How Javier Perez became a Substance Designer Badass!

there's instances where i open up like graphs are that i created like one or two years ago and i'm like man what was i thinking like what like i got the result but i'm like man these like i could i now know how to get it way more optimized and get like for example i had like 10 nodes to create a certain effect now i could get it with like maybe one or two because i know like the library a little bit better i know how stuff blends together please welcome today's guest and substance designer aficionado javier perez a material artist by trade javier expertly uses adobe substance designer in both his professional and personal creations which has seen him lend his talents to projects such as the last of us too and also share that very knowledge in his extensive learn squared course substance designer essentials in this episode we get deep insight into how javier became one of the top material artists out there plus much more let's go [Music] all right let's get going uh have you have your perez is here sorry for mispronouncing your name did i get that right yeah javier javier okay yeah yeah yeah no worries cool um welcome to the learn squad podcast um not only are you first time on here you also actually a learned squad instructor listeners don't know um who teaches substance designer essentials um so i guess let's let's kick off with the substance designer um pretty powerful tool as you demonstrate in your course um even your portfolio as well and you've worked on some huge titles um and taken away the titles as well even just some of the stuff you cooked up yourself is pretty sick um and that's pretty lightly um so when did you like because that's like considered i guess the official title is a material material authoring or is it material artist like yeah it's uh it's a material artist yes materialized and when did you actually become one of those like is that something you fell into is that something you um yeah directed your career towards um yeah it's really interesting because i would say it kind of it it almost feels like i fell into it um you know i graduated college in 2012 and around that around that time uh like when i was in school all they really taught us are was like you know environment artists and prop art is is like what you will probably end up getting a job in um back then there just wasn't like i feel like now the industry has gone towards a more specialized like course where now you know some people are just doing materials some people are just doing foliage some people are just doing uh props and stuff like that um yeah so i would say around 2016 is when i really started um messing around with substance designer my entire career before that was all i was just preliminary uh an environment artist that's all i ever known uh but i guess 2016 was when um i i saw a lot of people doing substance designer it was still a relatively new tool and i wanted to get into it at the time i was working for a mobile studio i was working on temple run and being in a mobile studio and um it's just such a smaller team compared to like a triple a like big budget game i was able to there i was able to like because i'm wearing so many hats i felt that i could actually like give substances designer some time and like really get to know the tool a little bit better as opposed to like if i was at a big studio you know i'm just cranking out like as quick as i possibly can so it was i would say it was a little bit of both like you know i was doing stuff at at work most of the time but i would say at home is when i really started doing all those like crazy projects to try to push the program to its limits but also like for me i wanted to see like is this something like that is possible inside the program like i wanted to see how how much i could um do inside the program um and then you know up until 2018 like i was still preliminary my title was still environment artists but around 2018 is when i started at playstation and um that's when i transitioned fully to a material artist the the past two studios before sony um you know i i was going in as a environment artist but i kept finding myself like being more and more in substance designer and i found the teams kept asking me for textures more more than anything so i just found myself continuing to just work in designer a lot of the time so when uh when the opportunity came up from sony to just focus on materials as like my actual job title i you know i definitely took it did they actually request someone who just mainly specializes in materials or his proficient materials or in substance or was it like just in general you know i think now when you look at job titles and just like career pages you'll notice that a lot of the substance or a lot of the uh texture material artist position one of the big requirements is definitely substance designer i feel like it has now become an industry standard to create like environment textures yep so um i think being proficient in that is like one of the top qualifications but there are instances where like you know i i have been doing stuff in substance painter yeah or whatever um like texture authoring program is available really yeah i mean there's not many competitors right i believe like there's obviously substance um i think is mari is mario another one is that still around oh man man i haven't used marty since yeah i haven't used mari since so long ago um back when i was still in l.a um you know for a while uh mari was up there but i think substance painter took away that whole you know that whole crowd uh and i think just mari is just more utilized for film nowadays right right but i feel i feel like that that is gravitating a little bit towards substance painter now now that they've integrated you dims and stuff like that so yeah i mean like even from my perspective is more like on a concept or angle or more like an artistic point of view um it does seem more approachable like i've spent a lot of time in substance painter and substance design is like something i definitely setting time aside for um i'm just worried that it's going to take over my whole life um but otherwise because you can just see how powerful it is there's something profound about like there's one hand just looking for references and materials to make your stuff and obviously you want to make unique ones and take your own pictures and what have you which is great it's efficient um but then there's something super appealing about making your own assets and references however you want yeah um and yeah clearly shown and even the students from the course have clearly shown that you can literally replicate mimic make modify whatever you want yeah yeah yeah do you think it's down to how they've like like i think so yeah back to my point was like it's more artist friendly i i feel um at least in terms of like after i guess let's say a few days of really like moving around the software yeah figure out where things are and um it does feel a bit like familiar like other programs like um some 3d packages when you're like panning around like saying something's painting for example or you know or no instructions all that kind of stuff um do you think that was a key thing and yeah like you're connected with the substance guys right yeah yeah definitely yeah and um did they mention that at all like is that something that they did intentionally or is that something that just kind of like happened and they capitalized on it yeah i'm not entirely sure like with that i haven't really you know talked to them about like the connections between like other 3d packages um but uh like as far as like being like user friendly and like approachable like you're saying i would say a lot of it comes from for me it's like two things it's it's the fact that it's node based so right off the bat like i was very familiar already with like unreal you know having their node based material editor so it was i would say it was a little bit quicker for me