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Substance Designer/Painter- anybody have/use these?

Lissa_xyzLissa_xyz Posts: 6,116
edited March 2014 in The Commons

I've been going back and forth as to which 3D paint package I want to go with, and not too long ago came into contact with Substance Painter. If I'm understanding right, it's another app versus 3DCoat, Blacksmith3D, Mari, etc.

Is this app worth taking a look at for character texture creation?

I'm asking because it's 1/2 off while in beta (on Steam only atm), and you get the full version upon release along with a key for the standalone version. It's also non-gimped so it can be used for more than just Steam-based asset creation.

The much cheaper, non-commercial version can be used commercially if what you do with it makes you under $10,000/year.

Also, is Substance Designer worth taking a look at if I already have Filter Forge?

Post edited by Lissa_xyz on

Comments

  • V3DigitimesV3Digitimes Posts: 3,388
    edited December 1969

    Vaskania said:

    Also, is Substance Designer worth taking a look at if I already have Filter Forge?

    I played with both of them, not a lot with substance were I have just spent a few hours for now, but here is my "substance beginner feeling".
    I would say they are complementary products : Filter Forge / Genetica will just create your base seamless pattern, which you can use as inputs of substance.
    With substance, you can also probably create these kind of things but it is less obvious in term of learning curve.
    Yet, the great thing about substance is that you can add details/effects at very specific places in your UV maps/object taking into account borders, height, and other things I have probably not seen yet.
    Contrary to FF and Genetica (even if Genetica has some 3D possibilities) Substance takes your mesh into account, the thing difficult at the beginning is to "feed" it with some inputs some of them do not have (substance needs to work on the model) low rez and high rez model. Logical since it is game oriented. Yet I've overrided this problem just by creating an high rez model based on my low rez, and substance did the rest of the work.
    By the way Ddo is the same, needs normal maps as inputs (then drag them out of substance niark niark!). I think both of them are expensive (substance and Ddo), but both of them can also really improve your art not only in term of quality, but also in term of global efficiency : Once you've learned to use them!!!
    Ddo is very different since acting as a photoshop super plug-in.

    Now would I advice to buy it even if you have FF? It depends on the volume of texture you want to generated and the volume of sell you target and how long you want to make 3D in your life. Yes I thing it is a good investment, as long as you don't spend years having your return on this investment.
    This is my personal feeling, and I thought they were worth buying them, which I did.

  • V3DigitimesV3Digitimes Posts: 3,388
    edited December 1969

    Wow!
    One very important things on both of them as limitations :
    They cannot load a "several maps" Material.
    If you play with it you have to organise your object/material map by map.
    Not sure I'm clear?..

  • Lissa_xyzLissa_xyz Posts: 6,116
    edited March 2014

    Thanks for the input. I did seem to poke around a bit more and it seems that Substance, at least Painter, requires a better gpu setup than what I've got now (since my pc was built for gaming a few years back, I'm using 2 superclocked GTX 460s in SLI, which is the equivalent to roughly a single GTX 580). I may hold off on considering Substance until I upgrade my PC, which would be more of a win/win art and gaming wise.

    A few questions regarding Painter-
    How well does it handle painting across seams?
    Can it paint on multiple materials at once (diffuse/bump/etc- I think I've read not all 3d paint apps can do this)?

    As for Ddo, I've never heard of it, or Quixel, until yesterday. Darkedge posted @ RDNA that the updates were finally here, which prompted a Google search. lol
    Photoshop CS6 Extended is my 2D app of choice for the most part (except Inkscape for vectors and Krita for more paint-like things). Maybe this Quixel stuff is worth a look as well. It seems to have some pretty good integration.

    Neither of them seem expensive (at least imo). Substance is $149 for the full indie suite (designer, painter, and bitmat2material), and what I'm assuming you mean by Ddo (Quixel?) is $99 for the full suite (hobby/freelance, which allows for commercial work), which is taking pre-orders atm.

    *edit*
    I was typing as you posted. I'm assuming my second question regarding Substance is a resounding "no" then if it can't do multiple maps. Although the app is still in beta, so it may be possible in the future.

    Post edited by Lissa_xyz on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 109,683
    edited December 1969

    Multiple maps are said to be on the road map, I think, as are 4K textures (and 8K possibly at a later date).

  • ScytharScythar Posts: 127
    edited December 1969

    I found it to be also usefull to alter textures in iClone.
    I use a container from Stonemason. Then in substance designer i created curveture, normal worldspace normal, AO map.
    Had to do this twice because the model had 2 overlapping UV maps.
    Then in iClone with the multilayer material plug-in i could alter it.

    I'll show you the result when i am behind my pc. Now i'm typing On my iPad.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 40,670
    edited December 1969

    Reallusion is also selling substance in a bundle for iClone 6 for those interested in such things
    I am still thinking about it as find these things very confusing, I sort of prefer physical mesh to fancy displacement tecniques but realize for game making it is invaluable.

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