Hi there ! Here I am going to do a brief recap of some material assets made available by me on my Market Place over the last months. I will pick some of them and highlight some characteristics and how they were been used around.
 
    Your support , following, spreading, reviewing and acquiring those assets, makes me keep doing it and improving myself and my assets. I usually revisit my products and add fixes and new functionalities overtime (without extra cost).
    I still have a LOT to share and I can only say Thank YOU for all your support acquiring, using and reviewing my assets.

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Glamourize - https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/RdYN/glamourize-procedural-and-flexible-material 
I did a Sparkling material that sells very well in the past, but i would like to do a much more advanced one that is more customizable, flexible and smart. So I come up with this one. I started it as a study, from scratch and ends up as a very useful asset/tool/material do achieve a nice range of sparkling "fabrics" variation.
     I exported and added a lot of parameters to it, options and released in my Marketplace. People were using it in a bunch of ways, tweaking it or just using the available presets.

   It was SO COOL and surprising to receive a message from my friend Pedro Conti saying that he will be using the material in the Music Video he was working one. Turns out Glamourize was used on the Latest (Aug-2020) Katy Perry's music videos and everything looks amazing and sparkling there ! That was a GOOD use of my tool and I am happy to somewhat helping such great productions like that. 
    

Here you can check the video Clip where Glamourize was used for the hero Character of Katy Perry. 

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Chiselator - https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/NlyL/chisel-generator-procedural-material 
     I had to create some chiseled assets once and then I made this tool to use in Substance Painter. It can be used as basematerial or just mixed into the displacement. 

 It was a Great Surprise to know that this material helped Guilherme Marconi with his Awarded entry :
   Meet Mat 2 - A Tale to Illuminate the backlands - by Guilherme Marconi 

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    LCD Material (Substance Painter) - BaseMaterial/Filter (Updated Today) - https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/o5Pl/dotmatrix-lcd-shadermaterial-for-substance-painter-and-other-apps 

    Review :  I like small details, even when you don't see them, i am always in search to make things look better in details. This is one example of it. I was tired of doing (and seeing around) lazy Dot-Matrix LCD replications where people just pixelate images or just make then low res and monochromatic. Not respecting the physical aspects of an Dot Matrix. As i have a background on Electronics and in 3D, i HAD to do something like this. So I made that filter for substance painter, that emulates properly this kind of screen. In details pixels are separate by a thin space, and as they lie over a glass sheet usually you have a gap to the backplate making those pixels cast shadows. This is a VERY subtle details, but it makes a lot of different to my eyes on a close Up shot.

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  Leather Materials - BaseMaterial
  Artstation Marketplace - Orc- Leather 
  Artstation Marketplace -  Leather Weave

   Review :  Leather textures has many forms and uses. So many variations. I did some that I saw around and inspired me creating, and reproducing as a procedural material. Being procedural makes is easier to change an flexible enough to be used for many needs. The goal here was to make very Rough looking leather materials. The org one, is Dirty and almost gross, like roughly made from animal dry skin (that's is leather by definition right ? 🤣

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     Part 02 is Coming Soon ! 

     From time to time i need to create textures for organic stuff. Creatures, maps for grooming, wood textures, tree textures, bark, leather-like, etc... So thinking about my need, i created this Power Mask Generator to help me in this process  as a texture artists,
     Of course it will not cover all kinds of animals and organic textures, but it will give you a GOOD range of flexibility and creation using it.Specially with you combine them with Substance native noises, and effects.

    Using it, and just tweaking its parameters i have created 31 presets as starting points. So i can use then as they are, or just use as a starting pointing to create new ones from it tweaking it and saving new custom parameters to make a bigger personal library of my own.

     I already have used it to create some textures, fabric patterns, creature textures, etc. Here on this blog post i will post some of the things i did using it as samples. The First one, is that Wood Texture created entirely in substance designer from a simple plane, layering displacement textures, noises, and using as main "driver" 2 combined power masks to show it's flexibility.

   

     Drag it to your Substance Painter Materials, as a Base Material, and then drag it into any Fill layer as a mask. This generator only generates Black&White Masks. So the idea is to mask your layers in Painter using its information. 
   

