I would like to say that the point of Substance Painter, Quixel, the whole PBR Metal/Rough or Spec/Gloss workflows, is precisely that the materials are defined by the pixel values painted into the various maps. There is no setting up materials required, you just plug in the maps and render. That's it, done. The workflow has been driven by the games industry and the need for artists to create stuff faster with more accuracy and consistency. You can have old concrete, bright steel, varnished wood, dirty cotton, wet stone and scruffy plastic all in the same object with a default material zone and the only setup required would be plugging in the image maps. If you know the pixel values needed and the UV unwraps are good, you could even create maps in an image editor without needing to 3d paint.

Yes, material zones are useful, and often required - especially for materials that need complex shaders like refraction or translucency for example, or objects that are intended to be customised by users - it's just that PBR Metal/Rough plus Poser's Physical Surface root does provide an alternative method when creating materials.

----------------------------------------

Not approved by Scarfolk Council. For more information please reread. Or visit my local shop.