If you’ve ever wondered how Xenoblade Chronicles’s devs would go about texturing a realistic 3D melon bun, there’s now an official tutorial for it 

Xenoblade Chronicles series developer Monolith Soft recently updated their official tech blog with a beginner’s tutorial for creating textures in Adobe’s 3D Substance Designer. The tutorial teaches you how to realistically create a delightful Japanese baked treat – a melon bun (melonpan). 

Monolith Soft has been regularly posting development guides for software such as Maya, Yeti, Houdini and the like, but their most recent tutorial has grabbed people’s attention with its delicious-looking subject matter. Written by Monolith Soft’s 3DCG artist Kanehira, the tutorial goes over the basics of node-based procedural texture creation in 3D Substance Designer, with screenshots demonstrating each step of the process. 

While explaining types of nodes and their functions, the artist breaks down the elements of a typical melon bun – starting from its domed shape, its crisscrossed pattern, small bumps and sugar crystals, moving on to its distinct color, including browning from baking. They compare the process of texturing to the process of working backwards from the answer to come to an equation. 

While only available in Japanese, the full tutorial with step-by-step images can be accessed from Monolith Soft’s homepage. 

There has been something of a trend for realistic and mouth-watering food in games- from Unicorn Overlord’s jiggly meals to Capcom’s 3D-scanned traditional Japanese sweets, and even Dragon’s Dogma 2’s live-action meat videos.