- [Voiceover] Quixel is one of a few programs
that will generate PBR-based texture maps for us.
I think you'll find that Quixel is simple to learn
and will give you the tools necessary to create
outstanding, realistic maps that will conform
to your mesh's geometry.
This video will be a brief overview
of the main modules and processes
that you can expect to learn in this series.
And as you can see I'm in Photoshop.
The first thing that you'll want to notice
is that Quixel needs Photoshop to run.
And that's because Quixel is going to use
the processes and tools in Photoshop
to create the details and textures that we need.
The other thing that you want to notice
is that Quixel floats on top of Photoshop.
This floating interface that we're looking at here
with the brightly colored buttons is the Quixel Suite
and that's what we're going to take a look at here next.
The first module that we're going to take a look at
is DDO, and that's this big D on the orange button.
DDO allows us to load our mesh and map information
so that the Quixel Suite knows the contours of our model
from the maps that we feed it.
Now by default we need to give it a material ID
and we'll probably going to want to give it a normal map
and an AO map.
The more map information that we give it at the start,
the better our details are going to be as we move along.
So I'm going to load my mesh first.
My material ID, my normal map,
and my ambient occlusion map.
Those three maps should give my mesh
enough information so that DDO can generate the surfaces
as we move along, and know exactly
what my model is going to look like.
DDO will also handle multi mesh information
that's exported from your obj model.
So I have two models that are combined into one obj
so DDO knows that there's two models there.
So if I drop this down you'll see that there's a
tools cylinder here and I'm going to end up with the same
map types here.
So I will load those.
I think I have loaded the wrong one here in my ID map.
Yep, there we go.
We'll load the tools.
Normal map
and my AO map for that second mesh.
Now up here at the top in Photoshop,
are all the different maps that I created.
Those maps are the maps that the Quixel Suite
is going to use to generate the details for my surfaces.
Now, I can choose other maps
that I would like DDO to bake for me.
I'm going to click curvature in this case.
And that will just allow the program
to make a few extra maps to get that detail
that we're after.
Down below here, I can set the resolution
on my maps if I want to.
So I can click Auto, change the resolution if I need to,
but Quixel will set the resolution
to whatever the map size were that I already imported.
Down below here I have an Export Target.
This is where I will choose what the final destination
is going to be for these textures.
Now for this series I'm going to be using
the Specular PBR setting, here at the top.
But if you're using Unity or UE4, you can choose those,
or any of these other settings,
depending on what the outcome's going to be.
Down at the very bottom of the interface,
I can set where I would like to save these maps.
By default it's going to save in the folder
that I loaded my model from.
So I'm just going to leave that alone
and I'm going to hit Create.
Now, while it's baking through these maps,
you're going to see a lot of flashing and progress bars.
That's normal.
Right now it's using Photoshop's tools
and the Quixel tools to generate some new maps for us
so that we can use those to input into the various surfaces
that we're going to be making later.
Okay, and once that process is done
then DDO has made our new maps
in addition to the maps that we already gave it.
It'll also give us this friendly little message
that we should get started.
All the new maps are located up here across the top.
They will fill up that whole top bar
so you can use these little arrows here as a drop down
and you'll see all the maps that it's made right now.
Now we can turn these maps on and off.
Eventually we won't make all these maps,
but for now, we'll just leave it.
The next module we'll take a look at is the 3DO module.
The 3DO module is our main viewing window
for looking at the model that we imported.
And you can see here this is the cannon model
that we're going to be using in this series.
We'll get more into the 3DO module and the key commands
necessary to move your model around,
in a few videos down the road, but for now
we'll be able to see our textures in real time
here in the 3DO viewer.
I'm going to be moving the 3DO viewer off to the side
for most of our videos here, just so that we can see
the rest of the Photoshop interface behind that.
The last module we'll take a look at is the NDO module.
The NDO module is going to allow us to change
and adapt our normal map information.
We can combine normal maps in the NDO module,
and we can take imagery and change it into normal maps
using the tools that are available here in NDO.
As you can see, there's a lot that PBR textures
can bring to your workflow in your models.
There's obviously a lot more to cover,
but this video should've given you a basic overview
of the Quixel Suite and its basic menus.