PBR rendering in Maya

#1

I would like to start using a texture painting software like Quixel Suite or Allegorithmic’s Substance Painter and Designer to create textures, then import them into a Maya shader network. Now, I understand that both software packages were developed for the game development community, and that the PBR workflow is a realtime, hardware rendering workflow; whereas I’m trying to adapt it for a software rendering workflow.

As you might expect, I have questions
lots of questions. First, which should I use? Quixel Suite or Substance Painter and Designer? Or both? It sounds like Quizel Suite is better at painting in details into the normal map, but SP and SD are better at textures.

Next, how do I implement the output textures into Maya? I use both MentalRay and V-Ray. I’m a little unclear on what maps that are output from either Quixel Suite or SP get plugged into what slots in either MentalRay or V-Ray. I’d appreciate a workflow for both.

I know that Maya 2016 has a new PBR shader called Stingray PBS, but my understanding is that it requires a hardware renderer. I don’t know if V-Ray 3.3 has a similar shader. But I think that I want to stick with the software renderers. Unless someone know of a workflow that uses the hardware renderer combined with the software renderer in compositing.

Anyway, I’m looking for advice on the implementation of PBR texture maps into Maya’s shading networks. Stay tuned as I plan on having a lot more questions.

Thanks.

#2

I haven’t used Quixel but I work a lot with the Substance tools. You can paint & edit normal maps in SP just like any other map. I’ve never really had much issue with it. The real strength in Quixel is that you have all of Photoshops tools to work with along with the Quixel suite… SP while improves with each release is still playing catchup when it comes to the volume of tools.

Not sure about Quixel, but SP has export options for both real time and offline render engines. Checkout their website but I’m pretty sure Vray is supported. So exporting your maps for use in Vray is a matter of selecting it as the target render engine, along with picking which shader to use. The default shader in SP is setup to be 1:1, or nearly identical to the standard PBS in Unity, Unreal, etc.

MentalRay does not have an export preset in SP. Although you can build you own custom ones. Selecting which channels to export and what not. So you could set up a custom export geared toward the requirements for MR. Although you would probably mess around with the shaders a bit and I wouldn’t expect 1:1 results at the start. You may even be able to start with the Vray preset and see how it works, then adjust from there.

The Stingray PBS is to Autodesk what the Standard PBS is to Unity and well, the Unity engine. My guess is that you wouldn’t use the Stingray shader in either MentalRay or Vray. Instead, its use is for artist work with Stingray game engine. Allowing assets in the Maya viewport to be displayed 1:1 (or close) to how an asset would appear in the game engine. So its more ofr game content look development.