From personal experience when it comes to texturing there are few programs that can do it well and even fewer programs that are free. Quixel Mixer ticks both but what exactly is it and what advantages does it have over other software. From personal experience I can conclude.
Quixel Mixer is primarily a texturing software that allows you to create and Utilize Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials. Its biggest advantage is it allows you to procedurally create tileable textures and directly paint on 3d models utilizing a large free library of materials and the Quixel Megascans library.
In this article we will discuss the advantages of Quixel Mixer along with the benefits and disadvantages that come with it, so you can make an educated decision whether its worth checking out.
What is Quixel Mixer
Quixel Mixer is a piece of 3d software that primarily focuses on texturing. It cannot model, animate or render. But what it can do it does it well.
Quixel Mixer utilizes a PBR workflow allowing you to more or less texture your model with little to no knowledge of how PBR works.
You can use Quixel Mixer to create tileable textures or use its huge 400 or so Smart Materials to procedurally texture your model.
You can then export your completed model into your Render Engine or Game Engine of with ease using the Quixel Bridge. This eliminates the need to mess around with applying textures to your models
Its a really handy piece of software I highly encourage you to check out.
Advantages of Quixel Mixer
There are many advantages to Quixel Mixer but the biggest of which include.
- Its free
- Easy to use
- Utilizes a PBR workflow
- Has a Large Library of Smart Materials
- Supports Large Array of Render and Game Engines
Its Free
Quixel Mixer is completely free for use in personal and commercial projects. The only exception is if you choose to utilize the Quixel Megascans library which is an addition to the 400 free smart materials you are provided.
The Megascans library is free provided you are using it for projects within Unreal Engine anything else you are required to pay a subscription.
Easy to Use
Quixel Mixer is very easy to use. The fact it has less functionality is one of its best advantages, as it means the user interface isn’t cluttered with buttons. This doesn’t mean it is something you can just use competently. Some basic knowledge on how the program works and PBR itself is beneficial.
Utilizes a PBR Workflow
PBR is more or less the standard when it comes to texturing nowadays. It produces standard texture sets that a large number of 3D software use. Meaning what the model looks like is consistent across different render and game engines, without the need to adjust engine specific shaders.
This is a huge advantage as it greatly improves your workflow. Knowing what the finished product will look as expected is a huge time saver.
If you are interested in how PBR works I recommend you check out this article I wrote explaining what a 3d artist should know without the technical side..
Has a Large Library of Smart Materials
Quixel Mixer has a library of approximately 400 and increasing Smart Materials you can use for free.
A Smart Material is different to regular texture is the way that it functions. While regular textures are simply a image a Smart Material is programmed to adapt and change to a model.
For example if you want to apply dirt to your model the smart materials may detect the crevices of your model and apply larger amounts of dirt in those areas that may not be as easily cleaned.
This saves you having to manually apply such detail yourself, saving a lot of time. Further to that Smart Materials have multiple parameters you can adjust to get your model looking exactly how you want it to.
Using the previous example you can adjust how much dirt you want and its color.
Supports Large Array of Render and Game Engines
While a PBR workflow itself supports a large amount of render engines. Quixel Mixer makes it exceptionally easy to import and export models between your favourite programs using the also absolutely free Quixel Bridge this includes the following.
- 3ds Max
- Maya
- Blender
- Unity
- Unreal Engine
- Houdini
- Cinema 4d
- Marmoset
You simply download the appropriate addon to your selected 3d software and you can directly download your models all setup and ready to go similar to how the Megascans assets load.
Disadvantages of Quixel Mixer
Quixel Mixer is a great program however it does have a few disadvantages especially when comparing it to some of its competition such as Substance Painter. These include:
- No Normal & Displacement Map Baking
- Can be Difficult to Prepare a Model so it Works Correctly
- Less Learning Resources
- Less Rendering Options
No Normal & Displacement Map Baking
One of the biggest disadvantage that Quixel Mixer has is it lack of ability to create a Normal or Displacement Map.
If you are unaware of what a Normal Map is, its basically a way of faking the light via a texture map so as to give the model more detail than it does. This helps to considerably reduce the polygons of a model, allowing it to render and animate more efficiently. For more info please check out my article here.
This is fairly minor as it doesn’t affect how Quixel Mixer works and a normal map can be created in other modelling software before importing into Quixel Mixer quite easily. The issue is its an extra step that other similar programs do not require.
Hopefully this will come in future updates
Can be Difficult to Prepare a Model so it Works Correctly
This somewhat links in with the problem of not being able to create Normal Maps. To get the most out of Texturing in Quixel Mixer a lot of preparation of your model needs to be done outside of Quixel Mixer.
This includes Normal Maps, but other processes such as creating UV’s an Applying Materials or Vertex Colors. This can be a daunting task for someone new to 3d. This can get a little annoying as its very easy to miss a step and have to switch back and forth.
Less Rendering Options
Quixel Mixer does an adequate job of rendering your model in the view port to show how it looks. However other programs such as Substance Painter for instance have vastly more choices along with an additional render engine IRay.
Without this ability you are required to take the finished model to another program. If there were more options you could possibly eliminate the need to take it elsewhere and render within Quixel Mixer.
Less Resources Available
Because Quixel Mixer isnt as old or developed as other software there is vastly less training material, and resources such as Smart Materials available. While 400 plus is a lot you can never have too many.
Is Quixel Mixer Better Than Substance Painter
In my experience Quixel Mixer isn’t quite as good as Substance Painter. Most of the functionality you need is there and it is a very powerful and useful piece of software. Its biggest disadvantage is the missing functionality that makes it less efficient to use when compared to Substance Painter.
The free price tag makes it excellent value and it will be interesting to see how far the software comes in the next few years as it continues to be updated. I think the gap between programs will gradually close.
Conclusion
Hopefully you now have some idea of what Quixel Mixer can do. It really is a great piece of software particularly when used with Unreal Engine so you can utilize the Megascan Library as well for free.
I encourage you to give it a go. I promise you will be pleasantly surprised and how easy and smoothly it works!!!