Still difficult to import from Adobe Illustrator (even older version). Theres so much Ai Pro user as industry standard in the world than uses hobbyist standard such as inkscape
Blender + Mixer = ♡ It's really mindblowing for me that people use Maya and Substance when you have much better Blender and Mixer or Armorpaint. And free!
Nonsense. The price for the monthly subscription for the Substance Suite is the same as always, and the annual subscription is even lower now. Adobe has put money into Substance a couple of years before they bought them and nobody yelled about that back then. A lot of the features which we have now only were possible because of that. 20 bucks per month for Substance Designer, Painter, Alchemist and 30 free high quality materials isn't much. I could understand negative comments like yours if they had increased the price or kicked the team out. Neither of that is the case.
Update from 2 years: Mixer has UDIM support. ( Knocks out the single UV map issue as well.) Have noticed more optimization for texturing. Able to view all image channels independently. Does bake as well.
Nice comparison! Please don't forget that ArmorPaint is currently still in Alpha, which puts crashes etc in perspective. Material libraries are planned for it as well, so stay tuned there for more!
Absolutely love your break down. Solid video overall. Really dig CG Boost. I'm using the Steam version of SP that cost me $150. I finally splurged to get it, and I have to say from the start, it's well worth ever penny. I'm not rich, and I made up my mind to put extra aside and work harder for this software. I'm so glad I did. It's not only easy to do everything I need, it comes with a huge library of assets, brushes...you name it. And the baking is eazy breazy. Mind you $150 is only for a year--after that year you lose the ability to update and get new licensed resources. But what ever you got during that year, you keep forever, and can use forever. So, worth it again. I also just fell in love with Quixel Bridge. I tried Mixer for a minute to work on flat surfaces, and it's a beautiful tool to mix and layer grounds galore...but I didn't find the use of imported meshes as user friendly or nearly as slick as SP. But Bridge...oh baby...it's amazing. Hey by the way, this is a lot to read no? *clears thought* Also, Bridge and all it's assets are free for me...I assume it's because I have an Epic account (which I sign is as)? Every single asset in Bridge is free for me to use. I guess it's a licensing choice? Maybe I chose personal? I use it for art, not for games I'm selling, so...? I can't even tell you how amazing it is to have 50 different types of grass to import with ease...and all high quality with zero setup necessary. You just choose download (your K of choice), and then export...and if you have Blender open (and you've easily set it up in Blender prior), it pops the mesh into your scene...ready to use and already textured. Insane resource. Armor Paint is also a fantastic alternative. But I just have to say...once you go SP you can't go back. To me it's just that much more user-friendly and fun. Cheers to you and CGB! ...why did I write all that on a comment. Hmmm. :) Do I get RU-vid points or CG Class points for this?
And the best Thing about 3d coat, i bought it years ago and i don't need to Pay a Update every year Like substance. Also you can model(sculpt) Details to your model. Have wrong UV in your model, yeah create new UV in 3d coat. I Love it 🤘
3D coat is the best for old-style Hand-paint texturing. It's brushes work much better than Substance's one. Also it has awesome bridge to photoshop that allows you to make a texture by overpainting your screenshot for example. I'd say it's the best choice for League of Legends style texturing.
@@GamefactoryTutorials No update every year, but you will have to pay to upgrade it between major versions. For example, version 5 that is coming up will be a paid update, then you will have it all the way until version 6, which takes the developer a few years at the very least.
and Mixer already included multiple textures. As a new TexturerPerson in the field, my choice is Quixel and always have an eye on Amor Piant, because its open Source.
Even better, Quixel is complete free if you use Unreal Engine license. And how you said in the video, they fixed and added some futures listed by you on cons. Thanks for the video content was much more than helpful.
I'm not sure that's the way to go. I think it's better to have clean speciality software. But preferably with common knowable interface and good import export functionality. Better if Blender support companion software.
@@bezoro-personal It was meant more as a joke. Blender has been growing pretty quickly recently, also adding things that aren't typically found in a 3D software, such as the grease pencil tool. Hence the Borg reference.
@@plasticflower I'm with you man! Considering how much they've achieved in the last 10 years, them (eventually) incorperating features known for in substance painter isn't "laughable" at all.
