How to turn metal/roughness into specular/glossiness in substance painter?

[Anonymous]

A few weeks ago I was having trouble with physical materials and ambient lighting, and I was told that I could fix my issues by using Substance Painter to convert my metalness and roughness maps into specular/glossiness maps.

See this thread: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/ambient-lighting-with-physical-material/m-p/9175510#M18...

Before I go and install Substance Painter, however, I would like to know: Once I have Substance Painter installed, how do I actually do that with those maps? Is there a tutorial somewhere for this specific process?

I would appreciate getting help for this, because this issue has forced me to take a break from modelling for quite a bit, heh.

[Daf]

Hi,

That's not what was said. I said that if  you had used Substance Painter or Mari to texture the model you could export the appropriate maps for  your workflow. If you didn't use Substance Painter then you will have to recreate your textures within it then choose the Spec/Gloss export config to generate the maps you need for Max scanline rendering. Bit of a process and learning curve.

If  you want to use the maps you already have use Marmoset Toolbag to render your model. It does a great job and many people use it just for this purpose. There is a 30 day trial  - give it a try.

[Anonymous]

The main problem is that these models are from a video game and I didn't create their textures, which means I have no choice but to use the maps I have.

In addition, that free trial won't work forever and I need a permanent solution to this problem. I noticed, in the older thread, that the maps rendered correctly when I removed the roughness map, but no one ever replied.

Is there ANY way I can just...get the roughness maps and others to work correctly??? Please, I want to get back into rendering but this one single issue has been standing in my way...

[Daf]

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@Anonymous wrote:

. I noticed, in the older thread, that the maps rendered correctly when I removed the roughness map.

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Then don't use the roughness map. This was with the Physical Material right? If you don't use a map you will simply get the default Roughness value - if that looks good to you then go with it.  You don't have to use every map. 🙂

Daf

[hansolocambo]

And when you have a question about 3DS Max... you ask in in Substance Painter forums ? O.o

[quakebox]

Hi I would like to encourage you if you use mental ray (Spec/Gloss) and not Arnold (PBR) to use what you like and what's suitable for your goal. For example you mentioned that the textures are from an old game so you need to use an old method to render them (Spec/Gloss) I'm in your shoes right now and I use Maya 2013 with Mental Ray Spec/Gloss and not PBR.

To create a Roughness map from a Gloss map just invert the Gloss map.

Ambient Occlusion should be Baked into Color Map thus the color map also has AO.

Some old apps have shaders that include a channel for color and another for diffuse.

Diffuse is how much light bounces from the surface the more diffused light the lighter the object the less diffused light the darker.

Reflection and Diffuse are linked if you want a Metalic surface the Diffuse should be low and Reflection should be hight.

Specular is a little tricky it's the highlight of the shininess and it compliments glossiness it controls the color and level of specularity.

Keep in mind there are different shaders in Max and Maya you have to figure out where to put those maps correctly.

In Maya Blinn shader Gloss map should be in Specular Rolloff and Specularity is in Specular Color and Essentricity.

It's a little tricky I know but keep searching and experimenting.

As for Normal Maps they are the same in PBR and Spec/Gloss.