You can use the Substance node to quickly create photorealistic procedural textures using a library of organic, fabric, and material presets.

Creating a shading network using substance textures

1. Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager and ensure that the Substance plug-in is loaded.
2. Select Renderer > High Quality Rendering in the panel menus for best results.
3. Select Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade to open the Hypershade window.
4. Select Maya > 2D Textures > Substance.
   
   Note

   Do not use the Substance Output node, which is an intermediate node that is created automatically by the Substance node.

5. In the SubstanceAttribute Editor, Substance File attribute, navigate to your <Maya Directory>\substances folder (or the folder in which your substance texture is installed) and select a substance texture.
   NoteBy default, the substance texture files are installed to your <Maya Directory >\substances folder. However, it is recommended that you copy the textures that you need to your <MayaProject>\sourceimages folder instead. This ensures that your substance files are loaded properly on all operating systems. You should only copy those textures that you will use, as the substance library includes a large number of files, and you would not want to copy all of them to your project sourceimages folder.
6. Click Create Shader Network.

   This creates a shading network with a Phong E material that, by default, connects the Diffuse, Specular, and Normal substance outputs.

   Note

   The Diffuse, Specular, and Normal substance outputs are marked with green connect icons to indicate that these output nodes have been created and are connected to the material shader.

   You can now apply this Phong E material to the objects in your scene.

   
7. Select the resolution for your substance output nodes.
8. Expand the Substance Normal Format section and select the format for your normal map (if a Normal substance output is available for the substance you have selected).
9. Expand the Extra Attributes section in the substance Attribute Editor and tweak the attributes provided to customize the appearance of your shader. Procedural controls are built into each substance so you can easily create unique effects. Experiment with these sliders and view the changes in real time in the Maya scene view.

   You can tweak attributes such as Hue Shift to shift the global color range of the texture, or Luminosity to control the brightness level, or Saturation to control the level of color purity, or Depth to adjust the attenuation of depth of the texture and so forth.

   There are also other interesting effects such as Age. For example, with Painted_Wood, increasing the age slider peels away the paint to reveal a more aged wood look, and with Modern_Concrete, increasing the age slider reveals the rebar in the concrete. With Volcano_Rock, you can tweak the Temperature, Lava and Lava Hue attributes to customize the look of your volcano lava and so forth.

   See Extra Attributes for more information.

10. If you want to connect additional substance outputs to your shading network, such as a Bump or Displacement map, click on the Connect icon beside the list of available substance outputs.

    If the input of the material attribute is already occupied by another substance output, for example Normal, then a warning message appears, and the output is created but not connected. The substance output connect icon appears orange. You can then delete the connected output and re-attach a new output in its place.

    
    Tip

    A grey connect icon (initial state) denotes that no Substance Output node has been created yet for this output map. An orange connect icon denotes that an output node is created but not connected to another node. A green connect icon denotes that the Substance Output node has been created and is connected to another node.

    Note

    The Maya software renderer is not recommended for use with normal maps. If you want to render unbaked substance textures using the Maya software renderer, use bump maps instead of normal maps. Alternatively, you can use mental ray rendering with baked normal maps.

You can now use the shading network in the Maya viewport, and render it using the Maya hardware renderer or software renderer.

If you want to export the shading network to a game engine, or to render it in mental ray, you must export the images to disk.

Exporting images to disk

1. Click Export images to disk in the SubstanceAttribute Editor.

   Using this feature, all Substance Output nodes connected to the Substance node (including both outputs denoted by green and orange icons) are baked onto disk.

   The Substance Bake to Texture window appears.

2. Select your map resolution and image format.
   Note

   mental ray for Maya does not support LZW compressed .tif files. To work around this, add IMF_TIFF_COMPRESSION=none to your Maya.env file.

3. Select the Create shader network option to create a shading network with connections to the texture files baked from the substance output maps.
   
4. Click Export to write your file textures to disk.