Thanks for the comparisons. Just a heads-up...all the textures and smart materials that come with Mixer (there is quit a lot) are free to use for any project with no restrictions. With those free materials you can customise them to make unlimited variations and save your own Smart Materials to your own library.
It's been roughly four years since you've made this video. How have these different applications changed/developed since making this video? Has your opinion on them changed?
You can paint normals inside of Mixer!! It’s down at the bottom of the painting settings. You paint “displacement” which will get cooked to the normal maps!
quixel and megascans was purchased by Unreal so yes as someone pointed out they are free if you have an account with Unreal Engine. Also bridge is part of them as well
SP is available on steam for indie users. Quite cheap on sales - couple times on the year (spring, summer, autmn, winter). Alternatives are great, competition bettween companies will give us, more oportunities to choose the best option for us.
A great comparision video, thx for this. IMHO Mixer will improve more and more and then will be a competitor to Substance - but not free anymore;-) I hope the underlying architecture of armorpaint is good enough to keep up with the other 2 solutions, but TBH, I dont think so.
The thing is that Armor Paint is actually a submodule, and primarily based off of the source code for the Armory game engine. It was made at the last minute, primarily as a response for Adobe's acquisition of Substance Painter. I'm amazed how well it works! :D
In future Armor Paint will be adding their own library of procedural materials, brushes, decals, particles and plugins, which is very exciting news for those who want free texturing software.
Thanks for the video, very informative. We are currently investigated Substance Painter to install at our college though often hit a bit of a road block through the subscription pricing. Though these free alternatives (I think Quixel is tipping it for me) are great and something I'll put forward.
Tell me more xD I wasted 2 days and 1 night trying to paint my high quality model in blender (modelling it actually took less than 3h). 4k texture was extremly laggy, painting with stencil is always dependant on the camera, so if you zoom in or out, you will end up with scaled textures .. it was a bad experience and to finish it off, I used Gimp and looked back and forth after each change ... which was also very time-consuming but atleast I was able to draw some straight lines (which was just impossible in blender with texture painting / painting in the blender image editor) I am not 100% satisfied with the outcome but I think I'll leave it this way until I find a better method (or programm) for texturing.. Have a look: imgur.com/a/KmxIrKk imgur.com/a/X048itx
yes you get unlimited access, but quixel said if you downloaded their assets using epic games account, all the assets are gonna be "UE4 Only" assets, which you can't use it for commersial, if you want to use it for commersial, then you have to make another account and use it only for subscription and then buy all your assets... that's how it works
Even though Painter is becoming subscription only in some months, it's still possible to buy a perpetual licence. And the cost is super low for a permanent licence, 126,99 eur on steam. Years ago I bought it on a sale for 75 euros, definitely worth it.
@@gamingfoxib5506 What are you talking about? Mixer is getting huge updates. In fact, Most of Mixers painting functionality was added in the last year.
Just a heads up Armor paint is kinda free but its not that simple You need to compile code yourself if you want it for free, what is pain in the ass if you have no idea how to code
@Mustache Merlin You'd also have to install the compilers / build tools first, and potentially dependencies too. It's mildly annoying for a developer, and potentially prohibitively difficult for someone who's never compiled their own software before.
@@stickfigure42 @Mustache Merlin @MemeLord The gamefromscratch made a tutorial (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y6h2KOP47ZY.html) on how to do it. Following it, it's much easier to get it built than relying on the github documentation alone. No coding experience required. Only problem is it takes a while to install Visual Studio. Use Visual Studio 2019, not 2017!!
huge thank you sir, that topic exactly what I need and was search yesterday and today I get the confirmation of all my conclusions from professional guy, cool!
4:15 Thanks so much dude! As a kid who can’t buy things like substance painter and more iv been looking for a free good texturing software for so long! And since i’m experienced in blender and it’s pretty much all i use this will be great!
All of these programs are good, and any view as about them is purely to ones personal taste and ability. For years people have said blender couldn't render as good as Arnold of octane, but it does. Just as good. So the same as these alternatives for substance. They work just fine and as good as the user.