        My Power Mask Generator is available on my Artstation Store on this link : kumodot.com/store or directly here on my Artstation Marketplace (https://www.artstation.com/kumodot/store/RJAw/power-masks-generator-nature).
     I will update that Blog Post with more examples, and maybe videos showcase how to combine masks to create textures from scratch.

You can get that material on my Store (Which is powered by artstation marketplace) -> https://kumodot.artstation.com/store/NlyL/chisel-generator-procedural-material 
     Last year i dedicated part of my time creating some assets to put on my Marketplace. There's was a nice response from the community to this kind of assets.
      So My plan for 2020 is to put more effort creating more useful materials like this one. Shaders,  tutorials and building blocks/tools for other artist like me to improve their daily workflow building 3D scenes, assets and props.
      So I want to do a bit more than just drop a new asset on my Marketplace. I am starting to do small quick-reference videos explaining how i use those assets in production.
      Those videos will have a double function. To serve as startup for anyone that bought my assets and, as the video is listed on my Youtube Channel for free, it will serve to anyone else who never thought about using procedural materials and this kind of assets in your workflow. To open their eyes for new workflow possibilities using Substance tools combined.
    This is the "pilot"  video for this series, and my idea is to do one for each asset i have on my marketplace. Let see how it goes. :)
        I don't speak on that video, but i will eventually in future ones if needed. This one is pretty straight forward so, i did not need to talk on it. :)
       Hope you all like this idea.
        

    Very simple and Handy Script Tool for cloning stuff around. Directly clicking on the direction you want to clone it. And the script auto-adjust the offset based on bounding box. There's a Move-Mode, and you can use it over mode any selection, not over single objects. :)

        http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/kloner-a-handy-cloner

I was tired of creating Channels display for posting breakdown of my maps. So i made a very simple (and limited) tool for Substance designer that generates the map for me. So i can just save the map. You can control (sort of) the way the slices are made with a gradient input. That gradiente will be internally sliced in 6 histogram ranges and filter the input channels from a base material.
    In the future i would like to improve it to auto-split the outputs based in the number of inputs if possible.
    I hope it's useful for you too.  You can download it for free here :
https://kumodot.artstation.com/store/ovDe/maps-display-breakdown-tool-for-substance-designer

     It's simple to use. Just open the graph into your project and drag it to your main graph. Connect the base material to it and plug any type of linear gradient. There's some parameters to tweak the display.

  To Drag all outputs at once on substance designer, change the connection mode to Material. It's handy. :)
   

As a suggestion you can plug a Gradient Linear or a Gradient Radial as input. :) Be creative, or just use the classic linear. :) 

   Hello folks ! Let me share a tiny proud production of my maker-side with you. 

    I started a speed-side-project last week and it's already finished on prototype stage. It's faster and easier when you spent like 2 years on another similar project lol. 

   This is a a "fork" on my main project,  the Romni arcade. (A 3D Printed-Raspberrypi based mini arcade). I wanna try some new stuff, new screen and then i made a smaller version of if (just because the smaller (but much sharper/digital) screen). 

    This is the CompatcPi. I just shrank down my old project and changed everything from inside-out structure wise. Some extra hours of modeling and adaptations. Bought some extra parts.Made some code for Arduino act as a Joystick + Digital  Logo on front OLED that acts as a battery meter too (The log fills in and out depending on the battery level, lol). 

    The main difference on this one, of course is the size, the screen, wich is a 800x480-60fps screen with amazing quality, and a tiny regular modded thumbstick as joystick. Romni uses a Full arcade Stick. And this was changed on this project since a full stick will never fit that smaller form factor. It turns out SO cute that i am dying for it. lol. Pretty happy with the results so far. My daughter now wants a unicor version of it. And i will probably make it happen. Cool thing that i can customize the logo in front of it because i had that idea to use a tiny 128x32 tiny oled screen that makes it looks so "futuristic" lol. :) I love oled screens. It even has a custom boot sequence with messages like "Loading nostalgia..." and things like that. lol        