to understand the way things were connecting and uh the nodes uh sure like unreal and substance have the different like they have different namings for um the same kind of things they do as far as nodes but once you know exactly which nodes do what i think it's it's a lot um it's a lot quicker the other thing is i would say the big when i tell like students or anyone learning designer the biggest learning curve is it's just figuring out what's in the library and i would say like that's like one of the first things i tell people is like you know just start dropping in nodes and seeing what's actually available because uh the more you know of like nodes that are available the quicker you'll be able to achieve the look you're going for um because that was like like for me you know i've been using it like for a couple years now and there are some instances where i'm still finding out new nodes and new like textures inside of the actual library that i had no idea about and that's like one of the great things that i really like about substance designer like you could have like two substance artists in the room and ask them to make the same material but they'll have completely different node sets and graphs to achieve that same look and i think that's that's like the funnest part about it is seeing how people are able to achieve certain like patterns or certain like wear effects inside the program i think that's interesting that you mentioned that because again you just see like you feel like you've seen all the kind of things that people like can make in some sense because there's so much variety out there but then you always see something else that oh i never thought you could do this i never realized you could like that and i think it's um quite insightful that you mentioned that like there are multiple approaches to one thing and the fact that you can do that in a package i guess that that does like touch upon like i guess the artist element of doing it as well because let's say that wasn't the case let's say it was very rigid in terms of the set ways to do certain things do you think that would change your mindset and obviously your like affinity towards them yeah yeah i would definitely say like because i i feel like every time i start a new material um you know it's it's kind of funny in the way that like i could have done it like maybe a year ago i would have done it one certain way but with my experience and then just learning and creating different materials it kind of transcends into like figuring out other ways or other like uh it's almost like i'm thinking differently now that i know the software from what i knew a year ago so now like i'm using different nodes and like different like graphs to like get a certain look i'm looking for it's funny because sometimes um there's instances where i open up like graphs are that i created like one or two years ago and i'm like man what was i thinking like what like i got the result but i'm like man these like i could i now know how to get it way more optimized and get like for example i had like 10 nodes to create a certain effect now i could get it with like maybe one or two because i know like the library a little bit better i know how stuff blends together um but yeah but like obviously you say that in a way um that's natural anyway that's a sign of growth of course um and it shows kind of like you it's again it's a very powerful tool that um i guess mastery of something is is like signified by um how again like you mentioned optimized like how optimized you can be with certain things yep i guess like when you watch a martial arts film you see people doing all these energy um consuming moves and then like the master just you know with the little finger finish yeah yeah but like would you say that only happens because again you're working as a professional and times of the essence efficiency of the essence and you're part of a pipeline so it's important to do that um versus like say a hobbyist who's just again wants to get the end result um would you say that's important then as well yeah i mean yeah yeah i would definitely um definitely being optimized is super important as far as inside of like a studio or like a pipeline like you're mentioning because the one thing about working in substance designer inside of a studio that i found is that you know we're making a material library and there are multiple texture artists on the team so you know naming your stuff accordingly being clean with your connection points being clean with where your nodes are is super important because you know we share this stuff all the time like you know i could finish a material and i could hand it off to someone who like wants to make a variation yes or there's an instance where um another texture artist like needs to create something but they want to reference mine and see how i did certain effects so in that in that sense it's super important but i would say like when i'm doing stuff at home it's more like i would say r d because i'm i'm kind of just throwing stuff at the program with the the tessellation and displacement and that's how i'm able to get those like crazy um projects where it looks like something is modeled but it's not it's like that it's that thin line between modeling and texturing um and that is more i would say because i get that question asked a lot i'm like it can this be used in like a studio like like when i make that sci-fi hallway or like that sidewalk can this be used i think i think when i do those projects um there are some aspects to it that could definitely be used in in a studio space whether or not i would have enough time to create all that inside of a studio that's um that's debatable yeah but um i i would say that with every one of those projects that i do again it's like a learning experience and i learned either a new set of nodes or just something different that i didn't know about the program prior so would you say like the r d phase is where you level up the most and then studio life is where you basically apply those definitely definitely yeah yeah like that's one thing where you know substance designer keeps coming out with new updates and you know every time i see a new update come out for it i like instantly go home and try to utilize these new nodes to like implement them into my workflow and once i get comfortable in with them inside like at home i then translate that into work and start using those at work too how long do you spend at home like um because that you cleaning up man busy guy um so how much time do you i guess in two parts how much time do you realistically have to spend on it and how much time do you actually end up spending on it yeah it's it's crazy because um you know right now um i would say like i'm spending the most time i have uh with it just because the whole um pandemic and working from home and stuff it's um it's a lot easier for me to transition from my you know my my work setup to just my home setup because i'm already home i don't have to drive in traffic and all that so i'm more like motivated to just stay in my seat um but yeah i would say you know i get asked a lot that as far as like i've had quite a few people ask me if i ever sleep because like i'm constantly i'm constantly working but yeah i would say you know i work my i work my eight hours of like you know sony but then i still spend around like i don't know six hours outside of work just doing either um freelance or just personal work um or and and the third thing is like teaching so yes um i teach at a college so i do that as well and and again it's like you know no matter what it is i am always in designer like that is my main thing so i definitely spend a lot of time in it and i guess it's fitting because um that's something you picked up initially by yourself right like on the side of doing work and it's something that you like you mentioned you fell into and the fact that it's become um your job it's become something that you can earn a living off um not