Is said program any good in making textures into PBR for use in Poser? I been contemplating it or Substance. What say you Poser-ites?

JB

FilterForge awesome program always use it on my textures i create. Also suggest free program Materialize it will help create the PBR's . Now Substance painter that's a different ball game you need a powerful computer i think every one on youtube tutorials hove very powerful computers like Michael Pavlovich https://youtu.be/IrrcH4BFmGY he has a high end third gen thredripper system, not cheap. I don't really know how the sub works on low end computers any info, of personal experiences?? pleas tap in.

Quixel Mixer is free and touted to be just as good, maybe better, than Substance Painter.

hborre posted at 9:46AM Tue, 14 April 2020 - #4386221

Quixel Mixer is free and touted to be just as good, maybe better, than Substance Painter.

I have Quixel and it's quite interesting. As quoted by 722, I may get FF as I want to create textures with clothing, objects etc.

I own FilterForge but not the current version. The convenient thing about it is you gain access to their vast library of textures created by other users. Once you find something interesting, you download it and play with the settings until you create what you need. If you get very creative, you can upload your file and gain reward points that can be redeemed for an upgrade or more.

I've been using FilterForge since version 1, and eventually bought a lifetime license, so I get a new version whenever it comes out at no extra cost. It's not inexpensive that way, but since I had been upgrading every year for 5 years, and figured I'd be doing so for another 5 years at least, it seemed appropriate for my use.

I haven't been using it as often lately, mostly because I do a lot of beta testing, so not as much time doing my own projects, but as hborre said, the amount of fabulous filters they have in their Library is amazing. I don't think I've ever "not" found something I could use, and they're editable if you want to tweak them for your own use. That takes some practice with it, but I don't remember ever being disappointed.

From my personal POV, I would recommend Substance Painter. Not only that the textures which comes there out are far more realistic than from Filter Forge, you have way more possibilities to alter them. Decay, moos, damaged etc... Quixel is fantastic too.

I won filter forge when I got first place in a Halloween contest here a few years ago. Never installed it and have it sitting on my Google drive. Unfortunately can't find the serial number now. Really irritates the hell out of me as I'd love to use it...

Email, the serial number is sent by email, try emailing them if you remember the old email address you used if its different today. Id still pick SP over Filter Forge any day, ( I also have Filter Forge and dont use it at all because of all the other choices I already have like SP and Quixel)

Funny you should mention that CHK2033, just sent them an email and did a search through my email and found my serial. I don't know where it was buried on there but I found it. Guess it doesn't help that I have 3 different email accounts.

I think filter forge, photoshop, and mudbox will be fine for me. I'm just some hobbyist who uses firefly and fiddles about with freebies. If I were working for Weta or ILM I'd worry more about it. The software I have is more than enough.

Ladonna posted at 4:13PM Sat, 18 April 2020 - #4386431

From my personal POV, I would recommend Substance Painter. Not only that the textures which comes there out are far more realistic than from Filter Forge, you have way more possibilities to alter them. Decay, moos, damaged etc... Quixel is fantastic too.

One of the CAs at HiveWre I beta test for uses Substance Painter, and when I decided I wanted try texturing one his sets, I couldn't. There were no Mat Zones. When I asked him how come, his response was "I use Substance Painter". Now whether that means SP doesn't allow for the use of Mat Zones, or he just prefers to use SP instead of setting up Mat Zones, I have no idea. I just got the impression you couldn't do so. This is not an issue when working with FilterForge, so I'll stick with FF, and forget about trying to texture any of his products.

I haven't looked into Quixel, but if folks who use it also don't create Mat Zones for their products, I'll never be able to texture any of those either.

@Miss B What do you mean he had no Mat-Zone. Mat zone you set up in the modeler . Substance Painter show them up and you can texture each of them separate .

As you see i can make even parts invisible. But for sure you have to set up at first the material zones in your modeler. But maybe i understand you wrong?

@Miss B

I haven't looked into Quixel, but if folks who use it also don't create Mat Zones for their products, I'll never be able to texture any of those either.

Has really nothing to do with Quixel or Substance Painter. It is the vendor who just don't bother to set up proper Mat zones before he move to Quixel or Substance painter. I use Substance Painter since Feb 2016. Had never any problems with Matzones there, because Substance take them smoothly when they get set up in the modeler. Quixel I use not so long, begin just this year . But it works the same like SP.

