Blender - Real World Scale Tutorial
Real world scale models are quite common across 3D workflows, but did you know that 3D materials can also follow this format? I had never heard of this concept until I started working as part of a model production team for architectural / interior design visualization. The first place I learned how to make models and materials to real world scale was in 3DS Max. However, Blender has become my preference for 3D creation over the past year and I was curious to see if it could also handle real world scale.
It turns out that it can! But...There weren't really any great tutorials about how to get it right or the potential problems that can come up when you're trying to pass models back and forth with other software packages. I trolled around through quite a few obscure forum posts and addon documentations trying to figure out how to get it right.
Even if your job doesn't require the use of real world scale materials, they can still be quite a powerful tool to have in your skillset as an artist. Understanding how to make the best use of tileable materials, your UV layouts, and combining textures in new ways might help with resolving other future modeling challenges.
I hope this tutorial has been helpful for your. As always, feel free to leave an questions or requests down in the comments below.
P.S. Sorry about some of the viewport shots being blurry and the slight sync issues for the voice-over audio. I'm still getting the hang of this whole video editing and recording thing and it looks like there's still a lot to learn in that regard. The 3D artist's perpetual curse of constantly learning new software / workflows (pained laughter echoes in the background).
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:12 Speed Run
2:25 El Yaps About the Video
3:42 What Does Real World Scale Mean
5:01 Real World Scale Advantages
6:39 How To: Plugins and Reference
7:58 Object and UV Preparation
11:35 Magic UV to Scale UV Islands
12:41 UV Scale in other Software
14:10 Material Setup
27:56 Custom Mask in Substance Painter
32:12 Custom Mask Setup in Blender
35:50 Outro
Thanks for watching!