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18 comments
Beyond that, some of the surfaces look unnaturally uniform, but that's not as big a deal as the sharp edges.
I'd be surprised if there wasn't an equivalent to quad chamfer and turbosmooth in Blender, if you don't have 3ds Max. To be frank, whatever the method, without baking from a high-poly model, this isn't going to look very good.
Anyway, in Substance Painter, these are the two presets I use for exporting for FO4:
- SpecGloss
- MetalRough
(Well I think I changed the naming logic a bit recently but that only affected the file-names.)
With the MetalRough export I layer the colour over the diffuse and drop the opacity of the colour layer to 35% to get the final diffuse map; otherwise the diffuse was too dark for metals in FO4. (Incidentally I have no idea if any of this is best practice, it's just what I've been able to work out that seems to work okay.)
To save the final dds files I use the Intel Texture Works plugin in Photoshop. You may be able to find alternatives to this, but I'm not sure.
Diffuse should be saved using the "Color" texture type as either BC1 (DXT1 in the old naming scheme) or BC7 Fine Linear. BC1 is what was used in New Vegas and Skyrim for example. File-size is smaller but it can have visual artefacts. BC7 looks better.
The norms map and Spec/Gloss map should both be saved using the "Normal Map" texture type as BC5 Linear 2 Channel. If all else fails you can use BC1/DXT1 for these and the game will accept it, but it won't look as good or be as efficient.
As for looking too glossy in-game, this could be from saving things in the wrong channels in the Spec/Gloss map - spec goes in the red channel, gloss goes in the green channel, blue is unused - or it could be the material (bgsm/bgem) file/s you're using. You can tweak glossiness in those using the FO4 Material Editor.
With Intel Texture Works I just followed the instructions that came with it, so IntelTextureWorks.8bi ended up in:
\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Plug-ins\File Formats\
I've seen other mods use BC1 for norms and spec/gloss maps and seem okay even if they don't have the same quality they'd get from BC5 - e.g. Shoeburglar's Makeshift Anti-Materiel Rifle - so it might be what you're putting in the channels rather than the file format? Or the settings in the material files. Just guessing really.
I'd try creating the required directories as per the Intel Texture Works readme, if you haven't already.
Not sure what you mean by the "black and white method". If you mean you've got your spec/gloss map just looking greyscale with all three RGB channels visible, that's not really what you want. The blue channel is just ignored anyway. Normally it'd look green or yellowish when looking at all channels (since the blue channel would be black).
If you set up your export presets for Substance Painter as in the images I posted and export your textures, the spec/gloss map will be set up the way it should be for FO4. (More or less. There's a few minor ifs and buts when it comes to exporting from the metal/rough workflow at least - e.g. the thing I mentioned with layering the colour export over the diffuse export and lowering its opacity.)
Anyway, I'm sure you will have more luck with animators now.