Ladonna posted at 1:20AM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386674

@Miss B What do you mean he had no Mat-Zone. Mat zone you set up in the modeler . Substance Painter show them up and you can texture each of them separate .

As you see i can make even parts invisible. But for sure you have to set up at first the material zones in your modeler. But maybe i understand you wrong?

No Ladonna, you're understanding me perfectly. So if I'm reading you correctly, his comment about using Substance Painter did NOT mean he couldn't have created Mat Zones, he just chose not too. I don't know for sure what modeling app he uses, but I'm sure they all allow for creating Mat Zones.

Oh and yes, I create Mat Zones in Blender when I've pretty much finished creating the mesh. This was the first vendor I've seen that didn't have them set up, so when he said he uses Substance Painter, I assumed it couldn't be done.

Thanks for getting that straightened out for me.

Miss B posted at 7:45AM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386676

Ladonna posted at 1:20AM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386674

@Miss B What do you mean he had no Mat-Zone. Mat zone you set up in the modeler . Substance Painter show them up and you can texture each of them separate .

As you see i can make even parts invisible. But for sure you have to set up at first the material zones in your modeler. But maybe i understand you wrong?

No Ladonna, you're understanding me perfectly. So if I'm reading you correctly, his comment about using Substance Painter did NOT mean he couldn't have created Mat Zones, he just chose not too. I don't know for sure what modeling app he uses, but I'm sure they all allow for creating Mat Zones.

Oh and yes, I create Mat Zones in Blender when I've pretty much finished creating the mesh. This was the first vendor I've seen that didn't have them set up, so when he said he uses Substance Painter, I assumed it couldn't be done.

Thanks for getting that straightened out for me.

This is what I understand too. He blame Substance painter because of missing Matzones, which is ridiculous because you don't set up your Mat zones In SP or Quixel, or Photoshop or whatever Texturing Software you use. All Modeler let you set up different Mat-zones. Never heard of one which not. Would make no sense if not.

Betcha it had 1 mat zone.

Also. In many ways each uv shell on a tile can function as a "mat zone".

Ladonna posted at 4:23PM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386677

He blame Substance painter because of missing Matzones, which is ridiculous because you don't set up your Mat zones In SP or Quixel, or Photoshop or whatever Texturing Software you use. All Modeler let you set up different Mat-zones. Never heard of one which not. Would make no sense if not.

I don't think he's "blaming" SP because of missing Mat Zones. I'm going to ask him specifically, but I think he was saying he uses SP, and therefor doesn't "need" Mat Zones. At least, that's the impression I was getting when he said it.

EldritchCellar posted at 4:47PM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386687

Betcha it had 1 mat zone.

Well, I wouldn't call this a Mat Zone, it's just a texture map for the whole piece, a bodysuit. Mat Zones would be for the legs, hips, waist, top, sleeves, and especially where the logo goes. THAT's what I call Mat Zones.

Yup. One mat zone and 6 uv shells. Maybe he uses masks? Not your typical Poser clothing setup.

All a mat zone is, to use Poser Vernacular, are a set of facets that have been grouped by the usemtl tag in the obj file. In this case the material, or usemtl, is grouped under the tag usemtl Borgebody.

If you import an object into Poser that has no usemtl tags Poser will assign one called Preview, in a similar fashion to files with no Vertex Normal, or vn information.

One usemtl. Or, if you prefer, one "mat zone"

https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~dhouse/courses/405/docs/brief-obj-file-format.html

EldritchCellar posted at 10:41PM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386720

If you import an object into Poser that has no usemtl tags Poser will assign one called Preview, in a similar fashion to files with no Vertex Normal, or vn information.

Now that you mention it, every once in a while I've come across just the Preview option, and often wondered how that happened. So basically someone was just too lazy to give it a name, or just didn't think it was necessary. Hmmmmm . . . .

Miss B posted at 10:03AM Mon, 20 April 2020 - #4386714

Ladonna posted at 4:23PM Sun, 19 April 2020 - #4386677

He blame Substance painter because of missing Matzones, which is ridiculous because you don't set up your Mat zones In SP or Quixel, or Photoshop or whatever Texturing Software you use. All Modeler let you set up different Mat-zones. Never heard of one which not. Would make no sense if not.

