Adobe has acquired Allegorithmic

Not to mention that they're mad about exclusives as if this is monopolistic behaviour when steam has had an effective monopoly on PC games distribution for ages now.

 

Yeah but Steam’s was Organic, Free Range Exclusivity, while Epic’s has artificial additives and is grown in a lab.

Or something like that.

 

I don't know what these hashtags are about. Is it twitter. I'm too busy climbing mountains, swimming large ocean expanses and saving damsels in distress. *Thumps chest rhythmically.*

 

Autodesk are worse in every way, no doubt. That doesn't make Adobe good though.

Software as a service is only here to stay if people don't revolt against it. Collectively we could force all kinds of change.

What gets me is that the EGS store "exclusives" aren't even the same level of exclusives consoles had forever, they're all time limited to one year. And every time someone complains about them with passion and anger, I think of their message as "Epic games is LITERALLY THE WORST, because they make me wait 1 year longer on my games!". I'm waiting for a couple of those games to come to steam too, but I'm glad the devs made their money back already and I don't care if I need to wait a year longer or not. I rarely buy stuff at release anyway.

 

I am/was just saying that there are people who hate Epic for various reasons and one is them being quick when it comes to making Exclusives deals. Personally, I couldn't care less.

And that's all I gonna say, because I don't want to derail this thread any further.

 

Yeah it felt like you weren't saying it yourself because everyone who says it is usually far more ranty with their posts.

 

Sorry for necroing this old thread, but my question feels more appropriate here than in a new thread.

I had recently updated Substance Painter to 2019.3.3 and now it's so unstable, it's unusable for me. And since it automatically uninstalled the last version I had been using, I'm not actually sure which one that was. Not that I'm surprised, with Adobe having taken over, but it is very annoying nonetheless.

Can anyone here please tell me what the most stable version prior to 2019.3 is? @Murgilod or @BIGTIMEMASTER maybe?
Which is the best one to settle on for long-term use on Windows? I don't plan to update it in the foreseeable future.

Theoretically now would be a good time to look at Quixels tool, but I'm hesitant because I don't have much time to learn a new tool right now and my past experience with their tools wasn't great.

 

Honestly @Martin_H I'd ask this in the allegorithmic forums, that way you can get the proper support you need from the team themselves. Perhaps they can help you with this.

I believe I was on 2019.3 before I just updated my painter license a couple of weeks ago and didn't have any issues.

 

The staggering amounts of bug reports there with 0 replies don't instill much confidence that I'd get any useful answer there:
https://forum.substance3d.com/index.php/board,20.0.html

But you've inspired my to check another forum and I found this quote there, written about 2 months ago:

I still have an installer for 2018.3.2 archived, so that might have been the one I was using before the latest update uninstalled it. I'll try 2018.3.3 next.

 

LTS is always a safe bet due to the constant patches it receives. That said I haven't had any problems with 2019.2 and I was using it for months without bothering to upgrade past its day one release.

 

Since Substance Painter doesn't have LTS releases, I assume you are talking about Unity?
For Unity I'd go with LTS releases for sure.

 

Wait, Substance Painter has the same versioning system? Well that won't create any confusion. Not at all.

 

We're getting off-topic, but seeing as Unity broke controller support for iOS and tvOS in the last 3-4 LTS versions, I wouldn't say LTS is always a safe bet.

 

Do Substances work again with Unity? I used them alot from around 2014-17 timeframe. Awesome sauce when they work. Then kaboom..a huge mess with the plugin. The Substance forum is useless. No answers or a sidestep shuffle from the Substance tech team.

 

Yeah the plugin is pretty useless (at least for HDRP) it is. It says it works, but I tried and it kept resetting the material, etc... Perhaps I was using it wrong idk.. But I find it easier to just save my materials and go back in to SD and export the procedural changes back out as textures instead.

 

That is what I had to do too. I got pretty ace at creating custom Substance graphs and controlling them with .cs scripts. Can't remember the exact details but at some point I just gave up. I have about 2500 useless Substances in my library representing hundreds of hours of work. One of the few, maybe only way to rotate a texture was with a Substance and some scripting. Never understood why rotation did not become a standard part of manipulating a material.

 

One possible reason is that It requires extra processing and more shader operations than tiling/offset.

Tiling/offset can be implmented as a simple multiple-add, while rotation would require either full matrix transform treatment, plus normals would need to be handled in specific way.

