In this short tutorial, I want to talk about a little-known but very useful tool in Substance Painter: Fonts. These are a special type of Alpha mask that allow us to write custom text using a specific font, hence the name, and apply it with its own material, using brushes, onto the surface of objects.
Video Transcript
Hello everyone! In this short tutorial, I want to talk about a little-known but very useful tool in Substance Painter: Fonts. These are a special type of Alpha mask that allow us to write custom text using a specific font, hence the name, and apply it with its own material, using brushes, onto the surface of objects.
In the scene I am using for this example, there is already an object with materials assigned to its various parts.
I would now like to add a simple text label to it, so not a logo or a special symbol, for which I would need to create a separate image and/or opacity mask using a drawing or image-editing program.
I therefore add a Fill Layer at the top of the object's Layer stack so that it completely covers the underlying materials. I then customize this material, for example with an RGB color of 0.8, 0.8, and 0.6, Metallic set to 0, a Clouds 3 map for Roughness to give it some irregularity, and Height set to 0.05 to create an embossed effect.
The material completely covers the ones underneath, so the first thing I do is give it a black layer mask, with the intention of making it white only in the areas where I will "stamp" the text, so to speak.
I then move to the Brushes section of the Shelf to choose a brush. In this case, I am selecting Basic Hard to create uniform brush strokes without soft edges. Next, I switch to the Alphas section of the Shelf and filter the items by typing "Font" in the filter text box.
For the first text label, I choose a simple font such as Jura, then I focus on the brush parameters in the Properties - Paint tab.
In the Text field, specifically, I replace the default text, "Substance", with the text I want to type. In my example, this is the phrase "Created with".
As I move the mouse cursor over the 3D view, I notice that the text is too large for the default brush stroke. Changing the brush size does not help because we need to change the size of the text within the brush's drawing area. To do this, we need to adjust the Size parameter in the Font Parameters section.
In the Parameters section, you will also find other settings whose meanings are fairly intuitive. "Type" allows you to change the style where available. For example, with Jura, we can choose Bold. "Alignment" allows you to set the text alignment within the brush stroke's drawing area.
As you may have noticed, I applied the text to a curved surface. Substance automatically aligns the brush tangentially to the surface and then projects the text like a sticker, conforming to the surface without distortion.
At least in this version of the software, text cannot be edited after it has been applied because it is effectively painted directly onto the layer mask. If you make a mistake or change your mind, however, you can undo the last operation with CTRL+Z, erase individual brush strokes in the mask using the Eraser tool, or, in more serious cases, reset the entire mask by right-clicking and selecting "Add black mask".
Depending on the geometry and UV seams, you may find it more convenient to apply text directly on the UV seam in the 2D view rather than in the 3D view. You can also inspect the selected layer mask by switching the viewport display mode to "Mask", making it easier to spot any mistakes or unwanted marks.
Since Fonts are applied as brush strokes, in this case on the layer mask of a Fill Layer, you can change the font, change the text, and apply another brush stroke within the same mask. This way, all the text, even if different, will still use the same material.
So far, I have shown you how to use brushes on the layer mask of a Fill Layer, and the same considerations apply to a standard Material. However, you can also use them directly on a Layer, which is an initially empty paint layer that can be customized by assigning PBR channels or an actual material to it, painting directly on the layer instead of on a mask.
This approach gives us the possibility of adding a layer mask to combine two different effects: the material brush stroke on the Layer and a separate opacity mask. For example, on screen I am adding a Clouds 2 opacity mask to a Layer containing text, allowing me to modify the Clouds settings, such as increasing Contrast and Scale, to achieve more interesting effects by combining the two masks.
Well, that is all for this short, but hopefully useful, tutorial! As always, feel free to leave any questions, doubts, or requests for clarification in the comments below the video. See you next time!