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PBR Texturing: Introduction to 3D Workflow in Photoshop

Thanks Gordon, I need somebody to hold my hand here. Even their Manual throws up an error on my setup (what, no pics?!).

Maybe go thru a very basic process step by step -- take a simple mesh, create obj file, bake AO and Material-ID files, let Ddo throw some textures on, tweak options (?), bake some FSX-usable DDSs, and test in sim. That sort of thing? I'll be eternally grateful.
 
Manfred: I found a series of tutorials on YouTube by Quixel themselves that helped me massively in getting to know the product and how it works. Like I said before, I'm no expert and some things I try work better than others, but for the most part I can get it to do what I want. I found them by searching YT for Quixel Ddo Tutorial.

Ian P.
 
Thanks Ian, I am trying to work my way through them. I am a bit handicapped because Photoshop isn't really my favorite playground (it's Xara if you want to know). So that's two building sites I am working on. Anyway, I have got to the stage that I can slap a Quixel material on my mesh, but what to do to get it or something like it into FSX I haven't the faintest yet. I notice that Quixel saves out large numbers of PSD and tga files to the project folder. It also has an exporter function, which seems to do nothing. I am hoping that someone can point me in the right direction. Oh, even though I can save a project and the psd's, when I close Quixel I get a window saying "The suite has crashed and will now restart". I can't post that window full of error codes because it only stays on for a second or so. Needless to say, Quixel won't "restart" either, not that I want it to, having just closed it. I mean I am impressed with the visuals but helpwise I am disappointed. At uni we learned that your computer programs might well run into a fatal error, but if so you were supposed to make them "exit gracefully". Throwing an undecipherable error panel at you isn't exiting gracefully. I still want to learn the darn thing though.
 
mjahn said:
Thanks Ian, I am trying to work my way through them. I am a bit handicapped because Photoshop isn't really my favorite playground (it's Xara if you want to know). So that's two building sites I am working on. Anyway, I have got to the stage that I can slap a Quixel material on my mesh, but what to do to get it or something like it into FSX I haven't the faintest yet. I notice that Quixel saves out large numbers of PSD and tga files to the project folder. It also has an exporter function, which seems to do nothing. I am hoping that someone can point me in the right direction. Oh, even though I can save a project and the psd's, when I close Quixel I get a window saying "The suite has crashed and will now restart". I can't post that window full of error codes because it only stays on for a second or so. Needless to say, Quixel won't "restart" either, not that I want it to, having just closed it. I mean I am impressed with the visuals but helpwise I am disappointed. At uni we learned that your computer programs might well run into a fatal error, but if so you were supposed to make them "exit gracefully". Throwing an undecipherable error panel at you isn't exiting gracefully. I still want to learn the darn thing though.
Click to expand...

I was getting the crash on exit, but this week I disk wiped 7TB of HD disk space and re-booted my system and storage drives on a squeaky clean OS following the DOD grade triple scrubbing. I notice that the Quixel crash has resolved itself. Not sure how to fix it without a disk wipe, but it is a transient anomaly.

To put you at ease, the textures you create in Quixel can be directly exported out as Prepar3D .dds using their exporter. The exporter will produce albedo (texture), normal, specular, gloss and ambient occlusion maps. Those can be taken directly into Gmax or 3D Studio materials editors and applied to the model exactly as you would for any other texture. The only new techniques to learn are related to the current P3D SDK, which allows for more and more PBR related materials to be applied to the model.

For Photoshop, you will need the NVIDIA Texture Tools for Photoshop. It's a direct point and click download and install. Once the tools are in Photoshop, the Quixel exporter will use the NVIDIA filters to create the texture sheets in the appropriate formats. The naming conventions are PBR related i.e Albedo, Normal etc, so those can be renamed i.e texture, bump, spec etc.

I just finished connecting all of the various code bits on my workstation, so at this point I can begin to put together some easy to understand tutorials. The Quixel tutorials certainly contain valuable information, but they are edited to be entertaining and sell product more than teach at a learning pace. I'll try to make mine logical, and address the basics of how to get a texture on a working aircraft skin or scenery object.
 
Thanks, Gordon, didn't have the NVIDIA plug installed in my x64 Photoshop, it's there now.

Pic shows my current exporter options. What does the option _map refer to? Is "Unprocessed PBR" what one wants?

z!Zx4E74UZ.jpg
 
There's a prepar3d export option, which saves the directx format that FSX / P3D uses.

You also can set that up in the project configuration right at the beginning in DDo, where you assign the mesh, and the base texture maps.

As for errors or crashes upon exit, I also had that lately. Since there were a few PS updates lately and no Quixel update, I suspect there might have been a PS update that causes it.
Anyways, the people at Quixel are quite responsive, so it might be a good thing to drop them a mail about the crash.

There's also a discord sever named "Quixel Suite / Megascans" where some of the Quixel devs hang out and questions are answered.



Cheers,
Mark
 
I only get a .dds export option, nothing explitly targeting P3D.

One would prefer to do the DDS conversion oneself, wouldn't one, either via PS or Imagetool? Because, how would Quixel know how to handle any reflection alpha, mips etc? Also sometimes we want dxt1 ...

