Hello! Would it be very difficult to make a version of these that can be opened with prior versions of Substance? I have 2021, but I can't afford to keep buying versions of this program.
Unfortunately I won't be able to, as I don't have a version of substance painter that old to test it on; but you should be able to load up the shader's themselves with no issue. You will have to create your own template, and probably your own export pre-set as well, from scratch though. There should be enough information in the provided pdf for you to set up the correct channels for the shader (if they don't automaticaly fill out for you), and to construct the export pre-set, but let me know if you have trouble and I'll send you some screenshots/more detailed information.
Hi! Thanks for your help, it's much appreciated! I have problems opening the SP project template. I'm using the latest version of SP. Could this be the reason? The shader works fine for me, but since the project was created for a different template (PBR), its settings do not work correctly. I added the necessary channels, deleted unnecessary ones, and loaded the maps (everything is ok with this step), but the skin is just white т_т
Hello! Thank you very much for the information! I want to get a tattoo on my body and on my head. I used to use only the GIMP program, but it turned out to be very inconvenient. I was told that there is an Adobe Substance 3D program that allows you to create tattoos. I've been trying to figure out this program, using your files and instructions. However, I had difficulty finding a model to work with. Tell me, please, where can I find a suitable model?
Would you consider doing a small video tutorial or smth for us that are total noobs with Substance Painter I dont understand it at all lol. I dont even know if this is the right tool I am looking for. so this is my problem...
I like doing some renders in blender. I exported some meshes and textures (for Astarion specifically) but the textures are the weird BG3 format (CLEA, NM, HMVY,) and I cant use the properly in Blender like textures from other games.
I've been told I need to convert them somehow in substance painter, I have the original textures and clean head mesh prepared, and I have SP, but dunno where to start lol. I just want to make it so that I get a more standard diffuse and normal map.
a video tutorial about this shader specifically is one that I do plan on doing one day, but substance painter as a whole is very much too broad of a subject for me to cover. I recommend looking at some tutorials on youtube, Adobe themselves has made a serries on it. I also recommend the channel FlippedNormals as they have a bunch of amazing videos on all kinds of 3D software.
Now, all that said, since you specifically mentioned wanting to do some renders in Blender I can actually do you better than a video tutorial; specifically this other tool I made Volno's Texture Toolbox. Its primary use is texture editing, but it also has a whole bunch of recreations of bg3 shaders, which I know more than a few people use for rendering. I'm still in the processes of updating it again with a more accurate version of the skin shader, but hopefully it suits your needs. and I hope that you enjoy my own render of Astarion that I included on the mod page lmao
I did try your blend file as well but the texture in shader didn't came out right.. I think it's because I didn't prepare textures and mesh properly I will try again but it's hard to follow for a noob. thanx a bunch tho :))
I did enjoy the Astarion render LMAO! and the way you set up shader on him looks great I wish I could get it like that
I understand, it can be a little difficult for complete beginners, its something that I do address in the guide that comes with the toolbox. But I will say, that most of the time when people come to me and say that the textures are looking weird, its because they didn't set the map to non-colour in the image node; that might fix the issue that you are having.
I did set them all to non color... the diffuse texture was ok, so was roughness specular stuff.. it was the normal map that looked weird for me.. like it gave some extra lines/folds and stuff on the face it didn't look right. and it probably has smth to do with the NM map I exported from the game not being right, I'm not sure...
the diffuse? bg3 skin doesn't have a diffuse texture, its colour is generated procedurally from the hmvy. as for the normal map, that's because of the format its in. BG3 uses DirectX normals, but Blender uses OpenGL normals, but thankfully its very easy to convert them over, all you need to do is invert the green channel. one other thing to note about BG3 normal maps is that they store the data that is normaly(hah) in the red channel in the alpha channel instead. So to get a BG3 normal map working correctly you need to convert it from DirectX into OpenGL (invert the green channel) and then take the data thats in the alpha channel and put it into the red channel. You can do all of this inside blender's shader node editor, all you need is a separate rgb node, an invert colour node, and a combine rgb node.
I know I know I used the wrong term, it's just a past habit lol.. I mean HMVY is fine. and CLEA.. they look good it's the normal that gave me trouble..
I will try those things with converting texture like you said, thank you :)
This looks like fun to mess with- I've got the fancy tools and still barely understand what I can do with them lol. I've tried messing with skin textures just in Photoshop and about had a stroke (normal maps D:). Will this make it so that I can add, say, scars to an existing set of textures?
well, realisticaly you could do that in photoshop, all this and substance painter does is make the work flow significantly easier. its a very board subject to cover, and not one that I can really go over in a single comment, but what you're looking to do is very achievable ( and something I've done myself). I would recommend looking up some basic tutorials on substance painter to get yourself familiar with the program and some of the core concepts of 3d rendering, and then I would look at this tutorial by Flipped Normals on painting skin in substance painter, as the work flow they showcase is quite similar to how skin in bg3 works. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the info! I never know where to start with these things so I'll definitely dig into it.
I've tried for hours in Photoshop and I can't get things to export again in the same color lol. I can get close, but then a character's head will be a different shade from the body. I'm even still on a slightly older version of photoshop so I can keep make normals
I'm sorry, I know this is a bit off-topic but could you tell me or point me in the direction of a tutorial on how to get the skin (specifically head) textures out of the game so I can edit them??? I know how to get the mesh files out and into Blender, but have had no luck in finding out how to extract the skin texture files.
for extracting textures, or any game file really, you need a program like lslib to unpack bg3's pak files. For finding specific files, you can search for them using the bg3 search engine (note: not all files have been indexed). if your file ends up being a VT (virtual texture), like pretty much any texture that isn't used for a head, you will need to find the name of that VT and use lslib to extract it.
