Meet MAT - The Corsair

Meet MAT: The Corsair!

Hello everyone, my name is Andrey Oliver, and this is the final version of my Meet Mat. I aimed to transform Meet Mat into a Corsair! I added various elements to the model that evoke early 16th-century navigations, and I tried to mix them in a way that looks like they all belong together.

(*This YouTube video is not public)

I went for a more realistic aesthetic, with various levels of detail, whether in the small oxidations on the coins or in a large terrestrial globe.

Here is the head material as an example. Organized in a folder for each Material ID, and within that, an organization ranging from base materials like texture and colors to details like Normal and Roughness.

The geometry was elevated through the baking process from High Poly to Low Poly geometry. I sculpted some basic details to better guide the process of detailing the materials in Substance later.

Here is the original mesh with the addition of the Height Map from Subtance Painter.

For the entire project, I used 8K textures to ensure the details are as sharp as possible during rendering.

Speaking of rendering, the project was rendered in Blender. I only imported the given FBX, changing only the materials and lighting.

It's important to mention that the only things I didn't create myself were these three textures below.

The texture of the Earth Globe was entirely drawn by me in Photoshop. It's an actual map from Visscher I, Nicolaas, a cartographer. I found his map in the cartographic library of USP University in Brazil, but since I don't have the right to use the image, I recreated my version.

I've been studying 3D since I was 12 years old, always self-taught. I recently graduated in Animation Design, but I never stopped practicing 3D at any point. I am 22 years old and have no professional experience in the industry, but I have a rigorous study routine as a personal project.

Creating materials is one of the things in 3D that I love the most. Since discovering Substance Painter, I haven't stopped. Today, it allows me to do things that I always dreamed of when I started.

I would like to thank God and everyone who has always supported me, my parents, and my family. 

Also, a big thank you to Rookies and the all sponsors for providing this contest for the artist community. Thank you!

Materials!

Now that everything is in order, I began creating the materials. Essentially, I used materials and textures that come with Substance Painter, with the exception of some fabric textures I already had. And the globe texture, I created myself, as I've already shown. I'll share a bit of the process of creating the base; the same logic applied to the head and body later on.

The base is a ship's deck hatch with a lock and hinges. The most challenging part was adjusting all these geometries so that the bake could capture as much information as possible. For the materials, I opted for a more realistic approach, with maximum detail.

On the coins, I had the idea of adding the sponsors' logos, including The Rookies logo as well. It was a super complex part because there were many tiny details on each of the coins. I applied the same tapering logic to the coins, gaining a bit more resolution to define the sides without marking them.

Here are some details of the materials. First, a base highlighting the sculpted details.

Then, something more in-depth. Always combining various layers of textures and masks to blend everything better.

The challenge of creating various different materials lies in how to relate them, making it seem like they are part of the same composition. So, I always had to be careful to keep them as 'within the universe' as possible.

When I was using the ID Map for selection, many times it was possible to see the pixel aliasing. One way to correct this aspect is by creating an Anti-Aliasing effect. Instead of just using blur, I employed a Mask Outline, a Blur, and a Levels adjustment. This way, I had complete control over all the edges, being able to increase or decrease, define or blur them.

I used the new Path tool to create the dashed lines; it's truly amazing !!

I used the texture I had created for the Earth Globe here as the Base Color. On top of it, I worked on various effects to make it blend better with the rest of the materials.

Here is the final version in Substance Painter! And next to it are the generated and exported maps.

I used all of them in Blender to create the final renders. I ended up using Blender because I read on the Discord Server that I could use any program for rendering, as long as I was using the original cameras and meshes provided.

Unfortunately, when importing into Blender and rendering with Cycles X, you notice that the normals are calculated incorrectly in the shader.

After some testing, I realized that it was indeed a texture problem. The normal map calculation considered the initial sphere as a reference point for the deviation of light rays. However, when I added the height map, the geometry was elevated, changing the reference point.

One of the quickest ways to solve this was to revert only the normal map back to Substance Painter as a color texture. I used the brush to paint with exactly this blue color.

This way, it tells the renderer that the light rays should not undergo changes based on the texture, and it worked very well. Live and learn...

Since my character has multiple pieces of clothing and assets, I needed to have control over them. Instead of manually creating masks for each layer group with a different material, I could leverage the High Poly mesh itself.

