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Introduction to Substance Painter

by Eddie Russell

In this Substance Painter tutorial, we'll cover the basics of the entire software from the ground up. Software required: Substance Painter v1.0.0.

What you'll learn

In this Substance Painter tutorial, we'll cover the basics of the entire software from the ground up. Texture painting can be such a convoluted process when it comes to making sure you've painted each and every map you need for an object. Not to mention the obvious creative disconnect that occurs when you paint each map one at a time. Substance Painter is an amazing application that provides a truly innovative and intuitive painting experience, in that it allows you to paint and preview all of your maps at the same time. To get started with this course, we'll first learn how to create and save a Substance Painter project. From here, we'll take a birds eye view of the interface, learning where all the important things are located. Working in Substance Painter is a little different than other products on the market so next, we'll break down the basic workflow for painting effectively inside of it. From here, we'll begin the process of painting the standard PBR (or physically based rendering) maps for our angry worm asset. We'll proceed step-by-step so you'll be able to follow right along with me. To wrap this course up, we'll learn how to export our texture maps out of Substance Painter so they can be used in other applications. After finishing this Substance Painter training, you'll have a solid foundation of knowledge to move forward painting textures inside of Substance Painter. Software required: Substance Painter v1.0.0.

Course FAQ

What is Substance Painter?

Substance Painter is a digital painting software that provides an innovative and intuitive painting experience by allowing you to paint and preview all of your maps at the same time. Substance Painter is mostly used for texturing.

Is Substance Painter free?

Substance Painter is not a free software. The price depends on what version you get, but you can get a 30 day free trial of the digital painting software, and monthly subscriptions start as low as $20 per month.

Is Substance Painter an Adobe product?

Substance Painter was an original product of Allegorithmic, but the company was acquired by Adobe in 2019.

What will I learn in this course?

This Substance Painter tutorial will teach you the basics of the entire software, including:

  • The Substance Painter interface and workflow
  • How to create and save a project
  • Painting the standard PBR maps for our asset
  • How to export texture maps for use elsewhere
  • Much more
Who should take this course?

This Substance Painter tutorial is for anyone who wants to learn texture painting in the Substance Painter software from the ground up. If you want to have an innovative and intuitive painting experience, this is the course for you!

What software do I need for this course?

To best follow along, you will need to have Substance Painter software installed. These tutorials are based off of version 1.0, but you can follow along with the most up-to-date version available.

About the author

Eddie began teaching creative professionals over ten years ago for Digital Tutors. In 2014 Digital Tutors was acquired by Pluralsight and he continued his focus on creating high quality training for artists in both the film and games industries. With a background in graphic design and illustration Eddie has always been focused on visual appeal. This can be seen through his courses in which he shares secrets for achieving production level quality for concept art, illustrations, textures, mater... more

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