Then again, on modern hardware this is not as huge, as, say, implementing displacement.

 

I could see this coming when Adobe acquired Substance , they I think changed the name of substance alchemist to Adobe Substance 3D Sampler.. However look at the prices now.. I knew it was just a matter of time.. this is past most indie / hobbyist, budget.. especially with this new world of Covid and uncertainty.. https://www.adobe.com/ca/creativecloud/plans.html?filter=3dar&plan=individual To be fair this includes a new app the does import 3d models and render scenes .. I see they are working on a " beta " modeler now too. So i guess the influx of Adobe money helped development of the substance Eco-system, the base 3 apps is 26$per month CAD.

Who can afford 52.00$ a month ? Would be a very expensive hobby .. for just this....

 

Who needs the full suite though?

Designer is only going to be useful for large studios. It's a very specialist program that solves problems a tiny studio doesn't have.

The other software besides painter have nothing to do with game engines.

 

You need textures for your models ... And I do not think you can only get painter substance painter on it's own.

Really dude coming out and attacking when some one is trying to be helpful... real F-N classy .;. the post also say's the price for just the 3 normal apps that have come bundled and that cost increase is not that much.

I am not here to argue. And I am not replying to you again!

 

How ever there is good news ( I only found out a few months ago, when Autodesk " change the deal yet again " I had bought a perpetual license for MAYA LT the last year it was offered .. then had to pay a Maintenance " fee " every year for new versions, but that cost was like 150 - 180 I think, It was as cheap if not cheaper then buying what one would reasonably expect to pay for " upgrades "

SO anyway, Good news is if you a search for AutoDesk indie-license you can get them for cheap, 250$ a year for the full versions. So for 250$ a year CAD you have access tot he full versions of Maya or max.. or 500 $ for both.. for hobbyists indie's who>> " Annual gross revenue not in excess of $100,000 USD/year "

This is a great DEAL.... and if you have the good fortune to make more then 100,000 K WOW then upgrade

https://www.rendernode.com/autodesks-indie-license-3ds-max-and-maya/

[ EDIT ]
Now if only Adobe would consider such a move.. I think they would make even more money,
just imho ..

 

Watch the aggression, he wasn't in any way attacking, just providing an opinion on a forum.

Also.. what are we supposed to respond to? The price of adobe products cannot be affected from this forum.

 

of course you can buy individual software, just look on the website. and you can still get perpetual licenses too.

if you think that you need designer and these otehr software besides painter to make games in unity, I am telling you to question that belief because you'll be wasting money. And who has money to waste?

 

Sorry if I took his response to me as if I was stupid... my mistake .. still there is better phrasing on each part ..I'd admit.,
Sorry

 

I agree, we both do not want to waste money. Sorry If I took it the wrong way. I just think they will phase out the option for ownership too... give or take another 2-3 years.. my guess would be when the new windows comes out.

Anyway have a good day to you both

 

I would count on that too.

Grabbing a perpetual license now might be a good idea, however I'd look at alternative software as well. I mentioned the one I prefer and think is a good fit for small studios or soloist already. There are others as well.

 

The other plan matches the previous bundle; its pretty much the same price as it was. I dont see too many people paying double just to get Stager.

 

Sampler (formerly Alchemist) is for generating textures from real-work photographs. In other words, its a competitor to this:

https://unity.com/products/unity-artengine

Its predecessor Bitmap2Material was available as a plugin for Unity.

So, quite a lot to do with game engines.

 

oh, thanks for the correction.

I guess it depends on what sort of fidelity and how much work you have to do, but I do this sort of thing all the time with photoshop and/or my 3d texturing app.

in other words, I think the generalist program can do same thing the specialist program, and for the time/money strapped indie dev, it's good to consider how much use you can get from the single generalist program before investing in specialist programs.

 

Its a replacement for a full photogrammetry process, so generating with normals, roughness maps etc, all that stuff, at far faster speeds, and only a slight reduction in accuracy. There's a useful comparison here:

 

Ehhh... I've actually had a shocking amount of luck with my toying with Designer for generating stylized textures i don't want to paint by hand, like background and LOD stuff. When you have a very small team it's actually really handy because sometimes you don't have the resource availability to do that much by hand. There's definitely a place for it with small indies and I wish there were some decent alternatives, but every one I've found has been terribly lacking.