I don't think he's "blaming" SP because of missing Mat Zones. I'm going to ask him specifically, but I think he was saying he uses SP, and therefor doesn't "need" Mat Zones. At least, that's the impression I was getting when he said it.

Different Mat zones makes your texturing live more easy. Even when Texturing with SP is really like a walk in the park, different zones gives you more flexibility and let you more easy manage different body or prop parts.

Ladonna posted at 5:44PM Mon, 20 April 2020 - #4386752

Different Mat zones makes your texturing live more easy. Even when Texturing with SP is really like a walk in the park, different zones gives you more flexibility and let you more easy manage different body or prop parts.

I agree whole-heartedly. I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

Miss B posted at 7:00AM Tue, 21 April 2020 - #4386810

Ladonna posted at 5:44PM Mon, 20 April 2020 - #4386752

Different Mat zones makes your texturing live more easy. Even when Texturing with SP is really like a walk in the park, different zones gives you more flexibility and let you more easy manage different body or prop parts.

Not only this, but in Poser/DS or what ever application you use for render, it is way more easy to set up the materials for different parts. In this one example, the body suit can be shiny, the belt leather. You don't need to create extra alpha mask to hide a zone from setting up materials.

I agree whole-heartedly. I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

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.

Miss B posted at 5:12PM Wed, 22 April 2020 - #4386810

I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

I can think of something!! UV maps that match the structure of the item in a human-readable way are MUCH easier to re-texture than maps that break items into lots of little parts in order to squeeze them all onto the UV map space! By "matching the structure" I mean laid out like a sewing pattern, so you can easily tell what goes where if you're texturing in a 2D app.

Summoner's dragons come to mind as an example of the kind of UV maps that prioritize maximizing the UV space over being easy to retexture, although I've made changes on a few items using blender nodes and masks for things like teeth, horns, or ornaments (which I had to painstakingly select in Photoshop). I wouldn't have any idea how to create a new body texture, however, unless I had the ability and talent to paint directly on the model, which I don't.

Summoner's stuff does usually have more than one mat zone, with separate ones for the body and the eye and maybe other areas you might want different spec or reflections on, but all the zones use the a single texture map (plus spec + bump maps). I suppose if the single map had the UVs laid out like a sewing pattern, it wouldn't be too much bother to re-texture, but when the UVs are all over the place, your only option is 3D painting!

I wonder if what's what's going on with the vendor who commented that he has only one mat zone b/c he uses Substance Painter? Because he uses SP, he may unwrap his models into only one UV space (not separate ones for each body part or mat zone or whatever). If you're intending to paint directly on the model, that would certainly be easier for you, but not for anyone else who doesn't have the same tools!

perpetualrevision posted at 12:37AM Thu, 23 April 2020 - #4387049

Miss B posted at 5:12PM Wed, 22 April 2020 - #4386810

I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

I can think of something!! UV maps that match the structure of the item in a human-readable way are MUCH easier to re-texture than maps that break items into lots of little parts in order to squeeze them all onto the UV map space! By "matching the structure" I mean laid out like a sewing pattern, so you can easily tell what goes where if you're texturing in a 2D app.

Summoner's dragons come to mind as an example of the kind of UV maps that prioritize maximizing the UV space over being easy to retexture, although I've made changes on a few items using blender nodes and masks for things like teeth, horns, or ornaments (which I had to painstakingly select in Photoshop). I wouldn't have any idea how to create a new body texture, however, unless I had the ability and talent to paint directly on the model, which I don't.

Summoner's stuff does usually have more than one mat zone, with separate ones for the body and the eye and maybe other areas you might want different spec or reflections on, but all the zones use the a single texture map (plus spec + bump maps). I suppose if the single map had the UVs laid out like a sewing pattern, it wouldn't be too much bother to re-texture, but when the UVs are all over the place, your only option is 3D painting!

I wonder if what's what's going on with the vendor who commented that he has only one mat zone b/c he uses Substance Painter? Because he uses SP, he may unwrap his models into only one UV space (not separate ones for each body part or mat zone or whatever). If you're intending to paint directly on the model, that would certainly be easier for you, but not for anyone else who doesn't have the same tools!

You can directly paint on your models in Photoshop CC (which you have, according to your sig line), or you can download Blender which has 3d painting.

