Unlock the World of 3D: Mastering Adobe Substance 3D Stager

Welcome to Unlocking the World of 3D!

The course begins with a foundation of the essential design principles, and then it takes you through a comprehensive exploration of the Substance Stager workspace. The goal of this introduction is to set the foundation in the realm of 3D possibilities.  After this introduction, you will have a better understanding of the following:

• Present and future practices and trends including the sustainable nature of 3D applications in numerous industries

• Understanding of the possibilities within Adobe Substance 3D Stager and its user-friendly interface

• Empowered designers of all levels ready to attain photorealistic 3D effects in diverse domains

Please see the attached files. Looking forward to having you in the course! Let's dive in :)

Design principles provide guidelines and fundamental concepts for creating aesthetically pleasing, effective, and functional designs. While there are various design principles, here are ten commonly recognized ones in the world of UX/UI and 3D design. These design principles are foundational for various design disciplines, including graphic design, web design, interior design, and more. Designers often use a combination of these principles to create visually compelling and effective designs. Please see the attached files.

While the initial appearance of the workspace may appear intricate, you'll find that Adobe Stager 3D is remarkably user-friendly. With minimal effort, you'll swiftly become acquainted with the application's interface. Notably, it shares many of the same underlying toolbars and property panels as those found in the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, offering a sense of familiarity to those who have used Adobe's creative tools. At this point, we will learn the definitions of models, materials, lights, cameras, rendering, ray-tracing, and other essential settings that will make working in 3D a more smooth transition. Please see the attached files.

Adobe Substance 3D Assets, as well as the Adobe Substance Community page are libraries of over 15,000 3D assets. To download/access the 3D assets from the Substance 3D Assets library, you can send the assets directly to your Substance 3D desktop app of choice, open the Creative Cloud Desktop app. You will find the Substance 3D Assets in the "3D" tab in "Stock & Marketplace”.  Please see the attached files.

Now that we have learned the Stager workspace basics, we will focus on preparing some graphics or objects designed in a 2D application of your chose that can later be applied and imported into Adobe Stager. To get started, think about (or design) a brand template filled with various color pallets, logos, and other fun designs you may want to use later. Additionally, design a simple shape that will act as a background diffuser or object build for our 3D scene.  Please see the attached files.

To get started, we’ll import a 3D model from the library folder I provided, or perhaps a 3D model of your choice and work on further editing the 3D model. Stager is not a modeling app, so 3D content is usually created in other applications then imported to Stager to work with. However, you can combine 3D models to create new mediums, or remove, scale the existing 3D model content. Models are the 3D forms and shapes that build a scene. Please see the attached files.

Let’s build on our scene by importing your exported 2D object as .OBJ file into your library. Additionally, choose a favorite basic shape, and create a platform for the soda can to sit on. My scene is a bit longer and more complicated since I needed the variations for the course. However, you should pick one option and try to replicate it (of course you are always welcome to get creative and do your own thing - this is just a suggestion). Please see the attached files.

Smart materials are an asset that holds information about appearances, like the color, roughness, metallicness, bumpiness, translucency, in addition to other properties that can be modified to your likeness. You can apply smart materials to 3D models to change the look of the model surface and prepare it for rendering. Most Substance materials have unique parameters that you can modify to customize the final result. Since this portion of the course is more complex, it's divided into 2 parts. Please be sure to watch both and download the guide/assignment sheet below for detailed information.

Smart materials are an asset that holds information about appearances, like the color, roughness, metallicness, bumpiness, translucency, in addition to other properties that can be modified to your likeness. You can apply smart materials to 3D models to change the look of the model surface and prepare it for rendering. Stager allows easy drag-and-drop application of images onto the surface of any model. Images will appear in the material layer stack over the base material and have some material properties of their own. Each layer can be moved and edited independently. Since this portion of the course is more complex, it's divided into 2 parts. Please be sure to watch both and download the guide/assignment sheet below for detailed information.

There are a few way to apply graphic onto 3D models in Stager. You can drag and drop a .png image and resize it accordingly; or you can import the .ai or .psd file into Stager and apply the graphic to your model. If you are using multiple artboards - you can certainly choose the artboard you want for that particular part. You can choose the graphic to stay as a “decal” or “fill” in the entire object. If you are using logos, it’s usually best to stay as decal, but if its a pattern that should be seamless a fill is better choice. And last but not least, you can use a UV packaging, which is a system used to position 2D images onto 3D models. Please be sure to download the guide below for detailed information.

Adobe Stager is an excellent visual medium, and ray tracing is a rendering technique which uses to shoot light rays through the scene. The rays of light interact with objects and materials, then bounce to the camera lens. This mimics what happens in the real world with the lenses of physical cameras. Ray tracing is basically a snippet of what our scene will look like once rendered. It’s in real-time, it’s fast and interactive and overall the perfect way to uncover areas that need improving, materials that look different once rendered, etc. The environment in Adobe Stager is the space around the viewport that is really infinite - it encompasses the ground plane, background, and the environment lighting system. Stager supports ray tracing on both CPU (Mac and Win) and GPU (Win only).

Please be sure to download the guide below for detailed information.

The environment does not always need to be a built 3D scene, Stager also allows for image matching. This tool is amazingly accurate, and you will love it for quick projects. Use Match Image to automatically detect the perspective and lighting of a photographic image and update your scene to match. Please be sure to download the guide below for detailed information.

Cameras are more than how you see the scene, it is also an object type that you can use to configure a virtual camera with lens settings. You can save different camera angles, so you can come back to them at a later point and use it for rendering. Each camera that you create, comes with a focal length and depth of field options. Focal length and depth of field are basically used to describe how much the camera can see each object. If you are familiar with photography, you’d recognize focal length and it works the same way in Stager, while depth of field is a more general measurement. Please be sure to download the guide below for detailed information.