Hi guys,
I am trying to learn Blender for game assets and I am currently on texturing. But the courses I was recommended seem to focus a lot on generating materials through shader nodes, which are not usable in game engines. Is there a way to export (bake?) these materials so that they can be used or am I following a wrong path? (for Unity or Unreal). Let's say I want to export this grunge texture. Would that be possible?
If I want to create my own albedo textures, normal maps, bump maps, metalness textures, are there some courses that you could recommend?
Should I rather look into other software like Substance Painter?
And there are some courses I can recommend to watch after this one, in (I think) this order:
https://cgcookie.com/courses/building-modular-game-assets (older, but still valuable!)
https://cgcookie.com/courses/normal-map-modeling-for-games
https://cgcookie.com/courses/animated-sci-fi-game-environment-creation-in-blender-2-8
Whether you want to learn Substance Painter or not, is up to you...It's great software, but I (personal opinion!) think it makes material creation too easy, so that a lot of artists get lazy and it often shows in the result (not that you can't get great results with SP, mind you!).
Bad comparison: draw a circle with a pencil on paper vs using a compass..the second method is easier (anyone can do it), but the first gives a more unique result and tells you something about the artist.
(I think I got the Omar flue and can't stop rambling...)
I see, thank you for your advice! You are also funny and have helped me a lot throughout. I greatly appreciate this.