Hi, in this video we’re using Substance 3D Designer to create edge damage.
Let’s first go over the key nodes and parameters we’ll use.
The slope blur node changes inputs based on the slope of a grayscale input image.
Instead of just moving and distorting shapes, it creates an interesting smearing or fading effect.
With samples you define the iterations of the blur effect.
The more samples you use, the less steps you see, and the smoother the transition becomes.
Mode adjusts the blending mode of the blur passes.
While min eats away existing areas and max smears out white areas, the blur mode eats away and smears.
The bevel smooth node draws a gradient or a flat color from the borders of a mask outward, inward or both.
With output mode you have control over the dilation.
Bevel draws a gradient, dilation a solid color and distance is used for the raw distance from the closest mask border.
Direction defines the mask border which should be dilated.
In draws towards the interior, out is used for exterior dilation and in and out for a combination of both.
Maximum distance adjusts the range of dilation.
Mask smoothness tweaks the intensity of the smoothing applied to the mask.
The distance node creates an outward linear fade from any pixels over 0.5 grayscale value until it meets another cell.
Maximum distance sets the maximum expansion range for a cell.
Combine source/distance, by default source only, will give you a flat result, but you can decide to combine the output with another source to add some gradients to it.
Let’s start with an arc pavement node, connect it to a slope blur and use a crystal 1 node as slope input.
Increase the samples to 32 for better quality, switch the mode to min and lower the intensity to 0.05 for small shape details.
Add a threshold node with a threshold of 0.3, to get a hard mask and join it to a bevel smooth node.
Lower the maximum distance to 0.005 and the mask smoothness to 0.4 for a nice smooth bevel and forward it to a blend node.
Now connect the arc pavement node to another bevel smooth node, lower the maximum distance to 0.01 and the mask smoothness to 0.4 and tweak the mask offset to 0.35 for a good edge damage starting point.
Let’s join it to an invert node to get the beveled areas between the stones.
Because the bevel smooth node before works in 32 float range, we have to switch the output format to 16 Bit to optimize the graph.
Join it to a blend node and use the crystal 1 node as foreground in subtract blending mode to define the edge damage.
Use this result as foreground for the other blend node, again in subtract blending mode and switch the output format as well to 16 Bit.
Adjust the opacity to tweak the amount of edge damage.
Repeat those steps to add more variation to the edges.
Now that we’ve covered a basic example, let’s check out various techniques for creating edge details and damage effects.
Use slope blur, multi directional warp or non-uniform directional warp nodes in min mode to add details to solid shapes.
These shapes can be used in combination with bevel or bevel smooth nodes as base.
With the warp angle of the non-uniform directional warp, you have further control where you want to add those details.
The edge wear filter is nice to add edge wear details.
Use a curvature map of your height.
You have control over concave and convex areas if you apply a hard mask to the opacity input of the blend node.
Another nice filter for edge damage is the edge damages filter.
Use a curvature and ao map of your height.
Add a histogram select node to control the range a bit better.
Tweak the level and damages intensity sliders for additional control.
Multiply a white uniform color node in 32 float hdr range with the pattern you want to add edge damage.
After this step, subtract the details you want to add, away from it.
This deforms it really nice.
Switch the output format to 16 Bit for graph optimization.
Use levels nodes to control the range and the sharpness of the details.
You can experiment with various details to get the result you like.
One of the most simple methods for edge details is using a blend node in divide mode with the damage details texture in the foreground.
Use a levels node to tweak it afterwards.
This is a really fast method and great when you don’t need too much control.
For more control, use a bevel smooth node and connect the details to the distance map input.
With the bevel smooth node, you have a lot of control over the range.
Further you can tweak it horizontal or vertical by separate sliders.
Multiply a mask on top of your details to define areas where you don’t want to have damage.
Flood fill nodes in combination with a distance node are great to mask out certain tiles where you don’t want damage at all or to add more variation.
Further you can use the bevel smooth node to bevel the areas between tiles, invert it and use an auto levels to use full 0-1 range.
Then subtract the details from this bevel result and subtract the final result from your main pattern.
This results in a nice sculpted look.
If you want to learn more, you can download and open the graphs shown in the video.
Thanks for watching and we would love to hear your thoughts, ideas and suggestions for future quicktips, so let us know them in the comments.
See you in the next quicktip episode.
