Substance Sampler: Zero to Hero in Textures and Materials

Explore how materials in 3d graphics define surface properties and behavior, covering lit and unlit types, pbr workflows, and effects such as subsurface scattering, glass, anisotropic, and cel shading.

Learn how texture maps, including diffuse (albedo), roughness, glossiness, metallic, specular, normal, bump, and displacement, control color, light, and material reflections on 3D models.

Explore the substance sampler application's menu bar with File, Edit, Window, Help, and License tabs, and manage projects, saves, preferences, and sbsar exports.

Explore the left sidebar workflow for textures and materials, covering generative AI textures, materials, images, filters, and texture generators, plus viewer, shader, and channel settings.

Manage export parameters, physical size, metadata, and export options in the right side bar; expose parameters and export sbsar files with presets.

Explore 2D and 3D viewports to inspect texture maps such as base color, roughness, height, and normal maps, with real-time material previews and adjustable layouts and controls.

Store materials, environment lights, and 3D objects in the project panel. Select a material to load it in the viewport and layer panels, then add items with plus button.

Manage and manipulate layers in Substance Sampler to build complex textures by stacking material, filter, and image layers; control visibility, blending, and opacity to shape materials.

Navigate the properties panel to adjust the current layer's color, roughness, metallic values, height intensity, and procedural patterns, customizing how each layer interacts with the material as a whole.

The brickwall filter generates a brick wall texture from a terracotta base, using presets or custom materials across basic, mix, cement, age, and advanced parameters to create varied bricks.

Use the floor tiles filter to layer a concrete cast base with tile textures, adjust input materials, color variation, bevel roundness, and gap and age controls for realistic tiles.

Convert a brushed metal base into panel textures with panels. Set X and Y for panel count; adjust seam, fasteners, color, roughness, and offsets.

Apply the parquet filter to wood textures from a plain base. Use a black separator and adjust chamfer, scale, color variation; explore texture generators like basket weave.

Apply the pavement filter to convert asphalt into pavement, adjusting joints, bevels, and edge damage; tune tilt, random elevation intensity, and volume intensity with texture generators for height variation.

Apply the quilt stitch filter to grain leather, adjusting topstitch and seam, pattern, density, rotation, color, double stitch, and edge paint for a textured finish.

Apply the stonewall filter to a concrete coarse base to create an old stone wall, adjusting colors, stone size, irregularity, bulge, tilt, and grain for realism.

Apply the atlas scatter filter to a base material, drag the Pebbles Atlas into the layer panel, and adjust x/y amount, height blend, scale, and position random to scatter elements.

Apply emboss or deboss effects using the embossing filter on brushed metal, adjusting pattern input type, tile size, offset, and pattern parameters, and choose between input material and custom material.

Explore how the embroidery filter turns images into stitch textures, adjust color management, density, fill/outline, and topstitch effects, then assign materials to each island.

Learn how the gravel filter deposits gravels over mud, with four types: plain, interstice, custom, and interstice plus custom, and adjust density, size, intensity, color, roughness, and interstice range.

Apply patterns to textures using images or brushes on a felt base, switch between color only and material modes, and adjust metallic, emboss, and grain by color region.

Apply the perforate filter to create holes in sandblasted metal, set 8x8 holes with random mask and offset, and tune inner color, roughness, and scale map for seamless tiling.

Convert images into woven patterns with the Waave filter, using presets and image brush or generator. Set color count, area size, density, and roughness to shape stitches.

Design cloth fabrics using the cloth weave filter, adjusting warp and weft, pattern size 50, and the square tile generator; explore color modes, thread width, tension, and masking options.

Apply a blur filter to input channels with adjustable amount. Explore anisotropy, angle-driven reflections on brushed metal, hair, silk; use custom masks to shape blur.

Adjust brightness and contrast on the selected channel using the brightness/contrast filter, then use the mask option to paint areas or apply an image or generator as a mask.

Colorize adds color to selected channels without losing detail, adapting parameters to the channel type, and enables a custom mask with brush, image, or generator, plus blur and invert options.

learn how to use the color replace filter to sample colors, mask similar areas, and replace them with a chosen color, with controls for luminosity variation and mask range.

Master color variation to adjust colors and luminosity in automatic and manual selections within a chosen channel, using blur, color count, and advanced segmentation.

Use the hue/saturation filter to shift hue and adjust saturation and lightness, applying to color channels like base, color, or emissive with a mask.

the equalize filter reduces local contrasts across channels to produce a seamless tiled material, with controls for radius, input tiled, keep local differences, and per-channel overrides.

