In this tutorial I will show you how to make your own brick wall textures from an image in Substance Designer for your project.
Preparing the Texture
There is a link to the photo in the description
It is best to have a square, seamless texture
I’ve provided links to tutorials showing how to make your photo into a seamless texture in Affinity Photo, GIMP, and Photoshop
Affinity Photo (Seamless Texture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htHLtSeI62k
GIMP (Seamless Texture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bijp0xX96Ts
Photoshop (Seamless Texture); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP3y5gIQ2mU
Importing
Make a new Substance Graph – giving it a name and using a size of 2K
You can use the Metallic Roughness Template
Drag-and-drop the PNG image into Substance Designer
Link the Resource – this means that any changes you make in the original file will be applied to this node as well
Begin by connecting the imported image to the Base Color node
Now you can see the image being applied to the 3D cube
You can delete the Uniform Color node
Connect the imported image to the Normal node
You can delete the other Normal node
You need to convert the image to Grayscale
Select the connection by left-clicking and dragging over it
Use the Spacebar and search for Grayscale Conversion
Connect the imported image to the Roughness node
Delete the other Uniform Color node
Select the connection by left-clicking and dragging over it
Use the Spacebar and search for Grayscale Conversion
Select the connection between the Grayscale Conversion and the Roughness node – then use the Spacebar and search for Levels
Select the Levels node and use the Levels Histogram to change the Roughness output
You can now see the lighting showing a rougher surface for the bricks
You don’t need the Metallic node so you can delete it
Connect the imported image to the AO node
You can delete the other Uniform Color node
Select the connection by left-clicking and dragging over it
Use the Spacebar and search for Grayscale Conversion
Use the Specific Parameters to clean up the harsh dark spots on the mortar
Select the connection by left-clicking and dragging over it
Use the Spacebar and search for Ambient Occlusion HBAO node
Select the connection between the AO node and the AO output – then use the Spacebar and search for Levels
Select the Levels node and use the Levels Histogram to change the AO output
You can now see the lighting showing a bit of AO for the bricks
Connect the imported image to the Height node
You can delete the other Uniform Color node
Select the connection by left-clicking and dragging over it
Use the Spacebar and search for Normal to Height
Change the Normal Format to OpenGL
Change the Global Opacity [0.25]
You can now see the lighting showing a bit of height for the bricks
The last adjustment you can do is to the Height
In the 3D View, under the Materials menu, choose Default and then Edit
You can now change the Height Scale, Height Level, and Tessellation Factor
Exporting
To export the texture maps, drag-select the output nodes to select all of them
Under the Tools icon, choose Export Outputs and choose a folder (you can also change the format and pattern as well as what Outputs will be exported)
Choose Export Outputs
Once exported, you can close the dialogue box
Blender
In Blender, I have a subdivided plane
I also have the Node Wrangler addon activated
Under the Shading Workspace, select the Principled Shader and use CTRL + SHIFT + T to open the textures you just exported
To add the AO map, add a Mix Color node between the Albedo Map and the Principled Shader
Change the Blending Mode to Multiply
Drag in the AO Map and connect the AO Map to the bottom input of the Mix Color node
Add a Shader to RGB node and Diffuse node – connecting it to the Shader to RGB node
Connect the Shader to RGB node to a Color Ramp
Connect the Color Ramp to the Factor of the Mix Color node
Switch the Color Stops on the Color Ramp
Use the Color Stops to determine how the AO will affect the material