Community Manager

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Introducing Adobe Substance 3D Stager and Dimension update!

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
June 23, 2021
54 replies
73513 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!

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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

A

ahazen1419

Participating Frequently

One month of us ALL not paying their CC bill just might bring Adobe to their senses, no? This is the begininnig of a trend no doubt. Bring a quad of new programs online and oops! Gotta charge other $40!!!

nickh25960560

Participant

so im litrally talking to an adobe support person now about this and he links me here, so i bring my rant upon you nice people.

I pay for all apps, this should, weirdly enough include all the apps adobe make. Othewise i don't pay for access to all the apps, the subscription should be more accurately renamed to "Most Apps"

i see an excuse in the comments from the project lead explainig that keeping substance 3D seperate from the all app subscription makes sense as not all designers use the 3D based apps. A very valid point in 2006, however the designer will be saddened to learn that its 2021 and having access to an application like substance 3D will be important for many designers who also like me, frequently switch between most adobe apps.

Further to another claim made my the project lead, that Dimention would remain available, it is now hidden by default as the support rep told me "it is no longer supported" this app will quickly be let behind, leaving me no option but to increase my bill with adobe.

honetsly adobe, do you actually have a brainstorming sesh to figure out how you are going to annoy your customers? Theres some real talent for that.

M

Marcus Liassides

Participant

@JMathews - Your post above is dated June 23, 2021 (less than a month ago), which suggested that Dimensions will continue to be available in my Creative Cloud plan. I have tried for the last week to install it on a new laptop but keep being told that Dimensions is no longer available. I have chatted to Support, and it was probably the least helpful support contact I have ever had (I expect more from Adobe). I have numerous .dn files that I need to access and update, and Dimensions was a key reason for subscribing to the Creative Cloud plan in the first place. It seems a very poor decision to completely remove the product (even though your post suggests otherwise) and then require users to pay an additional $39.99 a month to access their own files!!! I am getting nowhere with support (instead they're sending me to a community forum from 2018) so plan to cancel my subscription unless this is resolved quickly.

A

ahazen1419

Participating Frequently

Yeah it still is available. I recently purchsed a new computer and I was downloading all the programs updates and it's nested soemwhere in a category called "old programs." I had to call customer service and get a real person on the phone to do it for me. I wish I could remember wher it was but you should be able to get someone in customer service to download it for you.

A

ahazen1419

Participating Frequently

Don't change an additional fee for usage. It's turning a LOT of people off. Add a $5 charge to all monthly subscriptions...please!

A

alw65609993

Participating Frequently

This alternative approach has merit, and would likely provide Adobe with a lot more revenue if all CC subscriptions went up by a few dollars, than the much fewer number of people taking out the separate subscription.

D

default2iwa8mlx34mr

Participant

I am so confused. I am trying to buy Dimension but it isnt on Creative Cloud anywhere anymore?

B

bryanua

Known Participant

haha welcome to the conversation @default2iwa8mlx34mr

B

bryanua

Known Participant

Go to your Creative Cloud settings > Apps > Settings > Show Older Apps. 1. This assumes that you have a subscription to Creative Cloud. 2. I'd advise against investing much time into Dimension as this thread is all about the fact that Adobe is dissolving it in favor of a new line products (outside of your Creative Cloud subscription) called Substance; so Dimension will most likely be gone all together in the not too distant future.

itsMeJimmy

Participating Frequently

I'm having trouble with this one.

First of all the article is written poorly. You go into a paragraph asking the question "So what are some key differences...", but then all the bullet points (except for 1st one maybe) don't really state they are different. They just give attributes...that could potentially be in both.

Secondly, I got excited when Adobe purchased Substance and was getting more excited with the evolving 3D space, but now none of the new stuff fits under our yearly subscription? I mean I understand more stuff is more stuff, but one of these is basically taking away Dimension (maybe not for now, but it sounds like its getting phased out). I know that overall the yearly subscription is pretty cheap for this powerful software, but some of us have also been here to support this growth and proudly pay to keep Adobe improving and growing. At least start offering a cheaper version if you add these new items to our already existing subscription. Glad you are doing new stuff, but overall disappointed with how this is playing out.

duck90005733660

Known Participant

I think it's fair to offer the 3D suite as a separate product line as long as Abode continues to enhance and expand the suite and its products.

I like the idea of including addon pricing that would give subscribers to Creative Suite a break on the 3D suite.

For at least some of us. 3D is an extension of our skill set.

Adobe would be smart to consider addon pricing.

J

Josua5EC8

Participating Frequently

3D is a must have for almost every designer nowadays....be it for TV, Movies, commercials (Food, Tech, clothes), product design, printdesign, online shopping....2D Mockups are long gone....even then, I could only understand it, if we would talk about 3D Designer, Painter and Sampler.....BUT NOT 3D Stager....because it is replacing Adobe Dimension, which will be sooner or later be removed from the CC. Adobe said it themselves...they will not develop both apps. They point is, Adobe takes away an App that is now offered and developed elsewhere (and on Steroids, compared to Adobe Dimension, because it didn't get new features and is now - as adobe named it - categorized as an older App).

I

Ian Dack

Participating Frequently

I have a very simple Dimension file which takes 2.5 minutes to render. I downloaded the trial of Substance Stager, loaded in the model and resaved it, and then rendered it. Without altering any settings, it took 46 minutes. I don't think I will be using this.

A

ahazen1419

Participating Frequently

Thank you, also. We need to submit replies that show some changes need to be made to the pricing structure.

L

laurendrzata8

Inspiring

Does that mean Dimension will not ever be compatible with the M1 chip?

JMathews

Author

Community Manager

We are not sure yet. Our team was working on the Stager launch which took all our time. Now that it's done, we are looking at Apple Silicon support. We'll do Stager first, then need to evaluate if we CAN backport that work to Dimension. They are based on the same tech, but they are two apps with divergent code bases. So we will see!

Adobe Principal Product Manager, 3D & Immersive

duck90005733660

Known Participant

It seems that Dimension is no longer available. When trying to go to download I either get a 404 page or the message below. I just got a new computer today, I need to finish some work I've started with Adobe, and now I can't do it.

I'm hoping this is just a glitch ...