"First you make the donut in Blender. Make the sprinkles and whatnot and bake it. Then use Mixer to finish it up." "Is this about cooking or making digital art?" "Yes."
i know Im asking the wrong place but does anybody know a tool to get back into an instagram account..? I somehow forgot my login password. I would appreciate any tricks you can offer me
For those of you who're worried about baking maps, Quixel released a video on baking all the maps inside of blender, and then you can export them to substance, mixer, armor paint etc.
@@TheTimeProphet you can still use blender for baking, the tutorial (on Quixel youtube channel) is straight away to the point, just follow that, and you'll be good to go.
Just so you're aware mixer is free for both non-commercial and commercial projects as long as you don't sell materials contain stuff from mega scans also the commercial projects you can use mixer for doesn't have to be related to unreal engine at all
for me quixel mixer is so much lacking in features that it's basically useless, it really does nothing I couldn't do in blender anyway so I don't really see the point. I'm sure it'll get better (and really hope it does) but for now I'll stick to substance painter since quixel mixer is not functional yet imo.
@@Ceej16 It is absolutely not free. It is not true. Look it up. It is only free if you use or present your end results inside Unreal Engine. If you use their stuff in other engines such as Unity, you have to pay a sub or get points jus like with the other tools. (Except Marmoset, which offers perpetual licenses)
@@harrysanders818 That's not correct. The tool Mixer is free, the Megascan library is not (unless you use UE). You can use Mixer with other textures from other sources.
@@harrysanders818as ryo massaki said and I said quixel mixer itself Is free, I only stated a correction in what was said in the video which was that mixer is only free for non commercial use but it's not it's free for commercial use within its rules and guidelines e.g. rules for unreal and then separate rules for its use in unity
I've been using Mixer a lot lately for my project, the only thing that missing is the baking feature, multiple mesh options and symmetry painting. I hope Mixer 2021 add those features and it will help lot of artist with low budget. Right now, my workflow is very simple and I don't need to have all those high costly software in other to make awesome things. Blender for 3D modelling/sculpting and animations, Krita for 2d painting, Mixer for 3D texturing and of course Unreal engine for everything else.
Before the Adobe acquisition both painter and designer felt like they were being developed at a similar pace to blender, Since the Adobe acquisition I dropped off for a year (wasn't doing much cg) and upgraded just before that became no longer an option. In that year it seemed like there was less development than in a quarter I would have seen previously. Particularly designer doesn't seem to be getting any love. Between that and the pricing structure I am a bit pissed at Adobe (but at least there is still a Linux version). I will probably keep using the versions I have got. I also quite like building materials in blender using nodes and hand painted masks. While not as powerful it does make for a combination workflow where you get the basics of what designer can do along with direct painting you get in painter in the one workflow.
One pro for Painter that I don't think was mentioned, is the ability to create fairly complex procedural materials and filters in Substance Designer and use them in Painter. I can't really imagine losing that functionality by switching to Mixer.
That is actually a benefit of Mixer because you can use procedural masking there which is stronger than one in Painter. Designer is out of picture in this case.
Yeah, I really missed that too, Designer is really, REALLY insane, and also using those substance materials and being able to expose parameters in Unreal Engine and being able to change them on the spot.
@@AlexiosLair You know you can write procedural masks in designer and use them in painter, right? Not to mention painter already has a library of procedural masks.
Using both since years and lately I'm more into mixer. But it all depends on what i want to create. For fillassets and background stuff i always go for quixel mixer since it has a faster workflow. But when it comes to the focal element or procedurally texture large scale objects (like an entire city) i mostly go for substance since you have better control
This is why i broke up with Adobe. They are mostly buying software to they own. Hotkeys are not consistent and the Paywall and not flexible payment System fuckt me up. So I ditch Adobe completly. And now I am very happy with blender & co.
Thanks for the excellent guide! I'm a programmer who also does graphics so while I have some 'core tools' (UE4, Houdini) I find that I often end up needing to use often tools to get something done, and then forget everything before I need to use the package again. For this reason I'm going to be concentrating on Mixer, a simpler package which is getting better sounds about right for me at this time. It is a shame though that Substance and Quixel seem so determined to have their own full suites as it makes it needlessly tricky to combine their libraries. Having access to the Megascans 3d assets and photogrammetry scans but being able to add detail and control with the Substance procedural forms and Smart Materials would just be great.
