My plugins , Gui and 3d Work.

[Matt_SF]

@ursbollhalder jumping in : export animation as PNGs with blender and (I personnaly) use this to stitch them up : https://www.wavesfactory.com/blog/posts/strip-generator/

[Matt_SF]

@ursbollhalder I once found a plugin on blendermarket to export the filmstrip directly but I found it a bit glitchy depending on the resolution of the PNGs

[A Former User]

@matt_sf Yeah. That’s how I do it. Although it is also crashing on me quite a bit!

[lalalandsynth]

@ursbollhalder There is an endless supply of Blender tutorials on Youtube but a lot of them kind of irrelevant for this purpose. I would suggest to look into hardsurface modeling and animation.

I have thought about making a tutorials that is specific for doing gui stuff.
What would you most like to know ? The modeling or the rendering procedure.
There also a a few tricks so the GUI assembles properly with animated light reflections and the more fancy stuff.

[Matt_SF]

@lalalandsynth oh yes please make video tutorials :beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes: !
I'm sure there are a lot of people who will be interested out there too.

I myself am ok with modelling but I'd love to know more about proper material & lightning setup / rendering.

[A Former User]

@lalalandsynth This all sounds very interesting to me! So all topics you mention would be great to dive into. Maybe making a knob from start to finish. Design, textures, lighting, export, etc!

[lalalandsynth]

@ursbollhalder Looking into this , takes a bunch of planning actually. Might start with an overview , make interface from reference and build it in HISE.

[A Former User]

@lalalandsynth Oh yes. It’s quite a bit of work! But there’s quite a few people out there that could be interested. Also Kontakt folks f.e. Maybe a Patreon thingy would be an interesting option. I’ll take any infos I can get!

[lalalandsynth]

Another model I just finished.
I kind of like the Toon Shading and would love to do a GUI like that at some point.
Having said that I am now going to work on the texturing.
I will probably try to learn Substance Painter for this one as its painstaking to texture something like this in blender.

If anyone needs a crazy vintage looking tube gui, then this can be modified to fit your needs.

[UD AUDIO]

@lalalandsynth I think it looks like indestructible audio gear for extreme exploration like diving in volcanoes or making snow angles in antarctica.
Really loving the robust and mechanical look.

Did you ever heard about quixel mixer? It's not a full replacement for substance painter yet but it may be powerful enough for your needs.

[Matt_SF]

@ud-audio ah thanks I didn't know quixel, it seems quite nice. i'll give it a try

[UD AUDIO]

@matt_sf As far I know, mixer is free to use even for commercial projects. But if you want to use megascans materials, you need to subscribe etc. You should check if this is still the case.

If you are using blender too, I can also recommend using an add-on like BakeLab for normal maps. If you know a easier/faster solution, please let me know :)
I prefer non-paid stuff.

[lalalandsynth]

@ud-audio Yes, I have heard about Quixel, I aldready have the Xolotl Blender to Substance link so its quite convenient to use Substance now with Blender.

Substance painter is a gamechanger for me I must say, here is what I have so far.

[UD AUDIO]

@lalalandsynth very cool! Mixer has no translucence and emission yet.
I'm still waiting for updates on that. Do you need to create layers by hand or can substance create them for you?

[lalalandsynth]

@ud-audio Do you mean the mesh maps ? Substance bakes mesh maps automatically.
Select an Item/Items in Blender - SEND via Xolotl link , item appears in Substance - Bake mesh maps , paint - SEND to Blender , badabing!

Very smooth , no exporting and importing of maps (Never understood how to endure that workflow).

Its all based on the shader name so you can save project/item or whatever in Substance , open later, keep working and still able to send into you Blender project.

I did the emission and glass in Blender btw.

[UD AUDIO]

@lalalandsynth No no, I mean your (material/paint) layers in substance.
But I am aware about the one click baking. With BakeLab I can bake all normals in blender with one click which got packed in the blend/fbx so I just have to import it in mixer and then I can create layers from it.

Mixer is no full 3D painting suite for now. Obviously they have to update a lot. There are also armorpaint and other apps but as far I know they don't have smart materials like mixer or substance. My opinion is that it's not easy to fit industry standard software. But the day might come. And for now it just have to fit your needs. :)

It's called "layer set" in mixer:

[lalalandsynth]

@ud-audio I am just learning Substance so I am not sure but it seems to me that there are multiple ways to work with different items.

You can have one item with an ID map using vertex Color for example.
So you can texture one item(containing multiple items) with multiple textures within substance , selecting between each one using vertex colors. Which seems cool as it only requires one material for all the pieces.

It looks like that at the moment but I am early.

I quickly ran into the realization that making a separate material for each little piece requires some hefty render ram so I am trying to learn how to optimize .

[UD AUDIO]

@lalalandsynth Yeah I'm learning too! I only have some hobbyist experience with game development. And if I'm right, the results are very much the same as using normal maps but with vertex color you can paint an area inside a face instead of having it applied to the whole face right?

I guess I would use that approach for example if I have welded pieces etc.
That should be pretty nice for blending.

There is a blender add-on called "bake to vertex color" which could work for me using mixer.

[UD AUDIO]

@lalalandsynth said in My plugins , Gui and 3d Work.:

I am trying to learn how to optimize .

I am not sure but I guess you are looking for something called texture atlas.
You can pack everything in one texture so you will have one material too.
But I can't speak for substance. Maybe you just have to make groups (knobs, tubes, etc.) and use one vertex color per group instead per object.

[lalalandsynth]

@ud-audio YEs, Probably texture atlas ? There is also UDIM´s which I dont know how work :)