There’s just enough time before the end of the month to get into the Substance 3D Community Digest for September 2024. This month we're a little light on the Designer-specific news, but there's plenty of good stuff here around the Substance 3D world overall. Let's go!
Substance News
Meet MAT 4 has begun!
The outstanding art toy texturing contest Meet MAT is back! The goal: use Substance 3D Painter to texture MAT, our adorable little shader-ball-headed mascot, in any way you like. Submissions have just opened, and entries are accepted until October 28 – which means that you could use the 30-day free trial period for the Substance apps to create your artwork for this content, if you were so inclined.
Importantly, this time around the contest is being run by our friends over at The Rookies, and so this is a contest for 3D rookies only – entrants must have no more than one year of professional industry experience. So if you’re a 3D beginner, or perhaps a student just learning the ropes, this is an excellent chance to showcase your work. Carpe diem, as they say (or carpe noctem, for you insomniacs).
The contest’s sponsors have kindly provided a range of prizes, including a Dell Precision 5690 Workstation, a Lenovo Thinkpad P16v, Creative Cloud subscriptions, and much more. The goal of the contest is to create a fun and engaging environment for aspiring artists to showcase their talent, connect with industry experts, and improve their skills – so, whether you’re a Painter newbie or someone who’s been using the tool for a while, this is a great way to practice and get feedback on your artwork. And maybe win some prizes too.
3D artist extraordinaire Pablo Munoz Gomez has created a tutorial series for the contest, and you can find more information on the practicalities around the contest, as well as video lessons and Q&As, on the Meet MAT 4 contest page on The Rookies.
Substance 3D Painter at the Emmys
Earlier this month we announced that Substance 3D Painter has won an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award. To quote the Emmys website, these awards are presented for “developments in engineering, science and technology that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that they materially affect the production, recording, transmission or reception of television and thereby have elevated the storytelling process.”
We’re thrilled and honored that Painter has been recognized for its massive impact on the VFX industry. Recent notable uses of the texturing touch that Painter provides can be found in TV shows such as Star Wars, The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Ahsoka, Fallout, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Shogun, The Last of Us, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon. We’re enormous fans of these shows, and delighted that our tools have been able to contribute in some small way to bringing them to our screens.
A comment from Sébastien Deguy, vice president of 3D & Immersive at Adobe, and originator of the 3D tools that would ultimately evolve into the Substance suite: “We’ve entered the golden age of visual effects in television; the mind-blowing hyperrealism and visual depth of today’s series are unlike anything we’ve seen before. Substance 3D Painter was created for artists by artists. It’s a true career highlight to be recognized by the organization that represents the best of the best artistry in the television industry.”
A new Substance 3D Painter release
September 2024 brought a new release of Substance 3D Painter. New features in this latest version include the Fill Area Filter, which allows you to fill any closed shape, the fill dynamically updating with any changes to this shape.
It also includes the Import Image with Embroidery Filter; with this, you can add an image or text to your artwork, and the Embroidery Filter will display it as an embroidered patch. You can now also Import USD with Materials, meaning that you can now import USD files with associated texture and shader settings into Painter from another application; all associated textures and shader settings will be maintained. This makes it possible, for example, for you to begin texturing your 3D model in your preferred DCC app, and easily export your model’s geometry with textures as an OpenUSD to Painter to continue developing textures there.
See the release notes for this latest version of Painter for more information.
Substance 3D at IBC
The Substance 3D team were recently at IBC, the International Broadcasting Convention, in Amsterdam. IBC is perhaps the largest industry conference aimed at broadcasters, creators and providers of content, equipment manufacturers, and more, and the Substance 3D team were thrilled to be able to showcase the capabilities of and possibilities provided by the Substance 3D toolset, on our own stand as well as doing an occasional guest spot for our partner for the event, Maxon.
Notably, this gave us the chance to showcase the Substance 3D integrations with both Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D by Maxon. Created in particular with motion designers in mind, these plugins can significantly enhance the visual quality of 3D content.
We always love the opportunities that events like these give us to meet and chat with members of the 3D community. Thanks to everybody who was able to attend; we’ll see you there again next year.
Substance Online
Over on the Substance 3D Behance page we’ve recently been looking at how the resources available in the Substance 3D Assets library can prove advantageous to specific sectors of industry. So far we’ve looked at 3D Assets for Product Design and 3D Assets for Fashion. Take a gander! (That’s British English for ‘take a look’.)
Featured Artist
Vincent Gault has worked in the video game industry in various technical positions including Technical Director and Technical Art Development Manager. Today, Vincent is a Senior Technical Evangelist with the Substance 3D team, responsible for presenting and showcasing new tools within the Substance 3D ecosystem. He accomplishes this in part through his YouTube channel, ‘The Coffee Break.’
What is ‘The Coffee Break’?
Vincent: The goal of my YouTube channel, ‘The Coffee Break,’ is mainly to provide information on the Substance 3D tools and ecosystem. That might be an introduction to the software, or more focused tutorials, or other technical areas. For instance, recently I did a very technical stream discussing how to create a Python plugin for Substance 3D Painter. And my last stream was a recap of all the news around the Substance 3D suite that we announced over summer.
The subjects I cover are diverse, and I try to keep a relaxed tone for the channel.
The Coffee Break is a trilingual channel. Why?
I see it as a big strength for the channel that I stream in three languages. Previously, I was a French guy working in a French company, Allegorithmic – and yet I was only creating content in English. This was purely for practical reasons – I had somewhat limited time to create content, so working in English allowed me to reach as many people as possible. And yet some of the feedback that I had from French people within the 3D community was that it seemed a little unfortunate, or maybe even a wasted opportunity, that I wasn't streaming in French as well.
Now my work is more focused on creating content, so I have a little more time to address French-speakers specifically too. And, as I live in Barcelona, my Spanish is now good enough to stream in Spanish too. I've had excellent feedback on this. Some artists around the world might have, for instance, an intermediate level in English, and it can be complicated to learn the Substance 3D tools if only English-language information is available. So, presenting information accessibly, in a variety of languages, allows me to reach many more people.
Once a month, I try to invite an external artist, and that's always great because you get a different perspective of the industry. And the fact that I'm now creating content in French and Spanish also means I can present artists who might not generally receive that much recognition in more anglophone contexts, and they can express themselves in their own language. And this is a good way to potentially showcase to community members the kind of things that might be happening more locally in the 3D world. To choose just one fairly recent example, I really enjoyed discussing what's happening in the 3D industry in Chile when I did a stream with Chilean artist Carol Cornils.
What’s your advice to aspiring 3D artists?
It’s crucial to stay curious and open throughout your career. You mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking that you’ve completely mastered something – because there’s always more to learn. It’s better to have the mindset that you’ll keep improving throughout your life. Even if you reach a certain level of expertise, you should continue to be open to new technologies and software and solutions. Because what’s considered an industry standard today might be obsolete in five or ten years. So, it’s vital to stay up to date, and to embrace new technologies when they appear.
That's all for this month! Keep creating great things, and see you in four weeks.
AdChoices