I’m more of a Painter guy and I’m happy I get to keep my versions on steam but I’m so happy Mixer is a thing because it opens the doors to smaller artists. I’ll keep my eye on it and see how it develops because I’m a big fan of good UI. Also Marmoset 4 is dope, my teacher gushes about it all the time.
Yeah, Marmoset should have been included here. It is dope. and it also not similar in price, becausethey still offer perpetual licenses one time payments.
@@pawnzrtasty I just wanna make sure but you know “based” means “cool” right? Subscription models are pretty cool but sometimes I prefer to just flat out buy an application so I don’t have to deal with the monthly payments.
@@Oretal when I said subscription based I mean base in the real meaning. A foundation to build something on. You can’t buy either one he compared. You can only rent. Not sure about what you said marmoset. I’ll look into it.
If you are learning 3D Texturing, I highly recommend Quixel Mixer, it's amazing software. It's free to use for learning and the skills are transferrable to Substance Painter. That being said Mixer is still lacking some features so you have to be creative in texture creation, it performs slower than Substance Painter and does not have a baker, on top of that, it does not have some of the bells and whistles that Painter has.
The moment Mixer adds pen pressure and a clone stamp I'm good, I prefer the rest of the workflow. Only other small issue is it's a tiny bit tedious to import your own maps, it really wants you to use megascans and it's clear it was made with that in mind.
@@philip9611 I played with mixer last night, seems good but I honestly don't know if good enoguh to be level with substance, also you can give a big fuck you to Adobe by buying substance on steam, that's a single license no monthly payments
Idk what this means as an absolute beginner, but I’m glad it’s only getting better.Are they like UVs? Why does Substance seem to be better for stylized work??
In addition, Substance Painter is really stiff and clumsy in painting. switching colors is a pain, picking colors is a pain, mesh sorting is a pain. If I need hand-painted layer I go to 3dcoat, and it really boosts hand painting work 10 times!
It wasn't Adobe job to make Substance Painter comprehensive and reliable, it's Allegorithmic who did it. Adobe just bought them and put on subscription model, basically ruining party for everyone. After that move I actually considered to switch to Quixel.
I think you also should have pointed out that Substance on steam has a big discount in every sale, also if you already posses an older version the discount increases even more. In january this year i bought painter 2021 for only 60€ with a one year update support included. And if you don't own a previous version i think i payed like 140€ or 160€ for painter, Designer and B2B in one bundle (in a steam winter sale)
Yeah, I paid $70 to upgrade Painter and $70 to upgrade Designer in Jan. Though I was fairly disappointed in the lack of new features since 2020... $70 to get fixes for a few bugs that I reported is a bit steep.
Ive started to creating some models out of concept art, so since i used 3d Coat with the baking stuff i realized that you can Bake with Blender too. Having a guideline to follow, high poly to low poly, curvature, AO that works well for blender you have so much tools to manipulate the end result. Modelling the stuff, fine. Creating a Texture Base, fine. Handpainting the Stuff is the Hardest part. Trying mixer out a bit, since its the best program for new people with so much Ressources which is a crime to offer for free :D
I used to bake on substance painter, but everytime there's an error you have to go back to blender to fix it, then export the hi/lo res and the cage, now I just bake the normals on blender (with layers) and export as EXR with full float, then use those normals for baking the other maps in substance. also in blender you can use the bevel shader.
No it is not. No matter how people misunderstand and wish for it. Only if your final product is hosted inside Unreal engine, ONLY then it is free to use. Not elsewhere. The Mixer App itself is free, yeah, but not he scan data you use. They are pretty strict about it and I wouldn't mess with them now that they are part of EPIC. If you need to use Mixer in Unity or Blender or what have you, you will have to pay a sub jus as with the other tools.
I have used Mixer on a few projects, and yes the clean interface it's much better, it's very intuitive and easy to learn, but still prefer to use Substance Painter for the extensive arrays of tools to customize your materials and if your planning to create stylized assets Painter it's much better in that regard, I understand about the inconveniences for some about being a monthly payment but you also have to consider that for the price you're not just getting Painter but Designer wich it's awesome, Alchemy and an extensive and constantly growing library of materials, if you are a working professional or freelance this tool it's just invaluable. I have using Unreal for a couple of years now and what they have done in these recent years with the CG industry it's just blowing away and I hope and wish that Mixer can compete and even improve over Painter but until that day comes I will continue using Painter.
