CG Channel

layer mask

See what's new in the promising alternative to the Substance tools for texture painting and material authoring. Free to indie artists.

Thursday, March 12th, 2026

Promising hard-surface-focused add-on implements Substance 3D Painter-style layer-based texture painting inside Blender.

Friday, August 15th, 2025

Major update sees the hotly tipped 3D texture painting and material authoring tools leave early access. Still free for indie artists.

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025

Check out the new features in the sub-$100 image editing app, including support for Cryptomatte data when retouching 3D renders.

Friday, January 24th, 2025

Check out the latest features in the digital sculpting, 3D painting and retopology app, and its cut-down edition for texturing work.

Wednesday, February 28th, 2024

Check out the new features in the sub-$100 image editing software, including better layer workflow.

Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

Get Wes McDermott's handy free add-on for... well, exporting layer masks from Substance 3D Painter.

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

Wide-ranging update to the natural media painting software adds new AI-boosted Liquify and Warp tools.

Friday, December 16th, 2022

Free material-authoring app gets opacity and emissive map support. Release 'may be one of the final updates' to Mixer in its current form.

Monday, November 7th, 2022

Cinematic effects plugin for Photoshop can now render particle animations over still images to create looping cinemagraphs.

Monday, October 10th, 2022

Check out the new features in this major update to the bonus tools for Foundry's 3D texture painting app.

Friday, September 2nd, 2022

Updated: see the UI and feature list for the Substance plugin available in the new beta build of Photoshop.

Wednesday, June 15th, 2022

SketchUp renderer gets new scattering and decal systems, big update to real-time render mode V-Ray Vision.

Friday, November 5th, 2021