so much you're living as well it's like a career um and you're one of the go-to guys of substance as well um and the fact that you still continue to spend time in it is i guess it just shows like for for things like this and even just just in in a career in general like you um and i'm sure you'd agree with this that you must put as much maybe not as time as well but ideally obviously time but as much energy as you can to not only perfect your craft but improve it and like you mentioned new updates things always changing to um find new things as well yeah yeah yeah when you first got into substance was it easy for you because obviously you mentioned that you were already um an environmental artist are you was that many mud link was that still like texturing or was that pretty much everything yeah yeah yeah so that's um yeah that that's that's a good question um because i it's interesting because nowadays i feel like students are gravitating towards um you know just creating their materials and posting their sphere renders on their portfolio um for me coming from this environment art background i always had the mindset of like let me see it in context with the whole environment and i think that's i think that's one thing that a lot of students are missing like when adding materials uh or textures into their portfolio is like i yeah it could look nice on this like sphere render but like let me see it in context and let me know how it works with the environment and the things around it so i think that helped me a lot as far as like i know what a good normal map looked like i knew what a good roughness map looked like just because you know as an environment artist i was creating textures but i wasn't like as deep into it as i am now yeah but having that mindset of like you know i want to see it like as a whole environment and how it's being used and like its context to the other things around it i think helps you i think it helps you ground your materials because you can add certain things to them or like that make it fit into the environment rather than just thinking of it as like okay i'm just going to place it on a sphere and add a few lights to it and like render it kind of pretty um because i've been hearing you know a bunch of people you know whether it be on twitter or facebook you know they and like just talking to other artists or like even my art director yeah they want to see they want to see you know materials in context and how they work with the environment because you know they could look nice on themselves but if you were to put them in the environment would they still look you know just as good and i guess like um just to segue off that a little bit um like you mentioned um the sphere renders making the material i guess it's like like you mentioned before it's showcasing that you're pushing the program to that limit and what you can achieve from it um but again like you mentioned for production and i guess even like whether it's for a job or even for your own projects as well um it is wise to make sure it does help again the rest of the production of the pipeline and to show that it can be used for example what are the common pitfalls that you see um or like common mistakes that you see people repeat the most um or what are they not like i don't know if this is a question you can answer and like i say in one answer perhaps but um that what is the common thing that you could say hey if you do this instead that is what would you know like um reduce the anxiety of like recruiters or show you know like um directors or what have you to say like yeah this this is definitely can work on our project yeah um so uh some of the like pitfalls i guess when you're when you're talking about like being able to work in a production environment is like a lot of the stuff that i do at home is very one-off very like okay this material is made for this certain thing whereas in my studio environment i'm i go over in the i go over in this course actually um i go over how to parameterize certain things to get to get different um to get different like either patterns or just a different result as far as the wearing inside a designer yeah and i think that is one of the biggest things that we look for is just being able to make it super useful not only like to create one material but because we are you know on deadlines we are on a schedule having the ability to create uh quickly like move a slider and create different variations of the same material for like a different part of the level or something like that is super beneficial as far as like time wise because we're not there you know substance is super procedural and you can change a pattern or you could change the amount of a brick or something and it'll auto update throughout the entire graph so i think having that and integrating that sort of stuff those sort of parameters into your material can really help um you know stand out a little bit and i think just having better renders as far as like whether it be like you know just i would say like adding a few props into the scene or even the big one that i i know gets some good attention is vertex blending um you know a lot of a lot of students just have one single material on a flat plane they have some nice renders or again on a sphere but um a lot of the stuff i do at work is vertex blend based so being able to blend two separate materials and seeing how they work with each other um can really help like just stand out with a recruiter or an art director sweet and would you say like with substance um or something designer rather is it a tool for mainly aaa games or like i know it's pretty accessible i know like you can do i guess on some indie kind of games um but would you say it's more of a triple a tour or is it could you apply to anything you know that's funny um because when i when i mentioned that you know in 2016 i was working on temple run that's actually where i first started learning the substance designer and that was a very stylized game yeah i would say i mean we're definitely i would say with the size of the team we were an indie studio um but yeah like i've seen a bunch of different articles with uh substance being used in the mobile space that can be really beneficial because i've seen people just export their not only their textures but the actual substance file has been integrated into unity or even even um unreal and you can actually like move things on the fly and it's just so compact the file that it's it's a lot easier for like mobile devices to handle um but yeah i would say i've seen some really impressive stuff go towards the stylized space as opposed to like the hyper reel but i think substance is just you know it's like any other package like it could be used to create whatever you want to um it's just i would say the mindset can be a little bit different just like how if you were modeling for stylized versus like something that's super hyper realistic with exaggerated shapes or something like that i think the same can be said about actually creating materials for different projects when i'm creating stuff for stylized i'm more so thinking about like the broader shapes the broader colors where as opposed to like creating something for like the aaa hyper real space it's very more nitpicky getting really into the details and the fine like finite like details and stuff like that and when it comes to like um and i guess probably at least from my perspective the thing that definitely catches my eye the most is more the realistic stuff because again it's like it's like wow is that a real thing or is that something that's made and you know it's like how how then the next question is especially is that creative is like how was that made how easy it is to make how can i use that it's always we all agree do you want to know how we can do it ourselves yeah um yeah but like um how do you know how to get things real like how much research goes into getting the material right or getting your visual library on point