Community Manager

Sticky

Introducing Adobe Substance 3D Stager and Dimension update!

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
June 23, 2021
54 replies
73877 views

Hi everyone! Jeanette here, lead product manager for Dimension. It's been a little while since I've had an announcement for the community, but I'm very happy to be able to break the silence on some exciting news.

Today we launched a new application - Adobe Substance 3D Stager! Stager is built by the same team that built Dimension with a shared foundation for some technology while also being a bit reimagined. Where Dimension was a general purpose application that was intended for those new to 3D to learn, Stager is a dedicated scene staging application that is more powerful for professional 3D artists while retaining it's approachability for those learning 3D.

So what are some of the key differences between Dimension and Stager?

Dimension was more general purpose where Stager is specifically part of the new Substance 3D Collection which offers multiple applications for an end-to-end 3D workflow including modeling, texturing, and staging.
The rendering engine has been updated and reworked to the Adobe Mercury Rendering Engine. This engine is multi-technique, including both real time and ray tracing in a single engine. It is built with entire new infrastructure for modernizing techniques, improving performance and scaling to be available on more hardware.
Stager's material system has been updated for a new version of the Adobe Standard Material definition with tons of new effects like displacement, subsurface scattering, dispersion, clear coat, sheen, anisotropy, and more.
Stager includes a variety of general new staging features including collision based layout, multi-camera resolution outputs, physical lights, and much more.

What does this mean for Dimension?

Dimension will continue to be available as part of Creative Cloud All Apps plans - there is no change to it's availability! To see Dimension Creative Cloud desktop go to settings > apps > and enable "Show older apps" setting.
Dimension doesn't have any major planned releases right now - we'll be putting new features into Stager, but we will provide support updates for Dimension!
You can open Dimension files in Stager to take advantage of all the new features - also try Stager out for a full 30 day free trial!

Want to learn more about everything? Check out some of these resources:

We're really excited about the opportunity to build a new family of 3D applications that work seamlessly to provide an end-to-end experience for modeling, texturing, and staging 3D models and scenes and we hope you enjoy the new Substance 3D Stager app!

--

Edit: 8/17

Thank you all for the great conversation on Dimension and Stager. It's clear there's a lot of passion and excitement for amazing staging apps, and I take my duty to the community seriously. Please know that all of your concerns about pricing, confusion on the Dimension status, and Stager future, have been escalated to our leadership teams and we're working on some possible improvements!

Here's a round up of the latest information based on some questions and discussion that have happened in various threads:

Dimension

Dimension is still part of Creative Cloud All Apps plan.
~~Dimension is currently hidden by deafult on Creative Cloud Desktop.~~
~~To see Dimension you must go to CCD > Preference > Apps > and enable "Show older apps"~~
~~The "Show older apps" option may be disabled by administrators for education and enterprise organizations.~~
~~We are actively working to REVERSE this so that Dimension is not hidden, as it is confusing and inaccurate.~~
Update 8/19: This is now reversed! Dimension is available by default and you no longer need to enable "Show older apps".
Dimension is NOT end-of-lifed, but we are not working on new features for it (at this time).

Stager

Stager is exclusive to the Substance 3D Collection plan.
There are currently not any single app plans for Substance apps - we are investigating this possibility!
It is not currently planned that any Substance apps will be added to the CC All Apps plans.
HOWEVER, the exception is that Substance 3D Collection is free for those with CC All Apps for Higher Education.
HOWEVER, the limitation is that Substance 3D Collection for Higher Education is available for Shared Device Licensing (SDL) and Feature Restricted Licensing (FRL). It is not yet available for Named User Licensing (NUL).
We hope to work on Named User Licensing for Higher Edu support, but I don't have a clear timeline on that. It's months at least. Unfortunately there's little we can do to accellerate this. Adobe licensing land is a bit complicated and we have people working on it!

As always I try to be as transparent as possible with the community, but there's limits to what I can say on a public forum. Everything is subject to change, and I will do my best to communicate as we move forward!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Show previous replies

Ciellchan

Known Participant

Stager is beautiful, I just tried and I love. But I need to adress the elephant in the room:
Stager IS Dimension with updates.

Stager is not a different product, it is the same product with updates and a different name, it should be included on the CC Cloud, please this if far from being okey. We cannot be asked to pay extra to have the updates of a program we are already paying.

I know this isn't on the developer deparment but please, Adobe needs to start considering their subscribers, this is not okay.

