This allows art directors to react and give feedback to a finished-looking concept in real time. I can adjust tiling rates, tint, and change material responses with ease. With a simple scene, I can quickly show art directors a variety of styles by dropping in different materials into various parts of a scene. Toolbag, in my opinion, is the perfect program for this task. A lot of my job revolves around R&D and visual development, where I have to quickly explore several options, as well as have a feedback process with art directors. Toolbag arms artists with speed, which is invaluable in the creative process. By switching through different lighting setups, I’m able to catch issues that I need to fix early on. It’s only after importing my textures that I can clearly spot issues, such as incorrect nuances in Height maps and inaccuracies in Roughness or AO maps. I usually try to get my Substance textures into Toolbag as soon as possible. The default renderer in Designer can only get you so far, and its limitations make it difficult to catch render-specific issues. Most of my projects are created in Substance Designer, then imported into Toolbag for preview in a more realistic context on custom geometry and under different lighting conditions. In my workflow, Toolbag and Designer go hand in hand. I keep two versions of my materials, one with gray diffuse (left) and one full material with color (right). Procedural recreation of a 3D scan of beach pebbles. How Toolbag Fits in my Workflow Level of Control In this article, I’m going to talk about my favorite aspects of Toolbag and break down how it was used in one of my recent explorations. So it’s no exaggeration to say that I’m a big fan of the software. From portfolio renders, to quick concepts and visualizations at work. Toolbag is my renderer of choice for everything. Parasitic Bug project showing the primitive geo and final render.

Hexels show tiling