Snowspeeder 3D Modeling - Texture Test

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Today I decided that as I will eventually be painting my 3D model, I would give the actual modeling a rest and test out some texturing and the front section of the canopy. Before I did that, I had to create UVs. I loaded up the model inside Unfold3D and lay down some quick UV maps.

Click any image to see full size

UV mapping is basically a way of flattening the 3D object in 2D space ready for textures to be applied. The main considerations are to have an equal UV space per section, so they will receive an equal density of texture - and they should be as distortion free as possible. Luckily Unfold3D does a great job with its algorithms.

NOTE: this is just a test, not final textures

I saved my UV mapped object and imported it into Substance Painter. A substance material contains many maps such as diffuse, roughness, metalness and normal which, when combined, create realistic looking materials. Substance Painter allows you to paint them onto 3D objects. It also has what are called smart materials and mask generators, allowing you to add things such as edge wear to your model. Here I used edge wear to chip off paint along the edges, revealing metal underneath.

Once texturing is complete you export the generated maps. Mine look like this.

Color Map

Metallic Map

Normal Map, for the Bumpiness

Roughness Map

Reflection Map

Next I had to learn how to recreate the material inside Keyshot, my renderer of choice. I played around with some settings for a while until I hit a brick wall, then resorted to searching for a solution on Youtube. This is what the material graph looks like inside Keyshot.

Yes, it does look like a spaghetti dish gone mad

Finally, here is the resulting material and render.

A closer look at the material. Notice the changes to the tips of the guns? I spent an hour or two modeling those last night.

Again, please don't judge the texture, this was a test of the process going from Modo to Unfold3D, to Substance Painter and finally to Keyshot. The final textures will be much better, I promise.

Thanks for looking.