A

ahazen1419

Participating Frequently

Thank you. The backlash is growing and wth good reason. Hopefully Adobe will come to tis senses and revise the price.

M

m.ART

Participant

Its says for me that Dimensions isnt downloadable anymore and on my all apps plan i dont find it anymore.

I liked to use Dimensions for simple Mockups or just to get my first steps into 3D. So is that a just a "Bug" for me or isnt Dimensions part of the all apps plan anymore?

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

Dimension is still available for the All Apps plan.

- Dimension is not avilable on M1 devices at this time and won't show up in CC if your'e on one
- If you don't see it then go to Creative Cloud app > Preferences > Apps > "Show Older Apps" option enabled

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

Hyncharas

Participating Frequently

Dimension isn't showing up on Windows 10 systems, either, unless you toggle the "show older apps" option.

Is the app being retired in favour of Substance Stager, or simply being reworked?

swaecosmetics

Participant

I for one love the whole Substance family approach to things. It is immensely powerful, and in many ways the future for Adobe and 3D.

Even though I have loved Dimension for product packaging, and agree with other users that Stager probably should be included in plans where Dimension exists (because it targes the same users and is effectively a replacement), I understand why Adobe has to eventually put Dimension out to pasture. Dimension seems to technically have been hitting a glass ceiling for a while, hard pressed to compete with e.g. Keyshot. Stager (with it s hopefully future deep ties into the other substance concepts such as substance .sbs/.sbsar materials etc.) might very well turn that around.

So keep it up guys. I, for one will keep an eye out for frequent Substance Stager updates and new features that could eventually replace our current tools for product visualization.

IMPORTANT Feature Request: Please support Vector Decals (labels). A seamless workflow between Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Substance Stager for making e.g. product packaging labels would be every product packaging designers hot dream come true (which we don't have in e.g. Keyshot).

Thanks

C.

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

Thanks C.!

You can request features for Stager here and get updates when they're available.
https://feedback.substance3d.adobe.com/forums/936174-substance-3d-stager

A note that stager already supports .ai and .svg format decals for import and placement. And you can use "Edit In" or CC Libraries to get updates in Illustrator to reflect in Stager immediately. The only limitation is that we do rasterize the vector on import - could use new controls to re-rasterize at new sizes when you scale the vector so it's more 'vector' experience.

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

B

bryanua

Known Participant

As of right now, there have been 1.1K views of this post and precisely 1 like (and a ton of people having issues with trying to use Dimension, from what I can tell from all of the post notifications). Adobe, are you receiving your users' feedback on the direction you are headed with this?

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

I am here and listening. That's all I can say for now!

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

B

bryanua

Known Participant

Just to clarify @JMathews, I am not planning to download the trial versions of any of the new apps. As I mentioned in my first post, I've invested a great deal of time to implement a workflow of making my own models and importing them into Dimension, which was very time consuming, though, seemingly worthwhile for what I was going to be able to accomplish, but the application was limited, and I, like others who have commented was awaiting new feature releases FOR DIMENSION (all the way back from at least 2019 where YOU shared that their were plans for animation features coming down the pipeline). I am NOT going to be moving forward with any other Adobe products outside of my current subscription. Has Adobe considered everyone's feedback on this? The fact that Dimension is now being considered an "Older App" and will not receive further updates even though it is included in paid plans is completely unacceptable and I'm not going to begin to adopt (read: support) these new apps when the usability that was already included in my plan has been ripped out from under me. Especially as I am in the middle of implementing the final assets from my Dimension investment into many of my professional projects. This frustration is not directed at you @JMathews, but you have been the voice of Adobe for Dimension on this forum, so unfortunately it looks like you have mislead us.

L

LuminousWorks

Participating Frequently

Are you sure Stager shows displacement? I can't get any texture to produce any.

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

Absolutely!

First - make sure that you're using a material with either a height map plugged on or a Substance that uses the height channel. You can see this in the material tab of the Properties panel:

Then go to the object tab of the properties panel and enable displacement.

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

J

Josua5EC8

Participating Frequently

Dimension doesn't have any major planned releases right now - we'll be putting new features into Stager, but we will provide support updates for Dimension!

Sorry, but NO! This is not good enough!

I'm really getting fed up with this! I'm not saying that Adobe Dimension has to have the same features as Substance Stager 3D, but Adobe Dimension should still be developed! Mere availability or mere support of the software is not enough for me. What I want is that Adobe Dimension continues to be developed! And by that I mean real development!!! For Adobe Dimension I don't want to be fobbed off with useless features in the future (like being able to import files from other Adobe apps more easily or something like that).