In general, there were two Substance files. The first one was solely for resolving the Height Map, as I've previously shown. The result was exported as an 8K texture.

The second file handled the bake for everything except the Height Map. I made this division to maintain a more organized control over the stages, even though I knew everything could have been done in a single file. In this second file, I imported the 8K Height Map bakes from the first file and continued with the other bakes.

One of them was the ID Map, one of the most important maps. With it, I could generate random colors and restrict them to the boundaries of each mesh in the High Poly Mesh.

These ID map interference errors were easy to resolve; I just painted them with the same color, and everything was fine.

Even at this stage, I still encountered some issues with the Height Map. That's why it was beneficial to have two separate files; the work could be done in parallel.

I used Photoshop to conduct these inspections at 8K, which was very helpful. This error was due to the division of the head into two parts. The seam had caused this line, something relatively easy to resolve.

At the end of this process filled with bakes, I exported all the maps as 8K textures. I created a third final file for creating the materials and imported all of them. Each material (head, body, and base) had its folder with the bakes from the other Substance Painter files.

Now, before starting the final textures, I took the Height Map and imported it into Blender along with the original mesh file. Here, the only thing I did was add a Multiresolution modifier to subdivide the mesh and a Displacement modifier to modify it. I imported the 8K Height Map texture and hoped for it to work.

Even the details on the helm's side were surprisingly preserved. I thought they might be distorted and stretched, but because of the slightly tapered angle and being situated over a sphere, it turned out well.

Unfortunately, I ended up not being able to post updates, but I continued documenting the process every day.

After completing the entire block and further refining the design, I initiated the detailing process. Since I intended to capture the smallest details and nuances directly in the Substance Painter texture, I created a foundational base for them during the modeling stage.

As you can see, my intention was to create a High Poly to Low Poly bake. I added the original mesh as the Low Poly version (in blue) for reference regarding the details. I had to be extremely careful to prevent excessive distortion during the bake, requiring me to come up with solutions for regions that were at a 90-degree angle with the Base Mesh's normal. One of the solutions was to create a slight tapering effect.

Encountered some issues with the chin as well... Modified it slightly higher in the final version. Fortunately, the original mesh has a slight convexity in this facial region, which, much like in the sphere, greatly aided in achieving angles closer to 90 degrees.

My goal was to define the Height Map before anything else; if it didn't work, the project wasn't feasible. I lost count of how many times I tested the Height Map bake; I wasn't even saving the files anymore 😂.

Now, here comes an important point!

I'm aware that the final mesh of the ship's wheel cannot be altered, as per the rules. Therefore, the changes I made were to the mesh for baking. Since both share the same UVs, in the end, it was just a matter of replacing the altered one with the original, which worked quite well.

I made this cut in the mesh to better guide the bake, using a name-based process "Low" and "High." This was extremely necessary because, with the ship's wheel having tall handles, the outer head cage interacted with the frontal gap. By making this division, both worked simultaneously in the bake without any issues.

Lots of tests...

Happy New Year!

Here are some more project updates. This is the block:

I had considered increasing the skull size to make it stand out. Unfortunately, the Compass Rose didn't work in this position, so I will remove it in the final version.

Skull modeling:

For it, I'm thinking of a highly stylized, almost comical shape, since all of this will be baked into a Height Map. I can't create a very complex shape with overlapping parts, as the bake only considers information perpendicular to the mesh's normal.

Since the base mesh is slightly curved in the front, it's possible to have a small amount of shape overlap before it starts to become noticeable when the Displacement is activated.

Now, onto some texture work.

As stated in the rules, it's possible to import textures (not final ones) into Substance. So, I recreated an old map by hand. It's an actual map that I had access to in the cartographic library at the University of São Paulo here in Brazil.
 However, since I don't own the copyright to the map, I can't use it as a texture.

My idea for Meet Mat 3 is to create a pirate ship's helm adorned with pirate-themed elements and references to Substance Painter.

Here are some sketches; I came up with the idea while sleeping... this competition is always on my mind LOL.

Many ideas have crossed my mind, and this is actually my second entry into the competition. However, I believe that this concept is ideal as it showcases a wide variety of materials in a single composition, ranging from metals to wood. It will be a lot of fun to explore all of this.