Dear friends,
You’ve been with us every step of the way, since we first showed you this exciting project we had, which was to become Substance Alchemist. You played with the features as we created them, gave us precious feedback and comments, helped us build a solid architecture. We are very happy to share with you the exciting news: Substance Alchemist is now out of Beta.
This means that starting today, Substance Alchemist is now fully part of the Substance suite, and ready to pick up speed. We’ll keep coming up with a dynamic update schedule and the swift implementation of new features.
Together, let’s see what’s new in your material library creation app — and if you haven’t tried Substance Alchemist yet, let’s take a look around to help you with your first steps.
Substance Alchemist picks up speed
We kick off this out-of-beta release with a new look. A welcome screen is here to help you take your first steps in Substance Alchemist; The layer stack has been redesigned to be clearer and more beautiful, and a file menu helps you quickly access all your options.
This new release also has sweet new features, including project management, an image and material Content-Aware Fill coming from Photoshop, as well as a new and improved version of the Delighter. The full release note is here.
Working on a scene
In order to show you the possibilities of Substance Alchemist, we imagined we would be working on a scene — something that might match an interior design environment. So we began with a mood board and reference images, and created a color palette.
Create materials in a few minutes
Substance Alchemist helps you quickly create new materials. With a material from Substance Source, for instance, artists can add elements in just a few clicks. With the embedded filters and generators, you get a new material in an instant!
Check this step-by-step brick wall creation:
This is what it looks like in the end in the Substance Alchemist viewport:
In Substance Alchemist, you get filters and generators such as Brickwall Pattern, Pavement Pattern, Parquet Pattern, Gravel Generator, Paint, Metal & Wood finish, Corrosion & Oxydation, and many more.
But that’s not all: you also have the possibility to add and import your own. This means that you have access to an infinite amount of content!
Transform images into materials
Substance Alchemist also allows you to start from a photo or a high-resolution scan. With a few quick transformations, your image becomes a photorealistic material! You could start with this linen, for instance:
We have powerful dedicated resources for your scan-based workflow: Tiling, Clone tool, Equalizer, and our AI-based Delighter (accelerated on NVIDIA RTX hardware). From an image to a quality 3d material in just a few gestures, Substance Alchemist ensures that the process is as painless as possible. See the steps here:
To libraries and beyond
The true power of Substance Alchemist appears when you need to create an entire library of materials. The collection feature allows you to quickly generate tons of variations of your materials. In a few clicks, you can create a large number of homogeneous variations, using the same art direction, same feeling, same mood, same environment. Little by little, your inputs multiply thanks to your reference images… and a bit of magic.
From just a few materials — including the bricks and linen we created earlier
You can generate many materials
And you end up with a library of materials
From which you can select the final materials for your project
Share to the world
Once your material board is complete, you can easily export it, and share it for quick decisions with your clients and your team. And for truly collaborative work you can as well import and export your project files.
Of course, Substance materials can be used in any 3D application. You can, for instance, use these materials we have been creating for this article in a scene, like so:
An incredible community made it happen!
Artists have already been supporting the beta phase and there’s a serious collection of amazing artworks made with Substance Alchemist out there. For us, seeing the sheer creativity coming out of the Substance community is always a true gift.
We want to see more! Share your art with us: tag it #substancealchemist, #createwithsubstance, or #madewithsubstance.
Content produced with the beta version 0.8.1 or older is not compatible with version 2019.1. However, nothing is lost and this data can still be accessed by launching version 0.8.1.
The Substance Alchemist 2019.1 release image was created by Grant Wallich. Find more about his art on his Behance profile.