Most of head textures are stashed in the textures.pak file in the bg3/Data folder: Unpacking and converting files It's certainly not the most intuitive thing and formatting textures is even more daunting lol. I've had to piece a lot together on my own.
@Volno
Thank you for opening up so much more of Substance Painter! To get the exact effect I wanted, I had to export normal+height with "Normal DirectX" and then do the conversion in Photoshop and it worked perfectly. I also figured out that the way Photoshop was opening DDS files was my biggest issues. It was eating the alpha channels on everything which I figured out because I needed them for Substance Painter. So now things are a LOT easier. And exporting for SP with tiffs instead of pngs keeps the alpha layers. I'm so happy lol
Thanks so much for the link, I honestly wasn't sure where to start. I know about lslib that's how I got the head mesh files, I just wasn't sure about the texture files or their names, their type, etc. It was MUCH easier in BG1 and 2, heh. Do you happen to know the name of any texture file, specifically one for a head? It'd be easier if I knew a little more about what to look for.
Thanks so much for the info and link. Both of you guys have been more helpful than anything else I have found so far. :) Would you be willing to give me the names of some of those texture files, particularly head texture, if you know them that is.
I'm at work atm, but if you search "hmvy.dds" in the modders multi tool you'll put up all those dds files and the specific name with be there. And then you can search with the mesh model name.
Or if you can find the mesh, take the first part of the mesh's name and search with that.
yeah working with dds images can be frustrating, but now that you have brought it up I just remembered that Aloija made a dds exporter for substance painter (how I really should have linked to that on the main page whoops), so it should save you some time in that regard.
I tried out that exporter and either have something not set up right, or it's out of date, or both lol. But, exporting as tiff and saving as DDSs through photoshop has worked like a dream. (Now that I know how to open files with an alpha channel. Here's what all your help has enabled to do:
(sorry for the late reply) Thank you for sharing! It looks wonderful, and I always love seeing what people have made with the tools I share. If you are having trouble with the dds addon you could try talking to Aloija themselves about it, I'm sure that they would be happy to help.
Oooooh thank you so much, I have been wanting to make a custom skin texture but I'm still pretty new at using Substance Painter and we have just learned how to do the most basic textures in my classes so skin texture is not going to be studied yet but I couldn't wait to mess with it!
36 comments
I have problems opening the SP project template. I'm using the latest version of SP. Could this be the reason?
The shader works fine for me, but since the project was created for a different template (PBR), its settings do not work correctly. I added the necessary channels, deleted unnecessary ones, and loaded the maps (everything is ok with this step), but the skin is just white т_т
I want to get a tattoo on my body and on my head. I used to use only the GIMP program, but it turned out to be very inconvenient. I was told that there is an Adobe Substance 3D program that allows you to create tattoos.
I've been trying to figure out this program, using your files and instructions. However, I had difficulty finding a model to work with. Tell me, please, where can I find a suitable model?
Tysm for this Volno, really great work!
I like doing some renders in blender. I exported some meshes and textures (for Astarion specifically) but the textures are the weird BG3 format (CLEA, NM, HMVY,) and I cant use the properly in Blender like textures from other games.
I've been told I need to convert them somehow in substance painter, I have the original textures and clean head mesh prepared, and I have SP, but dunno where to start lol. I just want to make it so that I get a more standard diffuse and normal map.
Now, all that said, since you specifically mentioned wanting to do some renders in Blender I can actually do you better than a video tutorial; specifically this other tool I made Volno's Texture Toolbox. Its primary use is texture editing, but it also has a whole bunch of recreations of bg3 shaders, which I know more than a few people use for rendering. I'm still in the processes of updating it again with a more accurate version of the skin shader, but hopefully it suits your needs.
and I hope that you enjoy my own render of Astarion that I included on the mod page lmaoI did enjoy the Astarion render LMAO! and the way you set up shader on him looks great I wish I could get it like that
as for the normal map, that's because of the format its in. BG3 uses DirectX normals, but Blender uses OpenGL normals, but thankfully its very easy to convert them over, all you need to do is invert the green channel.
one other thing to note about BG3 normal maps is that they store the data that is normaly(hah) in the red channel in the alpha channel instead. So to get a BG3 normal map working correctly you need to convert it from DirectX into OpenGL (invert the green channel) and then take the data thats in the alpha channel and put it into the red channel. You can do all of this inside blender's shader node editor, all you need is a separate rgb node, an invert colour node, and a combine rgb node.
I will try those things with converting texture like you said, thank you :)
I've tried for hours in Photoshop and I can't get things to export again in the same color lol. I can get close, but then a character's head will be a different shade from the body.
I'm even still on a slightly older version of photoshop so I can keep make normals
Thank you!
Most of head textures are stashed in the textures.pak file in the bg3/Data folder: Unpacking and converting files
It's certainly not the most intuitive thing and formatting textures is even more daunting lol. I've had to piece a lot together on my own.
@Volno
Thank you for opening up so much more of Substance Painter! To get the exact effect I wanted, I had to export normal+height with "Normal DirectX" and then do the conversion in Photoshop and it worked perfectly. I also figured out that the way Photoshop was opening DDS files was my biggest issues. It was eating the alpha channels on everything which I figured out because I needed them for Substance Painter. So now things are a LOT easier. And exporting for SP with tiffs instead of pngs keeps the alpha layers. I'm so happy lol
Or if you can find the mesh, take the first part of the mesh's name and search with that.
But, exporting as tiff and saving as DDSs through photoshop has worked like a dream. (Now that I know how to open files with an alpha channel.
Here's what all your help has enabled to do:
Thank you so much :D