Substance Painter 2026 Skew & OpenPBR beta

A beta version of Substance 3D Painter 2026 is now available. This release features Skew Baking, Auto-Rebaking, OpenPBR compatibility, and introduces a new Hard-Surface mode for Auto Unwrap.

New Features

• Skew Baking: Paint skew correction maps in baking mode, using familiar tools as well as new helper functions like “Edge Protection”.
• Auto-Rebaking: toggle auto rebake for a baked map to instantly rebake that map as soon as any baking setting changes. Useful when painting skew maps.
• OpenPBR: support for the OpenPBR material standard. Includes new channels and shader.
• Hard-Surface Auto Unwrap: a new mode for auto-unwrap that works much better for non-organic, hard surface objects, with the additional bonus of calculating much faster than the default method.

Why we made this beta

We’re releasing this beta to gather feedback on a first version of our new features. While all features are working, some may feel unfinished since it’s still early. By participating, you can help shape how these features develop.

We're especially interested in your thoughts on baking workflows, as improvements are ongoing.

In case of issues

If you are having issues of any kind please share them in this new dedicated Discord forum. We definitely want to hear how new features do or do not fit into your workflow.

If you happen to crash or encounter a bug, you can also report it as usual via the crash report window or the Help menu within the application.

About Painter and project version

As the Beta introduces changes to saved files, they are not compatible with 12.0. We strongly recommend not to use the beta for production work, and to keep a backup of work created in older versions before you open them.