I can see that. But if you simply *cannot* pay a monthly fee, then are you just shit out of luck? It's sounds like you're saying if that's the case, then you'll just have to "settle" for Mixer.
Great comparison of the tools, but consider the library content as well. While there is significant overlap, Source has a much wider selection of man-made materials whereas Megascans favors more natural surfaces. Also, Megascans has a great selection of models. That's why I use both!
Here is the issue I have with Substance. I have used Substance for years because it was the best thing going for a while. Then Adobe purchased them and there has been little to no effecort to add it the creative cloud so $80 for both. They roll items with issues. Mixer is free you aren't limited texture downs and it is seemless import into UE. Not the case in Substance Painter. I have had numerous textures recently that didn't transfer correctly. Their Substance Source button stays broken.
blender+armor paint+quixel is already pretty powerful.. and best of all its free... the two ones have quite a unique feature but are paid are 3d coat (splines) and zbrush( the brushes)
Hey, very helpful video, i'm very much a beginner in 3d modelling/art and texturing is one of my biggest gripes as i usually just use blender's tools. Substance is very expensive for a hobbyist like myself and mixer is probably good for learning texturing. I've also been looking at armorpaint, seems fairly robust and is built upon blender, a video comparing all three would be very helpful. Only catch with armorpaint is that you can either buy it for 16 euros, still not expensive, or compile it yourself if you're savvy enough for it (which luckily i am since im a software engineer).
Well, if you can't afford the program - just pirate it. That how everyone starts. I don't believe that there is a person who would pay for photoshop or substance painter, kr any other professional program being a beginner who doesn't even know whether or not he will use it often. Of course if you are a professional making money you should pay for the licence, but every professional began as a hobbyist who learned their skills on a pirate version.
Substance is the crutch of most budding 3d artists wanting grungy metals. Its everywhere. It’s fun and I keep finding myself purchasing a license every other month but when dealing with creative director/tech artists, on a tight deadline, substance is good for a look dev concept art basis. When you have someone who knows lighting, know your shaders. Redshift is king. :)
I love mixer, but holy hell is substance versitile! As an environment artist, I need as much versatility as possible, from massive bakes to simple cubes, from insanely layered stuff to simple stylised or basic PBR materials, and any material type. If mixer can add a baker and better material customisation, then I’d definitely choose it over Substance for personal stuff, simply because it’s free. But right now, Substance is just faster and more streamlined for what I need, so I’m sticking with Substance, as much as I hate Adobe’s business model.
Epic Games really should just develop software for the entire pipeline with the whole free for consumers kinda thing. Would be really cool to for example model, sculpt, texture etc all the things as, say, UAssets and have no trouble whatsoever importing that to unreal. Just a thought
Teddy from Quixel has said they are working on baker and I'm almost certian eventually UDIMS as well. Haven't used mixer in a while but I remember it goes super slow on you when you have like 10-20 layers. Also, during installation, I always get a message that it has failed to download smart material packs. I think there are 4 of them.
If you're talking about Blender's fast update pace, you weren't using it before 2.80. It was years between 2.79 and 2.80. they really only started adding all the features after they started getting grants. Don't get me wrong. Blender is amazing. I'm just saying.
The one thing that made me switch to substance is... The displacement... Granted mixer does it well but you can not get the displaced mesh while with substance you can Wich is great if you need to make walls or pavement without having to model them in a 3d software
Well on the other hand you can displace your texture in almost any other app be it blender, zbrush or unreal. For me personally feels like mixer is fast but limited in procedural texturing. The sunstance might require more time but the texture will be modular and you will be able to reuse it later on and make tons of modifications to it
Substance painter "is very mature and Adobe has done a great job making the feature set both comprehensive and reliable" Did they? or did they just buy it, rebrand it, and stop adding the cool new features algorithmic was adding. genuinely asking, cuz that's how it looks to me. Its still a fantastic product, but i worry about its future for sure.
I am here because Substance has not released 2023 yet. Holding off buying 2022 as I feel 2023 is around the corner. Thinking of trying out Quixel before new version of Substance drops.
