Allegorithmic has announced its spring update of Substance Painter. The release adds several new features, including the ability to view tessellation and displacement in both the viewport and the iRay renderer. Displacement updates in realtime, making it possible to use paint tools to sculpt height maps and see the results instantly.
On the subject of height map, this release also includes a Compare Mask effect that allows the user to blend materials using their height map data. The effect works well for combining materials to create new tileable environment maps. You’ll find similar tools in Alchemist.
The paint engine has been updated with a new Dynamic Strokes feature that allows the user to change the properties of brushes over time based on a set of parametric controls. This allows the brush to evolve or completely randomise during the duration of a stroke. As an example, Allegorithmic demonstrate an ivy brush example that “spawns unique branches along the stroke path, branches alternate sides, and each successive branch becomes smaller than the previous one based on the speed of the stroke.”
To help users get started with this new feature, 20 Dynamic Stroke presets are included.
Other new features and improvements in this release include new projection tools to allow the user to project textures using spherical and planar gizmos and the Symmetry tool now features a radial option.
In addition to new features, there are a few UX changes. Photoshop-like eyeballs now allow users to easily turn layers on and off, a texture set list makes it easier to select and change the resolution of multiple texture sets at once, user can now Alt + click on a channel to single it out, and finally a dithering override has been added.
New content has been added, including the aforementioned dynamic strokes presets but also 93 new alphas, 13 new filters, 7 new generators, 2 new environment maps, and 5 new procedurals.
The Substance Painter update is available now for existing subscribers. Substance Indie rental cost $19.90 per month and Pro plans cost $99.90 per month. Find out more on the Allegorithmic blog or read the full release notes.