Invert the selected input channel values to reverse dark and light areas, such as a roughness map, and use the mask to specify where the effect applies in grayscale channels.

Master the sharpen filter to enhance details in a chosen channel without introducing noise. Practice a balanced approach and use the mask menu for precise control, like in other filters.

Boost muted colors with the vibrance filter on the base color or diffuse channels, preserving bright tones, and use input channel sliders with a mask to balance vibrance and saturation.

Apply the Stylization filter to turn realistic materials into hand-painted or painterly looks. Explore presets and adjust global and per-map sliders for base color, roughness, metallic, height, and normals.

Adjust color warmth in the base color channel with the color temperature filter, slide toward red or blue, fine-tune magenta-green balance, and use the mask menu to apply the effect.

Adjust the intensity and range of normal and height maps with a toggle and sliders, using auto leveling or range mode with height levels and a middle point.

Explore how the atlas splitter isolates atlas elements, applies grid and shape controls, auto crop, and adjusts rotation, opacity, and background to refine material edges.

Map the input channel to the output channel; adjust opacity. Select a blending algorithm, choose bottom or custom material, sample a channel via the material input, and use the mask.

Master the clone stamp tool to duplicate and patch material areas, fix seams, and remove imperfections using sampling areas, threshold, blur, smoothness, precision, and per-channel controls.

Generate normal maps from height maps with height to normal filter and height maps from normals with the normal to height filter, adjusting surface size, height depth, and world units.

Create a high-quality PBR material from a single image with the image to material template. Compare AI-powered and B2M algorithms that generate normal, height, roughness maps and base color channels.

Import 2–8 images captured under varying lighting into a single image import layer, then apply the Multiangle to Material filter to generate normal and height maps.

Delight removes lighting from the base color channel to prevent baked-in lighting when creating materials. AI creates the base color for the chosen category by removing shadows and highlights.

Apply the perspective transform tool to correct perspective issues in an image, affecting all texture channels. Adjust corner handles in the 2D view and refine positions with sliders.

Apply the make it tile filter to create a tileable material by overlaying copies, then refine with threshold, smoothness, contrast, spots removal, color equalizer, and height matching to hide seams.

Master tiling to create tileable materials using the Tiling and Make it Tile filters, refine seams with threshold controls, and adjust with blur, offset, and grid resolution.

Explore the transform filter to move, scale, and rotate textures using a widget, rotation center, and per-channel controls, with safe transform options, flipping, skewing, and precise, uniform scaling.

Master the crop tool to isolate precise regions, adjust with move, scale, rotate, and apply bilinear or nearest filtering, while using transform controls and per-channel overrides.

Use the warp filter to distort materials with noise, adjust intensity, and choose warp type (warp, directional warp with angle, or multi-directional warp) plus noise scale, blur, and mask options.

Warp texture with warp transform filter using 2D handles, grid sizes 3x3 to 5x5, show grid, curve points and curve algorithm, bilinear or nearest sampling, inputting control point positions numerically.

Discover how the Upscale filter uses AI to boost PBR channel resolution, offering 2x or 4x upsampling, such as 512px to 1024px, with a note against exceeding 8k.

Apply the PBR Validate filter temporarily to the layer stack to check base color and metallic values, highlight outliers on a green to red scale, then adjust and remove.

Generate ambient occlusion maps from height maps or enhance existing ao maps using height, normal, or both maps, with mode options, and adjust intensity, spread, and distribution, uniform or cosine.

Master the fill filter to create or blend materials across channels using blending modes, opacity, and a custom base color, with options to paint and apply texture generators or images.

Apply the Corrode filter to a metal surface to simulate acid erosion with two customizable colors, blister borders, and controls for spreading, roughness, metallic, direction, and layer height.

Explore how the cracks filter ages and damages materials by adding cracks and crevices, with four presets and adjustable crack color, intensity, roughness, depth, density, width, and a custom mask.

Apply the dirt filter to add an aged layer, using normal and height channels to shape dirt spread and contrast. Adjust dirt color, roughness, transparency, surface imperfection maps for realism.

Apply the discarded gums filter to add chewing gum to materials for realistic pavement textures, with presets and controls for color amount, roughness, density, aging, dents, dirt, and normal strength.

Apply a dust filter to cover materials, adjust dust color, color intensity, roughness, metallic, and density; use global, interstices, or normal map priorities and fine-tune luminosity and height position.

