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Substance Painter: How to Add Roughness Variation to a Material/Textures (3 Options)

Category: Substance Painter
December 11, 2024

In this tutorial I will show you 3 options for how to break up and add variation into your Roughness channel and textures.

For example, when you are building up your own material or when using existing materials, it'll often be too perfect and lack any roughness variation.

Like this perfectly shined floor:

By knowing how to add Roughness variation, you can go to this:

In this tutorial I will show you 3 options for how to do this:

  • Option #1: Using Existing Roughness Channel (Simplest Way)
  • Option #2: New Fill Layer w/Roughness Only
  • Option #3: Best Option for Roughness Variation with Full Control

Video Tutorial

Roughness vs Glossiness

There are two primary PBR (Physical Based Rendering) texture creation workflows.

  • Metallic Roughness
  • Specular Glossiness

Metallic Roughness being the most common PBR workflow method, especially if you are using UE4 or UE5. And this is what this tutorial is focused on.

Roughness and Glossiness texture purpose is exactly the same, to define how rough/dull or how shiny/reflective a surface is.

With one major exception: black and white values are inverted.

  • Roughness = Glossiness
  • Roughness inverted becomes Glossiness
  • Glossiness inverted becomes Roughness

What is Roughness or Glossiness and What are its Values

Within Metallic Roughness PBR workflow (what we are using): roughness defines how reflective/shiny or how dull/rough the surface is. Roughness texture is grayscale; white to black and everything in between.

  • Black = Shiny/Reflective (0)
  • White = Rough/Dull (1)

You can view Roughness only by using Single Channel view in viewport:

If you are using Specular Glossiness PBR workflow then Glossiness texture works exactly the same as Roughness with exception of black and white values being inverted.

  • Black = Rough/Dull (0)
  • White = Shiny/Reflective (1)

Option #1: Using Existing Roughness Channel (Simplest Way)

The first option is the simplest one to add Roughness variation.

Here are the steps:

  • Add Fill Layer
  • Keep all the Channels and adjust them as needed
  • Under Roughness uniform color input a texture such as any existing Grunge Maps
  • Use Balance and Contrast in the settings to control the visual result

Option #2: New Fill Layer with Roughness Only

The second option will give you a way to control Roughness variation in its own layer.

  • Add Fill Layer
  • Disable all Channels except Roughness
  • This will override the Roughness in any layers below
  • Under Roughness uniform color input a Grunge Map
  • Use Balance and Contrast in the settings to control the visual result

Option #3: Best Option for Roughness Variation with Full Control

The third option is the best one to have Roughness variation that gives you full control.

  • Add Fill Layer
  • Disable all Channels except Roughness
  • Add Black Mask to this new Fill Layer
  • Add Fill effect to the Black Mask

  • Add a texture Grunge Map into Grayscale of the Fill effect of Black Mask
  • Use Balance and Contrast in the settings to control the visual result

  • Go back to Roughness Fill Layer and adjust its Roughness from 0-1
  • You can also adjust the Roughness value in any layer below to see how it affects the Fill Layer Roughness with Black Mask you created

Level Up with Substance Painter Essentials

Take your texturing skills to the next level in this in-depth "Substance Painter Essentials" tutorial course. I will show you how to start using Substance Painter and start texturing environments and props today!

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ABOUT WoLD & ALEXG

About World of Level Design

My name is AlexG. I am self-taught level designer, game environment artist and the creator of World of Level Design.com. I've learned everything I know from personal experimentation and decades of being around various online communities of fellow environment artist and level designers. On World of Level Design you will find tutorials to make you become the best level designer and game environment artist.

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