Hi everyone, I got a lot of people asking me to share my Painted Wood Planks Substance Material. So I went ahead and put together a comprehensive tutorial video going over the graph and talking about the workflow. I hope you'll get a chance to check it out and I appreciate the support! Check it out and read more about it below. Thanks!
- Jacob

As we have all witnessed, Substance Designer is taking the game industry by storm. Almost anyones portfolio now working on textures and materials in games has a library of Substance materials they have worked on. There are so many different techniques and ways to create exactly what you want and even multiple ways to achieve the exact same thing. The more tools and tips we are aware of though, the greater the possiblities for us to solve those tough shapes or ideas that we want to create. Checkout a few of the ways Shray Khanna approaches texture creation in Substance Designer.

Also checkout more of his work here. 
https://www.artstation.com/shray

I'm not sure how this doesn't have 1000 likes or more already on Artstation. This is a great free bolt generator for Substance Designer and you don't even need the program to use it! An .sbsar file is included and can be used with the free Substance Player program to create these bolts. Definitely check this out and like that post on Arstation. It definitely deserves it!

As the Unreal Engine continues to release new updates, the potential for creating beautiful lit interior and exteriors is always advancing. There are many new features that can be easy to miss with each new update and we may be stuck in our old ways lighting our level without realizing that we are missing the incredible new ways to capture that realistic lighting we are going for. Recently, Epic Games Lead Artist Jerome Platteaux provided us all with some excellent tips and tricks for UE4.

     Ben Mauro has always been extremely helpful to those thinking of pursuing a freelance career. He's back again talking a bit about the pro's and cons of Freelance vs. working In-House at studios. These are some great guidelines to follow when quoting freelance work to studios. Many people don't consider all of the extra costs that come with working freelance. Many of these costs are usually taken care of by the studios when you work In-House, so we don't immediately consider them when we work from home. 
     Too many people aren't getting paid what they should for Freelancing. So definitely don't forget about all of this when you're quoting work for a contract!
     - Jacob

Thanks so much for sharing Ben! And I hope you all enjoy taking a look at his substance file and article.
Cheers,
​- Jacob Norris

The amount of art work out there these days and the quality of the work I have been seen is absolutely incredible! People are getting better and better and there are more and more people doing 3D Artwork.

I thought I would just share here some of the beautiful artwork, environments, and breakdowns that I have seen lately and hopefully you will all agree. There is always something new to learn and part of that is the motivation we get from seeing others succeed. So I am more than happy to be in a time with so many fantastic artists these days.

I recently was lucky enough to be featured in some magazine articles and while that is really exciting for me, it's also great news for you guys! Because one of the articles I contributed to was all about my experience with foliage in video games. Hopefully you will all be able to pick up some tips from this, as well as pass it along to your friends. I haven't said it yet, so Happy New Year everyone! And enjoy :)
​- Jacob

If you haven't been using ArtStation to share your work for feedback, potential employers, or simply to browse for inspiration from other artists, now is the time! It's one of the main sites for Industry Professionals and you'll want to be a part of it.
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Feel free to take a look at some of the artwork I have uploaded there and examples of the descriptions I provide next to each of my projects.
https://www.artstation.com/artist/purepolygons

Click "Read More" to see the article with tips and tricks from Leonard Teo...

Hi everyone,  
The first two Photopacks in the PurePolygons photopack series have released!
​Check them out in the store by clicking the links below.