 

Yeah I'd probably use designer too if I had time to learn the thing.

 

That's awesome.

I guess in general I assume most people here are soloist or on tiny team, have no money, little time, and thus it would make sense to just acquire textures/materials since there is enough free and high quality stuff out there to make a million games already.

But... I only have experience with more realistic graphics, not stylized stuff.

I actualyl have designer, but just never felt a need to use it. Usually if I need any material, finding about a dozen options is a matter of ten minute search, whereas making the thing would take longer (plus time to learn the software, and I have to be really careful about switching gears too much because it leads to brain drain)

 

Substance makes pretty realistic materials too. I have a library of over 3000 of them. Dirts, sands, tires, mag wheels, various woods, apartment building tilings, realistic marbles and granites, carbon fibers, forest floor leaves, gnarled roots. Don't know where this notion arose that it is only for stylized textures.

 

I dont know either because nobody suggested that.

Substance is putting out a ton of awesome, free materials people can use. This is part of the massive library of content out there people have access too, and part of the reason I don't find it a good use of time to author custom materials in most situations.

The main benefits of substance designer is helping large teams maintain standardization across hundreds or thousands of assets in a non-destructive way. If you have used it to good effect in your own projects, that's great. Maybe you could explain why it's a valuable part of your toolset.

 

Where? I'm unable to find perpetual licenses or individual substance app licenses.

 

@AcidArrow

 

Steam, pretty much.

 

As far as I know the product still functions after the support term is finished.

 

After having a few hours to reflect, I feel that I should apologize, sincerely sorry, for one not taking even 3 minutes to consider the response coming out of my mouth and being so short tempered. I was wrong to say what I did in the way I said it. It has been bugging me every since I logged off because even though I might ? XD.. come across as a dic* sometimes, but I am not that way in RL. It is not an excuse, but have anyone ever has those day's on end when Nothing goes right ?
Talk about getting up on the wrong side of the bed.

IDK if it was the post, or if this is a jumping forum, but it is good to see people talking.

One note about the substances that are done for us .. I love them too, because you can hit Random a few times and get a texture that is fairly certain to be yours. Alchemist is great because, besides the " generating textures from real-work photographs " and very good tiling algorithms, you can also combine Substances as a well to make a texture that really is your own, SO it is kind of depending on your art skills ... beautiful results can come for even guy's like me that do not have a ton of experience and I would not grade my art skills as spectacular.

Most here are right about Designer, I mean I don't have the time/inclination to learn it deeply, when all you have to do is with the subscription you have access to many very high quality materials that would take you a long time to learn to make ( and already have been done ) , but many people really enjoy the " from scratch " thing so each to their own. I had learned the hard way there is simply not enough time to learn everything.. ;-(

What I had meant to say tho, is that a rudimentary understanding of designer could be good Because .. many of the newer substances come with the base file ( as you all know ) .sbs So in my way of thinking if one were so inclined if you wanted you could change or alter or build on a substance that was already done... that I can see as being useful... even if I don't do it.. ( personally Alchemist is great and you can stack so many photos and substances for me that would be a better / faster result then working on a substance file that came with the .sbs source file.

Again I am sorry for my prior out burst.

I grew up with a saying and a life long belief .. Be careful what you say to some one in anger, because even
if/when you say you are sorry.... Something said in anger, can never really be taken back.. that is the sad part.

 

no worries

 

That heavily depends on art style used by your assets.

If you go low poly, you won't need substance painter. Same applies for cartoon/anime or other workflow.

Software like blender allow texture painting for free, although it doesn't quite work the same way substance painter/designer do.

 

It's also, to be super honest, kinda bad. Blender's tools that exist in things like its animation and texture drawing contexts are pretty bad, to the point where it's best to just use Blender's paint tools just to lay down regions to start using in another program like Painter or Armorpaint, even for stylized stuff like anime characters and other stylized works.

Painter and Designer are both specific tools that fill wider niches than this thread has been giving them credit for, honestly. My team sizes range from around "just me" to "me and a couple contractors" and using my archaic version of Painter (Painter 2, from like 2016) and Armor Paint have probably ended up saving me weeks of work.

Hell, I've been using Designer and Armor Paint to make a WAD for the original Doom. Not the limit removing source ports either.

 

I agree that Blender's texture painter, for all intents and purposes, should really only be used to lay down block colours.