Miss B posted at 2:00AM Mon, 27 April 2020 - #4386810

Ladonna posted at 5:44PM Mon, 20 April 2020 - #4386752

Different Mat zones makes your texturing live more easy. Even when Texturing with SP is really like a walk in the park, different zones gives you more flexibility and let you more easy manage different body or prop parts.

I agree whole-heartedly. I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

I am using Substance Painter and Filter Forge since around 2014. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Both are capable of creating PBR texture sets, especially since Filter Forge 9. Filter Forge: You can use a large library of material presets, you can also modify and adapt these inside Filter Forge, if you learn to handle the filter editor room (a bit similar to the advanced Poser material room). The reason why I use Filter Forge beside Substance Painter is, that it is very good in creating TILING materials. Tiling materials are good when you need to texture a large surface (like the outside of a house, or a parking or asphalt road). If you UV-map these traditionally and apply a texture map, it will look blurry from close distance, even if you crank the texture size up beyond 4000x4000. But a tiling texture which is done in a good way (no obviously repeating texture parts) can cover the entire region, but you can also approach to a close distance and see crisp detail even if the map is only 1000 or 2000 size.

Substance Painter: This software, on the other hand, is extremely good in analyzing your object geometry and automatically create and bake specific utility maps like curvature map, ambient occlusion map, thickness map, position map and more. In Filter Forge, the texture is being created with no knowledge about the target object and geometry. Opposed to this, Substance Painter loads and analyzes your model and knows it in every aspect. Now when you create any material which should depend on sharp corners (i.e. chipped off paint), SP knows automatically where to chip off the paint and unveil any underlying different material (like bare iron or wood). Also if you apply i.e. a filter to create scratches, which you can define in length and width and density and so on, you can also use the utility maps of the object to automatically place scratches only on exposed parts, and not in protected areas (like concave geometry or corners). This is something Filterforge is not capable of, since it has no knowledge about where you may later use the texture and which the geometry will be.

Another word about "Material-Zones": These have been implemented in order to allow for different material properties (like multiple colors and different glossiness on one object). So for a long time it was a state of the art and good quality indicator to create as many MAT-zones on an object as a user might ever wish to modify. Me myself I did the same in my content for many years, always proud to offer a maximum of versatility for my customers.

However, when I got into PBR texturing years ago around 2014 or 2015, I realized, that PBR textures offered much more power for different material properties on an object than MAT-zones could ever do. Here is why: In the traditional way, you can have as many different materials on an object, as there are MAT-zones existing on it. I.e. one for black plastic, another for orange plastic, one for corroded metal, another for a painted metal section, and so on. But when I learnt about PBR, I realized, that this is just a clever way to encode material properties in some few texture maps. One map determines the base color, another map the surface roughness, another map the metallicity (i.e. important for reflectivity and especially for the specular color which is always white for non-metals, always tinted for metal materials). With about 4 (or 5 for emissive materials or another map for transparency) you can create as many different materials on an object texture as there are pixel existing on the maps. So theoretically on a 4000x4000 texture map you can create as many as 16 million different materials if you wish! USING ONLY ONE SINGLE MATERIAL ZONE in Poser!! This versatility is extremely powerful when it comes to small scratches, dust and dirt variation, chipped off paint layers, and so on. This is why PBR textures can look so extremely realistic, because they can mimick all the small little details from the real world, without needing hundreds of MAT-zones for the variations. I know that we can add variation also in the advanced Poser material room, believe me, I know this material room extremely well, studied it evers since Poser 4 and always went to push it to the limits. However: as compared to possibilities with PBR encoding, this is a lame duck.

So in my humble personal oppinion: use Filter Forge when you plan to plaster large areas with tiling materials, and you don't need the materials to differ depending on your object geometry. Use Substance Painter instead, if you wand complex detail which could even depend on curvature of your geomety, exposed vs. protected areas, position of your surface (i.e. lower parts of your model have more dust than upper parts) or surface direction (horizontal parts have more dust than vertical parts) and so on.. This being said, I have not considered your financial budget here, only functionallity. And about MAT zones: since I use PBR encoding for my materials, MAT zones have become almost completely obsolete. I need one MAT zone per texture template, so if my model has large areas which need 3 texture maps to cover the object, then I need 3 MAT-zones, regardless of how many actually different materials I put on the object (probably hundreds of them!). Here is a sample render from a little prop which I added as a bonus to one of my products. A public phone. The entire phone has only one single material zone in Poser, because I didn't need more than one UV texture template to cover it fully. So, if I can do this with only one MAT-zone, why should I create more? Another MAT-zone i.e. for the outside hull would use exactly the same texture template like the other parts do anyway, so I would double the workload on Poser for rendering, without any reason or benefit. Should I later wish to modify something, lets say the outside color, I can do this in Photoshop on the base color map. Or if I want less specularity in some areas, it is easy to lighten up the roughness map (grayscale) in those areas. Its easy, once you got used to it. In a way I personally call it "next generation texturing". And especially when you try to create hybrid materials which work in Firefly and in Superfly, then you should go for PBR materials anyway.

