MatPlusTutorial 01
Texture a Radio in Blender, Part 1: Setup & Bake
Get a radio ready to texture in MatPlus: merge objects, one material per set, a 2K project, per-material bake resolutions, AO, curvature and thickness.
This is the first part of a series where we texture a sci-fi radio from scratch to finish with MatPlus. Before painting anything, we make the decisions that will save work later: which parts are treated as one object, which material each one gets and at what resolution each one is baked.
You will organize the objects and their UVs, create one material per part (these become the MatPlus Set Materials), create the MatPlus project and bake all the maps you will need in the next parts: AO, normal, world space normal, position, curvature and thickness.
Step by step
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Start by merging the elements you want to texture together. For example, all the buttons are now a single
Buttonsobject. In the UV Editing tab you can check that they still share the same UV space as the rest of the radio.Do the same with the antenna: merge its base and its body into one object and rename it
Antenna. -
The screen is split into two objects:
outer screenandinner screen. Hide the outer one and you will see the inner one underneath.The reason: the outer screen will only get a transmission (glass) material, so you can see through it and reveal the inner screen, which will display some kind of HUD.
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Merge the main case of the radio with the side holder of the buttons into
Main body. Then merge all the rubber pieces (the upper and lower rubber, the side holders and the base of the cross pad) intoRubber parts, so they can all share the same set material. -
Hide the inner screen, select one of the objects and press A to select them all. In UV Editing you will see that every object of the radio shares the same UV space.
Back in Layout, show the inner screen again, select it alone and open UV Editing: it has a dedicated UV space, so it gets a much higher resolution.
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Select each object and, in the material properties, click New and name the material after the part. You end up with six materials:
Antenna,Buttons,Inner Screen,Main Body,Outer ScreenandRubber Parts.These materials will define your Set Materials inside MatPlus.
Materials become Set Materials
Every material you create before the project appears as a Set Material in MatPlus, as explained in the previous video of the series.
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Select one object and press A to select them all. Press N, open the MatPlus tab and click New Project. Type a Project Name, set Resolution to 2k (you can go for 4k if you prefer), leave the other options as they are and click OK.
Then click the full-screen icon at the left of the Layers tab: a dedicated MatPlus workspace tab appears, so you can switch between Layout and MatPlus easily. All your materials are now listed under MatPlus Set Materials.
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Go to the bake section (Bake Maps). Each Set Material in the list has two controls:
- The eye icon only controls visibility. Hiding
Main Bodydoes not stop it from being baked: the button still says Bake 6 Materials. - The checkbox decides what is baked. Untick
Main Bodyand, even though you still see it, the button changes to Bake 5 Materials.
Tick it again: we will bake all six.
- The eye icon only controls visibility. Hiding
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Select each Set Material and choose its resolution in the dropdown of Bake Maps Settings. You have to do it for every one of them:
Antenna: 1kButtons: 2kInner Screen: 2kMain Body: 4kOuter Screen: 1k (it will only get a glass material, without much detail)Rubber Parts: 2k
Feel free to use 4K or any resolution you want.
No high poly, no Match by Name
Match by Name 1:1 is not used because this project has no high poly model: the low poly model references itself to generate the maps. The Maps Textures tab lists the baked textures (empty until you bake); if you baked in external software, you can load them there with Import Resources.
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In Maps Baker, next to AO, you have Only Local. It decides whether an object gets contact shadows from the other objects:
- Enabled: the object only gets ambient occlusion from itself. The main body, for example, would not interact with the buttons.
- Disabled: the object also gets contact shadows from the rest of the radio.
We want that interaction, so select
Main Bodyand disable Only Local. -
Disable Only Local for
Antenna,Buttons,Outer ScreenandRubber Partstoo. Leave it enabled only onInner Screen: you don't want contact shadows from the outer screen or any other element on it.Finally, untick Vertex Color and Object ID on every Set Material: we don't need those maps.
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By default Curvature is set to From Normal; change the method to GN Curvature. With the Curvature row selected, click Preview to see the result on the model, and in Curvature Settings lower Blur to 1.
Then set up the curvature of the other Set Materials the same way.
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With all six Set Materials ticked, click Bake 6 Materials. The Baking Progress panel shows a progress bar and the state of every map, so you always know what is being baked (press Esc to cancel).
When it finishes, open Maps Textures: each Set Material,
Antennafor example, now has its six maps loaded (AO, Curvature, Thickness, Normal Map, World Space Normal and Position).Maps or materials?
The bake button counts differently depending on your selection. With only one Set Material ticked it counts maps (Bake 6 Maps, one per ticked map). With more than one ticked it counts materials (Bake 2 Materials). Two Set Materials with six maps each means 12 maps in total.
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In the Layers panel, change the Material dropdown to each bake map to inspect it on the model: AO, Curvature, Thickness, Normal Map, World Space Normal and Position. Hide the floor if it gets in the way.
The normal map looks flat because there is only a low poly model. When you are done, switch back to Material.
Your radio is now organized, its Set Materials are ready and every map you need for texturing is baked. In the next parts we start building the materials and adding the details that bring it to life.