The purchased product does not seem to be what I ended up with from the download. The installed download does not accept bitmaps for generating materials, and it only seems to play substance files that were exported from the product I want to use.

The download and install results in a file called "Substance Player 3.2" instead of what was expected to be a download of "Bitmap2Material 2.1".

:crying:

NOTE: Customer support auto replies that they will get back to me in 2 to 3 days...

If this is the problem I think it is, then somebody dropped the ball on this product launch.

OK, several hours into experimentation I am able to get some results, ie. being able to load a bitmap depends on first loading a correct version of the substance file - extension .sbsar and then seeing the software request the dragging of an image file onto the project.

Very confusing, this is still the "player" and that apparently is the standalone product. So you have to hunt around first to load the file "Bitmap2Material_2.sbsar" and go from there.

So far, watching the tutorials and using the pause button often I can see this product does have more features than previous methods I have tried, although with more initial confusion even with a moderate level of knowing various terminology.

Somehow I don't seem to be able to export a set of images by clicking on "Export as Bitmap" but am thinking that eventually I'll find my way just like a monkey. Eventually.

One thing I am starting to appreciate is that the software has a lot of flexibility on how you can setup the workspace and you can drag panels onto a second monitor, divide the 2D display of the various layers or close them, set the size of the output image, adjust light colors and angle - and it appears the output can be generated as an animation (again once I figure out how to do the export!) It is possible to load your own mesh file, so if you have a UV diffuse image for that this would be the step to creating the other texture images needed to enhance the final object appearance.

My guess is that it won't be necessary to request a refund, but if you are thinking of getting this software you might want to download the "trial" version to test your ability to be patient in finding your own answers, it isn't quite as easy as you may imagine so be prepared to put in some mind bending effort.:hehe::w00t::) The "trial" download is available at [url=http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/b2m/overview][/url]

EXPORT note:

Solved not being able to export images - they can not be exported into the program folder, you must set your own directory export folder. ie: C:\ Project\ TEST or whatever, but it can not be a sub folder of the B2M player.

good night!

Just goes to show you how useless Manuals and Readme files are. :w00t:

Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

There shouldn't be any hunting down of files required.

To start Bitmap2Material to create your own materials just do the following.

Click - Start > All Programs > Allegorithmic > Open Bitmap2Material 2 in Player"

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Thanks, yes that's the easiest way to get started.

The confusion came from thinking there would be a Shortcut on the desktop that would lead directly to "Bitmap2Material" , then seeing a "Substance Player" instead which did not lead to the desired start point.

I suppose one could alter the properties of the desktop icon to point to a path that would start it "Substance Player" in "Bitmap2Material" mode. That's probably what I'll do since it seems to make sense to use a desktop shortcut.

The manual is actually fairly useful for information once you get the hang of how to start the program and figure out that the bitmaps produced can not be saved to the program directory - again to repeat you have to save the bitmaps into your own created folder outside the program directory structure and outside any sub-folders of the program directory.

When using the created bitmaps in iClone there is also the heads up that you have to figure out where to import the bitmaps, ie. the "normal map" has to be imported to the "bump map" etc. as the program does not follow the same naming pattern as iClone. By watching the tutorial (and using the pause button a key moments) you can figure out where each bitmap needs to go in iClone. The results are quite nice and better than the tool I was using before this as the program gives greater control.

Naturally, expect to devote some time to learning the ropes even with some help from customer service, you can't expect them to do all the work that needs to take place in your own mind !

Here's a first attempt at using Bitmap2Material and bringing it into a scene in iClone5. It wasn't easy at first, but B2M gets easier with more experimenting and I feel pretty sure there will be even better results in the future. The software did a nice job on bringing out some finer details in the 2D image applied to a simple box and lighting was only two simple default white point lights. See attachment.