before you even start messing with the nodes and getting it right yeah like lately lately i've been using pureref a lot and finding like a bunch of reference when i start a material um especially especially at work because we are working off concepts but these concepts come from like you know they're grounded from real life reference so always getting always getting the reference that you know concept artists are working off of or what have you um is super important to look at but one big thing that i have been doing lately is actually looking at scan data um because you know scan data is like the closest you're gonna get to like what it actually looks in the real world um when you go on like either textures or quixo you know they have their they have their scan uh library so i always reference those and that is almost like my okay i need to at least hit this bar or even better to try to match like as far as like how realistic i can go like and that's just not i look at both the albedos the normal maps like pretty much every single map that's scanned to try to replicate as much as i can um because i don't really like they don't really manipulate much do that i guess they clean up certain things but it's not exactly like um an artist goes over it and just you know exaggerates in certain ways right yeah yeah yeah it's like i would say it's like pretty pretty raw to what you get from like those different libraries on textures or anything like that um but uh yeah i would say that's like sort of my baseline but there are instances where you know maybe i'm not actually creating a material that's like like there could be aspects to it in the real world but like it's something that hasn't been created yet like um for example i like to mix different elements of different materials together so that i might not have a specific reference that i'm trying to match but i know enough about each separate element that i can find you know reference or you know texture scan data so i can actually look at it and see how it could work or blend together sweet and when you were picking up substance obviously mentioned that again you spent a lot of time in there and i like the fact that you said that you push it to practically breaks just so you can know what you can get out of it um yeah were you like that with other when you got into 3d as well or was that only when you got into substance oh man um is this is this a javier trait or is this like just yeah um i think it's honestly i think it's what substance got out of me um i would say when i was doing environments i was you know the like like you were saying um there are certain programs where you just know like one certain result will get you what you need and that was kind of my mindset when i was doing more 3d environments there was always like i feel like every artist has their like has their workflows right that they've obviously learned from like tutorials or from their studio or what have you like they have their one thing and they'll always fall back on on to it and they'll like if someone were to ask them oh can you make this they'll fall back to whatever they know when i'm working in designer i feel like i get asked to make certain materials at work that i'm like i've never made that so i like i have to like almost it's almost like i'm resetting my my brain every time because i have to think outside the box and like how do i even start this and that goes back to like almost referencing old graphs that i made or thinking about like the the way i'm looking at the reference i can break it down into larger shapes like medium shapes and like granite details um so i would say yeah substance designer definitely definitely made me like push it to the limit and uh yeah and just figure out how to do things in so many different ways where as opposed to when i was doing stuff in 3d right and was that journey in the early stage was that frustrating for you was it actually something that became addictive i would say it was a little bit of both um because the the hardest thing that was like you know now i'm very like open to like oh yeah you could do this thing so many different ways when i was first learning designer it was a little frustrating when i kept watching different tutorials from different artists they were getting the exact same like pattern of like a stone or a brick or something in the same exact edgeware but they were using two like sets of different nodes and in my mind i'm like well which which one should i choose like what like like do i have to stick with one like what like and that's the thing about substance designer like you're not bound to like any set of like graphs or notes like you are free to use whatever you want so if you find if you find what works for you like go ahead um like for me like i have my certain like in my mindset i have like certain nodes and that i know will work to create a certain effect whereas like my other or other texture artists will know how to you know do the same result with their sets of like uh nodes that they know how to do um so yeah and i would say i would say that's the fun part like being able to share your knowledge with other texture artists and like you know seeing how other people do certain things and what was like the first type of material let's say substance you made um by yourself like were you were you on tutorial straight up are you kind of like someone who follows a tutorial and then applies it or is it do you want tutorials when you're kind of like stuck on certain things like looking at a dictionary kind of thing um yeah yeah yeah um so when i first learned designer it was off of a nomen tutorial um but you know wha for me uh for me the biggest thing when i do a tutorial is um i i don't want to copy it one to one like i just don't want to and that's just a me thing where like uh like sure this sure this material this uh tutorial was showing me how to create like a cobblestone pattern on the floor i to i watched that video and i took it and i applied it to create something completely different because i wanted to almost like force myself to apply the knowledge that i just learned from creating one material to create a different material needless to say like it wasn't that different so for example like i watched the cobblestone tutorial i ended up making a brick wall based on the certain elements that they were introducing inside of their tutorial um so it was a lot of i would say it was a lot of being able to play around with like the set of nodes that were introduced to me uh within the tutorial so um you know the artist could have like you know said to use this note or with this combination but i would i would try to integrate some of the nodes that substance already had whether that be like different noises that i could apply yeah different wear effects or something like that that was kind of my mindset um and then i think because i just wanted to almost like force myself to learn it i would definitely um i would definitely just sit down with no tutorial and kind of just start playing around with it just have it open and start dropping in nodes but there were instances where like man i really wish i knew how to get this result so that's when i would jump on the tutorial space um and you know like i mentioned i don't really like copying tutorials one for one when i created the course i wanted to like when i was creating the audio i wanted to have these little bits and segments which i have in the videos where like i i throw in examples of like you know i'm showing you guys how to create this certain look with these nodes but feel free to give these nodes a try and i give the students like you know i stopped dropping in nodes that i think would help create um different results from each different student and that was like one of the big things when creating the course was like i wanted to make sure that the students had the ability to create something different from what i show in the end result like i wanted that to be very