I started it like this (lef) just to model the proper casing for the monitor. So i could adapt that casing into the master case as a insert on it. That case is the Orange area on the final product. I made that small stand to play with it while testing it. I plan to publish that first version (left) for download at Thingiverse.com

     

Here's me testing to paint my 3D printed Thumbstick. worked well. But it was a test. I will do it again. ;)

    

Here's a closep on the Tiny screen. The resolution is GREAT ! I made that OldTv-set Frame to go over the 4:3 games as a overlay frame. So the games runs on native resolution without streching and it adds a LOT of nostalgia to the mood. Love using those overlays.
   

Final wiring - This is the most time consuming stage of it. And the less fun. ;) But it's satisfying when it's done. :)

This is all the frames that i made for both my tiny machines. To use the Digital LOGO on Oled Screen as Battery Meter. The frames are converted into HEX images and hardcoded to the custom circuit (Arduino Pro Micro) inside them.

   Hope you guys like this project. If you want to follow the news about it theres instagram accounts and facebook pages for each project here :
    INSTAGRAM : @CompactPiarcade and @romniarcade
    FACEBOOK : CompactPi and Romni Arcade

   Maybe you know this. Maybe at the time you read this it is already an obvious option on Substance Designer (as it should be). But worth sharing anyway since i did not find that tip around easily...

   There's no "load custom mesh" for 3D view, but if you just drag an OBJ into 3D view you can preview your substance on your model. :) I usually do that to tweak custom materials on custom models so you can test the uv, and how it will look, how it stretches, etc.
   
     To import the Object into your project so it will save along within the project file you should use this :

      

       Hi there ! I am posting this as a Blog post, just because it's a pretty immature study, not a "art work". As soon i made something nice with it i will post as a portfolio Artwork with more details, etc...
       I am just moving on with my Substance Designer studies into something slightly different. Now i am checking if it's possible to use it (i mean...If i am capable of) to create skin textures.

     I am pretty sure that skin textures should receive a great and detailed manual paint work to get really results. Each skin seems unique and there's a huge selection of skin types around the world, and even over our body, each part of it has a different kind of skin, aged, and adapted over the years to our movements, environment, etc. Everything around and from outside and inside our body changes the way our skin looks. So i am just touching the doors of this universe.

    To start, i would just like to use Substance Tools to help me breaking down some more obvious and "shared" aspects of most skins... Like basic albedo colors, and base "leather look". And this is what about that first step here... I am already learning a lot, being forced to look at real images and break them down on my mind and then into Substance Nodes, turning it into a procedural piece that can be used just for study or as a generic startup point... I hope to improve it along time.  I will try to create a "PART #02" of this with more details about how to achieve those results in substance. (It's pretty straight forward )

CloseUp of the first result already in Maya using maps created on Substance. I tried to add some fur (peach) using Xgen, but i never have used it, so i failed miserably lol. ( I will learn it soon).
  

       The nice thing about doind the Albedo in a procedural way is that you can do a lot of layering for the colors and making it richer, and everything can be changed in a blink, like tiny little veins, pores, pinpoles, add or remove them, and create the variations needed to the different types of skins on our body... I still need to organize the Graph, and sorry for the bad quality on those pics, i got them with my cellphone before going to sleep. 

    Here's some references on the right and my first 3D renders, on the left. (Sorry i took that photo with my cellphone lol)

       This was the first time i have shown the Romni Arcade to the public. I got a small table at the Toronto Maker Festival (2018) in the SandBox Area, which is open to any maker that wants to share their projects to public.
       It was a VERY nice opportunity to know more people in the Maker area and exchange experiences, and see how the public react to my build. Everyone loves it. Unfortunately as an amateur expositor, i leave all 3 units on all the time, and after a lot of kids playing games all the batteries where drained. lol. I don't have easy acess to an outlet near my table so i had to shutdown my participation after the lunch time.
    But it was a GREAT experience anyway. I hope to participate more on this events to get in touch with more people and with the public. It's always a learning experience !
       

A maker (me) with its creation and his orange pants. lol