Substance Designer for VFX?

You can make Function for any parameter of any node. Just click Sine icon


Next you will able to work with variables. You need to GetFloat node and set $time as variable.

In my case I prepare vector2 for Transform.offset node. After few manipulations it’s ready to Burn :slight_smile:
But SubDesigner can’t “play animation” (better to say can’t change variable $time in runtime). So you just need Substance Player, fortunately it’s free.

I don’t realize yet how to use this “animation” in “real life”. Possibly it can be helpful during packing atlases and sprite-sheets. Anyway, sometimes it’s nice to see something animated :slight_smile:

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JonasO took aanimating substances to the next level and released it for free;

https://www.artstation.com/jolesen/blog/aO0q/creating-sprite-sheets-in-substance-designer

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another doodle made 100% in substance designer

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It’s not 100% substance but I described a workflow of using substance + photo to create tileable textures here: Textures for rocket explosion - #5 by simonschreibt

uQPQOjQ2U6

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I’m just gonna leave this idea here in case someone finds it helpful. Even if I feel like it’s not. Sometimes I take a look a filter forge graphs for research, inspiration, etc.

These one’s graph for example was really helpful in giving me a different ways of thinking about / approaching different effects.

If you happen to have a copy of filter forge. It’s a pretty good resource to pull from!

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Hiya everyone, first post here, nice to meet you all!

Nice thread with some cool examples. I also recently started using Substance for VFX textures. I mainly see it being useful for things like erosion masks, plasma shaders, warp tunnels, cracks etc, maybe some normal maps. Also for every abstract game you can do pretty much anything with it in theory. Some cool ideas in this thread.

However I find it hard to imagine Substance would be useful for more realistic textures like fire, explosions, smoke, water etc.

As a reference I can share what tools we mainly use for textures:

  • Houdini FX. Fire, explosions, smoke, water, liquids
  • Sometimes FumeFX for explosions and fire.
  • Photoshop for every single texture in some way, even if it is minor tweaking. For static textures we often paint them by hand or use a photo for reference but we avoid static textures as much as possible and prefer animated ones.
  • Fusion FX for compositing. We used After Effects a lot but transitioned to Fusion FX because it is node based. AE is still ok and best suited for some types of effects. Nuke would be ok too but is too expensive!
  • Maya/3ds Max for texture modeling. Sometimes we model in Houdini for example normal maps.
  • We also film much of our material with high speed cameras, fire, small explosions, water drops etc

Cheers,
Andreas
Visual Forest

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Hi,I’m new into Substance Designer.I wonder how to use these tools( Advance Gradients,Cracks Generator and UV Lookup) ,Can you just give me a hint ? And also I can’t open the link " Meta_Crater_RTVFX",don’t know why,Would you bother to help me out with that?Thanks a lot! I think what you sharing here is very vaulable,gotta achive that by any means.

just in case someone need such a pattern. i stumbled over it while testing the distance node:

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If someone wants to see my (terribly not clean) file for my impact crater:
https://nx12131.your-storageshare.de/s/TfJBxi8jswtqKeo

explo01

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Heeey, I’ve been using substance designer for a while now and to be honest, I really enjoy the workflow. Mainly because you get many texture variations and because you might end up with better texture then you wanted to create, due to the discovery process.

Anyway, I think out of substance you could get decent results for a base texture and then you could apply some final touches in photoshop, that what I do in production now.

Here are some of the results I get.






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thanks for sharing the knowledge. super cool!

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Hey folks, I’ve released a couple of courses on Artstation Learning that could be useful:

https://www.artstation.com/learning/series/wv/creating-real-time-vfx-in-unreal-using-substance-designer

https://www.artstation.com/learning/series/2Z/creating-substance-designer-tools

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super cool, thanks for sharing! i love to see substance designer used for this <3

Thanks for sharing Bruno, I’ll take a look when I can :smiley:

Already spotted those on the learning tab and they are on top of my watching list aha, just waiting for some spare time to look it up! Thank you so much for sharing! :slight_smile:

Now with Artstation being acquired by Epic, the courses will be free until the end of 2021, just a heads up!

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thx to 1MaFX!

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Another nice source:

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small simple setup for stylized water ring texture

Thx @Bruno for the top how to make Zoom Blur <3

2021-11-25_20-50-02

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Has anyone been able to animate Substance Designer material parameters in Houdini?
With the current Labs Substance Material node, it appears that the only parameters I can animate are in the Materials Settings (Displacement Effect Scale and Offset). I’ve used the $time variable in several places in my substance graph, and replaced it with $T in Houdini, but nothing updates when I scroll the timeline.