Introducing Adobe Substance 3D Stager and Dimension update!

[JMathews]

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:

• Adobe.com 3D & Augmented Reality page
• Adobe.com Substance 3D Stager page

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!

[Blyss Art]

I am also having the same issue. I had Dn before my hard drive crashed last month, and I went to add it back this evening, and I can't downloaded from the Dn page and it's not visible at all on CC Apps.

[Ares Hovhannesyan]

Its available in All apps. Try to Check Updates or resign into your account. May be that can help.

[Whimsical_partner154A]

Same issue. The app just disappeared...

[Whimsical_partner154A]

Update: It's now working fine. 

[JMathews]

If you don't see it in the list please try going to Creative Cloud desktop preferences and turn on "Show older apps" option.

[Jamain5E58]

This option isn't available.

[JMathews]

It should be discovered by

• Click your profile icon in the upper-right corner of CCDesktop
• Open Preferences
• Go to the "Apps" tab
• Scroll to the bottom to "Show Older Apps"

[Jamain5E58]

Hi J,

I'm under enterprise account and that toggle isn't here. What shall I do?

[JMathews]

This can be controlled by your enterprise admin.  You would need to request that your admin enables this option for you.

[duck9000]

The switch to "show older apps". Thank you.

I'd suggest adding this to the messaging, rather than just the "Dimension nop longer available".  I spent a fai.r amount of time yesterday trying to get itt to work for me on my new laptop (with RTX 3070, which really helps Dimension! 🙂 )

[judithmayercreative]

Hello, help please, I am switching to a mew iMac and I am the owner of the CC subscription, but I cannot find access to this User Managed option anywhere. How do I change this setting? I have a client project due that I was creating in Dimension and my mac died, so I bought a new one and now have no way to complete my project!

[Ussnorway]

If it is a M1 then that why it's not working and you are screwed because Adobe doesn't work for them

[Ydejes]

This worked for me. 

[default8ityggxfaf8h]

Morning, any update on this CC bug?

[Jamain5E58]

I'm also getting the same issue. Dimensions completely disappeared from All Apps section.

[enamic5]

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]

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.

[mwgnyc66]

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. 

[alw65609993]

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]

Good luck in new 3d Virtual World!

[Josua5EC8]

• 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]

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!

[Josua5EC8]

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.

[JMathews]

❤️ I understtand.  Adobe has a high responsibility to those who build their lives and livlihoods on the tools and services we build.  This is why we are keeping Dimension available right now as we learn about Stager and plan for the future!  Frankly as the app team we don't want to build and maintain two apps - it just dilutes what we can do for the products if we have to do it twice for different plans, so I share your hopes haha.

[LuminousWorks]

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