Creating a portfolio with Substance
For new 3D artists, the road to obtaining that dream job in the film or games industry is a bumpy one. The landscape of technology alone used in these industries changes rapidly. Artists can often find themselves faced with difficult decisions early in their education. Sometimes these decisions are as simple as which software to learn first. Other times, the software they decide to learn is influenced by cost factors. Think for just a moment about the investment that a student might make both in terms of time to learn an application in addition to money. Now multiply that by five different software packages. A primary 3D package, a sculpting application, a dedicated texturing application, a premium rendering plug-in and, of course, Adobe Photoshop. That barrier to entry really is extremely high!
A new artist’s time will be better spent mastering a smaller number of applications so that they can create amazing results quicker. If the goal is to be a character or environment artist, individuals should spend as much time as possible mastering their craft, not learning different software. For this reason, Substance Painter can be viewed not just as a texture painting application, but also as a great finishing application for use in portfolio projects.
New rays of light
With Substance Painter 2, Allegorithmic has added the powerful physically unbiased and GPU accelerated renderer Iray into the application. This renderer is all an artist needs to produce portfolio-quality images that can showcase both their models as well as textures. Not only do renders occur progressively once you’ve switched to Substance Painter’s Iray viewport, but you have a tremendous amount of control over the image that’s rendered. From general settings that control quality and image size to more in-depth camera settings, Iray strikes the balance between ease of use and number of features.
Once you’ve got that perfect camera angle and render quality set, you may find yourself looking to add a bit more spice to your final image. Before you reach for
Photoshop to add that flare or vignette, you should really look to the Yebis post-processing effects that are available right inside the Iray viewport. Using Yebis, you can easily add things like colour correction, depth of field, tone mapping, glares, vignettes or even lens distortion. These types of effects are often exactly what are needed to give your final render extra emotion or visual appeal.
Sharing your work
Artists love to show off their hard work and get feedback on it, and Substance Painter makes it simple to get your final image to the most popular art community for 3D artists, Artstation. Directly from the Iray viewport, you can share your render to the Artstation community by simply clicking a button. After logging in, your render can find its new home in whichever portfolio project you like. If you prefer more of an enhanced viewing experience for your 3D asset, Substance Painter supports export to Sketchfab. Once your project has been uploaded, you can then link to it in the same project on Artstation, providing viewers with a complete, 3D viewing experience of the asset.
Being able to show off your work is an important part of being an artist in the film and games industries. Not only does your portfolio validate your skills, but it also provides potential employers with a glimpse into what they can expect if they were to hire you. Thanks to some amazing features in Substance Painter 2, Allegorithmic has made this process much easier for artists.
substance Painter makes it simple to get your final image to artstation with just one click Eddie Russell, curriculum manager, Pluralsight