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Texturing

Required Texture Maps​

In order to submit your wearable to the Genies ecosystem, you are required to create the following maps:

  • yourAssetName_AlbedoTransparency.png
  • yourAssetName_MetallicSmoothness.png
  • yourAssetName_Normal.png
  • yourAssetName_RGBAMask.png

Read the Texturing page to learn everything you need to know about the required texture maps.

Technical Requirements​

  • ALL texture maps should be 4096 x 4096 pixels (4k resolution)
  • AlbedoTransparency map should have the alpha channel. If the asset does not have any transparency, the alpha channel should be white.
  • MetallicSmoothness map should have the alpha channel (otherwise your asset will be missing the smoothness map)
  • RGBAMask map should have the alpha channel that represents the preserved” areas of the asset. If nothing is preserved, the alpha channel should be white.

Project Organization​

Keep you Substance Painter project file clean and well organized:

  • name your material the same name as your asset name
  • name the layers as you create them
  • create folders per material area and name them appropriately

Importing maps​

If you created some texture maps outside of Substance Painter, there are two ways of connecting your baked maps to the material in Substance Painter:

  • drag and drop the maps directly to the shader
  • add those maps to you base layer

Adding maps to the layer gives you an opportunity to edit the setting for those maps such as “color space”. Make sure your imported normal map color space is set to “Open GL”. This method also allows you to edit your maps. You can create corrective layers to edit your normal map or AO if needed.

Ambient Occlusion​

Use your ambient occlusion (AO) map in your albedo to achieve a more detailed look. There are two types of ambient occlusion maps that we use for texturing: → Detail AO (baked from the high poly model) → General AO (baked from the low poly) The easiest way to use your AO maps is to create a fill layer on top of your layers and add the AO to the color channel. Turn off the rest of the channels on this layer. Set the layer’s Base color blending mode to “Multiply” and change the opacity of it to 50%. If you would like to have a tinted AO pass, you can create a colored fill layer and use your AO map as a mask there. Make sure your AO map does not have very intense shadows under the arms or in between the legs. Paint out those areas if possible.

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If you are using your baked AO map in your color map, make sure to disconnect it from your SP shader to have the correct texture preview on the 3D asset.

Asset Gradient​

Asset gradient layer. Sometimes we use this technique to visually “ground” the asset by creating a slight gradient overlay (light on top, darker on the bottom) on the asset. This helps to navigate the focus of the viewer to the top part of the asset/outfit.

Material Breakdown​

Material breakdown in roughness and normal/height. We recommend to add material definition to your asset to add visual details to your design. It is helpful to double check how your asset looks in Substance Painter with only Roughness channel in the viewport. Assets with a good roughness breakdown look more dynamic in the app.

Edit Baked Normal Map (if needed)​

Make sure to fix your baked normal map if it has baking errors. This step can be done in Photoshop or in Substance Painter. If you are doing it in Substance Painter, we recommend to bring your baked normal map in not in the shader slot, but as a layer.

Opacity/Transparency Map​

Genies Ecosystem DOES NOT support the opacity/transparency.

If you have the Opacity channel in your project, please make sure it is filled in with white.

Emissive Map​

Genies Ecosystem DOES NOT support the opacity/transparency.

RGBA Mask Map​

In order to create an RGBA Mask map that will work with Genies Export preset, please make sure you are using Genies Substance Painter Project Template or set up user0 and user 1 channels in your project manually.

Read the Substance Painter Project Template to learn more about User0 and User1 set ups.

When creating the RGBA Mask map, start with a fill layer. Turn off all the channels but user0 and user1. Set up user0 to black color and user1 to white color.

Read the RGBA Mask page to learn more about the specifics of the RGBA Mask creation.