Height Maps do you even lift bro?

[VirtaCreate]

So when i was using my trial version of substance painter i noticed that height maps would make certain items significantly better adding depth and detail to certain parts of textures,
as far as i know there is no way to use height maps in the current version of vam's clothing importer,
i could however use them in unity and add the item in-game as a custom unity asset so they definitely work in the engine.
This question is aimed mostly at @meshedvr but maybe another creator could help also.
is there currently a way to use height maps in custom import clothes? (i currently just put my normal maps in the _BumpMap section :image a)
and if not are there any plans to do so?

I feel like this would be very beneficial to have (if we don't already) look at the b/c images as reference (that is a substance painter screenshot)

P.S Disclaimer i'm self taught from youtube and trail and error so i may be missing something that seems obvious in that case please eli5

 

[MacGruber]

You can probably write a plugin that switches the clothing material to Unity's Standard shader. Basically the inverse of the NoStage's AssetVamifier. Note that this would likely break the material UI screen of VaM, all material tweaking for that clothing item would have to happen through that plugin. That means you have to code a whole new UI as well.

All quite possible, just nobody did it, yet.

 

[VirtaCreate]

Mac im a 3d modeler i will have to leave that to a coder i'm only just learning how to make a simple game of snake in C#
that said its an interesting concept but i feel like if it was wanted why not integrate it and expose those settings (if the current shader allows for them)

 

[meshedvr]

Just for reference - the Unity docs on normal and height maps for standard shader:

Unity - Manual: Introduction to normal maps (bump mapping)

docs.unity3d.com

Unity - Manual: Height maps

docs.unity3d.com

The shader I'm using for skin and clothing in 1.X does not have heightmap support as it is more expensive and VaM is already hurting for performance.

2.X should support parallax occlusion mapping using heightmap, along with a whole bunch of other things by way of supporting custom shaders based on HDRP shaders.

 

[VirtaCreate]

@meshedvr this is exactly the answer I was looking for thanks man this hrdp is going to be amazing all the more reason to look forward to 2.0

 

[kemenate]

Putting the normal map into the _BumpMap slot is correct. Does the height map in substance add actual displacement? From the screenshots it looks more like it just adds contrast.
You can make your normal map more pronounced with the Diffuse Bumpiness and Specular Bumpiness sliders.
Also: Move the Subsurface Color to a darker grey value or even into a bit of dark color to increase the bump visibility.

 

[thicbear]

Hey,

If you are using substance painter, which I use for everything these days, the height pass should be baked into the normals during output anyways. Good luck, can't wait for HDRP 2.x shaders!

 

[VirtaCreate]

@thicbear i did not know that thanks man!

 

[kemenate]

By the way, I just noticed that some of my normal maps from Photoshop and Blender looked odd in VAM. So here is a short guide on how a correct Virt-A-Mate normal map is supposed to look like:

Normal Maps in VAM 101 - Guides -

A short guide to help you troubleshoot your Normal Maps. It assumes that you already know what a normal map is and that you have yours in the correct space (tangent vs world space and so on). Feel free to comment when you have correction...

hub.virtamate.com

tl;dr: Check that none of your channels are inverted.