Substance Painter can be a daunting program to learn, but it is a very rewarding one. The power of Substance Painter lies in the amount of details one can paint on. Adding details like stitches can give the model the final touch it needed to bring it all together. In this snippet from a live class taught by AnimSchool Instructor Lorin Z. Pillai, learn about painting on stitches. Adding stitching details to digital textures can be time-consuming, but the Auto-Stitch feature in Substance Painter helps make the process much faster.

Auto-Stitch

Start by creating a black fill layer with a black mask, then apply the Auto-Stitch generator. Auto-Stitch will automatically place stitches according to your UV layout. If you don’t want stitches in specific areas, simply mask them out. This makes it easy to handle areas like sleeves or shoulders where different parts of a garment or texture might meet.

Customizing Stitches

Once the stitches are in place, you can customize their look. The Auto-Stitch feature lets you adjust the stitch path, distance from seams, and even the stitch size. For larger stitches or panel lines, you can increase the stitch length. This is great for creating a more prominent stitch that mimics a thick, reinforced line. Additionally, you can adjust other properties, like roughness or height, to control the appearance of your stitches. For example, increasing roughness will give the stitches a less shiny, more realistic appearance. If you want to tweak the lighting on the stitches, modifying the height will help you control how much light the stitches reflect.

For more precise control, you can use a paint layer to add hand-placed stitches. When doing this, be mindful of the layer settings. Once stitches are applied, they become part of that layer and cannot be edited directly in terms of size or shape afterward, so it’s best to work on a temporary layer for adjustments.

Stitch Brushes

To have even more detailed control over your stitching, use the brush palette to select specialized stitch brushes. These brushes offer additional settings, such as the ability to simulate punctures or seams, adding even more realism to your design. However, like the Auto-Stitch, once these stitches are painted down, they’re fixed to that layer.

Be prepared to adjust your settings repeatedly, as finding the perfect stitch type and configuration may take some time. You can also use the Lazy Mouse feature to smooth out your strokes and maintain consistent stitching across your texture. While editing settings might take some trial and error, combining these brushes with Auto-Stitch offers a highly efficient way to add stitching to your designs.

Watch the full clip from an AnimSchool lecture here: 

At AnimSchool, we teach students who want to make 3D characters move and act. Our instructors are professionals at film and game animation studios like Dreamworks, Pixar, Sony Pictures, Blizzard & Disney. ⁠Get LIVE feedback on your Animation from the pros. Learn more at https://animschool.edu/

Blog cover image credit: Niles Thiselton