Final Major Project - Texturing the Lab Equipment

Substance Designer

    Lab Equipment

    

    In the past, I used to unwrap small objects on separate UV sheets and therefore texture them separately. However, later on I found out that that's a very bad thing to do when it comes to optimisation. So.. instead of doing that, what I tend to do now when it comes to texturing a mod kit consisting of multiple similar objects is unwrapping everything on the shame UV sheet, opening the material (M) in 3Ds Max, selecting every object and applying a Standard material to the selection. Then, I export the selection from Max and import it in Substance Painter. The reason I have to do that, I've found out, is because unless I've made sure that everything has the same material on it, Substance Painter will open every UV map for every asset separately.

    Once again, I baked my Low Poly using the Low Poly mesh so that I would get all the different maps that I need and be able to edit them separately. For example, I tend to use Curvature a lot because to the edges of almost every asset I add details like dust, dirt, damage, etc. in order to suggest to the player that the environment is old and most likely hasn't been cleaned in a very long time. In addition to that, I've also learned to often edit the roughness map in Substance Painter instead of having to add constants to it in Unreal Engine to six the shininess. 

    Also, often times, I would prefer exporting the base material from Substance Designer and importing it in Substance Painter in order to continue editing and adding to it instead of applying it directly to my assets in Unreal Engine. However, when I'm exporting a material from Designer, if I'm going to take it to Unreal I always channel pack it, but if I'm going to take it to Painter, I never channel pack it because that prevents me from being able to use the texture maps separately. 

    What I'm planning on doing next is simply importing the texture maps in Unreal Engine, setting them up and applying the material to every asset.