I would add Marmoset Toolbag 4's Texturing Tools to this as well. They are really amazing and in some ways also more flexible than SP, albeit also still lacking some features, like stencil projection. But, they at least have Opacity via Pen Pressure! ( This is huge, especiall forstlized) which similar to a color picker, Substance Painter never had and probably will never have (which makes the brush engine quirky for stylized, as you said in another comparison). So It is not really SP vs Mixer anymore , Marmoset is seriously good now and an even more mature alternative than Mixer already, which last time checked, even lacked decent tablet support. Marmoset pricing is also not similar to Adobe, you don't need to go subscription and they offer one time payment perpetual licenses. Huge difference.
Bro, I had no idea there was a one time payment plan on steam. Thank you so much! I was not gonna get it because of the subscription, but this is great!
As a Toolbag user, I'm going to give Quixel Mixer a shot. Honestly I have never enjoyed working in Substance. It feels very clunky and unintuitive. I honestly think it only took over because of Substance Designer's ability to pair with it.
ohhh Thomas The 3D Coloring Book course seems what I need 😉✌ Since i'm fed up with adobe's shennanigans, I just stuck with Painter 1.x released on steam back on the day. Is the course still relevant for that version? From what I read in the course page, I could even apply that to 3DCoat's workflow, right? Cheers, mate
I may be missing the point here, but if I have to bake my maps in blender anyway, and I can use the shading editor in blender to adjust materials I find for free off the internet anyway (considering I'm not going to use any of Quixel's from their paid library), and Quixel's paint brushes are almost just as shitty as blender's base brushes, then why the hell would I use Quixel Mixer? Because it has layers and blender doesn't? Seems really like the only advantage. I'm not opposed to paying for software that saves me a lot of time. I'm glad you mentioned the $150 for substance painter on steam because I wouldn't pay $20 a month to use it, but I would consider paying a one time fee to use it. Actually, having looked into it after I've written this, the $150 is only for updates for one year. After that you're stuck with your legacy version I guess? I have zero issues sculpting details in blender. I'm an amateur and the level of detail I can get with my wacom one tablet and pen are fine for me for now with blender. The problem I have is when I want to touch up details manually in blender, blender's default Texture Paint tab sucks balls. If you take the time to setup your brushes, it could be improved, but there are still no layers, which makes it god awful. Bpainter looks to be a great addon for blender that would work good for my workflow, but it is $40 normally, right now $30. Given that, the state of Armor paint, the state of Quixel Mixer, and Blender, I think Blender with Bpainter might be the least masochistic way of texturing for texture artists on the cheap.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t just crack all the programs. I find it weird that there is a pay wall to enter the games industry to even learn these software. Especially when in the future if more joined the games art community there would be more games and therefore more commercial uses of this software.
I am using Substance painter since it's first release, but as soon as Adobe gobbled it in it's ecosystem I just stopped updating and held on the last non-adobized release. I am not so happy working on a 2017 version but it does it's job, and it's almost the same as the latest Adobe version. This to say subscription business model slows down development speed and forces customer's devotion. So when Mixer will be mature enough I'll jump ship, and I could be willing to pay for it. But only once.
Which one should I learn? The one made by Adobe (no explanation needed) or the one that Epic Games made free and specifically for 3d/game design? I think the answer is obvious, specially after yesterday's painter rebrand
I don't know man, I just bought Substance Painter on Steam today (the 2021 version) and synced it to my Substance account, and actually paid less for it than I did for the 2019 version... Sooo.
@@realtyrone I was talking about the usual Adobe, buying out competition then justifying a new software added to increase the monthly subscription(talking about the bundle subscription of Adobe) Substance Painter itself is still great as long as the old team is still there withought being too much on a leash. Kinda annoyed sometimes when they call it Adobe Painter or something when all they did was buy out the company.(or was it, the company was sold off) You better start learning now, the learning curve is quite steep
@@MangaGamified I get your point, yes. I've had Substance Painter in my workflow for the last two years or so, and just upgraded to the latest version via Steam. I've enjoyed it so far. I've seen a few reviews saying the syncing option has been removed, but to my surprise, it hasn't. Quickly linked it by just clicking on the "resync products license" button (or something along those lines) and was presented with a .key file. Now running it outside of Steam like I did with the 2019 version. All in all, if I'm not binded to Adobe with a subscription, I'm happy! I even made the switch to Affinity Photo, just to get rid of Photoshop as a whole. Has worked out great. :)
Getting tired of these anti customer mindsets these companies are trying these days. CAN I JUST BUY THE DAMN PRODUCT ANYMORE!!! Either it’s free with limitations or a subscription. Just got into 3d sculpting the last couple years and it’s close to $100 a month just to art. I print all my stuf so this thing is meaningless to me its just crazy that almost every aspect of digital art is a subscription.
