User Guide Cancel

Your first capture step by step | Substance 3D Sampler

Video recap - first capture step by step

Launch Sampler and turn on the HP Z Captis

Once Sampler is launched, click on the “+” button on the left bar. 

In the Connected Devices list, you should find HP Z Captis. If you do not see any devices listed, please refer to the FAQ.

click on the "plus" icon and on HP Z Captis in Sampler to launch the device

After clicking on HP Z Captis, a dedicated window opens with 3 options:

  1. Browse content: It will open your file explorer to browse the local storage of your HP Z Captis device.
  2. Start scanning: It will initialize HP Z Captis device and start the capture flow.
  3. Shut down: It will shut down the device and close the window.

Closing HP Z Captis window

At any moment if you close the HP Z Captis window you will be asked if you want to continue the process or abort.

If you select continue, the device will proceed with its current task offline and pause at the end of the current step. You can reconnect Sampler later to continue to the next step of the capture session.

Sampler will initialise the Preview of HP Z Captis device. It is recommended to not interact with the view while it is initialising.

Preview interactions:

  1. Define the region of interest. It will define the capture area of the sample. The larger the region of interest the higher the quality, but a smaller region of interest will take less time to process.

  2. You can zoom in and zoom out.

  3. You can pan.

Preview settings:

General settings

Project name

You can define a project name of your capture and define which type of outputs you want to retrieve.

 

Outputs

  • By default only the material PBR channels (Base color, normal, height and opacity) will be saved.
    You have the possibility to choose the output type between LDR (low dynamic range) and HDR (high dynamic range).

  • You can choose to also save the photometry photos (64) used to generate the PBR channels 

possible outputs of the captis workflow: material or material and photometry

Capture resolution 

  • 2730x2730 for the maximum square capture (Preview: lower quality, quicker scan) 

  • 8192x8192  for the maximum square capture (Full resolution) 

Note: Only PBR channels will be loaded in Sampler. Photometry photos will be only available on Document/Adobe/Adobe Substance 3D Sampler Beta/[project name] 
The default folder can be modified in the preferences.

 

Camera settings 

  • Focus: It will adjust the camera focus.
    Clicking on Auto will ask you to select where to focus on the preview. It is advised to focus 1/3 out of the center of the material sample. 

  • Intensity: Adjust the camera exposure.
    Clicking on Auto will ask you to select the area of the material the intensity calculation must be made on. 

You can set both by hand if you prefer. 

  • Color calibration: Calibrate the color of the base color map thanks to the HP Z Captis technical areas. This will result in the final material being the exact same color as the sample you added in the HP Z Captis tray. 
    The technical areas with the color swatches are automatically detected and are used for the calibation.
    This is only available in Studio mode.

You will also see an alignment button.

This alignment has to be done the first time you set up your device, every time you physically move it and then every couple of months. It is not necessary to do this process for every capture.

screenshot from Sampler showing the technical areas of the HP Z Captis device

To do the alignment please place the technical areas in the center of the capture space, close the drawer and click on the alignment button. Once this is done you can put the technical areas back in their place and start scanning your materials

Once you are all set: start the scan.

Once the scan starts, the preview will display photos taken during the process. 

The processing part is split in two parts:

  • Capture: Taking all required photos

  • Processing: Processing the photos to generate PBR channels (Base color, normal, height, opacity)

While it is capturing and processing, you can add metadata (same metadata that you will find in Sampler metadata panel).

During the processing, you will see the result is built tile by tile.  

At this step you can review the results of the scan. All the created channels are displayed (in Explorer mode, no opacity is created since the explorer ring does not have a backlight).

The “Browse scans” button opens a file explorer in the folder that holds the images (channels only). If you requested photometry at the beginning of the scan, they will be stored in a separate folder.

After exiting HP Z Captis window, the channels (base color, normal, height and opacity if relevant) will be added as a layer in the Layers panel. 

Note: Verify that output format is correctly set to 16bit float

Use Sampler filters (Equalize, Perspective Crop, Tiling, …) to process and clean your material.

Once you are done, you can: 

  • Save your Sampler project: File > Save as … (Ctrl + S) 

  • Export your material: File > Export … (Ctrl + E) 

Get help faster and easier

New user?