《古墓麗影：暗影（SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER ）》 | 為南美洲叢林製作材質
Vincent Gault on September 20 2018 | Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Stories, Game
在《古墓麗影:暗影(Shadow of the Tomb Raider)》（https://tombraider.square-enix-games.com/en-us）發布後，我們有幸與Eidos Montréal（https://www.eidosmontreal.com/en）技術藝術團隊的Ken Jiang進行了交談，他們講解了使用這樣標誌性特許經營合作的挑戰，以及該團隊如何依賴Substance軟體為南美洲叢林製作材質。
嗨，Ken，非常感謝你花時間來回答我們的問題！在我們開始之前，你能介紹一下你自己嗎？
謝謝，我的名字是Ken Jiang，我是Eidos Montreal的高級技術藝術師。我參與了應用Substance製作《古墓麗影:暗影(Shadow of the Tomb Raider)》中叢林材質的工作流程。
在撰寫文本時，作品的大部分工作已經完成，但是遊戲尚未公開。你現在感覺怎麼樣？
自從我三年前來到這裡，這真是一段令人興奮的旅程。團隊每一天都在努力做好他們能做的，克服困難共同創作《古墓麗影:暗影(Shadow of the Tomb Raider)》。很高興與Eidos這樣才華橫溢的團隊共事。我真的很激動想看到玩家最終體驗遊戲時候的反應。
你一直依賴Substance產品為《古墓麗影:暗影(Shadow of the Tomb Raider)》製作叢林材質。你能否介紹一下你是如何在藝術流程中運用我們的軟體嗎？
這是我們第一個使用Substance Designer（https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-designer）作為主要材質包的項目，所以在預製作過程中，我們的引擎團隊和技術藝術總監Frédéric Chappart，做了大量的基礎工作將Substance整合到引擎中。我們設法跳過材質導出，這樣藝術家可以將.sbs文件直接連結到材質表面。
我們在項目後期介紹了Substance Automation Toolkit，這立即允許我們從Substance Painter（https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-painter）中導出的大量材質和遮罩轉換為.sbs包。這讓我們可以通過Python API進一步管理所有特定的和通用的材質。它特別適用於像.sbs批量處理的情況。譬如說，我們輕易的從《古墓麗影:崛起(Rise of the Tomb Raider)》中收回Lara遺留配備的非PBR材質，並使用預先製作的.sbs模板批量處理所有材質的依賴關係。
你是如何在《古墓麗影:暗影(Shadow of the Tomb Raider)》中創建Substance材質的？
我來講一下如何創建用於叢林樹木上藤蔓材質的過程。
準備：
這個很重要對於了解表面的平均值和UV值以估算材質的最終紋理尺寸。這種情況下，我會平鋪藤蔓材質2~3次以達到1024像素/米左右，並帶有1k的材質輸出。
我收集了儘可能多的內容，以及儘可能多的場景作為參考和顏色腳本。
基礎：
我花了一半的時間專注於在一個乾淨，可讀的高度貼圖上，在引擎中檢查音量以檢驗材質的可讀性。下一步，我開始在其上面添加細節。然後，從最大的藤蔓到最小的開始構建是很重要的。
迭代：
為了快速的響應任何反饋，我嘗試將節點組織成模塊，但是僅公開關鍵參數。用這種方式圖表不僅變得更易於調整，而且更好將其優化。程序化材質比普通圖像更通用，特別是當它被正確構建的時候。
最終處理：
這涉及到驗證遊戲中的最後外觀。這裡的要點是使用材質作為整體來補充環境的設計。
你認為與之前的解決方案相比，Substance工具為你的工作流程帶來了什麼？
Substance現在是我們藝術流程的最重要的軟體之一。它是很有用的，因為其顯著減少了材質製作的預算時間。它非破壞性特點使其無風險的迭代和優化最終結果。
你是如何看待Substance整合在你下一個項目中的發展？
我們絕對希望不斷完善核心材質庫。為了達到這個目標，我們開始意識到需要一個小型且專門的材質團隊來幫助我們推動突破材質製作的工作流程。在這方面，我們希望在下一個項目中探索實現Alchemist鍊金術項目。
我們將繼續擴展使用Substance Automation Toolkit（https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-automation-toolkit）的案例。我們還創建了一些自定義噪點，32位HDR立方體貼圖和圖像濾鏡，無需手動將數字節點插入到Designer內部的像素處理器。這也使我們完全控制.sbs包中的XML信息，這是在科技藝術方面取得的巨大勝利。我們還希望將質量控制工具從應用被批量修復移到Substance Designer中使用新API腳本設置的插件庫。
隨著AAA產品中材質的數量和質量不斷增長的需求，我們非常感謝Substance給我們工作流程帶來的好處，並且我們希望能夠在未來更充分的使用它！
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SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER TEXTURING THE SOUTH AMERICAN JUNGLE
Vincent Gault on September 20 2018 | Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Stories, Game
Following the release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we had the chance to talk with Ken Jiang from the Tech Art team at Eidos Montréal, who explained the challenges of working with such an iconic franchise, and how the team relied on Substance software to texture the South American jungle.
