Acquired by Adobe back in 2019, today we get a new update of the extremely popular texture painting application, Substance Painter 7.3. The 7.3 update features two new ways of texturing, via Warp and Cylinder project, with the new Warp projection having major impacts on other tools as well. Additionally the Color picker got a lot of improvements as well as general product improvements across the board.
Details of the Substance Painter 7.3 update from the release notes:
Added:
- [Projection][Warp] Expose 3D warp as a new projection mode
- [Projection][Warp] Allow decal mode for Alphas, Textures and Procedurals with drag and drop in the viewport
- [Projection][Warp] Use warp projection with decal shortcut (ALT)
- [Projection][Warp][Toolbar] Transform warp as whole or per vertices
- [Projection][Warp][Toolbar] Add grid points with split warp cross wise, horizontally or vertically options
- [Projection][Warp][Toolbar] Dedicated menu for reset actions
- [Projection][Warp][Toolbar] Option to automatically adjust tangents when moving points
- [Projection][Warp][Toolbar] Dedicated menu for grid edition (size, reset, color and handle size)
- [Projection][Warp] New keyboard shortcut to switch whole-vertices warp edition mode (SHIFT+V)
- [Projection][Warp] Click + Ctrl allows to switch between surface tool and other tools
- [Projection][Cylindrical] Expose the cylindrical projection mode
- [Projection][Toolbar] Group manipulator settings (size, grid steps, angle steps)
- [Color Picker] New color picker UI
- [Color Picker] Use sRGB values in color picker widgets
- [Color Picker] Allow to save and delete color swatches
- [Color Picker] Eyedropper accessible from color and normal slots
- [Color Picker] Allow to edit dynamic color between 0 and 255 values
- [Color Picker] Make HSV/RGB state common across the app
- [Color Picker] Color Picker window is semi-persistent
- [Color Picker] Pressing Esc closes the color picker window
- Performance improvement for UI interaction and while painting
- [Engine] Update to new Substance engine version (8.3.0)
- [Scripting][Python] Allow to reload the mesh of the current project
- [Scripting][Python] Allow to update resources in projects
- [Scripting][Python] Allow to set and query the resolution of UV Tiles
- [Interoperability] Not available for Steam and Substance editions
- [Interoperability] Receive multiple resources from Bridge
Fixed:
- Color picker does not display the right color
- [Baking] Texture set list are not ordered correctly
- [FBX import] 3ds Max group pivot transformations are not taken into account
- [Substance Engine] Crash with import of corrupted SBSAR
- [MacOS] Project configuration option in different languages is not present
- Autosaves can freeze Painter during long processes
Known Issues:
- [Projection][Warp] Split option remains selected after splitting is done
- [Projection][Warp] Flip does not work when transformation is set to world space
- [Projection][Warp] Artifact lines between patches in some rare cases
- [Projection][UV] Pivot point is reset when flipping projection
- [Mac M1] Smart materials are not displayed correctly
- [M1][Regression] Material layering not working
The Steam version of Substance Painter 2021 also received the 7.3 update. If you are interested in picking up Substance Painter as part of a bundle, there is a 50% off Launch Offer currently available here, which may or may not work for you. You can learn more about Substance Painter 7.3 in the video below.
If you are interested in Substance Painter alternatives, check out our guide to Substance Painter alternatives.