INTRO BY PAUL HATTON
Get to grips with Substance 3D Designer, Adobe’s powerful material authoring tool growing in popularity among pro artists
ubstance 3D Designer is Adobe’s material authoring software and has been gaining ground on its rivals in recent years. Its tools have been used across the creative production board including in films, animations and AAA games. It’s been amazing to see how 3D artists, in general, have integrated Designer into their workflows with impressive results.
I first came across Substance 3D Designer when I saw an artist boasting that he’d created a 3D scene using only materials created in the authoring software. And more unbelievably, it’s a seriously complex scene, not just a simple normal map displacing some geometry. Since that day, I’ve continually seen render after render made the same way, and the designs are becoming increasingly intricate all the time.
Workflows for authoring materials, in various packages, have taken so many different forms over the years. One of these workflows has been to set up material parameters using an interface of settings, and the other to use nodes that can be connected to form networks of materials.
Designer follows the latter and it’s certainly not for the fainthearted.
If you’re not already familiar with a node-based workflow, in any context, you’ll probably find it confusing and complex at first. The learning curve is steep, but artists who’ve pushed through this barrier have been able to create significantly more complex materials than would be possible with more traditional workflows.
We’ve teamed up with PlayStation Studios Visual Arts’ lead material artist Javier Perez to help you get a handle on this daunting prospect, as he explains his process for working in Designer, starting on page 42.
The June release of version 13 saw the introduction of Spline nodes, which have significantly extended the functionality of the core tools. This new feature simplifies the required node structure for more complicated materials and even makes it possible to create materials that would have otherwise been impossible.
If you want to master Spline nodes in your projects, turn the page for an introductory workshop from Respawn Entertainment environment artist Dave Miragliotta.
Designer is truly incredible. If you can stomach the learning curve and get your head around its workflow you’ll be amazed at what you can create with minimal of effort.
NODE OF POSSIBILITIES
Over the years I’ve been using Substance 3D Designer, it just keeps getting better and better. One of the newest updates from Adobe gives you the ability to use splines, which of