Just checked, the .dds the exporter produces is a non-flipped dxt1. That's basically useless for us.

Managed to capture that exit error code. Yes, it may be a good idea to let them know. Together with my other rants.

DpujR7yhlg.jpg
 
I have used the NVIDIA Tools filter in Photoshop for a couple of years now. Once I have set up my preferences for normal maps and .dds export, the filter remembers those. When Quixel renders out through their exporter, the NVIDIA filter remembers those parameters. The Quixel exported texture sheets will retain those preferences.

I prefer to do the basic texture work early, then import those textures into my GMAX/3DStudio materials editors for further modeling. At this point you still have all of the SDK parameters available to tweak the model and texture sheets, or if you prefer to tweak in Arno's MCX for your post process parameters.

I tend to use Quixel for the broad strokes, i.e. basic texture, wear and bumps. Once I have those I go back in Photoshop, or whatever paint application you prefer and add the final highlights and hand touches. If you are using photoreal i.e. the elements in the C-47 VC, those can be layered in to the basic Quixel texture sheets and re-exported using your preferred method.


Setting up the file, choose Prepar3D here.

30805523358_51130f87ce_o.gif



Export using the Prepar3D option.

43766477165_5df8474ce2_o.gif
 
I've been using 'Unprocessed PBR' and then making the DDS files myself. I'm not 100% convinced the DDS export is that useful as at least when I was using it it gave separate spec and gloss maps which I had to merge. This will lead to a slight loss in quality as you're decompressing and recompressing the files to do it. I'm not sure this isn't something I'm doing wrong though!
Shot below is the Firefly cockpit I've textured using Quixel.

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Thanks all, found the P3D exporter option that you are showing, just didn't see it originally. Yes, probably best to earmark the project for p3d when setting it up.

Now the exporter creates flipped dxt5 dds's, I guess that could work. I think Skippy has a valid point though, better do the dds conversion from the original psd's.

Further on Skippy's note, are there any tips on how to integrate albedo, gloss, metalness, and normal? Albedo I think is diffuse; normal is probably BUMP (as is?); metalness = SPEC? Gloss = ?
 
mjahn said:
Thanks all, found the P3D exporter option that you are showing, just didn't see it originally. Yes, probably best to earmark the project for p3d when setting it up.

Now the exporter creates flipped dxt5 dds's, I guess that could work. I think Skippy has a valid point though, better do the dds conversion from the original psd's.

Further on Skippy's note, are there any tips on how to integrate albedo, gloss, metalness, and normal? Albedo I think is diffuse; normal is probably BUMP (as is?); metalness = SPEC? Gloss = ?
Click to expand...

Albedo is equivilant to Diffuse.
Normal is Bump
Metalness, Reflection, and Specular are each their own RGB channel. in DCS The Roughness_Material file is used to house all 3.

The Red CHannal is the specular light highlights and shadows
The Green Channel is the Gloss/metalness, basically is the material a conductor or insulator material
The Blue Channel is the Reflective properties

Combining all 3 allows for the results seen:

25852123257_b0da34b3d0_o.jpg
 
I have the feeling that this is going to evolve into an extremely helpful thread.

Heads Up....Be Advised
I found that Quixel V2.3.2 (current) is blowing up in Photoshop CS6. It was breaking my export and Color ID functions. I backed out to V2.3.1 and it fixed itself, and the crash on shut down has not reared it's ugly head.
This is one of those areas where everyone's system is very different, so everyone will be affected differently. Keep this in mind as you move ahead with Quixel.

Manfred:
I'm going to put together an Exporting 101 video that will show how I take my Quixel base paints into my workflow. Let us know how and if the P3D export works for you. You can export out in .bmp format using the Exporter.
 
Thanks Gordon. I wish I had more knowledge about the dev side. All my experience is from the painters side only. A couple other examples that show Paint vs. Metal surfaces. The paint is more of an "insulator" vs. metal which is a conductor. You can see the ability to generate amazing results. Both are my paints. Using the paint kits but I developed my own RGB Spec file from scratch. This is of course DCS and these two examples are not completely PBR yet. They use the materials but are not self reflective.

44407363202_dc9ec4e3aa_o.png


25640266457_242e3227a2_o.jpg
 
That's where we (P3d) need to go. I remember how difficult it was for me to get the hang of FSX materials, now it seems PBR is another quantum leap forward.
 
TuFun, wow! That guy is really Talented!!! That is an enormous amount of work! Thanks for sharing.

Here's a few more examples. I'm hoping that P3D will get here at minimum, and that I will be able to convert the F-100D to this standard!

Clean:

27950056978_80505a103b_o.jpg


Vs. Airshow:

27270783217_16bb91207e_o.jpg



And one that shows Clean Aluminum, Grey Paint, and Not quite Airshow polished:

40666627071_f21eec9888_o.jpg
 
The biggest difference between PBR and the Current FSX/P3D way of painting is that the diffuse map which is called an Albedo map should contain NO shadows or highlights. So if you have AO (baked shadows) layers those would be merged into the RED channel of the Materials textures. The other major difference is that RGB color hue and brightness are also used to key lighting and shadow in the sim. There's a great tutorial for painters here:

WAR THUNDER SDK FOR PAINTERS


 
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