Use the erode filter to texture materials by selecting a preset or customizing erosion with type, depth, intensity, smoothness, color, roughness, and metallic values; adjust luminosity, contrast, and hue shift.

Use the metal finish filter to adjust metal surfaces with real-world metal types and color mode, tweaking specular, normal, ambient occlusion, radius, and opacity, plus a custom mask.

Add moss and lichen with the Moss filter, using occlusion maps to grow in cracks, adjust height, spread, roughness, color variation, refine areas with custom mask and ambient occlusion intensity.

Apply the oxidate filter to add an oxidation layer, control spreading with target area strength, color input, density, and edge blending to refine oxidized regions.

apply the paint filter to add a colorized paint layer with adjustable roughness, thickness, peeling level, grain details, and a cavity mask, then fine-tune metallic, normal, height strength, and opacity.

Apply the rust filter to textures using normal and height maps to concentrate rust, adjust spread, edge influence, peel, drip intensity, and masking for realistic metallic corrosion.

Explore how the scratch filter adds scratch marks to materials, and use height masking, masking options, and micro-scratch controls with opacity, base color, roughness, and metallic values.

Explore the snow filter that adds a snow layer and tune Frost Spread, Fresh Snow Spread, Fresh Snow Accumulate, Fresh Snow Rotation, Snow Buildup, colors, brightness, translucency.

Discover how to build realistic water in materials by layering a water surface with presets, tuning water level, mud-to-water transitions, roughness, color, intensity, metallics, edge wetness, and wave effects.

Use the coat and varnish filter to apply a coating layer, enable coat textures in channels, and adjust opacity, thickness, color, roughness, and specular level, with custom inputs and masks.

Apply the wood finish filter to wood-based materials; presets dynamically generate menus and parameters, and fine-tune with sliders for precise adjustments to achieve polished varnish, natural, or weathered looks.

Apply the smudge/stain filter to add realistic imperfections—fingerprints, footprints, water drops, leaks, and cup marks—using presets and adjustable intensity, color, and blur.

Create a muddy ground material by combining mud with rocks, twigs, and leaf fragments, then refine with gravel, atlas scatter, water, and moss filters to produce multiple texture variations.

Fill metadata, expose adjustable parameters, and export the material as sbsar to enable publishing and cross-tool edits. Track export progress and prep for Unreal Engine use in the next lesson.

Install and activate the Substance plugin for Unreal Engine, import the .sbsar file, and apply the material to a plane to adjust tiling and parameters.

Experiment with embroidery textures by applying the embroidery filter to textures, tweak colors using hue/saturation and vibrance, generate pattern variations with generative AI, and export .jpeg textures for Blender materials.

Create a custom Blender material by connecting textures to base color, roughness, metallic, normal map, opacity, and displacement, adjust color space, mapping, and lighting for realistic renders.

Turn your photos into atlas-based soil materials by creating base color and alpha maps, generating normals, height, roughness, and aoe, then refine with atlas filters and terracotta.

Build parquet material by applying the parquet filter to a wood plain base, then use height to ao, blur, and sharpen, and explore pattern mask and chamfer radius.

Expose key parameters for color and saturation from the first layer, as well as the overall opacity, chamfer radius, and depth; export to Substance Painter in .sbsar or .jpeg formats.

Explore how to import a parquet material into Substance Painter, adjust tiling and lighting, manage texture maps and metadata, and save as a material preset for quick reuse.

Start with terracotta as the base, apply brickwall, corrode, moss, and water filters for depth and aging; use image to material with ivy via splatter and snow variants.

Create traditional carpet patterns using cloth weave and weave filters, plus height and normal maps. Experiment with warp-weft pattern size, weave density, color variations, and saved iterations.

Create metal panel textures by applying brushed metal, panel, and perforate filters with a square tile mask to form perforated panels; duplicate for variations and apply colorize and oxidate effects.

Create an export workflow for Unity, export textures as PNGs with the HDRP standard preset, and organize textures and materials for three texture sets.

Create stylized materials by layering textures with Fill and Stylization filters, adjusting maps, base colors, normal and height maps, and roughness to craft distinct looks.

Create three textures from a stone wall base by stacking concrete coarse, applying the stonewall filter, and using floor tiles, then refine normals, height, discarded gums, and dust for finishes.

Convert a raw photo to a seamless material with image to material, make it tile, equalize, warp transform, show grid, add pebbles and wood sticks, then adjust height and stylize.

Explore Substance 3D sampler 5.0's revamped homepage, quick actions, faster rendering, and new capabilities to create materials, 3D objects, and HDRi lighting from photos.