Is it possible to use one set of maps for all individual textures?

[BjornZA]

Hello.

My problem is as follows.

I am texturing an object I created in blender.

For each part of the object that I want a different colour/texture on I saved as a separate material in blender.

When I import the mesh I get the following shaders (as intended)

When I am done with my texturing of each shader and I then export my maps, each individual shader gets its own set of maps.

Like so.

My workflow after this is to move the mesh into UE4 and then link the map files to a texture for a single mesh (the object I made)

As you can imagine, having to link every set of maps to each individual shader is quite... tiresome.

Does anyone know of a way to combine the maps so that I only need to link one set of maps?

Thank you,

Bjorn.

(p.s, if the way I am doing this is incorrect, feel free to tell me. I am new to modeling/texturing and this is a method I thought could work)

[davescm · Accepted solution]

You can use a similar process to that you would use for baking low/high poly meshes, but in this instance with identical poly models, to create a map with material IDs based on colours from the separate materials in Blender

1. Do as you do now in Blender to add separate materials to parts of your mesh and allocate a different plain colour for each material. (Just set the base color)

2. Make sure your UV islands for each material are separate and do not overlap each other

3. Make a copy of your mesh in Blender and, to this copy, remove the separate materials and apply only one material

4. Export both models one named, for example, meshSeperate the second meshCombined

5. In Substance Painter use File New and base this on your meshCombined i.e the one with the single material.

6. Go to Bake Mesh Maps and make sure ID is set to Material Color

7. In the "Common" tab set the High Definition Mesh to be the mesh with the separate materials (I called it meshSeparate above)

8  Click Bake Combined. This will give you amongst the other maps, an ID map using the colours you set for each material you coloured in Blender

9. You can apply materials to your mesh by dragging while holding down Ctrl so that they only apply to an individual material ID and are given a mask in the shape of that ID.

10. Your result will be a single material containing all the individual materials you had on each part of the object as separate maps before.

Dave