Really useful thanks just starting out on texturing. Blender is pretty limited with it's texture paint tab I'd say but better than nothing. The node trees get pretty complicated too
"Let's hope Substance can be the bright exception here." 1.5 months later... "Hey! We're getting rid of standalone licenses completely! Subscribe after your maintenance ends or gtfo!" Adobe can suck a duck's tail feathers.
@@GokdenizCetin I have no idea what they're planning to do regarding perpetual Steam licenses. For now, you can still get Substance software on Steam, but I wouldn't put it past Adobe to remove it from Steam or replace the perpetual Steam versions with the same subscriptions they offer on the Substance storefront. I'm honestly not looking forward to the future of Substance software. I despise software as a service, and Adobe is hell-bent on shoving it down our throats.
I'm using both of them, but still they're not as good as SP. First: quixel mixer, it has smart materials similar to SP, layers, masks, all god but has one big minus from me, and its pen pressure, there's no pen pressure! I hope they'll add it with future updates. Second: ArmorPaint, as you said, it's very similar to blender, and it has similar material editor but it's very slow it needs NodeWrangler addon or something, you can even import .blend material file, but sometimes materials are not working as expected. But overall great product, it supports pen pressure so I'm using it with mixer, they complement each other.
I don't know how people are able to figure out how to use it (Quixel mixer) in general. I've downloaded it, installed, but it did not want to install local libraries, then it does not want to export the maps, crashes at the beginning. Over 1.5 hours of pain for nothing. I'd rather pay for SP than use QM again. Definitely not as user friendly as they claim, and I work in Blender.
I was a huge fan of Quixel Suite until development was discontinued. Learned Substance and then Mixer started adding 3d texturing functionality back in. Still needs lots of work but the massive surface library is a big draw.
Regarding UDIMs and native baker, Teddy Bergsman of Quixel has said they are working on them. I assume baking gets priority over UDIMS, though. As other have said, Megascans assets are completely free to use inside UE4. Sign up with unrealengine and install Bridge and that's it. Those assets you've downloaded are on your hard drive and no one will know if you brought them into Blender, man. :D
If you are not working, but learning, you can try using torrent version of Painter. You will get into the workflow while Mixer is improving, then jump to Mixer.
This video helps me in a different way you'd think. I currently use Mixer and have been experiencing a few issues here and there, but you either don't mention them or don't seem to be impacted by them - Making me think it's less a tool issue, and more how I'm using the tool and preparing my models. I think this gives me more confidence to keep using Mixer and get better at it, but moving to substance eventually would be a nice way to go.
Like every tool, these take practise to use. Once you've been working with them for a while, you learn to work around the problems. Everything has it's pros and cons. If you're able to pay for Substance, then it's still the gold standard. ~ Daniel
@@cgboost I finally got into substance painter and it feels much better already. I think Mixer just didn't mesh well with how I wanted to use the tool, so I was always going to fail with it.
hi It's been two years seins you made this video , I'm really curious what you are thinking about the progress they made in this two years . .... (if anyone else using this Alternatives, I will be appreciated if you leave a comment about your experience💐)
I have to admit I liked Substance Painter and got great results, but I didn't use it enough to justify the subscription (maybe a model every four or five months?). I've been playing with UE5 with great delight, so Mixer will definitely get a look!
Actually ALL Megascan Library is free if you use it with Unreal Engine. You can render final CG in Unreal as well. Many hollywood studios are adopting Unreal as a tool to speed up production.
Notice how it says Substance Painter 2020. I'm willing to bet this is more of a 150$ per year situation if you want the most current version. Still cheaper than direct from adobe though.
I would like to mention this in case anyone is using Quixel Mixer (probably already mentioned in the comments but i'll do it anyway). If you have an Epic Games account. Mixer, Bridge, and Megascans is completely free, no subscription required, by signing in using your Epic account as Quixel is a part of the Unreal Engine family
Mari and 3D Coat are mentioned, while Mari is, for most users, objectively not worth it (its extremely over valued and does not work the same way as the other applications), the same cannot be said for 3D Coat. You get 3D Coat for its hand painted texturing, which is where it shines the most. Substance Painter, Armor Paint and the others simply cannot provide a satisfactory replacement for such an approach. So if the goal is Blizzard style artwork, you really only have 3D Coat leading the pack. That said I have seen Blender users pull off good hand painted textures from within Blender itself, which suggest it can be considered an alternative of sorts. Additionally with Mixer, the entire megascan library is free when tied to a free Epic Games account AND and agreement that you won't use them for commercial purposes outside of the Unreal Engine, HOWEVER if you do use it with the Unreal Engine then it can be used for commercial purposes.
