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Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 details

Price $49.99 / £40.50 per month. Free version for students and teachers.

Olympics Linux, Windows and Macintosh

Developer Adobe

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Features Color manipulation nodes, a new stylization filter called Kuwahara, and a new smooth node with curvature

Adobe Substance 3D Designer is now up to version 14 and is stronger than ever. Recent years have seen an explosion in the user base thanks to improved tools and greater integration with other creative applications (read on Adobe’s new Substance 3D Viewer to see how it opens up 3D to more artists).

As is the case with all new versions of Substance 3D Designer, almost all updates are about improving existing nodes and adding new ones. Version 14 includes new nodes dedicated to color manipulation, a new stylization filter called Kuwahara, and a new smooth node with curvature.

There are also a number of quality of life updates, including performance improvements, especially when working on larger projects. Trackpad support on MacOS has also been reworked to align with other software.

Substance 3D Designer was already very strong and this latest version makes it even better (read our Substance 3D Designer 10.0 Review). Material writers looking to up their game and speed up their workflows would do well to check out Substance 3D Designer if they haven’t already.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 Review: What is it?

Adobe Substance 3D Designer is a material authoring package that uses node-based graphs to create materials, textures, and patterns to generate 3D models. It has become popular in recent years and is now used in most AAA games as well as in VFX and animation studios.

The software uses node-based workflows that allow users to create content. Each graph is filled with connected nodes, where each node has a set of parameters that contribute to the look and feel of the material. Alongside the node settings, Substance 3D Designer is also procedural, making it perfect for creating seamless textures and patterns.

Adobe provides an extensive content library that can be used to get started quickly and to add to existing graphs. The library contains nodes, filters, patterns and random noise.

Substance 3D Designer is an Adobe suite and therefore links effortlessly to other Adobe applications, including other Substance 3D apps. Materials can be exported and used in Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4Dand 3ds Max.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 Review: What’s It Like to Use?

On the one hand, Substance 3D Designer is relatively easy to pick up. It is an Adobe product so it has a relatively simple and intuitive user interface that is quite easy to navigate around. Icons direct users to tools and templates make it easy to get started with specific types of materials. It is therefore not too difficult to create base materials and play with settings while watching the results update in real time.

On the other hand, Substance 3D Designer has advanced components, especially when trying to get your head around the node graph. Graphs can become so complex that they are difficult to navigate, although they are not as tricky as more traditional, non-node-based workflows.

Getting started and mastering the software can be done either by trial and error or more effectively with online training. Adobe has made its own series of entry-level videos that introduce the user interface, basic concepts and core technologies. This is a great starting point. There is also a series that covers the entire process of creating a complete procedural material.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 Review: The Tools

Substance 3D Designer 14 includes a range of new nodes with a specific focus on color manipulation, stylization, curvature and chamfers. Let’s take a look at them one at a time before covering some of the quality of life improvements that have also made their way into this release.

First up, the color manipulation nodes. Most excitingly, we now have a Quantize color node that can either automatically reduce the number of colors in an image or extract a color palette from it. This is an ideal node for simplifying color schemes and quickly identifying common colors in an image. This is a particularly useful node for creating stylized output or if a client provides an image while also asking you to generate material following a similar theme.

There are also nodes for building your own color palette, including view, create and modify nodes, as well as a node for applying a color palette using an ID map. These further expand the color palette capabilities, making them more useful than ever, especially in relation to stylized effects.

Substance 3D Designer 14 also has a Kuwahara filter to generate painterly effects. It does this by applying an anisotropic directional blur that matches the details of the image. This creates an image that appears to flow in the direction of the shapes inside.

Alongside new nodes, Substance 3D Designer is now faster and more responsive than ever, especially if you’re working on larger projects. Adobe claims it can be up to 75 times faster to delete nodes.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 Review: Who Is It For?

Substance 3D Designer is for designers and 3D artists who need to create realistic 3D content, including textures, patterns, materials and 3D models. This is made possible by a node-based engraving workflow, which is ideal for creating seamless materials and patterns with infinite variations.

Substance 3D Designer is used in a wide range of industries, including gaming, products, branding, marketing and even fashion design. The fact that it seamlessly integrates with Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4D and 3ds Max makes it easy to link to any workflow. This is also perfect for cross-team collaboration.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 review: what can be improved

Substance 3D Designer is quite expensive, especially for artists who are just tinkering with the software rather than working solely with it. Considering that any 3D generalist will also need to pay for a 3D package and renderer, the addition of £40.50 / $49.99 per month is a considerable cost. I doubt it will happen but I would like to see the cost come down to make it more manageable for solo artists.

There are many 3D assets available for download but there is always room for more and for existing options that can be improved in quality. With material development techniques advancing all the time, I hope to see more significant upgrades in future releases of Substance 3D Designer.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 Review: Price

To get access to all Adobe Substance 3D Designer apps, you need to fork out $49.99 / £40.50 per month. This plan includes 50 Substance 3D asset downloads per month and 100GB of cloud storage, among other perks.

Students and teachers can take advantage of a free license that provides access to Designer and 5 GB of storage space. It can only be used for personal and non-commercial use but is a great way to explore with Substance Designer is right for you.

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 Review: Buy It Again

• You want one of the industry’s leading packages for creating 3D materials

• You want to stay in the Adobe ecosystem

• You use Pantone or OpenColorIO color management

Adobe Substance 3D Designer 14 review: Don’t buy it again