Since Adobe has already proven several times in the past that they will eventually remove existing applications from the range, I will now set the limits and make my future CC membership dependent on whether Adobe Dimension will be reasonably developed and move with the times.

I have no desire to be on a regular cycle of having to adjust to an application eventually being discontinued and or split into other subscription packages.

If you can't offer long-term reliability, I'm out!

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

I just wanted to say thank you for the feedback! I'm listening and will pass this along to leadership as we plan the next phase of Stager and Dimension. 3D is relatively new at Adobe and we're still adjusting our strategy for what we're building and how. Dimension doesn't have any releases planned right now, but that could change as we get feedback!

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

J

Josua5EC8

Participating Frequently

Sorry I had to express my obvious frustration. I in no way intended to belittle the hard work of your department and its developers. The truth is, that from a customer's point of view, it is quite a disadvantage and a breach of trust when an application that is included in a subscription model is suddenly developed and offered elsewhere. As a customer, we rent the software with the expectation that applications will be added either because an application becomes so diverse that it is split, or because it is improved and maintained.We don't rent your applications only to find out afterwards that one or more applications are suddenly taken out of the service and offered elsewhere at additional cost. Please tell your leadership: If you are really considering in the long run to replace Adobe Dimension with 3D Stager, at least include 3D Stager for CC-subscribers.

A

alw65609993

Participating Frequently

Hi Jeanette,

Dimension works great for me for doing product renders, except for the issue of decals warping around holes in surfaces, even if you don't add any other major features, fixing this issue would be very much appreciated please.

Kind regards,

Al

Ares Hovhannesyan

Community Expert

Good luck in new 3d Virtual World!

E

enamic5

Known Participant

Stager seems great and everything we could wish for to build visuals. But there is a lot of features, like lights for example, that a lot of people were hoping to see in Dimensions... without yet another cost. And none of these upgrades will now come to Dimensions. That's not great.
And your reasoning that not everyone is using 3D... not everyone is doing motion either, yet AE and Premiere are included in the All Apps plan.

JeanetteMathews

Adobe Employee

I can't speak to Adobe's overall pricing and plans strategy much (as the Dimension/Stager product manager I mostly focus on building the apps and tools while other people do the marketing and sales side haha) - but our hope is to be more flexible with payment so you can get what you need without having to increase the cost of All Apps for all users. 3D is still a smaller portion of people doing it than video and we keep Dimension in All Apps as a general purpose tool for those who want to learn and start working in 3D.

I wouldn't say there's no chance to get Dimension updates. We just don't have anything planned right now and we'll see! The new plan is a new approach for Adobe so we hope to learn from you and the rest of the community what we can do to best serve you while keeping pricing fair to those who don't need everything.

M

mwgnyc66

Participant

Hello Jeanette,

I have been a subscriber to Adobe CC from the beginning. I decided just today that I wanted to download Dimensions and learn it. It's not avaiable! Less than one month ago you stated here:

What does this mean for Dimension?

Dimension will continue to be available as part of Creative Cloud All Apps plans - there is no change to it's availability!

The Download Dimension icon is on this page, yet it will not download. Can you please advise as I am paying for it in my Adobe CC monthly subscription and would like to use it.

Thank you.

Y

Ydejes

Participant

I can't launch Dimension anymore for my desktop? Is it really not gone?

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

Hi @Ydejes! I'm checking in on this - Dimension is remaining in Creatie Cloud All Apps so it is not intended. Can you try signing out and then signing back in to Creative Cloud? There has been some caching issues in general that can help force a refresh on.

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

Lisa Love Artist

Participant

Hi,
I have just signed out and signed back in as I am experiencing the same issues, but to no avail. I had issues with illustrator also earlier so I had to do a fresh reinstall but dimension has now disappeared. Any further advice?
Thank you

L

Luke5E6A

Known Participant

Just disappointing was expecting a lot of these features like ray tracing to become a part of dimensions thought there was a big picture for it. Saddened by the extra fee. Any consideration to choose single apps over the entire substance plan? I don't create materials my style works perfectly with basic shapes and models so I wouldn't need those extra programs

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

Single app plans are not currently available. There's always the possibility of new options opening up but not planned right now. Dimension will remain available continued use with the Creative Cloud All Apps plans.

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

W

Whimsical_partner154A

Participant

It seems that Dimension is no longer available. What happened?

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded