Footwear Design using Substance Painter By Hussain Almossawi

Displacement

The foundation of every render is the model that you are working with, no matter how real your materials and lighting setup looks, if your model looks funny or the proportions are off, it won’t really matter, as that is the first thing that will get noticed and come off as an inaccurate and unrealistic object. Once I finished modeling the shoe, I added a basic level of detail to it using displacement maps, something that you can do nicely and control in Substance 3D Painter or your software of choice. Breaking the flat surface up with some unexpected textures will make it one step closer to a real shoe, which most of the time has something going on in the materials.

I decided to create the displacement in Substance rather than going the traditional route of 3D modeling, mainly because it is much faster, just as efficient, and, most importantly, it gives me the freedom and flexibility to change and adjust it really quickly if I end up not liking the final result or get new ideas.

Creating the Details in Substance

A secondary level of detail following the main material comes by adding the stitches, seam, tag, and tongue label. I used Substance Painter to add the writing and the stitches to the tongue label, as well as the tag on the side. With Substance Painter, you can easily place things, modify, mix materials — and do it all on the go and be done in no time. The reason I didn’t add some of those details in 3ds Max was that I wanted to make the text part of the material, and I feel when it’s embedded in the maps it comes off as much more realistic.

Here is how I used the different render element passes in Photoshop:

AO Map – Set to Multiply to intensify the shadows of the final show; the opacity can be adjusted or masked out in certain areas.

Vray Wire – This is basically used as a mask; it makes it very easy to mask out the background from the shoe in case you have rendered it with a backdrop, like I have. It also makes it easy to quickly select different parts of the shoe like the laces, studs, etc.

Normals – I like to desaturate this map and set it to Overlay; it always gives an amazing level of depth and brings out a lot of details in the final render — a must-have!

These where essential parts of the setup of my football boot scene, the common thread between all the points is just building layers and layers of detail and depth. It’s usually not enough to have one level of detail, at least in 3D. Finding the harmony and balance between everything in our setup will give us a pleasing and pretty hyper-realistic final look.

Future Projects

Looking at future projects, I’m very optimistic, as the technology in our hands keeps improving and progressing really fast, and it’s a very exciting time to be a designer, as the possibilities of what you can do are endless and very fast. Being able to find a workflow that best suits you and fits within your comfort zone is key, and luckily, there are many different ways to try to achieve the same results.

Since I have introduced Substance into my workflow in the past two years, it has both elevated my work and allowed me to do so much more. It is a great tool for footwear, product design, CGI production, and everyday explorations and R&D.

Finally, I will leave you with some more shots from the project:

https://main--cc--adobecom.hlx.page/products/substance3d/magazine/fragments/FootwearDesignUsingSubstancePainter/moreshotsfromproject-carousel2