Which Blizzard style are you talking about? Overwatch? Diablo (old school diablo or new?) Wow ? Cinematic ? Ingame? None of these have the same art style! So what the heck are you talking about?
@@romiokasuga Blizzard style is commonly used to refer specifically to the hand painted texturing approach they use and have become well known for, often based almost entirely on a diffuse map. Blizzard has become synonymous with hand painted textures that have a certain workflow and design approach. This is fairly common knowledge for those in the field. Check out Tyson Murphy's work (former Blizzard lead character artist, now creative director at Riot Games) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SXT6m3e0rFA.html
@@deuswulf6193 this was still valid ten years on the wow era ! To be fair it really was, but i guess today we better secify "handpainted"! But yeah i like to paint my textures too , and i must agree that doing it in substance painter alone isnt enough, he doesnt handle painting on lowpoly well, but this said it's still a hell of a piece of software. May be next time i'll try 3d coat ( mostly used it for uvs and retopo ten years ago)
@@romiokasuga I referenced hand painted in the original post as well, which was the context. I agree that Blizzard's style has changed or rather diverged quite these days, but lingo still seems to remain fresh for many of us. =) On that note, I have Mari, Substance, and 3D Coat on hand. 3D Coat's brush engine is still one of the best I have ever used for painting, its just smooth, natural, direct (and destructive). Layers can be filled with "smart materials" similar to Substance, and painted on with the same brush engine. Smoothing and layering of colors is pretty easy to accomplish. Whats not so good is the creation of those smart materials from scratch, the editor leaves a lot to be desired and there is a severe lack of good procedural options. That's where substance starts to shine. You don't need a material library to really get something good out quickly, just tweaking parameters and adding some procedural bits. I love its quick iteration. With that said, version 5 of 3D coat seems to be adding a node system similar to substance designer, so perhaps it will over come one of its weaknesses. Definitely check it out when you get a chance.
@@deuswulf6193 alright alright! my bad! Thanks for the cool attitude :) True! I couldnt believe my eyes when i saw the brush engine at work on that video which is from 5 years ago! yeah i'll definitely give it a go!
I downloaded Mixer and was immediately greeted with: 1. Having to sign in to something just to use Mixer 2. A FIVE PART CAPTCHA (WHY???????) 3. Lag, stuff not working, laptop overheating...
You just need to create an account, it's best to use your Epic account if you have one or just create one. As for the lag I hope they fix that soon, the captcha is awful. There's so much lag it's almost impossible and you need to do it 5 times. I usually just restart it and it won't ask the next time. I think it's a random thing. As for overheating that sounds like a hardware issue, you could try lowering the performance settings in Mixer though, also try putting the working resolution down lower.
Same. It is so not user friendly that is not even funny. It does not even want to export the maps. My PC does not overheat, but I can't export anything, it does not want to save the project saying that "it is saving" (for 30 minutes).
I know this is quite late, but it would be nice to under the particle brushes in armorpaint, because I can't seem to find any tutorials on them like at all, something that explains how you got those water-like effects for example
Quixel MIxer is awesome, but the only problem I'm having right now is that I can't load a custom model, it seems like the devs are really slow to developing the program.
I think it's worth noting that Blender _can_ approximate something like a layer system via nodes-by plugging two (for example's sake) BSDFs into a Mix node and then plugging a greyscale image into its fac, which you can then paint on to dictate which of the two is more visible and where. You can even 'stack' it by plugging that mix node setup into another one. Can also be baked down into single metallic, specular, diffuse, etc. maps.
I know people want free apps. However if you take this as your profession, it might be better to pick “Substance”. Since there are a lot companies using substance as one of their primary tools. And might lose your opportunity completing with other candidates.
