Beginner

[BuddaZero]

Hello!

For all you beginners out there, just wanted to say hi, and tell you that I'm a beginner as well, into Material Creation. The motivation to learn Substance Designer has been on & off for me, but this time around I feel it sticking, because after a long time I finally started playing video games, and everywhere I look in the game I'm like "That's created by Designer-that's created by Designer!" and so on. And I'm really inspired this time around and motivated to learn.

That being said, I've come across some tutorials and documentation that are helping me along this new journey:

WATCH THIS TUTORIAL FIRST! This is Adobe's own tutorial series, "Getting Started with Substance Designer"- it's there recent one and so far I've played through the first 15 videos twice. I'm understanding the process, and what's helping me is leaving notes next to the Nodes, explaining what they do and why they're being used. Leaving comments/notes is crucial in your learning process. That's why I was on and off with this software, I wasn't leaving down any comments while I was following the tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB0wXHrWAmCwWfVVurGIQO_tMVWCFhnqE


The next link is from the website Artstation.com and the topic is "How Do I Become A Material Artist | Guide". This free product has a PDF documentation explaining Designer in its simplest form, and the man Alex Beddows gives you a list of tutorials that personally helped him get started, which was by a man named Daniel Thiger (I skimmed through Daniel's Rock Creation Designer tutorials as a preview, and its exactly what I'm looking for, it shows you that there are many ways to create something).

https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/kbwg/how-do-i-become-a-material-artist-guide?utm_source=artstation&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=homepage&utm_term=marketplace

I've been a VFX Artist for the past decade, and these past 2 years I've dived heavily into 3D Softwares like Cinema 4D. Now I want to learn Unreal Engine & Substance, but I'm starting with Substance Designer first, because to me, materials are the bread and butter of any 3D Application.

Also, I plan on watching this tutorial, which is of a interesting tile creation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov2jSf4fKR4&t=35s

And this one to create a wood floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVkExICVQes&t=97s

I didn't find any Discussions about Beginners like me, so I decided to make one. Hope this helps and encourages someone to finally take the first step, or hop back on, like I'm doing currently.

If they're any veterans who have been using this software who have any wisdom to pass down, please feel free to share.

Thanks for reading!

[Recon]

hI, I been a game developer / programmer, artist for nearly 30 years, as a contractor, and worked at various companies.. over the years, i'm retired now and work for myself to make games.. anyways, I recommend to use the program, Don't just depend on tutorials... Sure use them to get going, but learn experiment what each node does....

Once you understand Designer, the true power is in the custom nodes, making them and using.. ALso exposing parameters to use in Painter and in the game engines ... like UE, Unity and any other..

when I make shaders now I use them for basic stuff now , and maps since most functions, you can already do in Designer... This is where I believe many indies don't understand and still rely on heavy old shader functions, which can be costly..


What I do as well, keep your graphs simple... and reusable.. modular as much as possible..
So what I do is make graphs one for stone, wood, etc.. Then say I want to make aged kind of functions.. I can move between the types of wood, stone.. or w/e.

Most people I see most the entire process in one graph, which can limit you and make a graph hard to read and its not reusable... This is something you can learn after time... and I always recommend this to users... I been a Substance user since day 1, early days... I use mostly Designer, not so much Painter.. but I do use Painter, from time to time..

But I have thousands of hours between all of the Designer versions and own them from Day 1. Enterprise included, and indie when I did my own work. ( like I said i'm retired so I use Steam version now .. for my own game, i'm currently making.

[BuddaZero]

Thank you for your words of wisdom. When I wrote this I was literally like 2 days in, now after 3 weeks, a lot of what you said was said by other artists I've encountered. Designer seems to shine when creating your own exposed parameters. And yes I do agree with keeping graphs simple. I section everything, even in their own graph, and organize my nodes, label, and comment so that I don't get lost.

It really is a fun program to use.

[Recon]

Originally posted by BuddaZero:

Thank you for your words of wisdom. When I wrote this I was literally like 2 days in, now after 3 weeks, a lot of what you said was said by other artists I've encountered. Designer seems to shine when creating your own exposed parameters. And yes I do agree with keeping graphs simple. I section everything, even in their own graph, and organize my nodes, label, and comment so that I don't get lost.

It really is a fun program to use.

Yup its amazing program, I have used it since the early days professionally and also learned alot, by using it, I hated making textures before. haha.

You can build a nice library of textures fast, and reuse them for years to come. anyways have fun!!!