Substance Painter 2017.1 Review

With the release Allegorithmics latest offering of Substance Painter, we take a look at whats new and improved...

Product: Substance Painter

Company: Allegorithmic

Website: www.allegorithmic.com


Key features:

In-App Access to Substance Source
Alphas and Patterns
HBAO Ambient Occlusion
Live Edge Wear
Glow and Drop Shadow
Color Balance and Correction

System requirements:

Windows
Minimum
OS: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 - (64 bit)
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: VRAM 2GB
DirectX: Version 11

Recommended
OS: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 - (64 bit)
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: VRAM 4GB
DirectX: Version 11

Mac OS X
Minimum
OS: 10.10 or above
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: VRAM 2GB

Recommended
OS: 10.10 or above
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: VRAM 4GB

This is the first iteration of Substance Painters numberless cycle. Subsequent releases will be named after the current year rather than a major version number. Youll be familiar with this if youve used any of Autodesks software. Autodesk is funny though because they release each version about 8 or 9 months before the year that it relates to! Oh well.

Live Edge Wear - This filter allows artists to see worn edges adapt in real-time to custom-painted details.
© Allegorithmic

Integrated UI

The first thing to note is that this release brings Substance Source and Substance Painter much closer together. For those of you who have used Substance before will know that the link between their tools and their content has not been as streamlined as it could have been. This release aims to ease the workflow by integrating the content directly into the painter UI. This means that you are able to access the whole online library without ever leaving your project. Im always a fan of having everything in one place so thats a positive for me, and I bet this is a welcome relief for any existing Substance Painter users.

Color - These two filters allow artists to fine-tune the look of their textures by controlling the shadows, midtones and highlights separately
© Allegorithmic

AO generation

There are a number of other features which are worth exploring as part of this review. One of my favourite of the whole lot of features is the HBAO Ambient Occlusion. This has been pulled across from Substance Designer which is a plus for Painter users because its tried and tested. Its important when texturing models to be able to create really good ambient occlusions maps and HBAO lets you do that. It generates excellent quality AO maps right from painted height and normal map details. This is straightforward and best of all quick! I love automated tools.

Real-time edge wear

Then there is the Live Edge Wear. This is a small little feature but it packs a powerful punch and will be incredibly useful to most users. The beauty of the whole thing is that it enables users to see the worn edges in real-time. That means that if you make any changes then it is reflected in the result straight away. One day everything is going to be real-time and instant but in the interim period of time its great to see Allegorithmic taking a lot of effort to make their tools respond in real-time.

Custom alphas & patterns

Alongside the AO improvements and the Live Edge Wear, there are also 300 new customizable alphas and patterns. Thats quite a lot! There are a tonne of symbols, brushes and splatters and so on, many of which youll never even use but the breadth of options is quite impressive. For me the biggest selling point of many of these alphas and patterns is that a large percentage of them have procedural parameters. This is brilliant for ensuring that everything stays natural and organic.

Substance Painter is getting stronger and stronger with every release. This hero image shows that to be true
© Allegorithmic

Fine-tuning color correction

The other two additions are the glow and drop shadow as well as the color balance and correction. These are fair additions but whether they pull a big enough punch to make it into the main feature list release Im not sure. That being said, in any software release there are always going to be the less glamorous features that need to be part of the overall package. The color balance and correction will come in helpful if youre keen to fine-tune your textures.

In general, this isnt a particularly strong release but rather a movement in the right direction. It seems that theyre taking the opportunity to transition the product while pinning a few features on the back of it. I think the fact that many existing users will get this upgrade completely free of charge makes sense. And then for new users youll just get a great package that is better than its predecessor.

Score (out of 5): 4

Price: Free to all Substance Painter 2 users who purchased after the 1st Jan 2017. There are a whole load of other pricing options. Too many to list here!

Educational license (if available): Free students/teachers license. Discounted academic licenses available.

Release date: 20th June 2017

Related links

Check out Allegorithmic for more
Welcome to Substance
Allegorithmic technical specifications