"Failed to Decode Bitmap" Error When Using UDIM Textures

Report · Feb 28, 2022

Hi,

I just got Substance Painter to paint UDIM models, but this infuriating glitch won't let me. Whenever I import a UDIM texture set, it gives me the "failed to decode bitmap" error (in screenshot below), then the entire texture set dissapears from the project panel when I reopen the project. I tried all the solutions previously listed on this forum. Renaming and reformatting the textures doesn't solve the issue. The only solution that does work right now for some reason is to delete the UDIM tile denotation in the texture's name (e.g. renaming "Diffuse_1001" to just "Diffuse"). But then that completely negates the UDIM import for those textures, making the solution redundant. I've been stuck trying to figure out a viable solution to this glitch for a week now and I'm starting to think of dropping this program. Can anyone please help resolve this?

Thanks

(P.S. here is the attached error log as well).

Report · Mar 02, 2022

Hello there,

I'm getting the same "failed to decode bitmap" error when importing textures with the UDIM number in the name. I am actually working with Legacy Texture Sets, but sometimes need to import textures with UDIM numbers in the name. The strange thing is this error only happens on *some* of the UDIM textures. The solution is to manually rename the texture as mentioned in the previous comment.

Would be great to get this resolved at some point. Thanks!

Report · Mar 03, 2022

@Adrian23378947ul7u - I have found if rename your textures to have the UDIM number in the *middle* of the name instead of at the end, Substance is able to process the textures correctly, as far as I can tell.

Report · Mar 04, 2022

Could you give an example of a UDIM texture you renamed this way? I tried it myself, but then the texture set doesn't import as a UDIM set. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong.

On another note, I think I found a roundabout solution to this issue. What I did is this:

1) Import the UDIM model with the standard "paint across tiles" option.

2) Import textures without UDIM tile denotations.

3) Create Fill layers with each imported texture.

4) Apply Geometry masks to each fill layer so that each layer only projects it's texture per respective UDIM tile.

5) Create a Paint/Fill layer on top of the layer stack to start painting over the textures.

And voila! Now I'm able to paint across all my model's UDIM's as was origionally intended. However, there's 2 glitches I noticed with this process.

1) The paint brush starts to lag sometimes when painting over UDIM tile borders. In this case, I found that turning off the 2d view or keeping only 1 or 2 material channels on at a time fixed the lagging.

2) When closeing and reopening a project, all the black/white masks seem to inexplicably invert themselves. In this case, I found that merely duplicating the masked layer and deleting the old one fixes this weird glitch.

In conclusion, I want to spend my time just painting textures with no hassle instead of wasting time figuring out how to work around one bug after another. I'm getting the impression that Substance Painter is a really buggy program and I hope the dev's actually get around to fixing these weird glitches. I hope this message helps in circumventing this issue.

Thanks

Report · Mar 04, 2022

Hi @Adrian23378947ul7u ! Ah sorry, you're right - putting the UDIM number in the middle of the name means the textures won't be imported as a UDIM set, which I now realize was your original intent. (At the time, I was frankenstein-ing some individual textures together, so I didn't need the full UDIM sets. However, I wanted to keep the original UDIM number in the name for tracking purposes.)

That being said, this is probably a less helpful comment, but after restarting Substance a few times, and trying out different Templates, I am suddenly able to import full UDIM sets with typical UDIM textures (for example, female.color.1001.tif through female.color.1003) will import just fine. I wish I knew what changed, but I am not entirely sure. I'm using Substance 7.4.1 build 1418, with the "PBR - Metallic Roughness Alpha-blend (starter_assets)" Template.

I am impressed by your diligence in finding a workaround though, although it does sound like such a headache. I've been a Mari user up until now, so I feel your pain - it's definitely taking me time to ramp up. Let me know if you have any success with resolving the "Failed to Decode Bitmap" Error...

Report · Mar 05, 2022

Oh, and going off of your comment about the black/white masks randomly inverting themselves, I am running into bugginess with hand-painting simple black and white masks with a soft falloff. When I paint in the 2D/UV view, I will suddenly see my brush affecting other UDIMs that I am clearly not painting on. In the end, I gave up with that particular mask and ended up painting the Tiles in Photoshop (luckly it was a simple pattern that could be done in 2D) and then importing it back into Subtsance as a Fill Layer.

Report · Sep 21, 2022

Hello,

Maybe we could have found a way to solve the problem.
I deleted the data that might be related to substance painter in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp, and now I can open the project successfully. I don't know if it works in other people's environments, but I hope you get good results.My guess is that it is caused by some sort of temporary data corruption.

Report · Oct 23, 2023

Solved my issue, thank you very much !