Realistic Weathered Train Exterior Recreated With Substance 3D Designer

Introduction

Hi, my name is Dave Miragliotta. I've been in the game industry for over 10 years. I've worked at Respawn Entertainment as a Senior Environment Artist for the past 6 years. I've had the pleasure of working on two Star Wars titles, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Since my last interview for my Lego Project, I've been expanding my knowledge of Substance 3D Designer and getting into the Pixel Processor node. 

I was inspired to start my Train Car project because my family and I were taking holiday photos, and they happened to be on a train. I was looking at the exterior of the train, and I thought it could be a fun project to do in 3D Designer. I took some pictures of the train before we left and away I went creating the material.

The Train Car Project

For this material, I wanted some painted metal damage with some rust incorporated in. I started with the base color. I originally chose a greyish-blue color, but I decided to go with green instead. I liked the way it looked with the rust I would add later.

For the rust damage, I started with a Clouds 2 node with a Threshold node to get some sharp shapes. Once I got the shapes I wanted, I duplicated that setup and adjusted the Threshold node to get a bit of an outline of the shape I already made. This would give a sort of bubbling look around the original shapes. I also wanted to set up some color variation to the paint so I used a Dirt Generator node with a custom mask to add in some dirt/grunge detail. Adding the rust and dirt weathering details, I think really made the material more interesting.

As for graffiti decals, I made them in Photoshop and added them to 3D Designer. The dirt and rust setups were probably the most time-consuming. Getting the right look for both of these things was huge for the overall look and how I wanted the material to look.

This material does not have many parameters to adjust. I was just trying to see if I could get the look of a train car as is.

Rendering

The Marmoset Toolbag setup was pretty simple. I figured out which backdrop I wanted to use, which ended up being an alley construction highway. I then created a cylinder, sphere, and plane camera. Then, I configured each camera's settings to get the best look for each shape. Some of the key settings I adjusted were exposure, mid-tones, clarity, and saturation.

This material took about four hours to complete. The main challenge was getting the look of the painted metal rust damage. I really wanted this material to have some interesting weathering detail. Getting the look of the dirt and grime was key also. It took a little bit to get the look I wanted, but I think in the end, it came together. I would say getting the look of the weathering and the graffiti was what I enjoyed the most about this project. Adding these details was important because of the interest it added to the material.

Conclusion

For anybody trying to get into Substance 3D Designer, I would suggest watching tutorials by Daniel Thiger. His tutorials taught me so much when I was first getting into making materials with 3D Designer

After watching them, experimenting on your own is really important. I love getting in there and trying some new ways to use certain nodes and I can't tell you how many times I've had happy accidents. At the end of the day, it's all about practice. The more materials you make, the better you'll get.

Dave Miragliotta, Senior Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford