Substance Painter/Designer vs Blender PBR Uber Shader: Pros & Cons?

re: Disney BSDF (latest build)

(btw, “BRDF” or “BSDF”…which is right? It’s labeled BSDF in Blender)

I’ve been playing with the shader, and it’s beautiful out-of-the-box. :wink:

BRDF is Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function.
This refers to a model that only deals with reflectance.
BSDF is Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function.
This is a model that deals with light scattering in general, reflectance included.

The Disney shader is a BSDF because it supports reflection as well as transmission rays.

Decided to terminate my Substance Live subscription, and focus on using Blender for texturing/shading.
Substance is a fantastic toolset, but I just don’t need that level of reality, and really don’t have time to
learn it.

Instead got the above addons recommended by Ffrima, and am playing with various shaders…
PBR Uber-Shader ($8.50)
Real-Time PBR shader (free)
Procedural Pro (free…PBR?)
Jason’s Simple PBR (free)
and Disney BSDF.

Thanks for the helpful replies. :smiley:

Still, those links could all benefit from using substance tools. Blender’s focus is modeling/materials/shading/animation*. Painting across all maps at all times is something blender cannot do. And realism is only as real as you want it to be. You can make cartoony stuff in PBR/Painter or blender. All up to you.

I’m not advocating substance live though. Finding painter and designer indie license on sale is the way to go until you need more. Starting out you don’t need all that.

Also substance-share is a great free resource to learn more about the software.

Nothing against Substance tools…they are amazing.
But the learning curve is not worth it to me to use Substance to create maps to use in Blender.
If I want to get the grungie worn look, I can use nodes in Blender.

But I enjoy creating animations, e.g. physics sims, in Blender, and don’t really need to see the fine details of a
surface.

There are so many other areas I want to learn besides shading, I have to budget my time.

Painting across all maps at all times is something blender cannot do.

Not yet, but just wait…the Dev gnomes are probably working on it down in the mine. :wink: