Substance Painter 2020 News

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Highlights
Sébastien Deguy, Vice President 3D & Immersive, will kickoff the livestream by reviewing highlights from 2020 (yes, there were some good things in 2020, including beautiful 3D creations!) and exciting news for 2021.

Product Updates
Principal Product Manager Jérémie Noguer will share some new features from the upcoming releases. You’ll get a preview of what the 2021 releases are bringing into Substance Painter, Designer, and Alchemist. You’ll also get updates on the VR tool Medium and the latest additions to the high-quality Substance Source library. Jérémie will unveil upcoming research projects with incredible features, and give you a sneak peek of the future of 3D at Adobe.

Live Demo
Valéria Gerontopoulos, Product Manager and Technical Artist, will take a live dive into the yet unreleased version of Substance Painter to show you some cool features and useful tricks.

Q&A
Livestream host Wes McDermott, Head of Substance Demo Artist Team, will present your questions at the end of the livestream. Don’t miss this excellent opportunity to chat with the team via YouTube chat. See you on January 28th, 10:00 AM PST!

This minor release fixes a series of crashes and UI issues, improves performance when using UV Tiles and adds a few new Python commands.

Added:

• [Performance] Do not compute all UV Tiles when using the color ID selection
  
• [Bakers][UI] Display Texture Set descriptions
  
• [Bakers] Allow to save bake settings
  
• [Bakers] Add collapse all/expand all options to the Selection tab
  
• [Texture Set List] Hide description when empty
  
• [UV Tiles][Texture Set List] Clicking on UV Tile should expand/collapse list
  
• [Export][UI] Allow to resize the Texture Set List panel horizontally
  
• [Export][UI] Consistent tooltip text for both UV Tiles and Texture Set workflow with unselected textures
  
• [Scripting][Python] Allow to use export presets to export textures
  
• [Scripting][Python] Add a changelog in documentation
  
• [Scripting][Python] Allow to query all the available channels on a given stack
  
• [Scripting][Python] Console UI improvements
  

Fixed:

• [AMD] Incorrect detection of outdated driver version
  
• Crash when reimporting a mesh with different UV Tiles layout in some cases
  
• Crash when using particles with UDIMs on very heavy meshes
  
• [UV Tiles] Crash when exporting a mesh with displacement information in some cases
  
• [Export][Crash] Exporting 2D view in psd format can cause a crash
  
• Importing images as sequences when creating a project does not work
  
• Engine stuck in an endless loop
  
• [Shortcut] Camera rotates always in snap mode when changing snap mode shortcuts
  
• Meshes are always auto-unwrapped when re-imported even if option is off
  
• [Texture Set List] Description text field is sometimes not fully visible during edition
  
• [Texture Set List] Dropdown menu to hide/unhide Texture Sets is not fully visible
  
• [Texture Set List] Clicking on eye icon should not enter the "Edit Texture Set name"
  
• [Texture Set Settings] Removing a Channel also removes the Channel below
  
• [Export] Include all and Reset all does not take UV Tiles into consideration
  
• [Bakers] Deselected bakers appear during the baking process
  
• Resolution update is not taken into account for baked maps used as input
  
• [UV Tiles][Viewport] 3D Viewport freeze when adding Smart Material after folder with UV Tile mask selected
  
• [UV Tiles][Viewport] Wireframe is still visible for hidden tiles with paint through mode
  
• [Export][Sketchfab] Issues with "plus" subscription type
  
• [Sketchfab] "This asset is private" checkbox is not displayed after switching account
  
• [Export][Content] "Wiggly" brush presets can lead to performance issues
  
• [Plugin Photoshop] Message in log: not compatible with UV Tile workflow
  
• [Scripting][Python] PYTHONPATH env var prevents the application from starting
  
• [Scripting][Python] Typo in Python documentation
  

This is a bugfix release for Substance Painter.

Added

• Add environment variable "SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_VRAM_BUDGET" to override GPU VRam amount
  
• [UV Tiles][Performance] Do not compute all UV tiles when using the Polygon Fill tool
  

Fixed

• [Iray] Save render returns an error results in a black image
  
• [Linux] Crash after the splash screen on CentOS 7.3
  
• [Linux] Vram amount is not detected properly with specific configurations
  
• [Crash] Opening a project with duplicated texture set's name
  
• [Engine] Cache invalidation issue when modifying a mask
  
• [Texture Set List] Wrong font effect when Texture Set is deactivated
  

Known Issues

• [Texture Set List] Cannot hide description
  
• [Texture Set List] Minor UI issues
  
• [Iray] PSD render does not open
  
• [Plugin Photoshop] Not compatible with UV Tiles workflow
  

Substance Painter 2020.2 (6.2.0) is now available and features some of the most requested features to date! For the full details, read our blogpost on the Substance Magazine.

[h2]UV Tiles[/h2]
With UV Tiles, you can now load complex UDIM models and use all the tools painter has to offer seamlessly across UV tiles boundaries. This means you can apply filters, generators, smart materials, paint and even throw particles across multiple UDIMs.



[h2]UV Tiles Mask[/h2]
To supplement UV tiles and make sure everything runs smoothly, we added a new UV Tile mask, allowing you to quickly mask UV Tiles to apply effects or materials only on some parts of your object.
While painting on a layer with a UV Tile mask, you can now hide all masked tiles, allowing you to focus on the area you want to paint while hiding the parts that are in the way.

[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]
To support those heavy UDIM projects, we had to go back to the drawing board and optimize every step of the workflow:

• Project files (.spp) are on average 20 to 30% smaller than before.
  
• Saving and auto-saving is 20% to 50% faster depending on the project
  
• Exporting textures is now up to 10x times faster as well!
  

[h2]Engine Pause[/h2]
A new Pause button allows you to temporarily pause the Substance painter engine, letting you chain multiple costly actions like applying several smart materials on a complex project without triggering calculations until you un-pause the engine.

[h2]Baking UI Improvements[/h2]
You can now choose specifically which Texture Set and UV Tile to bake in the baking dialog.


Full changelog:

Added:

• UV Tiles (UDIMs)
  
• [UV Tiles] Paint across UV tiles
  
• [UV Tiles] Allow to choose between new and legacy workflow for UV Tiles
  
• [UV Tiles] Import UDIMs/UV Tile image sequences as a resource
  
• [UV Tiles] Add list of UV Tiles per Texture Set in Texture Set List window
  
• [UV Tiles] Allow to edit the resolution of multiple UV Tiles at once in Texture Set Settings
  
• [UV Tiles][2D View] Display UV Tiles as a grid
  
• [UV Tiles][2D View] New viewport button to display or hide UV Tiles information
  
• [UV Tiles] Switch painting tool to single channel by default for UV Tile projects
  
• [UV Tiles] New button in contextual toolbar to ignore masked UV Tiles while painting
  
• [UV Tiles][Layer Stack] New layer stack icons to improve performance
  
• [UV Tiles][Layer Stack] Improve Paint and Fill icons in the toolbar
  
• [UV Tile Mask][2D View] Allow to include or exclude multiple UV Tiles at once (left click, CTRL+left click)
  
• [UV Tile Mask] New UV Tile mask to include, exclude tiles per layer with a new icon
  
• [UV Tile Mask][Layer Stack] Display the number of UV Tiles in the UV Tiles mask icon when not all are included
  
• [UV Tile Mask][2D/3D View] Add hover effect to visualize UV Tiles under the cursor
  
• [UV Tiles][Bakers] Allow to select and bake specific UV Tiles
  
• [UV Tiles][Bakers] Add selection options for Texture Sets/UV Tiles
  
• [UV Tiles][Bakers] Right click menu option to select UV Tiles within a Texture Set
  
• [UV Tiles][Bakers] Allow quick selection in the Texture Set/UV Tiles by dragging
  
• [UV Tiles][Bakers] Replace "All" and "None" buttons in Mesh Maps by more explicit selection options
  
