Halloween is right around the corner and we’ve prepared a beast of a Substance 3D Painter release just for you. In this new version of your favorite texturing software, we’d added great tools for improved control and flexibility: a new 3D warp tool, and a new cylinder projection mode, as well as an improved color picker.

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Without further ado, let’s look at the details.

New projection mode: warp everything

With the new 3D warp projection mode, you can warp any material or image around any geometry – in a completely non-destructive way. This cool feature is a lifesaver if you want to match a decal to a model, a scar to a leg, or a scanned face to a character model.

We’ve decided to use a series of beautiful, high-quality skins scans from texturing.xyz, and stress test the feature in a character surfacing workflow.

You can simply drag and drop your image resource into the viewport: just select the channel where you want to apply it, and the layers will be automatically created. You’ll also find the warp tool in the projection mode dropdown:

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3420517?autoplay=true

As you can see, the warp mode helps you edit your scan in context. You can match the material to the model by moving the vertices around. These control points will automatically stick to the surface, making it super easy to map any texture or material quickly and precisely. And if you need more vertices to get into more details, you can split the grid locally for fine adjustments.

And if you need extra control or more detail, you can layer and blend multiple local scans while, again, keeping every single layer live and re-editable.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3420519?autoplay=true

This is an intuitive way to apply materials on a model, where you’re always working in context, and keeping control over your final render. And this is a technique that proves very useful beyond a VFX workflow, too. You can warp a pattern over clothing, for instance. You can warp a tattoo on skin. You can warp a sticker over a suitcase… The possibilities are endless.

Learn how to use the warp mode in this tutorial:

https://youtu.be/6_8CCf6v-uM

Project even more things

And there’s more! We’ve taken the opportunity to add even more to the diversity of projection modes, with the arrival of a cylindrical projection mode!

This projection mode is useful for cases such as wrapping decals or material around cylindrical shapes like bottles, or applying sleeve tattoos to arms.

Pick all the colors

We’ve also focused on some foundational work that is the groundwork for upcoming updates focusing on color management. Today, as a first step in this direction, we have an improved color picker, which – among other updated functionalities – allows you to save color swatches internally.

Other highlights include the ability to choose between float and integer (0-255) values, as well as between a linear or sRGB display. The color picker will also stay open while you are painting on the same layer, allowing you to pick new colors quickly or swap between swatches without interrupting your painting.

Showcase your art in Stager

Have you tried Substance 3D Stager? Our main render is made with Stager.

Artwork by Eric Lautard, Luc Chamerlat, Giovanni Nakpil

We also wanted to showcase this character with some custom lighting and a bit of compositing to make it shine. This required working without UDIMs, but once the asset was converted to texture sets it was a simple one-click “Send to Stager” export!

And here is our render:

There’s more in this new version of Substance 3D Painter! We’ve improved performance, as well as the Python API with new functions (with the one reload mesh). For all the details, please check the release notes.

This Substance 3D Painter release’s artwork is by Eric Lautard, Luc Chamerlat, with a model by Giovanni Nakpil.