Substance 3D Painter 12.0 adds new decal warp and post effects
Adobe has released Substance 3D Painter 12.0, the latest major version of the 3D texture painting software for games, animation, motion graphics and VFX.
The release adds a new Warp to Geometry option for projecting decals onto complex surfaces, a new quick way to merge material layers, and new post effects in the viewport.
Warp to Geometry improves decal workflow
New features in Painter 12.0, include Warp to Geometry.
The new toggle in the contextual toolbar causes decals to follow the curvature and topology of the mesh that they are being projected onto, generating cleaner results on complex surfaces.
You can see a before-and-after comparison in the video at the top of the story: enabling the toggle stops the decal fading at the edges where the curvature of the surface changes sharply.
New post-processing effects in the viewport
The release also adds new post-processing effects to the built-in renderer, making it possible to preview assets in the viewport under conditions more similar to final renders.
There are now 10 effects in total – you can see a full list here – with new options including lens flares and film grain.
Flatten layers for quick export
Workflow improvements include a new Flatten action inside the layer stack.
Users can group layers and merge them to create a flattened copy that can be exported to disk, providing a quick way to get textures or masks out of Substance 3D Painter to test them in other DCC applications, without having to use the full export pipeline.
The original group can be saved as a Smart Material, making it possible to edit it in future.
Other workflow improvements
The New project dialog has been reordered to make key settings quicker to access, and there is a new checkbox for reimporting the project mesh in the Project configuration dialog.
There are a number of smaller feature updates and bugfixes, including to USD workflow.
Price and system requirements
Substance 3D Painter 12.0 is available for Windows 11, RHEL 8.6/9.2+ and Ubuntu 22.04+ Linux and macOS 12.0+.
Perpetual licences are available via Steam and cost $199.99.
The software is also available via Adobe’s Creative Cloud-based 3D and AR subscriptions.
Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions cost $24.99/month or $249.99/year; Substance 3D Collection subscriptions cost $59.99/month or $599.99/year.
Read a list of new features in Substance 3D Painter 12.0 in the online release notes
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