Is it possible to create a sbsar file with MDL material?

[Akik0]

If I create a sbs containing a MDL material, it seems I can export the MDL as a mdle file, but cannot publish the sbs as a sbsar file. The error message will be shown. Is there any way to publish sbs containing MDL as a sbsar file? or is it possible to convert mdl to sbsar?

[Luca Giarrizzo · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Publishing to a Substance 3D asset file (SBSAR) includes Substance graphs and their dependencies exclusively. If the outputs of a Substance graph are used in an MDL graph, these outputs are baked as static bitmaps into the MDL file.

If I may ask, to what end do you need to use Substance 3D asset files as MDL files?

If you require the procedural behaviour of Substance 3D asset files for generating textures in another software, then you may download the Substance 3D plugin for this software – if one exists – so it supports Substance 3D assets file which you may then feed to your MDL within that software.

The MDL and Substance 3D asset file need to be imported and managed separately.

Since Substance 3D asset files are archives, you may open them using an archive utility such as 7Zip and package MDL files into them for easier distribution. Additionally, you may add metadata in the SBS package which points to the location of MDL files on the system by selecting the package in the Explorer panel and adding metadata entries in the Properties panel.

[JM Le Goff]

Is there any update to this topic?
As Ps and Ai are now able to use SBSAR material, it could be valuable to be able to use MDL material captured by Adobe Capture by converting them as SBSAR even if they are not procedural...

[Luca Giarrizzo]

Hello @JM Le Goff,

SBSAR files generate textures, while MDL are shaders that may or may not sample from textures. There is no direct interaction between the two.

The only way to embed an MDL module (*.mdl) in an SBSAR file is to link it in a package as a generic resource, then reference this resource in a package metadata (see below). The file will be then included in the SBSAR.

However, it will not be usable directly from the SBSAR. It needs to be extracted from it using an archive utility such as 7zip then used as any other MDL archive.

That being said, if all you are interested in is being able to output SBSAR files to be used in Photoshop or Illustrator, you may be interested in joining the prerelease for SBSAR output in Adobe Capture.

I hope this is helpful!

Best regards.