All of these texturing apps need proper 2D tool sets that include basic things like a pen tool and selections. Painter, Mixer and Designer all have shockingly bad 2D tools. In Painter and Mixer they're pretty much non-existent, meaning you have to roundtrip between them and Photoshop as soon as you need accurate selections or masks. Designer has an SVG node (not a painting app I know) but again that is severely limited compared to a proper vector editing tool like Illustrator etc. Obviously it's unlikely you're going to get all the functionality of Photoshop or Illustrator in a painting app but there's definitely a gap in the market for a tool that does this stuff to at least an acceptable level in a single tool. 3D Coat is about the closest out there to a fully cohesive 2D-3D workflow and has some great curve tools that allow it to do things impossible in Painter and Mixer. But its 2D tools are still not great and the UX/UI is markedly poor compared to the other tools, especially the layer stack. Hopefully one of these developers will address this stuff in the future because it could and should be possible to do all of your texturing work in a single app.
Payed for Adobe cloud "All apps" ongoing plan and this is one of the many apps not included. I guess il go back to torrent sites and discontinue my plan.
Hey, I use Daz3D and would just like to design sometimes my clothes new or give my chars a few new skin details, like a blushed face. Using Gimp to draw on a flat map sucks really. Is Mixer good enough to use it for Texturing my Surfaces? And can I save the result as PNG layer or whatever? That I can add it to every char, as example a new tattoo or a scar?
Great video, Have you looked into armor paint? It's fully free!(provided you compile it yourself) or just a pre compiled version for €16. The developments had a good steady speed so I think it's definitely worth a look.
I haven't played with mixer yet, the last time I saw it it was only used to mix negacans materials, no baking and no symmetry is pretty much awful, but w/e might as well try. I'll also have to check price for pro usage
If Epic delivers on their promises for unreal engine 5 then at least for unreal artists the lack of baking won’t matter. I’m sure they’ll add it eventually anyway though.
Why do people think devs will just use their meshes straight from zbrush? Baking will still exist and still be used in UE5 nearly as much as it is now. Theres no need to package a game with characters that span over 1,000,000 triangles as its just a waste of disc space.
@@SneakyKittyGameDev Because it *won't actually BE* 1,000,000 tris once it's in the game. Everything will be compressed down on it's own. That's the whole thing they were trying to explain.
maybe with mixer 2020 it was a question open but with the release of mixer 2021, there is no reason left to pay further stupid subscriptions. Let's not talk about this proprietary file format in my pipeline to profit from all the goodies. Quixel has done a great job, in combination with Bridge, it works with all software flawless.
"First you make the donut in Blender. Make the sprinkles and whatnot and bake it. Then use Mixer to finish it up."
"Is this about cooking or making digital art?"
"Yes."
hahahaha , I loved your comment
"And if you like use zbrush to give it a nice glaze."
and your name should be blender guru
i know Im asking the wrong place but does anybody know a tool to get back into an instagram account..?
I somehow forgot my login password. I would appreciate any tricks you can offer me
@Mathew Zev instablaster ;)
We got Blender and Mixer, waiting for Grinder.
Is anybody going to tell him?
@@StylizedStation >->
you do it
what's Grinder?
It’s a dating app bro.
@@zyzz5070 No thanks, I've already got a wife.
For those of you who're worried about baking maps, Quixel released a video on baking all the maps inside of blender, and then you can export them to substance, mixer, armor paint etc.
Whereee
Nice, but I use 3ds max
@@TheTimeProphet you can still use blender for baking, the tutorial (on Quixel youtube channel) is straight away to the point, just follow that, and you'll be good to go.
@@WolfieDesigns Hate Blender with a passion. I use xNormal to do my normals, and sometimes I use substance painter
@@TheTimeProphet Why? Blender's great, already switched to it from max and maya.
Today Quixel has announced the UDMI support for the upcoming 2021 version (and other features)
LETS GOOO!!!
Great what about UDIMs
What do you guys think? Like this comment for Mixer, Leave a comment for Substance Painter.