• [UV Tiles][Bakers] Display number of textures to be baked
  
• [UV Tiles][Export] Allow to select and export specific UV Tiles
  
• [UV Tiles][Export] Allow quick selection of UV Tiles by dragging
  
• [UV Tiles][Export] Add dropdown menu options for UV Tiles
  
• [UV Tiles][Export] Make some export presets unavailable if they do not work with UV Tiles (Adobe Dimension, Sketchfab, glTF, USD)
  
• [UV Tiles][Content] Update export presets to use the new $udim tag
  
• [UV Tiles] Improve error reporting when importing meshes with overlapping UV islands
  
• [UV Tiles] UV Tiles compatible in Iray
  
• [UV Tiles][Scripting] Add UV Tile export documentation to Python doc
  
• Performance
  
• [Performance] New button in contextual toolbar to pause engine computation when working (SHIFT+ESC)
  
• [Performance] Faster project opening by delaying Texture Set cache computation
  
• [Performance] Don't wait for mesh maps to load when opening project
  
• [Performance][2D/3D View] Don't compute Mask channel in viewport when it is not used
  
• [Performance] Do not block the application when loading mesh maps displayed in the viewports
  
• [Performance] Improve incremental save speed when saving a project
  
• [Performance][Bakers] Change default dilation settings to improve saving time and project size
  
• [Performance][Bakers] Switch to grayscale on specific Bakers to improve saving time and project size
  
• [Performance][Export] Improve engine performance to export textures faster
  
• [Performance][Export] Improve responsiveness when opening the export dialog with a lot of Texture Sets
  
• [Performance][Export] Improve performance when switching to tab "List of Exports"
  
• [Performance][Iray] Reduce Iray startup time
  
• Other
  
• [Bakers] Add selection options for Texture Sets
  
• Move shader instance management to Texture Set Settings
  
• [2D/3D View] Add message at bottom of the viewport to indicate which mask type is edited
  
• [Layer Stack] New option in settings to switch between legacy and new thumbnails
  
• [Layer Stack] Add visual feedback to indicate loading state of the thumbnails
  
• [Proj] New projection mode "Fill (Match Per UV-Tile)" to load image sequences
  
• [Proj] Change fill layers projection mode to "Fill (Match Per UV-Tile)" in specific cases
  
• [Content] Optimize Charcoal brush presets to improve performance
  
• Update Iray to version 2020.0.0
  
• [Export] Disable List of Exports tab when nothing is selected
  
• Auto Unwrap
  
• [Auto Unwrap] Improve quality of seams placement
  
• [Auto Unwrap] Improved parameterization to increase speed and stability
  

Fixed:

• [Alembic] Facesets are ignored when importing files
  
• [Alembic] Infinite loading time with specific files
  
• [Import] Incorrect UDIM image sequence is imported when only the file extension differs
  
• [Crash] Trying to open project locked by another process leads to a crash
  
• [Export] Emissive channel is not exported with USD format
  
• [Content] Smart Material "Charcoal" contains paint strokes
  

Known issues:

• [Texture Set List] Cannot hide description
  
• [Texture Set List] UI issues
  

A new bugfix release is available for Substance Painter 2020

Added:

• [Export] Add displacement settings in Shader parameters json file
  

Fixed:

• [Crash][Engine] Crash when trying to erase and replace existing channels
  
• [Crash] Changing shader after painting a mask in material layering
  
• [Crash][Engine] Crashes with some heavy projects
  
• [Bakers] Matching By Name doesn't work with OBJs exported from zBrush
  
• [Displacement][SVT] Textures are not displayed at project opening when displacement is on
  
• [Export] Some textures are exported uniform gray
  
• [Export] Disabled Texture Sets should not be exported for Dimension and Sketchfab export presets
  
• [Scripting][JavaScript] Crash while using the JavaScript API to access the export config in the onProjectOpened event
  
• [Scripting][Javascript] onExportFinished() is not called after an export