um uh adamant about like being able to create something completely different from what is shown in the final renders yeah i think you definitely achieve that because you can even see like with the some of the homework that obviously early the early lessons obviously it's going to be very close to um what you've done because again people are picking up especially i think a big bunch of the guys had not even opened substance before so that that's quite telling um compared to like say someone who's already familiar with it and then just use that to push it you know further but then you can see slowly as some people have got onto it i mean like i think it's mark velasquez who's just he was kicking out different you know different like material after material and that's quite awesome to see and it does remind me a lot of um the way you explain it and especially with i guess your approach as well it's like like cooking it's like the ingredients are there the utensils are the same um there's many ways you can use a knife it's technically there to chop things up um but you could do you know crazy things with it um yeah and again like i guess with cooking um you know there's a lot of dishes that you can have but they're all taste differently from ten different chefs what have you um yeah like when you first got into it um like how quickly did you realize that this is something you're gonna start playing with a lot more started using a lot more um or is that something that kind of was never in the in the front door against the back of your mind yeah it's it's really interesting because um ah man you know i i really didn't think i was um i really didn't think i was gonna be the substance guy i really like when i first was learning the program i never was like okay um people are gonna look at my work or tutorials and like know me as a substance guy i kind of was just you know i was just like anybody else i was honestly just trying to learn a program to you know utilize inside of my work environment i just wanted to get better and i think you know learning new tools and learning new pipelines is just like it's just it comes with the territory of becoming an artist you know you always have to you always have to learn new tools and new pipelines it makes you more valuable as a as an employee of a studio to learn things or to know and learn things that nobody else is doing um so you know uh i was but but i guess it kind of just sort of fell into that for me because i was creating these projects that no one had ever seen done before inside of the program so um and that and that was one thing that i definitely did want to do was i wanted to stand out from like um the the others the other artists that were creating just um standard like you know uh real-world materials one-to-one i wanted to do something that was a little bit different and try to integrate the whole i wanted to integrate the whole modeling aspect to it where it looks like something was modeled but it was actually just texture work and i think p i think people seeing that stuff for me really got people interested and like to know exactly what is going on with designer i think there's a lot of other great substance artists out there who um have also like crossed the line between like texturing and modeling and you can't tell what is what um so i think um those kinds of projects uh help me stand out and like you know um just keep and and i think i think with each with each project that i did like you know personal project um you know getting the the feedback and getting all the like all the comments and stuff it just kept me like it's always for me it's like okay what can i do next to up what i just did from the last project um but yeah and what was you um i guess what was that project that first project or that first substance i guess that was like that maybe actually different way what's the substance you're most proud of that you made oh man though oh man that's a tough one um let me see uh man the the honestly the the one that i'm most proud of is more so the collection that i did with uh with substance when they approached me to create the 15 materials for the library yeah that is definitely one of the highlights of my career is being able to work with the you know the company that actually created the software that i you know fell in love with and like worked on but um as far as like just one specific i still get i still get comments of like oh you're you're the axe guy you're the guy who created that you're the guy who created the axes in in designer i'm like yep that's me but that was i think that was the that was a turning point where you know you can look at my portfolio and i was i was doing just you know typical materials like that you'd find in the real world you know just like cliffs and like mossy puddles bricks and stuff like that you know just like every other material artist but the the turning point when i was like playing around with how far i can push this program was definitely the axes because that's when like i was able to create something that looked like it was a model but it wasn't it was just like a couple planes with some tesla geo on it um but yeah that that's i would say that's the one i'm definitely the most proud of nice and was that like something that was tough to do or was it just something that was like a fun process um i would say a little bit of bro uh a little bit of both yeah um it was tough because i was almost like in this this entire time i was in this phase of like while i'm creating the project there was this time i was in this almost like r d phase like just looking at it and like is this i'm like i had to question like is this gonna work like i i had there were there were few instances when i was actually creating the material where i just the the main thing i wanted to do with that particular project was i wanted to get the main forms in there i wanted to get the handle and the ax head and if this was able to read as an axe without adding all the all the like extra like you know working on the color the normal map if i was able just to get this to look like 3d um i knew i was in the clear so it was a lot of back and forth and the nice thing about that project is it almost felt like like okay this is what i've worked up to like to accomplish as in like i've done all these you know i was pretty maybe like a year or two in the substance designer like i had been just creating materials like you know standard cliffs brick walls but i think everything i learned from just creating just standard like world materials i was able to implement a little bit of everything into that one project because i was learning about just how to create different colors from my past materials um different elements as far as like normal maps and roughness and stuff like that so it's almost like it was um it was a testing bed for everything that i've learned prior to creating world materials i wanted to implement it into something new so and yeah that process have you like is that something that you repeat is that part of like i guess your process or your evolution as um a material artist now like do you do that quite often like you again work on certain things and then you come to that one final project where you apply all the r d together yeah yeah yeah i i would say that i still definitely do that because even in the course like you you can actually even like look at the course in that certain way because each material that i go over in the course can be its own separate material like you can you could have made that sidewalk you could have made that cobblestone you could have made like those um those greats as their own material render them and present them as like a one-off material yeah but being able to combine them all three at the end to create this super material is um is i think as i think what is going to stand out like and that's what i mentioned earlier where like being able to blend certain materials together not only having just one but