Here is another example for PBR textures made with Substance Painter. NB: BOTH renders are FIREFLY renders, NOT SUPERFLY. I often make a joke asking Poser users to estimate the number of material zones on this instrument panel in one of my products. The correct answer is: one single material zone in Poser for the entire instrument panel. If a user really wants to modify and have his own color on the outside hull, he/she can still do this with a blend node and a mask, to put a traditional node based material on a specific part instead. However, even me as a really experienced and knowing user of the material room in Poser for so many years, I would never be able to create THIS with traditional Poser nodes and shaders...

perpetualrevision posted at 3:30AM Mon, 27 April 2020 - #4387049

Miss B posted at 5:12PM Wed, 22 April 2020 - #4386810

I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

I can think of something!! UV maps that match the structure of the item in a human-readable way are MUCH easier to re-texture than maps that break items into lots of little parts in order to squeeze them all onto the UV map space! By "matching the structure" I mean laid out like a sewing pattern, so you can easily tell what goes where if you're texturing in a 2D app.

Summoner's dragons come to mind as an example of the kind of UV maps that prioritize maximizing the UV space over being easy to retexture, although I've made changes on a few items using blender nodes and masks for things like teeth, horns, or ornaments (which I had to painstakingly select in Photoshop). I wouldn't have any idea how to create a new body texture, however, unless I had the ability and talent to paint directly on the model, which I don't.

Summoner's stuff does usually have more than one mat zone, with separate ones for the body and the eye and maybe other areas you might want different spec or reflections on, but all the zones use the a single texture map (plus spec + bump maps). I suppose if the single map had the UVs laid out like a sewing pattern, it wouldn't be too much bother to re-texture, but when the UVs are all over the place, your only option is 3D painting!

I wonder if what's what's going on with the vendor who commented that he has only one mat zone b/c he uses Substance Painter? Because he uses SP, he may unwrap his models into only one UV space (not separate ones for each body part or mat zone or whatever). If you're intending to paint directly on the model, that would certainly be easier for you, but not for anyone else who doesn't have the same tools!

I totally agree here, using Substance Painter should not be an excuse for poor UV mapping. I hate this just as much as you do. Personally I use UV-Layout, I never use the automatic unwrapping of any software (Substance Painter can do it, but results are not acceptable, torn apart polygons, just like you told).

But look at my template below for the Public Phone, wouldn't you be able to create your own texture in Photoshop, if you wish? So painting different colors, but modifying or keeping and re-using roughness and other maps?

ByteFactory3D posted at 10:24PM Mon, 27 April 2020 - #4387488

Miss B posted at 5:12PM Wed, 22 April 2020 - #4386810

I can't think of anything else that could make texturing something easier than using Mat Zones.

I can think of something!! UV maps that match the structure of the item in a human-readable way are MUCH easier to re-texture than maps that break items into lots of little parts in order to squeeze them all onto the UV map space! By "matching the structure" I mean laid out like a sewing pattern, so you can easily tell what goes where if you're texturing in a 2D app.

That sounds good to me as well. Unfortunately, the vendor I was referring to has UV maps that just have a flat UV map.

IOW, for say a bodysuit, the UV map has two pieces, the whole front view, and the whole back view. There is no way I can tell where it would be good to chose where to texture say a short sleeveless top and a pair of short shorts. OK, the length (or lack) of the sleeves should be easy enough. The same for the length of the legs for short shorts. What I can't easily determine is where to place the bottom edge of the bodice, depending on the style I want to portray, or the waistband (at the waist, on the hip).

The only way I could possibly use it is if he has a similar style already created, but THEN I would have to somehow use the mc6 file as my template. I don't think that's a good way to go about it, so the use of Mat Zones would work much better in that case.

