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gutendog_6074
Participant
Aug 15, 2025 9:33 AM UTC
Question

Texturing large aircraft

Hi all,

Background:
I create aviation safety videos and typically purchase helicopter models from Turbosquid, then rework them, mainly redoing textures in Blender with decals. I am still fairly new to Substance Painter, so please bare with me for any stupid questions that might be resolved with common workflows.

Goals:

  • Produce highly detailed, accurate aircraft models.
  • Use textures (rivets, panel lines, etc.) to replicate fine details while maintaining accurate placement based on the real aircraft.
  • Begin marketing my models on Turbosquid as more accurate, professional-grade options.

Current workflow and challenges:

  • Texture size: I have been using 8K or 4K textures, which generally works well, but rivets lose sharpness in close-up shots.

  • The model I purchase usually have one texture map for external surfaces.  However it starts to create issues when trying to focus on details like rivets and screws. To improve resolution, I have been splitting models into multiple UV maps (for example EXT_TAIL, EXT_DOORS, EXT_FRONT) or I've been using decals in blender for logos and stickers - I'm worried that this might be overkill. There is an easier way to have these details without using additional texture sets.  If so, please advise
  • Livery alignment: Many aircraft liveries need to flow cleanly from the tail through to the nose. Maintaining crisp, seamless lines across multiple UV sets is tricky.

What I am looking for:

  • Recommended workflows for achieving sharp rivets and panel lines without massive texture sizes.

  • Best practices for handling aircraft liveries that must flow seamlessly over multiple texture sets.
  • Techniques for softening edges in Substance Painter that will apply a slight bevel effect to edges, similar to the “soften edges” function in V-Ray.
  • Advice on balancing texture resolution, UV layout, and efficiency for models aimed at professional resale.

Thanks in advance for any tips or workflow suggestions.

2 replies

Celestial_calmness5D51
Participant
Oct 22, 2026 5:55 AM UTC

Hi,
Splitting into multiple UV sets (tail, doors, front) is standard practice, not overkill. Just keep texel density consistent across sets so rivet size and panel line width match everywhere.

Sharp rivets: Don’t bake every rivet into the main texture. Use a small tiling normal/height map for rivet rows and panel lines, and model bigger details (hinges, access panels) as geometry or decals. Also check your anisotropic filtering and mipmap settings, since they can soften details.

Livery across sets: In Substance Painter, paint with projection or stencil across all texture sets at once so strokes cross UV borders cleanly. Keep the livery in its own folder, built from masks or shapes for crisp edges.

Soft edges: Painter has no direct V-Ray equivalent. Use the Bevel node in Cycles, or add real bevels to the geometry and bake the normal map. A curvature-based mask in Painter can fake a subtle edge highlight.

For resale: Use standard PBR maps, offer 4K as default and 8K as optional, and avoid renderer-specific nodes. Also check the TurboSquid license, since standard licenses usually don’t allow reselling modified versions of purchased models.

If you’re comparing texturing tools for this kind of workflow, we put together an overview of Painter, Blender and a few alternatives here: https://4dviz.com/blog/top-10-3d-texturing-software/

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davescm
Community Expert
davescmCommunity Expert
Community Expert
Aug 15, 2025 11:06 AM UTC

You might want to look at UDIMs to split your UV unwrap over multiple tiles and hence get more than 4k/8K across the model and potentialy higher texel resolution where it is needed. Unfortunately this would require you to redo the UV unwrapping stages, but is likely to achieve the higher texel resolution you require to get close. There is a second downside if you went on to sell the model in that it would only be suitable for use in a workflow that supported UDIMs, but as long as you make that clear then 'professional' use purchasers are likely to be familiar with that workflow anyway.

Dave

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