Procedural Watercolor-Like Plant Generator In Substance 3D Designer

Introduction

Hey, I'm Nicolas, a third-year Tech Art Student at Rubika Montréal. I have always been passionate about art, and I love drawing, video games, and texturing. Currently, I'm working on solidifying my portfolio with realistic texturing portfolio pieces, as I want to apply to Ubisoft Montréal this summer.

In class, we saw many different 3D fields, but the one that caught my attention was texturing. I really love paying attention to details, creating patterns and shapes, and breaking down references to recreate them or build upon them. Texturing is also a nice blend between 2D and 3D, so it keeps my roots in the love I have for drawing.

More than a year ago, I started working on a personal project. I joined the Future Material Artists Discord to get some feedback. There, I met Ezequiel Delaney, the owner, who helped me with this project. A few months later, he asked me if I wanted to have mentor sessions with him, and I (of course) accepted.

Inspiration & Reference

While at FMA, I learned to do a Tiled Floor Material with Ezequiel. Then by the summer, they started to do weekly and monthly challenges. That's where the Procedural Water Plant project started. One of the mentors, Kai "Kizzle" Mergener, proposed the following topic for July's weekly challenge:

This already helped to shape a workflow, giving hints of nodes and visuals to look for. From there, I searched for my own references, and I felt very inspired by the video game Dordogne (2023), which has beautiful watercolor visuals.

When looking for references, I always try to pick a "main reference" and other references that help me understand the material, its properties, and key aspects ("Does it contain grain? If there were cracks, they would be like this…"). So that's why I also used references from an art book and my own sketchbook, which I think was the most important reference here, as it allowed me to break down the effect I would go for with the Watercolor Generator.

Reference taken from The Complete Drawing Course by Stan Smith:

Working Procedurally With Splines

One of the challenge's goals was to use a procedural approach for scattering the leaves. In that case, I wanted to be able to easily manipulate the shapes, so I opted for the Spline nodes to control the position and thickness of each point. This allows the branches to be moved directly into Substance 3D Designer.

Thanks to the Scatter on Spline node, the leaves automatically adapt to the branch shape. The leaves' shapes have a very simple look as I let the Watercolor Generator node do the magic, creating interesting details that I could parametrize. 

Watercolor Base Color

After I had all the shapes done, I used many Blend Nodes to add color to the branches, leaves, and flowers. But the most important part of the Base Color comes to the blending at the end: Blending the "flat colors" with the paper texture allows the colors to be softer and creates the feeling that they are on top of the paper, being absorbed by it.

Paper Texture

The detail of the paper is mainly in the Normal Map: the grainy texture mimics a thicker paper used for watercolor. I wanted to add context to the visual presentation, so I decided that the page was ripped from a sketchbook. To reflect that, I added folded parts mostly on the corners and in the center, where there is most of the watercolor to show the paper getting fragilized by the paint. It also reinforces the idea that the page was ripped from a sketchbook.

I also played with the Opacity node to frame the page and make the holes on the side. Since they are ripped from the sketchbook, I subtracted rectangle shapes, and deformed them with a Slope Blur to get a more natural, organic look. 

Watercolor Generator Node

The goal of the Watercolor Generator was to create a node to get a "smudge" feeling like the ink getting concentrated at one part, and then as you go with the brush, the paint is more and more diluted with the water. Since this effect was a major part of the project, I wanted to create a node to automate the process so I could take any shape and get a Watercolor effect instantly and be able to play with exposed parameters. This was very useful for keeping visual consistency as well as saving time.

Directionality

The first step to getting something less intense, like the paint getting diluted, is using a Gradient. This gradient adds directionality as it takes the shape and pushes a gradient out of it in a given direction. All the noises should follow the same orientation, so I exposed a parameter called Directionality.

Paint Brush Effect

Using a Directional Noise and a Slope Blur, the edges of the original shape are broken, giving a more organic look closer to a real paint brush stroke.

Smudge Effect and Transition

This effect is achieved with Moisture Noise, which adds variation to the gradient. Then, there is a final Slope Blur to fix the artifacts and "crystallize" the visual. The intensity of the directionality can be controlled through a parameter called Smudge Intensity.

Borders Highlight

Masking the edges of the shape, I added a highlight for the borders of the paint, to emulate the water stagnating at the end of the brush stroke.

Rendering

I wanted the render to have some context, following the idea that the page had been ripped from a sketchbook. I aimed for a realistic render, so I used Megascan assets to fill the scene, placing the paper on a wooden desktop taken from Substance 3D Stager. For the page itself, I used an opacity plane, as I had already created the opacity mask in Substance 3D Designer.

To reinforce the realism, I decided to make the render in Marmoset, to benefit from the ray tracing. I added subtle grain, a focus and Chromatic Aberration so it looks like it's been taken from an old camera. 

Working With Time

While working on that project, one of the main challenges was the time, as I was still learning new things in Substance 3D Designer. But this was quickly covered by YouTube tutorials from the Substance Team that explain how and why a node is used. In my case, these short tutorials really helped me understand clearly what I was going to do with the Spline Nodes.

Having the short deadline of a week allowed me to be efficient, to keep moving forward and solve problems quickly. It also taught me to show people my progress and adapt to feedback, so it was a great experience for that. An advice I would give to beginners would be that participating in challenges really is a great way to improve "quickly", as you have to be focused on that peculiar project, and you can get feedback from the other people that are also doing it. Challenges aren't competitive; it's more about bringing out the best in each other on a common subject. Throughout the week, I saw entries coming in and people talking about problems they encountered or asking for feedback that indirectly helped me.

Updating My Work

Still, this wasn't all easy, and it was done in one week. To be honest, that portfolio piece wasn't as polished as it could be. Sometimes, the output needs more work and I think you should not be afraid to take more time to have a better result.

I learned that later, updating that piece after receiving feedback from professionals. The first iteration of the render for that piece wasn't really great, so I had to redo it. This time, I made sure the scene didn't feel too empty. I worked on adding context, adding a post-process, and exploring more with the render (working with the lights, softening the shadows, etc.). 

What's Next?

I'm still pushing this project to this day, as I’m now trying to adapt the Watercolor Generator to a filter that can be used in Substance 3D Painter, adding more features to it, such as a channel for a stylized watercolor Normal, that allows for stylized visuals with intricate lighting.

Recently, I helped my friends in the second year of Tech Art get the art direction for their game using my Watercolor Generator. It was great to see other people using this tool in their productions!

You can check out Vertigo on itch.io:

Conclusion

I really loved (and still love!) working on the Watercolor Generator, as it is a good mix of technical and artistic knowledge, so it's a lot of fun.

I'd encourage anyone willing to progress to look for communities in their field of interest. There are many great communities on Discord, for example. On my side, I can only recommend the Future Material Artists Discord and YouTube channel, as there are many tutorials on Substance 3D Designer and texturing themes and many professionals from the industry there!

Thank you for reading, and thanks to 80 Level for reaching out and asking for an interview! 

You can check me out on ArtStation and LinkedIn. I sometimes post interesting things I find in Substance 3D Designer.

Nicolas Dick, Material Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford