Independent Research #2: Learning Substance Designer (Continued)

Welcome back!

This week I continued studying texture creation in Adobe Substance Designer, focusing on getting more comfortable with building custom shapes and seamless patterns. Since I’m currently working on a student-led studio project set in space, I decided to put this practice to use by creating a seamless grated floor texture that could work for our game environment. Below are some screen grabs of the texture I came up with!

To create this texture, I revisited some of the techniques I practiced last week—especially using a Blur HQ Greyscale node with a Levels node to generate sharper, cleaner outlines for my shapes. This workflow continues to prove incredibly useful!

Notice the difference?

Alongside practicing the skills I used last week to create this grated texture, I also picked up a number of new tips and techniques. This week I watched Johnny Nodes’ incredibly helpful YouTube video, “20 Tips I Wish I Knew When I Started Substance Designer”, and discovered so many methods I had no idea were possible.

One of the first (and what I thought was one of the coolest) techniques he demonstrated was splitting a normal map’s Red and Green channels to generate directional maps. These can then be used to drive color or even height information. For example, Johnny showed how splitting the Green channel from a base texture’s normal map (which contained positive height information from the extrusions) and combining it with a mossy gradient color mixed with a textured greyscale node created a striking effect: a mossy top coat layered right onto his texture.

Johnny Nodes on YouTube

A lot of his content is oriented around crushing misconceptions and giving pointer's to using the software, and I found myself scrolling through his channel for a while. I also poked around Art Station to fuel more inspiration for my Substance Designer journey, and came across a few talented artists that inspired me.

Phil Liu On ArtStation

Phil Liu’s texture absolutely blows my mind. It shows just how much detail and variation can be captured in a single material, from rust cavities to intricate patterns both large and small. Seeing this really inspires me to push my own creativity further and challenge myself to generate more complex, detailed patterns.

Marcelo Souza on ArtStation

This sci-fi-inspired texture also sparked my creativity, especially in contrast to the one above, which pushed me to try experimenting with a similar kind of pattern myself. That said, the original grated texture I shared at the beginning of this post took quite a bit of trial and error, along with plenty of research into tips and tricks (and more than a little scrolling through masterful textures for inspiration!). With these new skills and sources of inspiration in mind, I’m eager to keep pushing myself further and create even more textures that are both intricate and interesting.

Thats all for now - until next week!