Adobe releases Substance 3D Designer 13.1
Adobe has released Substance 3D Designer 13.1, the new version of its material-authoring app.
It’s primarily a workflow update, making “many quality-of-life improvements” to the node graph, particularly when working with frames, and adding AxF export.
Quality-of-life improvements to the node graph
Substance 3D Designer 13.1 streamlines workflow in the software’s node graph, particularly when using Frames to organize the graph visually, or to add comments to it.
Frames now automatically expand when moving the nodes in them around, as shown above, and there is a separate option to refit the frame inwards to fit its contents.
It is also now possible to use HTML markup to format the text in a frame’s description.
General workflow improvements include support for fuzzy search in the node menu, better node placement when pasting nodes from another graph, and auto-saving of 2D View options.
Support for AxF export – but only on Windows and macOS
In addition, Substance 3D Designer can now export files in AxF format, the vendor-neutral standard for transferring materials between CAD and DCC tools, supported in visualization apps.
Designer itself has been able to import AxF files since 2017, but the update makes it possible to export changes as a new layer in the AxF file, rather than as a Substance .sbsar file.
However, AxF is now disabled in the Linux edition of the software.
Price and system requirements
Substance 3D Designer 13.1 is available for Windows 10+, CentOS 7.0/Ubuntu 20.04+ Linux and macOS 11.0+, Perpetual licences are available via Steam and cost $149.99.
Substance 3D Designer is also available via Adobe’s Substance 3D subscriptions.
Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions cost $19.99/month or $219.88/year; Substance 3D Collection subscriptions cost $49.99/month or $549.88/year. Subscriptions to the Linux edition require a Creative Cloud Plan for Teams priced at $1,198.88/year.
Read a full list of new features in Substance 3D Designer 13.1 in the online release notes
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