Here we go again, the first post of the year up on the website. We are going to start up with something that i consider to be the biggest thing to happen in years. This of course is the acquisition of Quixel by Epic. This means that now everyone can be using it inside UE4 for FREE of charge. Now in case you don’t know what exactly is Megascans, it’s a library of photoscanned materials. This huge 11,000+ library will be useful for any project that you might want to undertake, being it an interior or exterior.
Where do i Start ?
Even though it’s a pretty straight forward process, there are a few technical snafus to get around. In the video we will start from the basics of how to create an account, how to download and link your Bridge to UE4. We will also see how we can control the different parameters inside UE4. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words but a video a million. So instead of explaining about it you can check it out in the video below.
So if you’ve watched the video you get the idea of just how powerful this is, and how it can help you in your projects.
Having said all that, i would like to say Happy Holidays to everyone that is reading this during the Holidays. But if you happen to be reading this later on, then have a happy day and keep on learning.
The road to photorealistic renders is a long one and it begins with having great materials. Knowing this fact, we will spend all of our focus in this course to make sure our materials look top notch.
Who would benefit from this ?
This course is meant for people that want to improve the quality of their renders. This means that anyone working in visualization or environment creation. So if your renders have a flat feel to them, and you want to make them more realistic this is the right course for you.
So how does it work ?
Since Material creation is one HUGE topic i have made it into a couple of different chapters. Each of those chapters will cover a different category of materials. As they stand right now we have Fabrics, Leather, Metals, Stone, Wood and Miscellaneous categories. Each material that was created was placed into the corresponding category for ease of following. Below in the videos you can see how some of the lessons are structured like.
First one is a video from the metal chapter:
Next one up is the Wood Chapter:
And third one is about fabric:
So is that all ?
If you are reading this at the time of writing ( September 20, 2019 ) there are 20 videos in the course. But the thing with materials is that as i said is a vast subject. So i have quite a few more videos to add as requested by some of the people who were awesome enough to give me the ideas on the Discord channel and YouTube chat panel. So hopefully by the end this course will be a hige repository of material creation tutorials that will span in the 35-50 video lessons.
Ok, what do i need to know to be able to follow along?
The course takes into account that you have the basic understanding of the user interface of 3ds Max, and Vray. So if you have those installed you shouldn’t have any issues with following the lessons. The way they have been structured is to make them easy to follow even for a beginner. What is worth noting here is that the lessons were recorded with 3ds Max 2018 and Vray Next 4.20 so if you are using a different version you might see some minor cosmetic changes.
Sounds cool, where do i get it?
The course was placed up on Gumroad and you can get it from the button at the start of the post or the one bellow. The way it works is you will get access to download all the videos and files, and you will have access to all the files there posted now as well as any future updates to the course.
Today’s tutorial is going to cover a pretty interesting topic, and that’s texturing. I got a mail from one of the subscribers asking me how to texture an asset by hand in Vray. Back in the days, and to a degree even today this would have been done procedurally in 3ds Max. But since now we have access to a more texturing specific software, why not use it. Having said that, today’s videos will cover substance painter and how to create multiple surfaces into one material. For ease of following i’ve split this into two parts covering different topics.
Creating the Base Material
Just to make it easier to follow i chose to use a model of the most common teapot. All i did was combine it together, do a quick unwrap and export it out. Now i want to note that having a proper UVW unwrap is a MUST if you are going to use Substance Painter.
Having said that in the first video we will focus on how to create the base layer of the pot. This will allow us to see how we can control information from different layers. How to limit certain information to particular layers. All in all these are things you want to know before you start on anything more complex. In the video here you will see me do just that.
Creating The Glazing Layer
In the second part of this topic we will cover how to create the glazing. This will mean that we have to create the material for it. Then we will see how to control where that glazing appears, as well as manually control that. So if this sounds like something you would want to see check out the video below.
And with that out of the way, we are more or less done. If you are still reading this it means your interest was peaked so now you have to go and share it and hopefully it will reach someone else who might find it helpful as well.
So until next time, stay safe, keep learning and PEACE.
