Is it worth learning Substance Painter/Designer, or can Blender do pretty much
the same, e.g. using the PBR Uber Shader or Jason’s Simple PBR?
I have a subscription to Substance Live, but haven’t been able to figure out the GUI
and workflow…maybe I need to give it more time to sink in, but would rather
do everything in Blender if it can do virtually as well (?).
Even with Substance you are going to need some kind PBR shader to use the generated maps.
From my point of view Substance is really worth it. I am still working on getting comfortabe with the UI and controls too. I am confident that in theory you are able to achive the very same results with Blender on its own, there are some interesting approaches to PBR texture painting in Blender, things like smart masks/materials and particles are a little harder to achieve or even impossible but could be handpainted with some effort.
I would suggest palying a day or two in Substance to get a little feeling for it, looking up the texture painting for Blender and finally see what fits for you.
You can reproduce the substance painter procedural layer masking workflow in Blender with these 2 addons /
Which PBR shader do you use?
From my point of view Substance is really worth it. I am still working on getting comfortabe with the UI and controls too.
The main problem I’m having are the tutorials by Allegorithmic.
This YouTube playlist is supposed to be for beginners, but I find it too fast & technical.
The best place to start, at least for me, is this set of 7 tutorials, “Getting Started”.
I would suggest playing a day or two in Substance to get a little feeling for it, looking up the texture painting for Blender and finally see what fits for you.
This will be my 3rd time (in 2yrs) trying SP. I gave up 2x, but maybe it
will make sense this time if I focus on it for at least a month.
I will also see how far I can go with Blender…it may be all I need. 
You can reproduce the substance painter procedural layer masking workflow in Blender with these 2 addons /
https://www.blendermarket.com/produc…ved-pointiness
https://www.blendermarket.com/produc…ering-node-kit[https://www.blendermarket.com/produc...ved-pointiness](http://Ffrima You can reproduce the substance painter procedural layer masking workflow in Blender with these 2 addons / [url)https://www.blendermarket.com/produc...ering-node-kit"]
Ok, thanks. I will try them. 
At 20 bucks a month, I think it’s well worth it! Hell, it’s almost worth it just for the Substance Source library.
I’m relatively new to Substance myself. I picked up Live about 5 months ago. The learning curve is a bit steep at first, but struggle through it for a couple of weeks and things will really start to click.
Which PBR shader do you use?
There are a lot of great options out there, but of course I’d recommend my own. :):
Very cool! Thanks for the shader! And will study your other thread, too.
I’ll give it another month and see how far I get.
Do give Painter more time because it’s such a fast, fun and easy program to work with. If you know gimp or photoshop those are more complicated and I mean that, truly. Blendswap and YouTube videos all have shared their PBR nodes and much like this filmic stuff it spreads through the community like wildfire until we all figure it out and start using it.
Substance Painter and designer will increase your productivity by about 200% (Probably). Allegorithmic talks about the importance of iteration and it’s true. My problem with materials before using sub. painter was I would stop too early or feel the UV stack and node tree gets to a point where it’s no longer fun to adjust because it was already a pain to get it where it was. In Painter you can iterate 50 times in a matter of seconds or minutes. A lot less stressful than manipulating all kinds of node formulas model-to-model. This PBR you can set up a node tree and have this 1 size fits all starting point.
Painter also does things that could be considered voodoo.
You can do things like model in blender, unwrap, set up materials, export model. Open in Painter, right away bake the maps painter provides, texture the model, and say for example while texturing the model you notice how you could improve the UVs. 100% brand new UVs in blender and export again. Back in Painter you can replace the model and bake again and all your work is right where you left off. Painter redraws the entire UV for you. For new comers and veterans alike this is game changing. You don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes which if you ask me if you do everything in blender that comes with its fair share of paranoia and making mass copies.
Painter has also nearly forced me to improve vert counts and UV density. It’s been a great teacher and it squashes that robotic repetitive stuff for you. I’m in love with it and could go on with more.
Does it have a monthly payment by default? I am about to start the trail version and then buy it if i like it, i see no mention of a monthly subscription on the steam store where i plan to buy it.
FoundatationsofPause,
Thanks…that’s a great recommendation.
…model in blender, unwrap, set up materials, export model. Open in Painter, right away bake the maps painter provides, texture the model, and say for example while texturing the model you notice how you could improve the UVs. 100% brand new UVs in blender and export again. Back in Painter you can replace the model and bake again and all your work is right where you left off. Painter redraws the entire UV for you.
Will try your workflow.
GrimZA,
I signed up for Substance Live…“Rent to Own” for $20/mo.
Awesome, thank you. That works nicely since i no longer subscribe monthly to CGcookie.
Can also get a steam key when i get a definitive license.
Wait, hold the phone! Painter will correctly redraw hand painted bits after a UV change? That I did not know. Wicked awesome.
EDIT: guess I was a little late on this response. Hehe
GrimZA, don’t buy it from Steam. Live subscription direct from Allegorithmic is a better deal. Not only does this give you access to all their software and their texture library, but once you’ve paid $20 per month up to the total cost of Painter, you own it. Bonus if it’s a new version by that point. You can then cancel your subscription, or keep paying until you own all of their software.
