How to Effortlessly Make Amazing PBR Materials

Substance Alchemist is definitely the coolest of the three Substance programs, as such – it’s a perfect entry point to into the Substance Universe!

Alchemist’s niche in the Algorthmic ecosystem is primarily for building tileable full PBR materials from photo input. Secondly it’s for leveraging existing materials by blending and mixing their channels in a fast and intuitive way. Think Photoshop layers rather than the complex node programming of Substance Designer.

Creating your own new fresh materials for your props, environments and clothing can make all the difference in that final render. If you make custom made materials that add to the realism and mood, it can make your artwork extra special. But the overhead in creating brand new materials might just be too time consuming for your project.

What if you could create smart PBR materials quickly and make a whole “artist’s pallet”  that you could experiment with to get just what you needed for your design?

John Haverkamp shows you step by step how to use Substance Alchemist to effortlessly make awesome PBR materials.

You can try Substance Alchemist (and Substance Painter + Designer) on the Indie license for a month ($19.90) for 30 days.

Included in the registration is the webinar HD recording and a 50+ material mega-pack for you to take away.

Required Software for this workshop : Substance Alchemist by Allegorithmic (already included in the Substance Indie license if you already have this).

Webinar Content

1. Strategies for making materials from scratch

a. Bitmap2material layer
b. Delighting layer

2. Making proper tiling materials

a. Make it Tile Advanced layer
b. Clone Patch layer

3. Blending and Combining

a. The ins and outs of the different blend modes for mixing existing materials.
b. Advanced parameters to add variation or only blend only specific channels

4. Water Layer!

a. How to use it for what it’s intended for
b. Make cool glass or enamel effects with advanced parameters

5. Pavement Pattern Layer

a. Stone floors, walls : modern to medieval– infinite variation!
b. Gain the variations with mixing with your own rock materials

6. Parquet Pattern Layer

a. Wood floors and walls – infinite budget one stop shopping!

7. Fabric Presets – introducing the pre-made fabric materials and how to customize them

8. Variation and refining detail Layers

a. Adjustment layer – for global color, hue, and intensity channel changes
b. Dirt layer – who doesn’t need dirt?
c. Erode layer – works great on stone
d. Gravel Generator lay. For those little stones that collect in cracks
e. Rust – rust on, rust off
f. Textile wear – not everybody’s cloths are new

9. Exporting and Utilizing in other programs

About John Haverkamp

John Haverkamp was born in Ohio and then moved to the pristine Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia at a young age. There he spent a semi-isolated childhood re-enacting the Lord of the Rings and being corrupted by Dungeons and Dragons. Always with the fondness for the fantastical and medieval, Art school drove him deeper into Luddite territory by granting him the skills of a traditional metal-smith. This meant post-college jobs making copper fountains, welding and steel fabricating, casting and finishing bronze sculptures, and working for an architectural blacksmith throughout his twenties.

Digitally, John got sucked into cyberspace and the arcane mysteries of 3D studio max. The perfect software match for John was Zbrush discovered six years ago. Now he teaches digital arts part time, and constantly endeavours to improve his craft as a digital-sculptor and visualizer through personal work, illustration and indie game projects.