Substance Designer: a material study

If you ever wonder why your artist friend is running late or is distracted, it’s only because they saw a good reference and had to take notes!

I’ve been frequenting this coffee house with a friend recently, and noticed that they had a really nice floor. I took some pictures of it and tried if I could replicate it in Substance Designer. I’m still learning the software, so it was really nice to see that all the information is starting to stack up.

I was quite happy with the result and could see myself using it in a project. You can change the tile colors, size and amount of dirt.

Final render

The node setup

Reference images

Trash cans by the alley: a new sketchfab scene

I did a smaller sample of the shopping small scene for sketchfab. As the trash can models came out pretty good, I thought It would be nice to make a little scene around them, giving them some extra attention.

Breakdown: How I did the vertex color shader

I got a couple questions about my vertex color shader when I posted the Old shopping mall scene. In case anyone is in need of something similar, here’s what I did:

The trick is to pull the roughness-, and metalness data from uv island locations. This is then combined with the vertex color data, giving us a mesh complete with colors, metallic and roughness without unwrapping or any texture usage. It is also possible to expand this and use the vertex alpha channel for additional data like emission. I found this setup really handy for small clutter items and I also used it for some of the large and narrow metal surfaces that were mostly defined by a gradient.

Note: The gamma correction is only necessary if your 3D package outputs the vertex colors in sRGB and your game engine uses linear colors like Unreal does. If your colors look washed out, this is most likely because of the mismatch. Power-node with value of 2,2 will fix this.

Here’s how the items look with the shader. Up left is Unreal blueprint view and down left are the uv coordinates in Blender.

Results of the shader in the scene. Chairs, plates and cups are all using it.

Substance Designer: more material practice

I completed another material tutorial, this time about a fabric. This tutorial was bit more advanced. Still trying to wrap my head around some of the concepts, but definitely learned some good tricks. It was really interesting to see how does one do very organic feeling shapes totally procedurally.

Disclaimer: cloth mesh and human mesh provided as part of tutorial (not selfmade)

Disclaimer: cloth mesh and human mesh provided as part of tutorial (not selfmade)

Learning Substance Designer: First steps

I’ve wanted to start learning Substance Designer for a while. Recently there has finally been time for it. I made this material following a tutorial. Getting pretty good understanding of the basics now. I’m thinking of doing a couple of more of these tutorials, and then maybe it’s time to try my hand at a personal project (already have one in mind!) It’s crazy how powerful this software is. Can’t wait to learn it better.

Assembly Gamedev compo 2023: 2nd place

I participated to the Assembly Summer 2023 Gamedev compo with Jaakko Lindvall. The name of our game was Bukkit Rokkit: A thrilling journey in space. Graphics were made by me and all the programming by Jaakko Lindvall. It was a tough race with many formidable entries, and I am very happy to tell that our game has scored in the 2nd place. 

You can download the game here and watch the trailer here.

Warm thanks to everyone who played our game! There might be a Steam release later, stay tuned!

Assembly gamedev compo 2023: Check out our entry!

Bukkit Rokkit: A thrilling journey in space

The annual Assembly summer computer festival is just around the corner. I am participating to the game dev. compo with Jaakko Lindvall. Name of our game is Bukkit Rokkit: A thrilling journey in space. It’s a space shooter with bullet hell elements and some funny off the wall enemies. Ever seen a ferret with a 60s spacegun and a jetpack? Now´s your chance!

The entries have now been published and are available to play. You can check them out here.

We hope you enjoy our game. If you are attending the event and the little rocket is making you laugh as much as it did us, don’t forget to vote!

Have an amazing Assembly everyone!

Smaller assets from the Baba Jaga scene: the geranium

I recently participated in an art challenge from RedHill games. You can check out the final render in my portfolio. There was a lot going on the scene and the camera was quite far, so I thought it would be cool to do some close-ups for some of the items. Here you can see the geranium that was by the stairs. These plants have such an interesting structure. It was bit of a challenge to reproduce in Speedtree but I think this got quite close.

Old shopping mall: Foliage progress

I’ve been learning Speedtree recently. After a bunch of tutorials, I tried my hand at a personal design. Honestly, I’m pretty happy about the result. Speedtree’s approach and way of thinking is quite novel, and I was mentally prepared that getting this right might take a while.

So this fella here will be part of my Old shopping mall scene in Unreal, replacing the placeholder trees. I’m going to do some optimised LOD:s of him and then move on to smaller vegetation like the potted flower arrangements.

My secret 2D life: designing a custom coffee

Very few things boost creativity better than a fresh cup of high quality coffee. As I have background in graphics and I am a board member in Gamemakers of Finland (Peliala Ry), the union approached me and asked If could design a custom coffee carton for them. The packages would then be distributed as gifts for our members.

The design is now out and I daresay it turned out pretty cool. If you want to grab yourself some quality coffee, be sure to swing by in one of our future events!

Image provided by Game Makers of Finland

Image provided by Game Makers of Finland