The new year brings some epoch-making news for the Substance 3D ecosystem, as well as some grade-A community news, and a featured artist doing some truly tasty work in Designer. Let’s go!
Substance News
Unmetered access to Substance 3D Assets!
HUGE news this time around. As of this week, we’re launching unmetered access to the complete Substance 3D Assets library for Adobe Substance 3D Subscribers. That means that if you’re a subscriber on a Collection or Texturing plan you now have access to the full collection of almost 20,000 professional materials, models and lighting environments without managing points.
Yes, you heard that correctly. Head over to our post about this on the Adobe blog to learn more, or simply make your way over to Substance 3D Assets right now to start using the library immediately.
Substance in Cinema 4D integration: Physical size support in Cinema 4D 2025.1 and Redshift 2025.2
The Maxon One winter release brought new updates to the Substance 3D integration with the introduction of physical size support and tri-planar projection in the latest versions of Cinema 4D and Redshift. This means that Substance 3D materials now maintain an accurate scale when applied to a mesh in C4D, even when that mesh changes size and/or shape. This is a big boost in any scenes where a range of different materials need to align and scale, even if the same material is applied to many meshes of different dimensions – the kind of thing you might often find in archviz or product visualization scenes, for instance.
Take a look at this short explainer by our own Wes McDermott about how physical size applies to scenes in C4D.
Featured Artist
This month we’re looking at the work of James Slater. James started out on his 3D trajectory by taking 3D modeling classes at a local community college, then subsequently graduated from Staffordshire University in England with a degree in Games Art in 2022, and is currently freelancing.
What is the most important thing to keep in mind when creating a piece of artwork? The most important things to keep in mind are what you want to achieve from the piece and what your desired outcome is. It's important to understand why you are creating the piece and what you hope to achieve, whether that is learning a new technique or diversifying your portfolio. Equally important is having a clear idea of the final product's look, including the colour palette, lighting, level of detail, and more. For this, gathering quality reference material is imperative.
Can you talk about one of your favorite projects? I’m going to choose ‘Croissants,’ which involved creating realistic food on a metal cooling rack and marble countertop, resulting in a detailed and interesting material. Using Substance 3D Designer, I focused on each element individually, then combined them for the final result. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the layers and folds that form the croissant's shape, as well as the bubbling and discoloration from baking.
What advice would you give to somebody aspiring to become a 3D artist? The best way to learn is by creating, and the best way to start creating is to find projects that interest you. Developing new skills takes time and effort, but it will be easier and more enjoyable if you work on things you actively want to do. Once you find something exciting, enjoy the process. Quality comes first; speed comes with repetition.
You can see more of James’s work on his ArtStation page, and learn more about him over at LinkedIn.
Substance Online
The Substance Designer Insanity Awards 2024!
Nostalgia, by Rebecca El Cheikh
Big things have been happening in January. In addition to our humongous news about Substance 3D Assets, this month has seen the release of the 2024 Substance Designer Insanity Awards. At the start of each year, the Substance 3D team takes stock of all the materials created in Designer over the past 12 months that have totally blown us away. They needn’t be pretty, or in any way actually useful – but the materials each have that certain mind-blowing je ne sais quoi that leaves us shaking our heads in wonder. Who won this year? Head over to our article on Behance to find out.
Xiangqi, by Leon Wong
3D Espresso
And over on the Adobe Live YouTube channel, Wes McDermott has presented the first bi-weekly episode of 3D Espresso. To kick things off Wes is exploring how you can use Project Neo to craft 3D illustrations for Adobe Illustrator. Behold!
... and also
This month, the ever-insightful Cyril Dellenbach has picked out the Extend Shape node for this month’s featured node. This node allows you to extend a specific section of its input over a set direction and distance – essentially, it lets you stretch out precise parts of a shape (rather than the shape as a whole). It’s a useful node for working with geometric shapes in particular, and it has a wide range of parameters that make it very customizable. Pop on over to the Extend Shape node documentation page for more information.
That’s all for January! Keep creating, and we’ll see you here again soon.
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