🧵 Quixel Mixer is dog-shit
Anonymous at Fri, 18 Nov 2022 21:47:10 UTC No. 926457
You heard me.
> Forgets the paths to your bakes/input maps each time you open a project. Every time.
> Forgets that you downloaded various surfaces and has to re-download them. If you're not part of Ebic Gaymes club, you are charged for this
> Can only rotate studio light around Z-axis
> Perpetually "beta"
> Apparently, if you use multiple texture sets, material ID masks no longer work properly (a mask applied to a folder will not affect the children inside of the folder)
> Duplicates project files upon upgrading
> Brush icons are so tiny you cannot feasibly use the selection interface
> "workarounds"
This software is made by stuttering, aspergic mongoloids
I've used this since it was a shitty photoshop plug-in and it hasn't gotten any better. Quixel has to be allocating the majority of their budget on laser-scanning rubber butt-plugs and 10 million different individual rocks and twigs.
Anonymous at Fri, 18 Nov 2022 22:36:37 UTC No. 926466
>>926457
I only use it to create realistic surface materials, it's where it's strength lies. I'd never use that for texture painting when there's substance painter that does a much better job (and has an actual baker).
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Nov 2022 01:58:34 UTC No. 926478
I forgot Quixel Mixer exists, thanks for reminding me. When was the last update again?
And that's coming from someone you all called a shill when I spammed this board with threads about it when it released.
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Nov 2022 03:03:34 UTC No. 926492
I don't know when exactly the last update was, but presumably in the past year (version 2022.something)
It works well enough for me most of the time, I just need to slap a few surfaces down with maps for weathering effects. The painter is next to impossible to use (except at super low res) apart from stamping technique owing to it re-rendering constantly.
The "material id map nesting bug" I described above really pissed me off. It's like anytime I try to do anything more complex than tech demo to get funding, this software just shits itself. I've already tried Substance and there was some limitation that was a deal breaker for me. I think it wouldn't let me do multiple materials on one mesh. Like if I have wood and metal, I couldn't do both, needed 2 separate UVs. Or maybe I'm just retarded.
I'm intrigued at the prospect of a baking feature though. Right now I painstakingly bake each submesh (blendlet btw) and it takes like an hour of manually clicking, eventually filling out the whole UV. If there was some software that let you specify a collection of high poly meshes and corresponding low poly meshes, and could bake them all without merging them, or any need of clicking from me, I'd be interested
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Nov 2022 14:13:17 UTC No. 926534
>>926492
>The painter is next to impossible to use
Interesting that you say that because in my experience Mixer was the one who had terrible performance.
>If there was some software that let you specify a collection of high poly meshes and corresponding low poly meshes, and could bake them all without merging them
Well, Substance Painter? Or Marmoset toolbag. It takes a few clicks in either one of them. Not sure why're you're doing it the hard way.
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Nov 2022 16:06:57 UTC No. 926549
>>926534
That's what I meant, my bad. the paint feature in Mixer cannot actually paint, only stamp. Because of performance (re-rendering the viewport every frame or whatever)
As for why I'm still using blender for bakes and mixer for texturing, it's a combination of sunk cost fallacy and reluctance to enlist yet another subscription based 3d pipeline tool. Although since I started using Unreal I don't pay anything to quixel (what happened to all my accumulated points?)
What I really don't get is how Mixer has been out for a few years now and has had the same problems since the beginning. Even if they had one guy working on it you'd think some improvements would be made. At this point I think it's honestly just a marketing prop to add value to going Team Unreal.
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Nov 2022 16:26:05 UTC No. 926552
https://substance3d.adobe.com/docum
Well, this is helpful.
I am giving Substance another try. I feel disgusted with Mixer and ready to give up on it.
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Nov 2022 19:20:11 UTC No. 926563
Okay, the Substance Painter baker is clearly the way to go. I will become a paypig for Substance, I am done with Mixer.
>inb4 ngmi
I have 0 interest in the ""industry"" or ever doing this professionally. It's all just for fun, that's it. In fact the ""industry"" can get fucked.
