LogInFurkan Malli gave us a behind-the-scenes look at crafting a mosaic influenced by Eastern Mediterranean art, detailing how he created the centerpiece and surrounding patterns in Substance 3D Designer and integrated them into an environment with Marmoset Toolbag.
Introduction
Hello everyone, I'm Furkan, a 3D Environment Artist with four years of experience, currently based in the Netherlands. Previously, I worked at an indie game studio where we are making a puzzle platformer set to release soon; I'm excited to see how it finds its audience! Before that, I contributed to various outsourced environment projects. Now, I'm looking for a new adventure where I can grow and contribute to amazing projects.
Learning procedural content creation has always intrigued me, as I'm eager to develop soft technical art skills. Substance 3D Designer is one powerful tool that lets you create art while you think algorithmically and gives you the excitement of discovery each time you create something different.
The first time I checked Substance 3D Designer, it was out of curiosity, and I wasn't confident enough to fully dive in. I set it aside for years until I started building my own environments and realized I wanted to craft all the textures myself. That's when I committed to learning it. I began mostly with generic materials for my environments; while doing that, I admired all the great work created by Substance 3D Designer artists and tried to learn from them. Over time, I started to understand how values, color, and fundamental principles of image creation work.
The Mosaic Project
The project started as a practice piece inspired by the many museums I visited as a child growing up near the historically rich regions of Aegea and Anatolia. While the work is not based on a specific real-life artifact, I carefully selected references to ensure historical and artistic authenticity. My goal was to explore the process of texture creation while integrating it into an environment.
Shape
For both the centerpiece and surrounding patterns, the SVG node was used to trace over reference images and create the shapes. For the patterns, after drawing a portion of the design, the Tile Sampler node was utilized to distribute the shapes horizontally, ensuring a seamless arrangement.
Bevel and Distance Nodes were applied to have a more round and organic profile.
After combining all the patterns, multiple Slope Blur nodes were applied to add edge details to the stone pieces.
For some subtle surface height differences, scattered shape maps were used.
To create cracks on some of the mosaic tiles, a pyramid shape was distributed using the Splatter Node and then processed through the Edge Detect Node to isolate its four edges of pyramid shape. These edges were warped multiple times and finally blended with the Flood Fill to Grayscale, allowing for a randomized mask that ensures only some tiles feature cracks.
Color
The most important part of this project is the Color Map, as mosaic is all about the color; it helps to understand the forms, contour lines, and overall subject. To achieve this, we return to our SVG nodes, which contain color information. While I didn't use these colors directly, they were helpful in the initial shape creation. Instead of relying on the original color data, I converted them to grayscale and used masking techniques to separate different levels. This approach allows for variation and control over grayscale values, which can then be mapped to any color using the Gradient Map node, a standard method for colorizing.
You can't make a mosaic without using Mosaic Color Node. It's very essential to introduce color variation to the tiles. I used the same noise map for both the color and mask inputs, then blended the results with the output of the Gradient Node to create a more dynamic and realistic mosaic effect. Below, you can see the color setup for both the trim and the centerpiece:
Parameters
It's important to demonstrate how a material can be utilized within an environment or on a prop. For this project, the material was designed with specific parameters for use in Substance 3D Painter, where I textured my museum display scene. These parameters are nothing special, primarily controlling the level of damage and bleaching that occurs over time because time has passed on the piece until it has been found.
Conclusion
The main challenge for the project was maintaining consistency between the patterns and the centerpiece. Because of the nature of a mosaic work, there are too many pieces with different colors and shapes, so creating something that works together was critical.
For those looking to improve themselves in Substance 3D Designer, just don't get overwhelmed. Sometimes, it could get tense and complicated. It's hard to master it, I know that because I haven't either, yet. Therefore, treat it as a process, enjoy the journey, and create something that you can have fun with while learning. I'd also recommend a Discord channel called Future Material Artists, where you can find a very helpful community focused on material creation.
Thank you for bearing with me during this interview, and a special thanks to 80 Level for offering me the opportunity to share my experience. If you'd like to see more of my work, feel free to visit my ArtStation profile. I'm actively looking for new opportunities, so don't hesitate to reach out if you have any inquiries.