Yes, I think the issue here is also, if it is an item onthe one hand, where usually users love to do their own designs and creations, like clothes. Or if it is on the other hand an item, which needs very many details even in the texturing, like I usually do them, vehicles, in example. What people like to customize in vehicle textures is most likely the overall color plus specific decals like number plates, stickers. In these products I take care to arrange the UV mapping in a way which should be easy to use for customized textures in these areas. Of course, an area where a decal or sticker should be placeable cannot be torn apart in various UV islands. But Substance Painter even makes such torn apart UV islands easy to paint on, same applies for Blacksmith3D, so probably this lures content creators into bad habits, and probably this is what the mentioned vendor meant when he said he does his textures in Substance Painter and therefore doesn't care about UV mapping?

But talking of clothes, I entirely agree with you here. While I don't usually create clothes as my content, I VERY often, if not literally ALWAYS re-texture existing clothing items from my libraries to use them. In these cases I use Substance Painter to create my new textures. This is when I discover many bad habits and negligence in UV mapping in so many items. Torn apart UV islands in areas where I want to have a continuous design is only one of them. Another one is, in areas where I want a straight line on the model (like sides of the legs, for example) to place a seam and stitches, I find the UV mapping done in a way which forces you to "curvy painting" in order to achieve a straight line on the object... Or you want to place a writing or a fashion brand, and you find the UV distorted in a way that you cannot write on it with a constant letter size but must distort things in UV space so they appear undistorted on the object later... Another very bad habit (in my personal humble oppinion) is: No UV mapping at all... Sure you can take a shortcut and skip your chrome areas during UV mapping and later apply a Poser shader tree to them. Poser materials often don't need UV mapping, they know the model geometry and will work in 3D space often enough without complaints. HOWEVER: When I want to apply my own textures (i.e. PBR texture maps from Substance Painter, Quixel, or downloaded from free sources), the regions without existing UVs cause severe problems. Imagine I dont want chrome, but instead painted areas there? Or I want a high quality chrome from Substance Painter with all the small scratches, spots of dust and rust, even blueish color variation because it is a heated motorcycle exhaust pipe? Only way I can do this is by re-mapping the model, putting in place proper UV mapping instead of the existing. In 8 or 9 out of 10 cases where I start re-texturing any existing Poser asset, I discover that I will have to start afresh with UV mapping first, unfortunately... Sometimes I realize the items are simply old content from the days when the Poser material room was the best quality you could get, so content creators became used to simply (not to say "lazily") skip UV mapping and put a shader in place instead. But in other cases of more recent content items, I realize, that often enough it is (simply and honestly said) just poor UV mapping skills on the vendors side (and their used software).

These things are very easy to handle with Substance Painter. For painting you can chose to do it in the viewport directly on the object, or "wrapping" around the object with a constant scaling, or in the traditional 2D way in the UV space. So you can easily find a solution for any upcoming problem. However, we (content creators) should not expect any customer to have the same. And once a client has found out, that the models of a specific vendor are a pain to do desired re-texturing, that vendor will most likely be skipped when it comes to new purchases, not true?

So I would, just like you, Miss B, like to encourage content creators not to forget clients needs when it comes to re-texturing (or other vendors to create fitting textures for your items, which can also boost your sales).

Even if my preferred modeling application Lightwave has UV creation and even "unwrapping" capabilities plus plugins, I never used these again ever since the moment I purchased UV Layout. I had also been using UV Mapper Pro for a while, but still forced to think in a "projection cage". UV-Layout lets you kind of cut the skin from your 3D object in a way you feel like holding it in your hands and simply cut pieces from it with a knife or scissors. No matter if these pieces are already flat, or if they have any shape imaginable. Then you go flattening it in the UV space. If you discover it cannot flatten well like this, you can add some cuts here or there, weld back other previously made cuttings, and try flattening again, or put the entire piece back on the model and start again with a different approach, until you have a desired result. With UV-Layout, UV mapping has not only become less painfull or less nuisance. It has instead become a real pleasure and FUN of its own in the content creation process! There are times when I look forward to UV mapping and can't wait finishing the construction. Had you told me before I had UV-Layout that UV mapping can be real fun, I might have shouted at you "go away and leave me alone with UV mapping!!!" Also the issue Miss B and others mentioned, distorted UVs: in UV-Layout you very easily relax the curved flattened poligon areas to a minimum distortion. Colored areas help you find stretched or compressed regions, where you can then easily apply corrections. Or, if you need a region perfectly staight in projection, because you want to place a straight line there or a decal on the template with Photoshop which should also be a straight line later on the model, you can easily place constraints which achieve exactly this.

