Hybrid Materials consist of base scans with further processing.
Hybrid materials go through the full material scanning process, and these scanned images are pulled into Substance Designer to be used as base maps or masks.
This technique is often employed for multicolored materials that need to be fully recolorable, or for materials with complex displacement that a scan cannot completely capture.
Kapalua Lenticular Jacquard
An example of what the hybrid scanning process unlocks versus scanning alone, this tricolor material is fully customizable at runtime by the artist.
Each color is separately isolated in the scanning process and exported as masks. These masks can be pulled into Substance Designer, and used to blend colors on top of a desaturated white base map.
This particular material uses a height map to produce a lenticular effect (when path traced), giving the appearance of color change at various angles.
Procedural Washed Denim
While not as visually complex as the material above what makes this material important was the ability for designers to control the wash amount of a denim with simple controls.
This is helpful for early in the process where designers can quickly ideate, changing the wash of the denim with one simple slider.