HOW CAN I CREATE A METAL MATERIAL USING SUBSTANCE DESIGNER?

Joel Taylor, Columbus

In Substance Designer, we have an easy and really powerful way to create a basic metallic material. Even if this material is simply composed of a few nodes, the result that can be achieved is incredible and useful for many other materials. For this type of substance, I selected the Physically Based (Metallic/ Roughness) Graph Template, and I kept all the default outputs since they are necessary for this material.

At this point we can start to add the required nodes, so from the Substance Designer library we need: the Fractal Sum Base noise (this is the main element of the texture of this material), the Height to Normal World Units filter, four Levels filters and the Gradient Map filter that will give colour to the metal.

Next we have to link all of these things together. First of all, we need to link the Fractal Sum Base noise to the four Levels filters, and after that we can link the first level to the Gradient Map filter. Next we have to link this filter to the Base Color output; if you need a basic silver material, you can link the Levels filter to the Base Color without the Gradient Map, but if you need to create a different kind of metal with different colours (like the render above) then I suggest you keep the Gradient Map. Then we have to link the other Levels filters to the Roughness output, Metallic output and the Height output. For the Normal we have to link the Fractal Sum Base noise directly to the Height to Normal World Units filter, and consequentially we can link it to the Normal output.

This is the base node of this substance, but the most important step is related to the setup of the parameters of the material. The values depend on the material effect you want to achieve, but the important thing you need to know is that by increasing the brightness of the Levels filter linked to the Metallic output, you will make the material look more metallic, whereas reducing the filter to black will make the material look more like plastic.

Regarding the Levels filter linked to the Roughness output, decreasing the Levels to black will make the metal reflective, and increasing the Levels to white will make the metal opaque.

Now everything is up to you! Do some experimenting and use the values that better fit your project.

If you also use Substance Painter, you can paint all your 3D models and can import the materials you created in Substance Designer