having different elements on your material is definitely going to help uh stand out as far as like the detailing goes and stuff like that um but yeah i would say it's definitely something that i i i'm always like doing now it's almost like before i was working on materials as like a one-off set but now lately whenever i create a material i always i always think now of like okay what other material am i going to you create to blend with this one yeah to create something that's a little bit more complex or to have like some sort of like different shader setup um i created a i created a cr uh a cliff recently in my portfolio and um and again those those two separate yeah yeah those two separate elements could have been separate materials but being able to combine those together just gives you that extra ability to you know vertex paint or you know have have it show the complexity of it like you can not only have this cliff material on its own clean but you can also have it with this moss so i think it just gives i think it also just gives the ability to have more variety in your portfolio like if you wanted to take um for example the the course where you do the sidewalk um i've seen some of the students just render some of the those separate materials separately like they render the cobblestone on its own they run the sidewalk on its own but they also show it in context putting it all together and showing that um that whole street view and i guess doing it that way as well it's easier to if you do want to change something up or modify even more um yeah it's already built so you just go ahead and change tweak a few things and then go back and forth yeah yeah and then or sorry in that in that sense you can also almost like start a new material like for example like um i i think i've actually seen in some of the students they've taken the whole street but instead of creating cobblestone they actually create a different pattern that isn't that flared cobblestone pattern so they can take like a street that's already pretty much done and then just plug in a different shape and you have a completely new like you have a completely new scene or street that looks completely different from what was in the course so that's always really cool to see you mentioned earlier um that you i want but you never thought you'd be the substance guy you never thought you'd be like that would be your speciality so at that point in time what did you want to be known as like did you have like a career plan at that time yeah i mean at the time um i was still an environment artist like i wasn't a senior or anything back when i was first learning substance designer i always wanted a you know that was definitely one of my career goals was like okay i definitely want to be a senior artist um but to be honest um yeah i wasn't really i wasn't really falling into like a certain path when i was like just being an environment artist um it i felt like every single studio that i had worked up until that point was um i was doing a little bit of everything i was doing texturing i was doing modeling i was doing world building so like i felt like i really couldn't i really couldn't like find my niche almost but i but also like i wasn't giving the i wasn't having the ability to almost like just stick to one craft and like really polish it because i was doing you know as an environment artist you do a lot you do you think the world building you do the texturing you do the modeling so you know um i one environment one environment artist can't really like stick to like polishing one certain area right but like i said like i said earlier the whole the whole industry i feel like has changed to like push towards being more of a specialist so like i said you have texture artists you have modelers now you have foliage artists so now i feel like there's this there's this ability to almost go towards a specialty if you wanted to now like if if you like textures a lot and if you're an environment artist you can definitely gravitate towards you know being a material artist um like a naughty dog the team is broken up into texture artists and modelers so like we have one artist that is um completely dedicated textures and another artist that's completely dedicated to the modeling side of it and i think more and more teams are slowly like because games are getting so much bigger i feel like you know teams need to start like going towards the route of being able to specialize in something to get the highest quality for each one part um instead of like uh having their environment artists try to tackle everything um i think it's super important to like kind of find your niche and try to specialize in it as much as possible um you mentioned that a role of an environment artist you like you have to wear many hats do certain different roles um would you say for yourself at least from your perspective um the fact that you didn't actually hold on one particular thing at that point was that just purely the nature of the job or was that also like i guess a trait from yourself like um were you were you doing them out necessity thinking i need to focus on this i need to focus on this or was it like this is really interesting i want to spend time on this and this also is interesting to spend time on that like yeah what was it from your perspective i i would say i would say the my mindset for that sort of stuff and my perspective definitely came a lot from the teachings that i got from college because you know you know schools are trying to get you out and trying to get you to like you know they want to make you employable yeah so giving you like all these different like okay we're going to teach you how to texture we're going to teach you how to model we're going to teach you how to world build giving you all these tools to like being super like you know a lot of stuff so you'll be like more um approachable by studios because you'll you'll have a bunch of different hats was kind of my mindset like i needed to know a little bit of everything to be almost like employable yes um but once once i was in the studio space i didn't know that's that was kind of my first introduction to like you know my first studio job was kind of my introduction to like oh wow uh there's people who are literally only doing weapons like there's such thing as a weapon artist like yeah yeah yeah when i was in college when i was in college like i didn't know that there was like already specialized roles that people could go into video games for so um when i was into like my first studio space you know i was noticing that people some people were just prop modelers some people were just doing world building like um whereas for me i felt like i came in knowing a little bit of everything but not knowing everything about one certain thing so um so that was kind of my outlook on to it um but there was always i i felt like there was always you know texturing was always the one thing that i almost like fell towards i guess even though i wasn't i didn't know substance at the time i didn't know any of that stuff i was always really interested in learning the new tools like i remember like when call when i was in college like um quicksole suite had came came out so i was using that because it was like the new like texturing tool so honestly like for me it was just learning new texturing software was always the big thing and then coming out of college i also learned mari for the first time so i felt like i kept it kind of just happened where i kept learning new and new new texturing stuff all the time yeah but i just didn't really know at what point i was going to kind of shift towards com yeah completely just focusing on materials so um now obviously you said it's um the way the industry is um it is more open to having specialists in certain roles and also even there's like more direct learning paths like you mentioned for yourself it was a case of learn everything and then funnel into like a particular specialty i guess yes it was more