3DCREATIVE MAGAZINE | UV mapping a real-time asset
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Applying the normal map: Back in 3ds Max, combine the low resolution meshes into one asset and apply a new blank material. In this material, give it a flat color, nothing that’s going to distract you from viewing the normal map. In the bump slot, apply a Normal Bump material and locate your saved combined normal map PSD. Make sure the bump map has 100% Strength so you can see the full normal map. Now it’s in 3ds Max you can look for any errors or overly strong areas that you can tone down or paint out. We can make changes in Substance Painter later, but it’s best to do this now if anything is spotted.
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Ambient occlusion bake: I like to bake out an ambient occlusion (AO) map using mental ray in 3ds Max. I like the results it gives me and we can also use this map in Substance Painter later to help us with texturing. Substance Painter does bake out its own AO Maps, which are very quick and do a good job, but I just like mental ray’s versions better. With the asset selected and ‘Render to Texture’ open, add an AO element and make sure ‘Using Existing Channel’ is set to 1. I set the resolution to 2048 as this will be good enough for our asset, and I also set the samples to 1024. This will increase rendering times but the quality will be much better and I don’t mind waiting.
View the normal map in 3ds Max for signs of errors
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Baked ambient occlusion map: In this image you can see the final AO bake from mental ray. The image is very clean and you can see nice falloffs of light and dark. Notice how the normal map has also played a part in the rendering and the deep normal map data has been occluded (darkened), helping to improve the detail and realism in the textures later on.
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Adding the wood texture: I render out the UVs from 3ds Max to use as a guide for our texturing. I also bring in the AO map to help me see where the details are. Using textures. com I found a suitable wood texture – in this case, an old weathered wood will suit us. I then use the UV map to make sure the wood details are lined up correctly. I also add the wood for the handle.
Rendering out an AO map in 3ds Max using mental ray
I texture the wood in Photoshop so I can show you how to import an already-made texture into Substance Painter ready for tweaking. I add a bit of damage to the handle so I can also show you how to make changes to the normal map in Substance Painter.
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Importing assets in Substance Painter: With a new scene open in Substance Painter, click File > New Project, which will open up a window to import our assets. Import the combined mesh asset by
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Resulting AO bake from mental ray