Just started playing with Pascal Schöns’ Disney BRDF https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?403342-Cycles-Disney-Brdf&highlight=disney+brdf
But you might want to check out CynicatPro’s tutorials at Youtube. He tells you how to build your own PBR based shaders from Cycles nodes which work pretty well. He also goes a little into Substance+Blender https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlH00768JwqG4__RRtKACofTztc0Owys8
Did’nt know about that, I will have a try at the dynamic weathering nodes
No worries, thanks for the info.
cgCody wrote:
Live subscription direct from Allegorithmic is a better deal. Not only does this give you access to all their software and their texture library, but once you’ve paid $20 per month up to the total cost of Painter, you own it. Bonus if it’s a new version by that point. You can then cancel your subscription, or keep paying until you own all of their software.
Here’s the Substance Live FAQ.
Note, they don’t automatically alert you when you’ve hit 16 (cumulative) payments for the definitive license for Substance Pack (includes current Painter, Designer, B2M). As you said, you can get the license for just SP after 8 months.
I.e. they will happily let you keep the subscription going. But if you want to have the latest-greatest, and can afford it, Substance Live is the way to go.
Upgrades are separate for $75 for SP or SD.
Saw this thread where the subscriber just found out he’d being paying longer than he realized, and evidently not getting a refund for what he thought was an overpayment. Seems to be a lot of questions about Substance Live at the forum.
If I keep going with Substance Live, I’ll probably just take the licenses and not stay on the Substance Merry-Go-Round.
So far, it’s been easy at least to subscribe, cancel, subscribe, cancel, and subscribe again. LOL!
OriginalSin wrote:
Originally Posted by 3dcal[QUOTE]Which PBR shader do you use?
Just started playing with Pascal Schöns’ Disney BRDF https://blenderartists.org/forum/sho…ht=disney+brdf
But you might want to check out CynicatPro’s tutorials at Youtube. He tells you how to build your own PBR based shaders from Cycles nodes which work pretty well. He also goes a little into Substance+Blender https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…ACofTztc0Owys8
[/QUOTE] Cool, thanks! Lots of good stuff on the Blender side of the PBR equation.
If I keep going with Substance Live, I’ll probably just take the licenses and not stay on the Substance Merry-Go-Round.
So far, it’s been easy at least to subscribe, cancel, subscribe, cancel, and subscribe again. LOL!
I here ya there. I just hope my 8 months is timed well for a 3.0 update so I can step off that ride with a shiny new toy. Hehe
Cool, thanks! Lots of good stuff on the Blender side of the PBR equation.
It’s a good idea to learn to create your own PBR materials. Just know that a PBR material isn’t inharently universal between rendering engines. The Disney BSDF or Cynicat’s material alone is not going to match Substance’s Metal-Rough shader without some extra work.
It’s kinda technical, but if you want to create your own node setup, give this video a watch:
It’ll help you understand certain variables you will need to incorporate into your material in order to match what you see in Substance. For example your roughness maps need to be squared in Cycles to look the same.
Now get to work! I believe everyone has given you a truckload of reading and watching material! Haha
“Be careful what you ask for!” 
Just downloaded 1.6gb of related tutorials on YouTube. Time to learn & do.
The substance metal-rough shader IS the Disney BRDF as far as I know, so it should match exactly so long as you get the import color spaces correct. (and it does indeed match from the testing I’ve done with it). The other thing to keep in mind is that the default view in Substance is a realtime rasterized view and can make the material look a little different than a raytracer would. Use the iRay view in Substance to check for any differences. Assume that any raytrace renderer (Cycles, Arnold, Redshift, w/e) will look more like the iRay view than the regular one.
Interesting. I was content to hold off until the official inclusion of the Disney BSDF, but now I kinda want to take a look. Is it stable enough for day to day use?
Yeah I do explain that (at least I think) in my SPBR thread. My material is a 1 to 1 copy of the MDL version of the metal-rough shader, which is an iray centric material language. The only difference is they use a variation of the GGX shading model that is not available in Cycles (As far as I’m aware, anyway. Most of those research papers are honestly Greek to me.)
Seems to be. I think it’s more or less ready to go into master, just waiting for final sign off from devs who are busy with other stuff. I haven’t actually used it for a real project though, so take my word with a grain of salt.
What’s especially cool is that it’s implementated in the OpenGL material view too. It’s way more realistic than the OpenGL version of a glossy/diffuse mix. Sadly, material view just uses the solid view lights, not the world background or scene lights. 
Sorry if if you already knew about the iRay thing, I was just skimming this thread then info dumping. Need to click on links before replying
Cool! Well I might just have to run some tests with my Irina project in that case.
And no need to apologize. I know sometimes people on the interwebs can get all emotional about things like that, but that ain’t me, fella! hehe Besides, I’m notoriously very long winded when it comes to explaining things, so over the years I’ve come to expect most of my words to fall on many deaf ears… or eyes, being text and all. 