so whatever the project needed as well right um and i'm sure like you mentioned what you did mention earlier that with mobile studios you are wearing more hats compared to like say a triple a studio where it's like this is your role um you know how to do this um but then it's clear that one of your main strengths have been born out of the fact that you did do many things initially and you had that i guess broad insight and education on the job and obviously learning as well before you specialize so what would you say um students need to be aware if they go into a specialty straight away yeah from all the specialists yeah yeah that's a good question um ah that's that's a tough one um i would say you know i i mentioned it a little bit is you know a lot of students you know they they're not really um they're not looking at it as like a whole big picture when i feel like when i'm looking at like uh materials from like new material like junior materials or something all i'm seeing is a portfolio full of spheres like i think they i think students need to recognize like how this can be used in the real world environment and how would it be applied and the context of it in like a full game because you know in the end your material is going to be applied to something like in the game as far as like an environment asset or something like either terrain or a building or something so i think even just um i mentioned it before just modeling or like applying your texture to even just a simple model that isn't necessarily a plane maybe just a building something that's a little bit more complex to show how it's um how it looks with the environment i think can be super beneficial but at the same time just being aware that oh man being aware that like there are a lot of things that go just outside of just texturing um you know you know with me i knew about like you know okay there's there's effects that are to go on in this world you know there's different like shader techniques that are going to go around with like my textures there's a lot of stuff that i feel like environment art like just knowing it as a whole has taught me that has just made me a better texture artist because i can always gravitate towards i'm almost like it's my mindset it's still thinking like a texture artist yeah i would say because sure i'm creating these materials but like i'm like okay when i'm creating something i'm like okay how can uh how will an environment artist be able to utilize this how how can how will they uv it how where could they possibly place this so i'm asking these questions so i think when it comes to students um you know going straight to materials they might not necessarily like think about those things so it's really important to almost like know the ins and outs a little bit of environment art and how how their textures are going to be utilized i think that's the most important thing yeah and um so you've only predominantly worked in games is that correct correct correct is that something that was that you wanted to do like when did you realize you wanted to work in the game industry oh man that's that's that's a tough one you know uh i would say as early as high school um as early as high school i was you know i was taking art classes i was taking traditional art classes drawing classes i knew i wanted to do something with art i just didn't know what um you know and then what this one time i i took a web design class and i had no idea about web design or computer or graphic design or anything like that so that was i would say that was a big eye opener just knowing all that stuff um being able to like actually create stuff on the computer was pretty eye-opening for me um but i would say like college even even when i finally you know went to college for actual like game art for like that was my major there were still times where i was like man i don't i don't know if like this is the path i want to take because i was still i was still thinking about graphic design a little bit because i was just really interested in like just the the you know doing illustrations for like you know um [Music] either for for t-shirts or packaging or stuff like that you know the typical graphic design stuff um websites um so i was still in that like mine styles like man is this like i just don't know which one i want to do luckily i stuck with gamer after the more the more classes i got and the more i got into actual like 3d modeling and stuff the more i was like okay i'm starting to like this more and more um so i would say like yeah i would say in college is when i knew now that being said um i never really that that was another thing you know working or sorry not working uh being a video game art school was uh like once you graduated you're definitely gonna work in games because that's more or less what they were teaching you as opposed to like as opposed to like stuff that you'd find in the film where it's like more pre-rendered stuff they were the stuff i was learning in school was more for um you know game ready like you know optimize like at run time stuff so um it was almost like i kind of just fell into that side of it um as opposed to like you know the pre-rendered stuff that you'd find in film um but yeah and you've been t in games like how many how many years is it approaching now i yeah i think uh this year was actually nine so next year it'll be yeah so veteran levels yeah i wouldn't say that i'm still learning i'm still learning i mean i mean like like a decade is a long time but then yeah you know like it's also not a long time when you because you everyone was on development and if you look at yourself 10 years ago i mean you mentioned obviously like i guess only perhaps even you know only a year ago you opened a substance file and you see how you constructed it and the difference now um yeah the growth is real the growth is crazy but it also does feel like sometimes a decade could be feel like like yesterday for example um yeah i mean yeah sorry um i still like i still reminisce like i still think about some of the um you know some uh back when i was an environment artist you know they're they're still like uh you know whenever i tell my story i always mention like yeah i started out as an environment artist people people just assume that i've always been really good at like substance designer i i've always just done textures but like you know when you look at my portfolio you can actually still see a lot of the the environment and world building and all that stuff um you know in my portfolio so it's definitely there and like um and what's interesting as well is your obviously your biggest um part of your career has now been working in substance being materialized within that particular not only within that particular software but also exploring it to its maximum and that's something that just um came about obviously out of curiosity i wanted to learn i wanted to be be excel at your job um but also um it was something that came out unexpectedly so going forward um within the industry technology is changing and all that kind of stuff like where do you see things heading in terms of the industry in general as a material artist and maybe even an environmentalist as well as like the industry as a whole and also just to add on to that question do you see yourself and this is probably an impossible one to ask probably more or terrible but do you use yourself maybe like is there another type of thing that you might end up falling into that you never expected the same way that you did with substance going forward yeah um you know i am i'm constantly looking at houdini a lot like um i haven't i haven't delved into it i i've taken i've done a few tutorials i've done a few tutorials but it's like i feel like i'm in with houdini i'm in the same space that i was when i started with substance designer yeah i'm sort of playing with it i'm kind of like learning the little bits and pieces here and there but i just haven't fully devoted to it so it's almost