Substance Painter, the popular PBR based texturing application, just received a major update. The fall update comes with a completely new rendering engine resulting in better performance with lower hardware demands by incorporating Sparse Virtual Textures, which simulate large textures using less memory. The new engine also
supports up to 300 UV Tiles at once enabling support for massive scenes. There are also several new tools aimed at mobile users including a new 2D viewport exporter with the ability to bake into a single high resolution texture and more.
Complete details on new features from the release notes:
Added:
- Summary: a huge boost in performance, viewport upgrades, proper 2D view export, new UI helpers, an enhanced symmetry tool and new content
- [SVT][Engine] Sparse Virtual Textures (SVT)
- [SVT][Preferences][UI] SVT hardware support acceleration option
- [SVT][Log] Additional information for Sparse Virtual Texturing feature (e.g. size disk)
- [SVT][UI] Message window at start if size on disk too low for the cache
- [SVT][Preferences][UI] Substance Painter global cache location
- [SVT] New environment variable to specify the path of the cache of Substance Painter
- [SVT] New environment variable to activate the SVT hardware support acceleration
- [SVT] Detect sparse support by hardware
- [SVT][Hardware Sparse] Raise minimum driver version for Nvidia GPU
- [SVT][Shader][[Viewport][UI] Warn user if artefacts present with Sparse Virtual Texturing at project opening
- [Anti-aliasing][Viewport] New temporal anti-aliasing filtering for 3D viewport (via Display Settings)
- [Export] Export the content of the 2D viewport as a single texture
- [Export][Dithering] Expose dithering at export
- [Layer stack] Colors on layers and folders
- [Layer stack] Quick activation and deactivation of multiple layers and effects
- [Layer stack] Easier navigation for blending modes with up down keys and mouse scroll
- [Proj][UI] Additional rotation manipulator on all three axis for triplanar
- [Proj][Shorcuts] – and + to change the UV projection manipulator size
- [Shader] Control coated layer parameters with channels in the PBR-coated shader
- [Substance] Expose new mesh-based texture inputs for filters and generators
- [Symmetry][Viewport][UI] Control symmetry offset with manipulators
- [Symmetry][Contextual toolbar][UI] New symmetry panel with options
- [Symmetry] New symmetry line intersection mode
- [Symmetry] New symmetry clone cursor
- [Symmetry][Shortcuts] Q to hide and -, + to change size and shift to snap
- [Log] Improve error messages when unable to export textures
- [Scripting] Allow to change or update the resources in Display Settings
- [Scripting] Allow to create or remove channels in Texture Sets
- [Content][Shaders] Add support for anisotropy with a dedicated shader (pbr-metal-rough-anisotropy-angle)
- [Content] Update of the preview sphere with anisotropy and modified angle
- [Content] Updated matFx shutline
- [Content] New Texturing.XYZ seamless face scan
- [Content] New anisotropic procedurals
- [Content] New filter: baked lighting stylized
- [Content] New environment map: studio automotive neutral
- [Content] New project template: PBR – metallic roughness Anisotropy angle (with anisotropy channels)
- [Content] New project template: PBR – metallic roughness Coated
Fixed:
- [Color Picker] Painting cursor appearing when trying to pick a color
- Crash by Selecting or Unselecting layers in a specific order can lead to crash
- Crash when pasting as an instance a layer with a mask
- [User Channel][Regression] Crash when renaming user channel
- [User Channel] Grayed brush preview
- [Alembic] Only one texture set from several materials after import
- [Engine] Exported texture differs from viewport for brush stamps
- [Engine] Invert with a level effect does not fully affect a texture
- [Material picker is applying a brush stroke while picking
- Switching resolution to 128x128px leads to a crash
- Mesh map links are not updated properly when rebaking or instancing layers
- [Substance] UserData ColorSpace does not work on Baked Mesh Normal requested as input
- MDL association mismatch when using multiple shaders instances
- [Symmetry][Fill Layer] Symmetry plane and its manipulator active in Fill Layer
- [Viewport] Pivot point for translation not always updated after clicking
- [UI] Fixed icons and removal of placeholders for HDPI monitors
Known Issues:
- Computation freeze on AMD VEGA GPUs
- Huion tablet issue with shortcuts on Windows OS
- Anti-aliasing and shadows when active together may give unexpected results
You can learn a great deal more about this release in this blog post.