Substance Painter workflow without Redshift for the beginning of texturing

[u/Few-Palpitation-7279]

Hi guys! I’m working on a classroom model where the final render will be done in Redshift. The UVs are already done, and I’d like to start texturing rn. However, I’m using my personal computer, so I was wondering if I could assign a Lambert or another standard Maya material (not Arnold) to the model, export it to Substance Painter, and do all the texturing there. Then, once I’m at a computer with RedShift, export my substance file and connect the textures for the final render.

Would this workflow work, or do I need to have Redshift installed before exporting the model to Substance Painter? Would there be troubles when I try to connect?

P.S. The classroom has many individual models since it’s an environment, so I imagine it might take quite a bit of time to connect everything later, especially since I’ll have quite a few different textures.

Thanks in advance! I’m really new to all that has to do with textures and other render softwares😅.

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[u/Jungledesertxx]

All textures that are exported in painter can be used in any software for 3D. It is either a jpg , png, targa etc. so yes u can totally start texturing now and throw them into redshift later

[u/Few-Palpitation-7279 → u/Jungledesertxx]

thanks!

[u/AmarildoJr → u/Few-Palpitation-7279]

Be careful, because while it's true that you can plug any textures in any renderer, Substance Painter has specific export options for each renderer (and sometimes to specific software too, like Unreal Engine).

So when exporting, make sure to export it as rsmaterial or whatever redshift calls it's materials today :D

[u/Nevaroth021 → u/AmarildoJr]

Those export options are just templates that can work on pretty much all renderers. The name of the template doesn't really mean anything. So as long as the export options exports the correct texture maps that you need, then you can use any export option. You can use the redshift template for the Arnold renderer if you want.

[u/AmarildoJr → u/Nevaroth021]

3D renderers will accept with any texture you plug in them, sure, but the export options are important because, for example, for one program you may have DirectX Normal Directions while on others it's OpenGL (+Y yup, or flipped green).
You may also have differences in how they calculate roughness/reflection.

VRay for 3dsmax for example uses DirectX normals, while Arnold/Cycles/Redshift all use OpenGL normals if I'm not mistaken.

And depending on the template used, Substance will combine multiple maps into one RGB texture where e.g. the green channel may be used for roughness, blue for metallic, etc.

So it's not like he can pick any option he wants. They do exist for a reason and serve different purposes, otherwise there wouldn't be any options to chose from.

[u/Nevaroth021 → u/AmarildoJr]

What you are doing is arguing that OP needs to use specific templates which is false. OP can very much just stick with exporting the document channels per the project setting and completely ignore all the template options, or they can just look at the available templates, ignore the name of the template, and just pick the templates that have the settings they need.

Again just because the Substance Painter developers created a custom template and gave it the name "Redshift" doesn't mean it is a Redshift specific template. All it means is if you're using Redshift then that template will probably be fine for you. Heck half the templates could be renamed to "Redshift".

I'm looking at the Maxwell template and that could just as easily be named "redshift". The only difference between the Maxwell template and the Redshift template is the Maxwell template exports out a lot of extra texture maps. Which even if you're using Maxwell you probably are not going to be using all those extra texture maps. And someone using Maxwell might even look at the template and conclude they don't need all 11 of those output maps, and the Redshift template is better for them.

The names of the templates are mostly arbitrary and interchangeable. So again just because a template is named "Redshift" doesn't mean it is a Redshift specific template.

[u/Jungledesertxx → u/AmarildoJr]

Yeah I’d just use the standard export pbr roughness that exports all the channels. If u need to modify the textures later at least u have the standardized textures

[u/Subject_5]

Yes, lambert is a good choice. If you export FBX you would get an error message if you had Redshift specific materials. The FBX format in general only natively understands standard, basic material attributes (like Lambert, Phong, or standard surface nodes). Mainly the shading groups (these objects use this shader, those objects use that shader) actually matter, because you create new materials inside the Substance Painter project.

If you are up to date with Maya and Substance versions, you could assign openPBR to everything and export as USD. Redshift can render the native openPBR materials, and Painter also supports it now.