Having re-mapped so may existing Poser content items, like I have done, practically almost daily for like 4 or 5 years now, I guess I could write a book about the various habits, mistakes and (un)capabilities you can find in them when you analize the UV mapping in object files. I'm not complaining, because I have learnt A LOT for myself from studying these non-desireable mappings and by improving or replacing them for my own personal use of the items. So many great items out there (even between the VERY old stuff from the content libraries), unfortunalely often with so poor UV quality.

'nough said, you see I can get emotional with this topic, because it is really such a pity when great content artists and modelers sometimes don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around UV mapping. Everybody interested in this should really try UV-Layout, there is a trial available and the cost is really considerable. And the creator and owner is an extremely friendly and helpful guy, Australian. Imagine, when I moved back to Europe after living for many years in Africa, I didn't yet have a bank account ready when I wanted to purchase UV-Layout. I contacted him and asked, how we could find a solution to transfer money to his account. Guess what he answered? "I have put in place for you the desired Pro license, so you can use it already now without limitations. Give me your adress, so I can ship the dongle. You can transfer the pay later, whenever you have managed to set up your financials." I will never forget this, thank you, Phil.

@MissB - how about loading the texture template onto the model in Poser as a diffuse colour map via the Material Room? Duplicate the template first, name it appropriately (MyMap for example) and save it as a jpg or png, set up a very simple shader in Poser and load it, then also load the template in your image editor. Create a new layer to paint on, then when you save it out replace MyMap. In Poser use Reload Textures in the menu to update to the new version of MyMap. Not as quick or accurate as a 3d paint app, but might help a bit?

You can also try colouring the seam edges of the template in different colours to see where they fall on the model in Poser, or flood fill the different UV islands on the template in different colours.

PS. +1 for UV Layout from me too, it cost a lot for Pro but I have never regretted that purchase!

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I appreciate it.

As far as UV Layout, I have not purchased it because of the cost. I do 99.5% of my modeling in Blender, and really, really REALLY like it's UV mapping abilities. I can have my model on the left side of monitor, and then open my UV editor open in the same window (you can have different areas of Bender sharing the "view" as it were.

This allows me to make sure I've got the right polys selected for the area I want to set up as a Mat Zone. It especially helps me realize if I've got polys selected that shouldn't be selected because they're on the wrong side of a seam (think underarm seam of a sleeve). Now this may be good for me because I've been doing it this way for so long. Folks get used to doing things their way, and often don't try it another way (not necessarily in different software), it's what you get used to.

The only other modeling app I have is Silo, and though I don't use it often, it has a couple of times "saved my bacon" as it were. Silo actually has not one, but two UV editors. The most used would be the same type of UV editor you would expect, but the second is a 3D UV editor, which I've never seen in any modeling app I've played with over the years.

The last time I used it, it helped me find folded over polys the creator of an outfit had made to give some of the edges a finished look. I was trying to do a few textures for it for use in Poser, but no matter what I did, the textures I was creating kept stretching, and not necessarily covering certain areas properly. Opening the OBJ in Silo, and using the 3D UV view, I was able to move the pieces of the mesh in directions you can't do in a flat UV editor, and was able to see where the edges were "thicker" (because of the folded over polys), and knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about it without adjusting the mesh, and since it wasn't mine, I couldn't do that.

Turns out the creator had folded the edges before creating the UV map, so the folded over polys weren't part of the UV map. I had to give up the idea of doing textures for the set, which was disappointing, but there was nothing I could do since it wasn't my mesh. A bit frustrating to say the least.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant, and I will look into your suggestions.

If your a vender. you can use the FF textures you make. you can NOT use the substance textures you make. legally.

You can't go Substance vs FF. You cant go Top Fuel Dragster vs a skate board.

#1 Mari #2 Substance #3 no one cares

Quixel Mixer looks real good. I'd say Substance has serious competition. Never used it but I get as a vender you can't use mega scans. don't know how good mixer is with out mega scans.