Just so you're aware mixer is free for both non-commercial and commercial projects as long as you don't sell materials contain stuff from mega scans
also the commercial projects you can use mixer for doesn't have to be related to unreal engine at all
for me quixel mixer is so much lacking in features that it's basically useless, it really does nothing I couldn't do in blender anyway so I don't really see the point. I'm sure it'll get better (and really hope it does) but for now I'll stick to substance painter since quixel mixer is not functional yet imo.
@@Ceej16 It is absolutely not free. It is not true. Look it up. It is only free if you use or present your end results inside Unreal Engine. If you use their stuff in other engines such as Unity, you have to pay a sub or get points jus like with the other tools. (Except Marmoset, which offers perpetual licenses)
@@harrysanders818 That's not correct. The tool Mixer is free, the Megascan library is not (unless you use UE). You can use Mixer with other textures from other sources.
@@harrysanders818as ryo massaki said and I said quixel mixer itself Is free, I only stated a correction in what was said in the video which was that mixer is only free for non commercial use but it's not it's free for commercial use within its rules and guidelines e.g. rules for unreal and then separate rules for its use in unity
For now all Mixer needs a Baker.
*Update* :
Now, Mixer have Multiple Tex set, UDIMs and eventually there will be a baking.
?
@@mathajar9563 ?
I've been using Mixer a lot lately for my project, the only thing that missing is the baking feature, multiple mesh options and symmetry painting. I hope Mixer 2021 add those features and it will help lot of artist with low budget.
Right now, my workflow is very simple and I don't need to have all those high costly software in other to make awesome things. Blender for 3D modelling/sculpting and animations, Krita for 2d painting, Mixer for 3D texturing and of course Unreal engine for everything else.
Mixer has a tutorial on mesh baking in blender u can export for use 👍
-Which should I use?
-The free one obviously
The Hobbyist's mindset. You can only get so far with this atitude.
@@harrysanders818 Exactly. The obvious answer is both.
There is no "free" in this word, only cracks
@@FrancoFrames 😂😂😂😂😂
@@harrysanders818 That's why he is a nobody.
Before the Adobe acquisition both painter and designer felt like they were being developed at a similar pace to blender, Since the Adobe acquisition I dropped off for a year (wasn't doing much cg) and upgraded just before that became no longer an option. In that year it seemed like there was less development than in a quarter I would have seen previously. Particularly designer doesn't seem to be getting any love.
Between that and the pricing structure I am a bit pissed at Adobe (but at least there is still a Linux version).
I will probably keep using the versions I have got. I also quite like building materials in blender using nodes and hand painted masks. While not as powerful it does make for a combination workflow where you get the basics of what designer can do along with direct painting you get in painter in the one workflow.
One pro for Painter that I don't think was mentioned, is the ability to create fairly complex procedural materials and filters in Substance Designer and use them in Painter. I can't really imagine losing that functionality by switching to Mixer.
Good point!
Yeah but designer is a whole diffent software
That is actually a benefit of Mixer because you can use procedural masking there which is stronger than one in Painter. Designer is out of picture in this case.
Yeah, I really missed that too, Designer is really, REALLY insane, and also using those substance materials and being able to expose parameters in Unreal Engine and being able to change them on the spot.
@@AlexiosLair You know you can write procedural masks in designer and use them in painter, right? Not to mention painter already has a library of procedural masks.
Using both since years and lately I'm more into mixer. But it all depends on what i want to create. For fillassets and background stuff i always go for quixel mixer since it has a faster workflow. But when it comes to the focal element or procedurally texture large scale objects (like an entire city) i mostly go for substance since you have better control
This is why i broke up with Adobe. They are mostly buying software to they own. Hotkeys are not consistent and the Paywall and not flexible payment System fuckt me up. So I ditch Adobe completly. And now I am very happy with blender & co.
Thanks for the excellent guide!
I'm a programmer who also does graphics so while I have some 'core tools' (UE4, Houdini) I find that I often end up needing to use often tools to get something done, and then forget everything before I need to use the package again. For this reason I'm going to be concentrating on Mixer, a simpler package which is getting better sounds about right for me at this time.
It is a shame though that Substance and Quixel seem so determined to have their own full suites as it makes it needlessly tricky to combine their libraries. Having access to the Megascans 3d assets and photogrammetry scans but being able to add detail and control with the Substance procedural forms and Smart Materials would just be great.
I just don't want to support the subscription model. It's really that simple.
Thanks for the legitimate comparison video! This channel is doing amazing things!
