Hey there!
I've been looking to forums to find a guide on what would be the proper approach to export textures from Substance Painter to be used in Mantra. Strangely enough I couldn't find any apart from general questions.
So can anyone point me to the right direction? Hopefully in an easy to understand fashion, i'm a bit of a beginner with Houdini's renderer
Thanks in advance.
Substance Painter export for Mantra rendering
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- athosK
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- robsdesign
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Hi, not sure I understand the question but I'll try to help.
To export model to Substance:
- Group your geos into material sets
- Use a material sop to set the materials
- Export as FBX
Note: In H16, you'll need to use SHOP materials for exporting as the MAT materials won't work. (bug)
When you import the model into substance, the texture set names will match the SHOP material names.
To export textures from Substance:
- Create a configuration for Houdini
- Export Textures (ctl-shift-E) into a subfolder inside the Tex folder for Houdini project.
Importing textures into Houdini
The key point is to choose whether you will use Metal/Roughness or Spec/Gloss workflow.
Mantra Surface Shader/Classic Shader does not work as well with the Metal/Roughness workflow as the Principled Shader. see post: https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/43020/?page=1#post-194315 [sidefx.com]
So, Metal/Roughness = Principled, Spec Gloss = Mantra/Classic.
If done correctly, you should be able to avoid endless tweaking in Houdini after export. ie. set Roughness to 1 and use only the texture info for Roughness. This way, what you see in Painter should be what you see in Houdini.
I've attached screens of my Substance export configuration(s). I've found it useful to use a separate one for Displacement. (note: it's advised to not use _ in the file names but it's a habit I can't kick)
hope that helps
Rob
To export model to Substance:
- Group your geos into material sets
- Use a material sop to set the materials
- Export as FBX
Note: In H16, you'll need to use SHOP materials for exporting as the MAT materials won't work. (bug)
When you import the model into substance, the texture set names will match the SHOP material names.
To export textures from Substance:
- Create a configuration for Houdini
- Export Textures (ctl-shift-E) into a subfolder inside the Tex folder for Houdini project.
Importing textures into Houdini
The key point is to choose whether you will use Metal/Roughness or Spec/Gloss workflow.
Mantra Surface Shader/Classic Shader does not work as well with the Metal/Roughness workflow as the Principled Shader. see post: https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/43020/?page=1#post-194315 [sidefx.com]
So, Metal/Roughness = Principled, Spec Gloss = Mantra/Classic.
If done correctly, you should be able to avoid endless tweaking in Houdini after export. ie. set Roughness to 1 and use only the texture info for Roughness. This way, what you see in Painter should be what you see in Houdini.
I've attached screens of my Substance export configuration(s). I've found it useful to use a separate one for Displacement. (note: it's advised to not use _ in the file names but it's a habit I can't kick)
hope that helps
Rob
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- malbrecht
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Moin,
you can use the “Substance Plugin for Houdini” to get a somewhat half-way working shader set up for Houdini, unfortunately it does not correctly read all channels (“height”, which should be piped into “displacement”, often doesn't work at all).
Since the plugin is very crashy, too, what I have done a couple of times is use a principal shader and simply plug the exported image texture files into the respective channels. A trivial and tedious task, but, for me, the only workable solution. Writing a (probably python-based, because of the parameter-write) HDA that replaces the wonky Substance Plugin should be doable, but I have to admit that Houdini is capable enough for me to replace Substances all together.
Marc
you can use the “Substance Plugin for Houdini” to get a somewhat half-way working shader set up for Houdini, unfortunately it does not correctly read all channels (“height”, which should be piped into “displacement”, often doesn't work at all).
Since the plugin is very crashy, too, what I have done a couple of times is use a principal shader and simply plug the exported image texture files into the respective channels. A trivial and tedious task, but, for me, the only workable solution. Writing a (probably python-based, because of the parameter-write) HDA that replaces the wonky Substance Plugin should be doable, but I have to admit that Houdini is capable enough for me to replace Substances all together.
Marc
---
Out of here. Being called a dick after having supported Houdini users for years is over my paygrade.
I will work for money, but NOT for "you have to provide people with free products" Indie-artists.
Good bye.
https://www.marc-albrecht.de [www.marc-albrecht.de]
Out of here. Being called a dick after having supported Houdini users for years is over my paygrade.
I will work for money, but NOT for "you have to provide people with free products" Indie-artists.
Good bye.
https://www.marc-albrecht.de [www.marc-albrecht.de]
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- athosK
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- Joined: Nov. 2016
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Thank you both for the answers! I did manage to import the textures from SP to the principled shader before I saw the replies (I forgot to enable notifications 
) . I was a bit confused at start since you can have a texture and tweak the value for a channel, which if I'm not mistaken works as a multiplier. I think i managed to get the same results (between SP and Mantra) but I'm going to try it again with your suggestions.
) . I was a bit confused at start since you can have a texture and tweak the value for a channel, which if I'm not mistaken works as a multiplier. I think i managed to get the same results (between SP and Mantra) but I'm going to try it again with your suggestions.
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