Hey Ken, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer our questions! Before we start, could you introduce yourself to the community?
Thank you, my name is Ken Jiang, and I’m a senior technical artist at Eidos Montreal. I worked on our Substance workflow for Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
At the time of writing, most of the production work is done, but the game isn’t yet available to the public. How are you feeling right now?
It’s been an exciting journey since I came on board three years ago. Every day the team has striven to do the best they can, overcoming challenges and creating Shadow of the Tomb Raider together. It’s a pleasure working with such a talented team at Eidos. I’m really excited to see how the players react when they finally experience the game!
You』ve been relying on Substance products to texture Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Can you give us some details about how you implemented our software in your art pipeline?
It was our first project using Substance Designer as our primary texturing package, so during pre-production our engine team and our technical art director, Frédéric Chappart, did lots of groundwork integrating Substance into our engine. We managed to skip texture exporting, so artists could link .sbs files directly to surface materials.
We were introduced to the Substance Automation Toolkit later in the project, and this immediately allowed us to convert most of the textures and masks exported from Substance Painter into .sbs packages. That let us further manage all the unique and generic materials through the Python API. It’s specifically useful for situations like .sbs batch processing. For example, we easily brought back the non-PBR materials of Lara’s legacy outfits from Rise of The Tomb Raider and processed all the texture dependencies with a pre-made .sbs template in one batch.
How did you go about creating Substance materials in Shadow of the Tomb Raider?
I』ll talk about the process of how I created the vine material we used on the trees in the jungle.
Preparation:
It’s important to know the surface’s average size and UVs to estimate the final texture size of the material. In this case, I know I will tile the vne material 2 to 3 times to reach around 1024px/meter, with a set of 1K texture outputs.
I gathered as much context, and as many references and color scripts for the scene as I could.
The Foundation:
I pretty much spent half of the time focusing on a clean, readable height map, checking the volume frequently in the engine to validate the material’s readability. Next, I started to add the details on top of it. Then, it was very important to start building from the largest vines to the smallest.
The Iterations:
To be able to respond to any feedback more promptly, I tried to organize the nodes into modular blocks and expose only the key parameters. The graph does not only become easier to tweak this way, but it’s more optimized as well. A procedural material is much more versatile than plain images, especially when it’s being structured properly.
Finalizing:
This involves validating the final looks in-game. The point here is to make the material compliment the environment design as a whole.
What do you think Substance tools brought to your workflow, compared to previous solutions?
Substance is now one of the essential software tools of our art pipeline. It’s helpful because it cuts down our texturing time estimates dramatically. Its non-destructive nature makes it risk-free to iterate and optimize the final results.
How do you see Substance integration evolving in your next projects?
We definitely like to keep refining our core material library. To reach that goal, we’re starting to see the need for a small, dedicated material team to help push the boundaries of our texturing workflow. On that note, we’re looking forward to exploring what we could achieve with Project Alchemist for our next project.
We’re also going to continue to expand the use cases of the Substance Automation Toolkit. We』ve created some custom noises, 32-bit HDR cubemaps, and image filters without manually plugging the loops of math nodes into the pixel processor inside Designer. This also allows us to gain full control of the XML info in a .sbs package, which is a huge win on the tech art side. We』d also like to shift our quality control tools from applying passive batch fixes to setting up the plugin library in Substance Designer with the new scripting API.
With the ever-growing demands of material quality and quantity in AAA production, we appreciate the benefits that Substance has brought to our workflow and we』d like to make the most of it in the future!
Thanks!