to learn and adapt to the latest tools and techniques the industry has to offer. I always try to find a different approach to get the solution. Substance 3D Designer makes me feel like I can understand it and I know what I'm doing. I am good at technical stuff. I have a good understanding of nodes and basic coding and management. 

Rahul's Experience

I've worked on various types of projects till now such as:

• NBA 2K20;
• Rainbow Six Extraction;
• Gangstar: New York;
• The Crew 2 Remaster;
• EA Sports FIFA 23;
• And a few unannounced projects.

How Rahul Started Working with Substance 3D Designer

Beginning in 2022, I decided to start learning martial arts and Substance 3D Designer. I was so excited to work with pixels and nodes that my learning never stopped. I used many courses and watched live sessions to understand how others create great materials. One thing I realized is that almost everyone has their own unique way of creating things.

I always try to make my nodes easy to understand, maintain a clean workflow, keep my graphs well-organized, and optimize to the best of my ability.

Rahul's Favourite Tools

My main common nodes are Blend, Level, Transformation 3D, Shape, Blur, and Bevel. Few other nodes that I use mostly are Curvature Smooth, Edge Detect, Flood Fill, Histogram Scan, Non-uniform Blur, Slope Blur, Swirl, Trapezoid, etc.

How Rahul Got Accustomed to Substance 3D Software

I have assigned shortcuts to most of my nodes to ease my work and I'm using many custom nodes to save some extra time. A few of the custom nodes are Dilation or Erosion, Multi Blend, Precise Selection, Advance Shape Generator, etc.

After a lot of practice and experiments, I can say that I'm well aware of what I want to do and how to plan before starting any new project. I'll explain more about planning at the end in my advice section.

LEGO Generator

It had been a long time since I had created something for my personal portfolio, and I was struggling to come up with a good idea. Then my wife, Haimonti Das, who is also a 3D artist, suggested trying something with pixels. This sparked the idea of a LEGO Generator, and after experimenting with different methods to convert images into pixels, I finally created a beautiful and useful tool.

The main purpose of this graph is to produce LEGO shapes and apply the desired colors using custom nodes. These nodes distribute colors to individual shapes. Here is what the main graph looks like: 

Regarding the custom node, some pixel processing is used to obtain accurate pixels for the area around individual LEGO shapes. Only two nodes are used – Warp and Blend.

The Warp node's intensity is linked with pixel processor nodes:

The opacity of the Blend node is also linked to the pixel processor. Each individual blend has different values set for opacity:

and so on...

The last blend has some other values:

Challenges Faced During the Making of The Generator

The main challenge was figuring out how to convert image data to pixels and assign them to LEGO shapes. It took me three days (approximately 2-3 hours each day) to work through this process. As I made progress, things became clearer, and now this tool works perfectly.

John Wick Renders

After completing the generator, I thought about what would be the best way to present it. I decided to use a great movie poster that I had recently seen, featuring the iconic John Wick (Keanu Reeves) as the subject. 

For the renders, I used Marmoset Toolbag with a simple light setup and regular material setup to render the Displaced Plane.

Post-Production

To make the render more beautiful and interesting I did some post-production in Photoshop. Here are some settings that I've used (they can be different based on the image):

Substance 3D Designer

I would say that with each new update of SD, you can explore new techniques and discover more possibilities. Therefore, to master SD, keep practicing and never stop exploring new nodes. Always try a different approach to make your work easier.

First things first, learn all the compositing nodes before jumping into pixel and value processors. I know it feels awesome to do the math and manipulate color using values, but trust me, you can achieve great output just by using compositing nodes. Once you become familiar with using basic nodes, things will be easier, and you can dive into more in-depth techniques.

How to Stay Motivated

When I started learning SD, many people told me it was very difficult and that I wouldn't find proper guidance to learn the software. However, don't let that demotivate you from learning this amazing software. Yes, there may be less information available online, but that doesn't mean you can't learn on your own. Once you create your first material and publish it online, you'll find that many artists can offer great advice. Learn from your mistakes and keep improving. SD is not like sculpting or hand painting. It's a completely different approach to creating beautiful-looking materials.

Advice for New Users

There are very useful tutorials available on the Adobe Substance 3D YouTube channel to help you understand the basics and become familiar with the UI. Once you understand the basics of SD, try to save time by assigning shortcuts to your daily use nodes, and create custom nodes, even if they are very basic. This can save you a lot of time in the long run.

Consider purchasing courses and studying them. There are many live sessions available online where you can learn how other artists create materials with their style. Always organize your nodes so that others can understand what you did, and optimize your work so that your graph won't be too heavy over time.

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to showcase my work in this article. It was a great experience sharing my thoughts and workflow. To check out my other works, you can visit my ArtStation page.

Rahul Bairagya, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Theodore McKenzie