Megascans for SI

[sant0s]

Hey all,

I wonder, if anyone here is using Quixels Megascan.

Bought myself a freelancer subscription and just playing around with the Quixel Mixer.

These .pdf says, there is an integration to Softimage - but actually, I dont find that and more strage, bridge is not loading:
https://quixel.se/megascans-bridge/Mega ... -Guide.pdf

I could of course just export the materials and do it by hand, but would be cool, if it works the way Quixel tells in the .pdf

Thx,
sant0s

[Rork]

Haven't really tested the bridge, as it is subscription only, but the materials work as expected.
I often run the set through Painter for some additional detail, and the ability to spit out textures for different render engines

But if it's not working, contact Quixel support on Facebook. They're mostly quick to reply, and fix things.

Also, as the EOL of Softimage becomes more and more a memory, expect less and less support for it. It's the inevitable end of an era

rob

[sant0s]

Hey Rob

yes, the materials and models are fantastic.
Just searching the library for some Tundra/Alaska foliage/debris/ground and mix stuff together in the Quixel mixer, thats very cool.
One thing I dont understand yet: the free example "moss", the alpha absolutly doesnt work for me out of the box - lots of artefacts.
I have not yet downloaded any other texture, hope the ones to pay for dont have that problem since I thought, its all pretty quality stuff.

I gonna write them on facebook, maybe they have an answer.
Of course Softimage is soon very much dead and less and less ppl are willing to continue developing - but when its written in the .pdf I thought, there already is something.

When I hear something, I let you know

cheers,
sant0s

[sant0s]

I guess you know that, but since I had to cut all the little parts of the moss, I used these technique to cut them in a quick way
Maybe someone can need that. The compound (by AI Production) is found in the SI Ressources.

[Rork]

Wasn't there an ICE compound that uses a B/W image to cut geo directly?

And there's a similar workflow for Houdini as well, cannot seem to find the video atm though.....
But I agree the leaves/grass stuff is a bit tedious to work with. It would be nice to have some geometry available when downloading a set, it saves a lot of work to get things going.

rob

[sant0s]

Wasn't there an ICE compound that uses a B/W image to cut geo directly?

And there's a similar workflow for Houdini as well, cannot seem to find the video atm though.....
But I agree the leaves/grass stuff is a bit tedious to work with. It would be nice to have some geometry available when downloading a set, it saves a lot of work to get things going.

rob

I dont know actually about the other compound, just had that compound - but if there is another, faster way - I am interested

Yea, in Houdini its very easy with "Attribute from map" and use Cd to cut.

I am just trying to figure out, why I get these artefacts, probably just a compression problem.

Greetings,
sant0s

[Rork]

This one: https://www.si-community.com/forum/viewt ... =19&t=2262

It's a bit quicker that your workflow atm

rob

[sant0s]

ahh okay, I have that one, also. Its from the same AI guys.
Somehow it never worked or crashed and I always used the weight map compound.
Will try that again.

I just found out the problem with the opacity map.
There is alot of grey stuff that gives me the artefacts - but shouldn happen I think, at least when I pay for a quality service.

And I am in contact with quixel, hopefully they can tell me about the bridge.

greetings,
sant0s

original_vs_modified_moss_opacity_map.jpg

[Rork]

Due to the compression, jpeg's for alpha's might not be the best solution for creating geo
For some stuff I did it manually, deleting geometry that wasn't needed and splitting the rest up in separate parts.

But automating things like this is always preferable

Let me know about your dealings with Quixel.

[sant0s]

Due to the compression, jpeg's for alpha's might not be the best solution for creating geo
For some stuff I did it manually, deleting geometry that wasn't needed and splitting the rest up in separate parts.

But automating things like this is always preferable

Yea, I normaly use tiff mostly - but thats what I mean, Quixel should instantly use a good format.
They use EXR for displacement, so why not use a proper format for opacity, too.
But hey, we are SI-Users, we deal with problems, right?

Let me know about your dealings with Quixel.

I will, they forwared me to the person responsible for these kinda questions.

[sant0s]

A quick update on the conversation with Quixel:

Our Engineering team confirmed that this was in the pipeline but wasn't eventually implemented.
We are working on a newer version of the Bridge.
As soon as it enters its beta stage we will add this to its pipeline as well.

So, hopefully we will get a Bridge Plugin, also.

And about the opacity map:

Interesting, not sure why there are so many artifacts I'll have to look into it (def shouldn't look like that).
Might be happening because of how small the moss is and its just a worse case scenario, but I've used all of our moss in dozens of renders and haven't run into issues.
As for Redshift play around with the sprite shader nested above your regular Redshift material.
Redshift isn't clear on this but you can use the sprite shader WITH or WITHOUT an opacity map in the Redshift material shader depending on what result you want.

edit: the sprite node does the trick, even with that artifacts .jpg, happy!