Allegorithmic ships Substance Painter 2018.2
Allegorithmic has released Substance Painter 2018.2, the latest update to its 3D texture painting software, adding support for subsurface scattering, viewport manipulators for fill layers, and Alembic and glTF import.
As with the firm’s other recent releases, it’s referred to as the ‘Summer 2018’ release on Allegorithmic’s blog, but 2018.2 in the release notes, so that’s what we’re calling it here.
Support for subsurface scattering in the viewport and Iray renders
The headline change in version 2018.2 is support for subsurface scattering, both in the viewport – all of Substance Painter’s standard shaders now support SSS by default – and in the built-in Iray renderer.
The implementation is based on this 2015 paper from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and uses simple scale and absorption colour parameters to control the effect.
According to Allegorithmic, it matches “very closely” to those in game engines and other offline renderers.
Viewport manipulators for fill layers, new options for projections, stencils and material IDs
The texturing tools also get an update, with new gizmo controls enabling users to manipulate fill layers – both standard UV Projection fills and Triplanar Projections – directly in the viewport, as shown above.
The release also adds support for non-square textures and the option to disable texture tiling in one or both axes when using the Projection or Stencil tools.
Other workflow changes include the option to drag and drop materials on to ID colours in the viewport.
Support for custom cameras when importing FBX, Alembic or glTF files
Import and export improvements include the option to bring in cameras as well as the mesh when importing an asset in a file format that supports them, such as FBX.
You can then switch between cameras via a dropdown at the top of the 3D viewport.
The update also adds support for the Alembic file format – currently just mesh and camera data, not animations – and the increasingly popular glTF format used in real-time and web applications.
There are also a number of smaller features and bugfixes, which you can find via the link below.
Pricing and availability
Substance Painter 2018.2 is available for Windows 7+, CentOS 6.6/Ubuntu 12.4 Linux and Mac OS X 10.11+.
New Indie licences, intended for artists and studios earning less than $100,000 per year, cost $149, including 12 months’ maintenance. Further updates cost $75/year. A floating Pro licence costs $990.
Read an overview of the new features in Substance Painter 2018.2 in the online release notes