I'm installing Quixel Mixer now... it's downloading over 20Gb of textures. This is sick and monumental...
I’m more of a Painter guy and I’m happy I get to keep my versions on steam but I’m so happy Mixer is a thing because it opens the doors to smaller artists. I’ll keep my eye on it and see how it develops because I’m a big fan of good UI.
Also Marmoset 4 is dope, my teacher gushes about it all the time.
Yeah, Marmoset should have been included here. It is dope. and it also not similar in price, becausethey still offer perpetual licenses one time payments.
@@harrysanders818 marmoset 4 is roughly twice the price at $300.
I’m waiting for a sale
I’m here late all this stuff is subscription based. I’d gladly pay 300. Substance is like $40 a month…
@@pawnzrtasty I just wanna make sure but you know “based” means “cool” right?
Subscription models are pretty cool but sometimes I prefer to just flat out buy an application so I don’t have to deal with the monthly payments.
@@Oretal when I said subscription based I mean base in the real meaning. A foundation to build something on. You can’t buy either one he compared. You can only rent. Not sure about what you said marmoset. I’ll look into it.
I completely agree, I wish I can move over completely to Mixer and ditch adobe but until they have an internal baker I can't
If you are learning 3D Texturing, I highly recommend Quixel Mixer, it's amazing software. It's free to use for learning and the skills are transferrable to Substance Painter. That being said Mixer is still lacking some features so you have to be creative in texture creation, it performs slower than Substance Painter and does not have a baker, on top of that, it does not have some of the bells and whistles that Painter has.
The moment Mixer adds pen pressure and a clone stamp I'm good, I prefer the rest of the workflow. Only other small issue is it's a tiny bit tedious to import your own maps, it really wants you to use megascans and it's clear it was made with that in mind.
Let’s all just boycott adobe products until they go the free route as well
Until they get own by Epic as well
I would settle for the pre-adobe licensing arrangement I dont like software rental
Good luck mate
@@kendarr quixel mixer announced a huge update today so I don’t need luck nor do I need adobe.
@@philip9611 I played with mixer last night, seems good but I honestly don't know if good enoguh to be level with substance, also you can give a big fuck you to Adobe by buying substance on steam, that's a single license no monthly payments
You can use XNormal. It is free, and easy-to-use tool for baking high resolution maps. And the quality is decent.
i dont know why i came here, but this ended being a nice intro to texturing
"Half baked" in the closing remarks - pun warning 😂⚠️😂
Xnormals and Knald make a huge work for baking.
I use quixel suite for a long time now for realistic things.
But for stylize i use Substance painter.
This video has subtitles. That's why I could watch this video. Thank.
Mixer just added Udims this month in their 2021 version :)
Idk what this means as an absolute beginner, but I’m glad it’s only getting better.Are they like UVs? Why does Substance seem to be better for stylized work??
In addition, Substance Painter is really stiff and clumsy in painting. switching colors is a pain, picking colors is a pain, mesh sorting is a pain. If I need hand-painted layer I go to 3dcoat, and it really boosts hand painting work 10 times!
If baking is one of your major issues then use handplane baker. Its completely free and very powerful...
It wasn't Adobe job to make Substance Painter comprehensive and reliable, it's Allegorithmic who did it. Adobe just bought them and put on subscription model, basically ruining party for everyone. After that move I actually considered to switch to Quixel.
I think you also should have pointed out that Substance on steam has a big discount in every sale, also if you already posses an older version the discount increases even more. In january this year i bought painter 2021 for only 60€ with a one year update support included. And if you don't own a previous version i think i payed like 140€ or 160€ for painter, Designer and B2B in one bundle (in a steam winter sale)
Yeah, I paid $70 to upgrade Painter and $70 to upgrade Designer in Jan. Though I was fairly disappointed in the lack of new features since 2020... $70 to get fixes for a few bugs that I reported is a bit steep.
What do you think about Marmoset 4's texturing tools? Looks very similar to Painter as functionalities
Ive started to creating some models out of concept art, so since i used 3d Coat with the baking stuff i realized that you can Bake with Blender too. Having a guideline to follow, high poly to low poly, curvature, AO that works well for blender you have so much tools to manipulate the end result. Modelling the stuff, fine. Creating a Texture Base, fine. Handpainting the Stuff is the Hardest part. Trying mixer out a bit, since its the best program for new people with so much Ressources which is a crime to offer for free :D
Mixer now supports many of the points talked here!
