Adobe’s Substance 3D Collection is an impressive set of tools for creating materials and textures for 3D content. The latest version includes some exciting new features that give artists even more control over material creation. In this article, I’ll provide an in-depth look at what’s new in Substance 3D Collection and how it can benefit 3D artists and designers.
An Overview of Substance 3D
Substance 3D is a suite of applications and services that allow users to create, customize, and view 3D materials and textures. The tools are widely used in game development, film production, architecture, product design, and other industries that utilize 3D graphics.
Some key features and benefits of Substance 3D include:
- Intuitive drag and drop interface for quickly combining textures and modifying parameters
- Procedural materials that can easily be tweaked and adapted
- Powerful node-based workflow for full control over material creation
- Vast library of ready-made materials, textures, and environments
- Ability to export and integrate assets into common 3D applications and game engines
- Cloud collaboration features for working with remote teams
Substance 3D removes a lot of the complexity from texturing 3D assets by giving designers powerful but flexible tools. The non-destructive, node-based workflow allows for endless experimentation.
What’s New in Substance 3D Collection
The latest Substance 3D Collection release includes two brand new applications – Substance 3D Modeler and Substance 3D Sampler. These expand the suite’s capabilities in exciting new ways.
Substance 3D Modeler
Substance 3D Modeler is a 3D sculpting and modeling application. Key features include:
- Intuitive brush-based sculpting tools
- Mesh retopology for optimizing sculpts
- Polygonal modeling capabilities
- Procedural materials and textures
- Tight integration with other Substance apps
This tool allows artists to create detailed 3D models and assets right within the Substance ecosystem. There’s no need to export to other programs for modeling or texturing. It provides a seamless workflow for taking concepts from initial sculpt all the way through to a finished, production-ready asset.
Substance 3D Sampler
Substance 3D Sampler is a utility for automatically converting images into ready-made PBR materials. Users can quickly build a library of smart materials from photos. Key features of Sampler include:
- Drag and drop conversion of JPEGs and PNGs into Substance materials
- AI-powered analysis and conversion of input images
- Automatic mapping of images to diffuse, height, roughness, metallic, etc. channels
- Batch processing for converting multiple images at once
Sampler streamlines the process of texture creation. With just a few clicks, photographers and texture artists can turn standard images into adaptable Substance materials. This also allows for easy use of libraries like Adobe Stock directly within Substance Painter.
Benefits for 3D Artists and Designers
These new additions deliver powerful new capabilities for 3D content creation. Here are some of the key benefits for artists:
- Faster 3D asset creation – Modeler and Sampler eliminate roundtripping between programs for modeling and texturing.
- More experimentation – The procedural materials and node-based workflow in Modeler facilitate experimentation.
- Enhanced realism – Materials created in Sampler help 3D assets blend in with real-world photographic environments.
- Expanded workflows – Modeler and Sampler allow designers to work completely in Substance if desired.
- Time savings – The automation and integration in Modeler and Sampler speed up asset production.
For individuals and teams creating 3D game art, NFTs, product visualizations, and other 3D content, these new tools offer huge workflow enhancements. Adobe has added even more power and flexibility to an already robust suite of 3D material authoring applications.
The Substance 3D Collection continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with procedural 3D texturing and modeling. For artists who want to maximize creativity and iteration speed, these latest additions provide compelling reasons to give Substance a try.