My personal art style is low-mid poly models done with toon/cell-shaded materials/rendering, and the workflow is just to unwrap in blender, lay down the block colours, and then use Illustrator/Photoshop to vector/draw on simple details.

Think the art style of Dragon Booster, where it's all pretty much solid colours and shapes. Simple, quick, yet effective. That said, a program that could let me draw vector shapes right onto the model wouldn't go amiss. Shame that, despite for the $75 AUD a month for the 'full' Adobe suit, that doesn't include Substance???

 

Having watched a couple of videos on it, Im now really curious to know if the Substance plugins for Unity and 3D applications are going to support the dynamically-parametric procedural 3D modelling that Designer now does, or whether they're going to basically hobble that(*) by keeping it proprietary for their Stager application.

(* the dynamic bit, Designer can export FXB, OBJ etc)

 

I can't stand renting software, though I did do it for Substance Painter (mainly because of the Source credits). After this recent change on Adobe's part I cancelled my Painter subscription. I'll either be buying a perpetual license off steam or moving to different software altogether.

 

I am not fully qualified to recommend, and I would hate for you to buy into the software and then be disappointed .. I bought the Amateur version for now because I wanted to test and hopefully get away from painter and designer..
( have been renting for years and now have a thousand of substances, after a time how many substances does one need or use ? ) and there are people that sell really good substances too.

Anyway, back to my main reason why I bought 3dcoat a few months ago, is because with the new version 2021 coming soon, they will only have one version... professional ( and honesty imo very cheap for what you get ) .. Anyway, not only does 3dcoat fix meshes and and many other things including zbrush type modeling.. NEW in the 2021 version they are starting a " Modeling " Room as well, more along the lines of blender / maya kind of modeling.

This includes the revolve type command for vases and the like. I am no expert, but they take a different approach to some of the modeling, that Z brush does not use. So getting the Amateur version now, will I believe get you a cheaper upgrade cost. I think if you buy the pro version now it would be free.

I wrote the company a few months ago, and wished them well. And suggested with this new version that you can make models in... They in a few years could take give a good run on Z brush, painter, and Maya, for modeling,

My reasoning is that many game assets are low polly, even the High polly models for games would do. It has many tools to make geometry look way more complicated then it is. And the paint tools are fantastic.
IMHO it is worth a look for any one wondering. I am betting 3dcoat will become a very sought after program in the years coming. https://3dcoat.com/

 

I find my self using Substance Alchemist more than any other tool (Now called Substance Sampler) with Adobe version.
It's just the easiest way to quickly get in and get a material going.

Take a photo with my DSLR of a surface I like and quickly get it as a realistic looking material and import into engine/3D software of choice.

Substance Designer is cool, but it takes a little more work, but it's real benefit isn't making a single material, it's real benefit is the procedural aspects. Make a single material and tick a button and it completely gives you a new looking material with the same settings so you can have various materials made from the same one (E.G. - Asphalt. You can have it generate a fresh new slab of asphalt laid out, then press a button and have it generate cracks, etc). This way you can have two materials generated and you can then import both of them into Unity and paint over each without any differences in seams, colors, etc. They'll just blend perfectly.

But once one gets over the learning difficulty it's still a very powerful tool, but at the same time if you are wanting unique surfaces such as sci-fi panels it's probably easier to model them and bake the height, ao, normals instead.

 

P.S. - For anyone who isn't aware - The Perpetual Licenses off steam, are only for that specific version. They don't give out life-time updates or anything as far as I'm aware. I hate renting software as well it's so stupid. I miss the Substance Maintenance licenses, they were sort of renting however the versions you could acquire ended up being perpetual even when your period was over.

 

This is a texture I made in 3dcoat, it was from a random picture of blue marble, I had wanted for a vase ..
I had been looking for blue mountain marble .. Sorry for the off topic.. it is only to show the main texture.


I do agree Alchemist is great. Afaik the only other software that could be comparable is Quixel Mixer.
I just have problems having to be locked into a forever subscription type of software. But I am talking as a hobbiest .. not a corporation. ( Even though yes I have been using substance since it first came out, and still have a subscription ) For me 3dcoat is investing in a possible future it seems like a good all around alternative is all.

I could be wrong on this, but afaik you can not buy Alchemist on Steam, which makes the point moot , since you have to " rent " Alchemist, there fore the whole suite .. I believe as I did search on the steam site.