Stacking Materials
The most important new feature in Substance Painter 2.2 is Material Layering. It can be used to visualise complex shaders on an asset directly in Substance Painter. With a few simple tags integrated into the shader, the tool automatically generates a custom user interface that can be used for material blending and mask painting. Together with a description file of the blend materials used, the masks are exported automatically so that they can be read by any engine and converted there into working material.
Accompanying the release of this new function, Allegorithmic has published a sample project as well as a Unity plug-in and an Unreal Engine 4 shader, which make it possible to transfer texture results from Substance Painter to Unity 5.3 and Unreal Engine 4. A plug-in for Unreal Engine 4 is planned.
Browsing the Shelf
Version 2.2 brings searchability to the shelves and mini-shelves via tags and with the aid of a new search algorithm. This makes it possible to find assets on the board more quickly. The Substance Painter Shelf is to be improved further in the next releases.
Projection Painting
A Projection Preview is now also available—this allows the user to select more specifically which channel should be used for a projection overlay, for example for the projecting of skin details.
More Scripting
The scripting API has been extended so that baking processes can now be scripted, bringing Substance Painter one step closer to full automation.
Price & Availability
Substance Painter is available for Mac, Linux and Windows; an Indie licence costs 149 US dollars, while the Pro version is available for 590 US dollars. A free 30-day trial licence is also available to download.
All further information about Substance Painter is available on the Allegorithmic website.
Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 25, 2016. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
