Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Improvements for Game Art (Video)


Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...

As a game artist myself who tried to get rid of Photoshop and use Affinity photo instead  for a half  of an year and  then  eventually had to switch back I would say we need APhoto to be on same  level of non -destructiveness  plus some channel RGBA packing  in the end.

To be non-destructive   APhoto needs  Photoshop  "group clipping"  or any other way to have live computed masks being formula, node network or its own "mask stack" based.   Plus independent transform links  like those chain marks in PShop   so we could do height based  tricks  locking  transforms of instances of embedded layers inserted within different groups.      It could be actually much more elegant and easier to work with than in Photoshop.

I don't believe  Serif could  do anything close to Substance Painter + UDIM support . It will take them years.    And moreover they shouldn't imo . I hate Substance Painter anyway.   But  I do believe  few touches here and there could do APhoto very useful  in gamedev beyond that of Photoshop at least.

For example   patch tool that would allow to  mirror the patch.      Height to normal map live filter.     A bit more advanced procedural noise generators.    Maybe Filter forge filters staying live in the document .     A loop based pixel shift as a  live layer   like slope blur in Substance Designer.   Some in-between layers live  dependencies  like normalmap vector based  directional shift/warp

 

Also Artomatix styled     "inpaint"/ color aware fill   working  in color and height layers  pair  in sync  would be a revolutionary  tool for game art .    Such a feature along could make the soft super popular.

Also I would rather prefer they do Afinity Designer  useful  for game art.   Having brush strokes always editable. Scattering gazillion of small bitmap decals along vector splines  would have so much more potential than typical pixel paint.      But unfortunately A Designer is so much behind Xara or old Expression in that regard I doubt it would ever happen.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

FYI...
If you guys wanted to generate normal maps...

You are able to convert height to normals, and normals to AO etc
using the Xnormal Plugin which works in Affinity photo.
https://xnormal.net/

Heres how to install photoshop plugins in A-Photo..
https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Filters/plugins.html?title=Using Plugins

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, mzone3d said:

FYI...
If you guys wanted to generate normal maps...

You are able to convert height to normals, and normals to AO etc
using the Xnormal Plugin which works in Affinity photo.
https://xnormal.net/

Heres how to install photoshop plugins in A-Photo..
https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Filters/plugins.html?title=Using Plugins

Nowdays It should be  "live" effect really   converting depth into normal map with intensity adjuster and allowing to compose  things on the fly  starting form height info only.    The same way  Gradient is used by everyone  for converting height maps into roughness or color  channels .        It's not that calculative expensive  at all.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, ashf said:

It seems that Procreate has successfully added 3d painting feature before Serif releases it...
https://www.creativebloq.com/news/procreate-3d-paint-2021

Is it really that hard when you're backed by Apple with probably utopian resources? I bet that's been the case since the beginning of Procreate. In fact sometimes it even seems like apple hired the team to develop the tool.

I know I'm throwing super wacky speculation out there. In any case, it's awesome that they did it.

Let's see what Serif comes up with :).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 As an artist who works for games  I would be perfectly ok  without 3d paint.     There are lots of cheap or even free 3d painting soft around.    I'd rather like Serif make A Photo and Design useful  in gamedev  with  layer comps allowing to export  color /roughness/normal from a same  document with easy switch,   make  transform links to set material depth based  blending and material compositing ,  maybe  node UI for procedural filter with input from  different layers ,   height to normal live filter,  normal to curvature live filter,  warp offset live filter  and so on.     

In a word there lots of features that would make it popular in gamedev  before  3d painting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neither Affinity Photo or Designer are 3D painting applications. You're not going to beat the free Quixel Mixer, which is insanely powerful and has yet another update today. Kirk23 makes a great point that if the Affinity software is going to have any sort of gaming specific functions, it should compliment these 3D painting applications. It's not trying to compete with them. I also noticed today that both Affinity Photo and Designer now have NVIDIA accelerated features. Nice!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly I'm not so interested in 3D painting feature.
For me, workflow/behavior of alpha channel is the fundamental problem in order to use Affinity as a pro tool.
Also adding more file format support would be nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/29/2021 at 11:01 PM, ashf said:

For me, workflow/behavior of alpha channel is the fundamental problem in order to use Affinity as a pro tool.
 

I  honestly don't understand what's the issue with alpha  channel  people are often talking about.    We have erase blending that can be working as alpha, we can do separate group for alpha only with "procedural" filter . Levels and curves can work for alpha only .  We can use embedded doc as alpha.  We can paint, add layers and adjustment while see only the alpha of a document .  In a word it's so much more flexible and convenient  than in Photoshop imo where you  can either have undecipherable clipping groups  or completely destructive alpha editing. 

 I would love  the "model" pane preview  although  and layer comps that we could  use as normal/roughness/ color/ao  in that 3d preview.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Funny you mentioned Quixel. I do all my megascan mixes in AP, because its like 100 times faster the Mixer. And Mixer is really limited. Output opacity maps still not working. Yeah I would prefer a file format, where all channels are linked into one image, instead putting things into extra channels would be quiet work intensive. Indeed I have a setup in BM Fusion where I can do that. Downpoint of all tools is that they can't deal with normals well. For example you overlay an normal map with another and rotate it.

That goes wrong, because the normals always would point in different direction. There are tools that can convert such rotation, but of course ideal would be a shape or a high map. And tools et that easily convert your normal into a high map, rotate it, convert it back. And there are tools that do that, just not in Affinity tools yet. Sadly Affinity ignores game designer a lot. Stil not seen any live effect that can do affine displace the simple most needed for doing tillable textures. I keep requesting that since Version 1.0..  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, Maestrorobertus said:

 I do all my megascan mixes in AP, because its like 100 times faster the Mixer.

I only tried Mixer for a few days  and use Substance Designer mostly   but gosh how inconvenient it is  while super capable at the same time.  Nevertheless it's so much easier to mix materials by height blend/combine in APhoto .    Too bad it still lacks a few key features  like ability to export all textures by one button  push.   I have to go through all embedded things and switch them to normal/ roughness  etc  one by one.       If only slices  could remember each their own layers including inside embedded docs.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Substance is on totally different level, its easy there. But you need an Adobe subscription. 

There is actually a simple trick to do that with FX. You need to layer to fx, to do that you need to groups and place your shapes below. The shapes need to have the default normal map color. Then you need a bevel effect on both groups with 45° 45° light and then second with -45° the first will have green vs pink and then second blue vs. white. and both FX groups need to use overlay.

I did this for adding Text to a normal map. It did work perfect. Not so easy to use, but if the developers would be not so lazy, they could easily add that to the FX or Styles..  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • 2 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.