like it's almost like i have to force myself to sit down or like apply or you know been given it at work or something like someone like forces me to use it at work or something where it'll really really get me to learn it yeah but um yeah i don't know i mean i'm always open to you know i'm always open to learning new things and kind of falling into certain things like so the one thing that is sort of changing for me is um i'm creating a lot of these materials still but i'm almost falling back into my roots a little bit i kind of i kind of want to go back into like just creating um full scenes again like just as an environment artist would and that's why you see me like my last couple projects we're taking a lot of my materials and try to create a scene out of them so i'm kind of i'm almost like falling back into that space because i just i love creating uh like full-on worlds and stuff like that um so i find myself that's probably where i'll start heading a little bit more with like my personal projects is just going back into creating full scenes but still utilizing substance designer very heavily but like you know constructing something um with substance designer um but as far as like the industry goes you know a lot for a while i've just been hearing that you know stuff is going to go a lot more procedural and you know with the introduction of houdini and you know substance designers already full procedural and then houdini is like procedural i think more and more stuff is gonna be like doing stuff like that but i think i think there will always be a need for artists to add their artistic touch and like almost almost like imperfections and stuff like um i i just yeah i just think uh art needs that artistic touch and like that final polish from like a real world artist as opposed to like just some sort of machine algorithm doing like an edge damage or doing a wear pass or something yeah um because that's something like you know that's something that programs just still aren't going to do is just that final like detail pass like an artist would or something like that and you can you can tell as well when it's like done via an algorithm um your brain just knows it straight away oh yeah yeah that that's definitely one thing that um even even now is still noticeable like okay that was made like even for me at least with substance materials i can tell when an artist has used a certain grunge mask or something like that or like they have they haven't edited it as as much as like other artists to like create a certain effect so it's definitely still noticeable for sure and um it kind of goes back to that like i guess the chef metaphor um you can you know it's like no matter how good the how good the tools are and the you know all that kind of stuff you still need a chef to bring it all together to make it awesome and what have you obviously get different levels also as well um like how does like obviously with unreal coming now like you know look it looks like magic looks like something that yeah that looks like it's too good to be true um like how how does does that make it easier for a substance size knowing the fact that maybe you don't need to be as optimized or um do you have any insider info on that yeah yeah yeah it's it's pretty interesting actually um you know now that it's it's interesting in the fact that with substance designer um when i'm actually working at home i'm getting super complex and super detailed um with like my materials and putting everything on just one texture set and you know doing it all on one actual just you know texture whereas when i actually work more so in um in like the at work and my actual like studio space um i actually think about it a little bit differently it's almost like my materials have gone more so to a little bit more simplistic and a little bit more almost like on the base level because i know once i take it into engine uh all the shader work is gonna be done in there and it's gonna add so much more variety that i don't actually have to spend so much time putting all the intricate details as i would on the certain texture set like only in substance designer i kind of have this different mindset at work where okay i'm gonna get it to like this certain spot in designer then i'll take it into our proprietary engine and do all the fancy bells and whistles to add all the extra like variety and layers and blending on there so like there's there's like a different almost mindset that i have at work as opposed to um um just my the stuff i do at home like as far as like how complex and how detailed i can do it um but yeah i would say with unreal like i would say with unreal it's it's getting to the point with that new unreal five yeah you know i made that joke because like i made that hallway with just literally just a couple textures and tessellation and displacement and that was like my that was my like um joke to myself i'm like well you know now i saw that video of unreal 5 with all that crazy tessellation is can this is this something that will eventually be achievable um so i'm hoping i'm hoping it is because that'll definitely definitely be a game changer for sure yeah for sure i mean even if it's like still a few years away the fact that you know that's that's where people are starting to head towards noah that's like now being more like not just a pipe dream it looks like it's more of reality i mean like even like look at earlier games when um like when i when i was growing up it would although gameplay was always king you'd always get super excited when like the graphics improved and things like realistic and now it's kind of gone to the point where you know it is as photorealistic as it can be in terms of like game engines and stuff but then this is almost like taking me back to that that yeah wow super hyper realistic and what have you um yeah so before we wrap up um what like does the future hold for i mean i guess 2020 has been like a how would you rate 2020 because you've actually released your oil and it's great of course you've released a lot of other stuff um 2020 was 2020 was really it was really i you know it's it's very interesting because every year at the end of the okay at the end of every year i'm like man this is the this is the this was real this is a really big year for me like i did so much and i almost like i almost get into this phase like man i don't know if i'll be able to i don't know if i'll be able to top it like i don't know if i'll be able to but like this year this year definitely topped last year as far as like just all the work i accomplished the courses um the portfolio work uh shipping last of us [Music] this was definitely a big year um as far as the future um i ha i keep getting more and more people asking for mentorships so that's definitely like that's definitely on the horizon um like something i want to do um so that's probably what i will focus on next and just continuing to get more freelance so yeah okay thank you very much for your time um anytime man sweet sweet sweet a huge thanks to javier for joining us if you want to know how to wield the power of substance designer successfully yourself then be sure to check out our course substance designer essentials taught about javier himself head on over to learnsquared.com and get your first lesson free today i've been your host aaron danda till next time [Music] you

Channel: Learn Squared

Views: 4,316

Keywords: learn squared, learnsquared, substance designer essentials, javier perez, podcast, art podcast, meshmodeler, dhandatron, sony, thelastofus2, tlou2, substance designer, substance designer tutorial, substance, substance painter, substance designer beginner tutorial, substance designer 2020, substance designer stylized, substance 3d, adobe substance, substance live, how to substance designer, substance designer metal, substace designer, substance designer textures, substance tutorial

Id: DaaDX8HJjjA

Length: 70min 25sec (4225 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020