>Hi my name-a Alessandrjo Mirodonzo Gorbrillo, imm-a 3d artist with Queexel/Adobe Team, here in zees video I show-you to suck-a-deeck. Imm-a from Brazil/portugal/argentina--
>don't care, get fucked, won't watch
So yes I have been using inefficient tools but I am learning as I go, with no deadline and no goal apart from doing the best that I can.
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Nov 2022 01:55:23 UTC No. 926605
>>926563
Nice, and yeah, I completely understand you about subscription models. I'm doing this professionally now so I don't care. But you can pirate it if you can, I probably still would if I were doing it as a hobby.
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Nov 2022 01:58:23 UTC No. 926607
>>926563
Btw, straighten those curved shells, it will save up texture space and give you more resolution + this can cause pixelization on edges.
And you may try this for more efficient packing:
https://www.uv-packer.com/blender/
It's basically a free alternative to UV packmaster 2, which is godlike, but costs $.
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:22:51 UTC No. 926654
>>926605
I think I'll probably just suck it up and purchase a yearly license once the trial runs out. I've used butt-pirated Photoshop and Marvelous Designer before and had issues with both. The stuff is complicated enough as-is without having to deal with whether or not the cracked version works correctly.
>>926607
Thanks, this is a legendary tip. I have problems with this particular model where the large islands crowd out the smaller ones which ruins any details there. I was wishing I could pack them better. Right away I can see the improvement with uv-packer where it can utilize empty spaces the default packing couldn't
.
I didn't know the proper term to search before but "straighten curved shells" gave me some stuff to work with like aligning one quad and then "follow active quads." there's probably a better way to do it (tried UV squares, can't seem to get it to work).
Substance seems overall way more responsive, convenient, and operable. I tried it before the Adobe buyout and I remember a totally different software. I figured out how to use material ID with vertex colors and now there's like 3 ways to filter (material ID map, actual mesh, and material), very neat
I haven't completely figured out how the layering and masking works yet but so far so good.
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Nov 2022 18:02:33 UTC No. 926674
>>926457
>>926563
i tried quixel mixer for about 30 minutes after my substance subscription ran out. the lack of baking made it automatically a no-go and i switched back. blender's baking is an utter mess, 3ds max is much easier but it takes longer than substance
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Nov 2022 18:09:40 UTC No. 926676
>>926654
https://alexbel.gumroad.com/l/NbMya
I use this addon as well, it has a straighten tool
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Nov 2022 16:55:49 UTC No. 926787
>>926676
I couldn't get that one to work but I did find one called TexTools that has a uv island straightening tool. Between that and the improved packing, and the rapid baking is a massive improvement over what I was doing before. Thank you.
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Nov 2022 19:51:59 UTC No. 926826
>latest update was a few weeks ago
>no one gives a shit not even quixel only posting a tweet with a couple new features
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Nov 2022 23:33:18 UTC No. 926867
>>926787
Np! Yes, textools is great too, I use it as well.
Anonymous at Tue, 22 Nov 2022 04:07:44 UTC No. 926878
>>926674
Baking isnt even the worst problem, old bugs and lack of painting features kills it for me
Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 22:13:02 UTC No. 927144
>>926826
>>926878
Mixer BTFO
It's coming along, fellas.
I had a smart material in Mixer I made to represent the look of old faded iron. I am trying to recreate something similar in Substance.
Anonymous at Thu, 24 Nov 2022 00:28:27 UTC No. 927158
>>927144
How did you get that nice rust on the edges? Especially on the bottom left.
Anonymous at Thu, 24 Nov 2022 05:03:40 UTC No. 927177
>>927158
It's a layer with mask/generator (forget the exact name) with a rust texture, and using one of the streaked noise filter things for opacity. Adjusted with the curvature it will show up more along edges
I can take a screenshot next time I'm on. Still figuring it out. The part in the lower right is obviously mirrored. Having an artifact problem on the inside with AO-related bakes.