I used to bake on substance painter, but everytime there's an error you have to go back to blender to fix it, then export the hi/lo res and the cage, now I just bake the normals on blender (with layers) and export as EXR with full float, then use those normals for baking the other maps in substance.
also in blender you can use the bevel shader.
Now there is great addons in blender for baking like texture tools where you can even assign uv ID so mixer is perfect for a blender to UE5 pipeline!
Great video. It would have been nice if you made a video on using mixer
Its in the pipeline!
@@StylizedStation subbed. Thank you!
Im quite sure Mixer is also free for commercial projects. As they say "FREE FOREVER, FOR EVERYONE"
No it is not. No matter how people misunderstand and wish for it. Only if your final product is hosted inside Unreal engine, ONLY then it is free to use. Not elsewhere. The Mixer App itself is free, yeah, but not he scan data you use. They are pretty strict about it and I wouldn't mess with them now that they are part of EPIC. If you need to use Mixer in Unity or Blender or what have you, you will have to pay a sub jus as with the other tools.
@@harrysanders818 It is only Megascans that is not free outside Unreal projects.
I have used Mixer on a few projects, and yes the clean interface it's much better, it's very intuitive and easy to learn, but still prefer to use Substance Painter for the extensive arrays of tools to customize your materials and if your planning to create stylized assets Painter it's much better in that regard, I understand about the inconveniences for some about being a monthly payment but you also have to consider that for the price you're not just getting Painter but Designer wich it's awesome, Alchemy and an extensive and constantly growing library of materials, if you are a working professional or freelance this tool it's just invaluable.
I have using Unreal for a couple of years now and what they have done in these recent years with the CG industry it's just blowing away and I hope and wish that Mixer can compete and even improve over Painter but until that day comes I will continue using Painter.
I can see that. But if you simply *cannot* pay a monthly fee, then are you just shit out of luck? It's sounds like you're saying if that's the case, then you'll just have to "settle" for Mixer.
Great comparison of the tools, but consider the library content as well. While there is significant overlap, Source has a much wider selection of man-made materials whereas Megascans favors more natural surfaces. Also, Megascans has a great selection of models. That's why I use both!
Thank you for helping choose Mixer, since I will only occassionaly create textures for my models.
I’m really excited with mixer ! I was looking for an alternative to SP !! Ty !! ❤️
Here is the issue I have with Substance. I have used Substance for years because it was the best thing going for a while. Then Adobe purchased them and there has been little to no effecort to add it the creative cloud so $80 for both. They roll items with issues. Mixer is free you aren't limited texture downs and it is seemless import into UE. Not the case in Substance Painter. I have had numerous textures recently that didn't transfer correctly. Their Substance Source button stays broken.
I thought quixel was crap...
And substance painter is so incredibly easy to use and awesome...
for reference in the future; mixer is adding UDIMs in the 2021 version c: unsure about details regarding baking as of apr 26 2021
blender+armor paint+quixel is already pretty powerful.. and best of all its free... the two ones have quite a unique feature but are paid are 3d coat (splines) and zbrush( the brushes)
Quixel Mixer still made with Unity Engine! Open the Intalled folder you will see Unity files, the same when you build an app with...
Don't change what isn't broken.
@@Luxalpa No one asked for a change or replacement, just highlighting still made with Unity. :V
Note that Substance Pinter and Designer are available on Steam
He did note it.
@@3DJapan if I missed it, someone else might, can’t hurt to mention it
Hey, very helpful video, i'm very much a beginner in 3d modelling/art and texturing is one of my biggest gripes as i usually just use blender's tools.
Substance is very expensive for a hobbyist like myself and mixer is probably good for learning texturing.
I've also been looking at armorpaint, seems fairly robust and is built upon blender, a video comparing all three would be very helpful.
Only catch with armorpaint is that you can either buy it for 16 euros, still not expensive, or compile it yourself if you're savvy enough for it (which luckily i am since im a software engineer).
Well, if you can't afford the program - just pirate it. That how everyone starts. I don't believe that there is a person who would pay for photoshop or substance painter, kr any other professional program being a beginner who doesn't even know whether or not he will use it often. Of course if you are a professional making money you should pay for the licence, but every professional began as a hobbyist who learned their skills on a pirate version.
Substance is the crutch of most budding 3d artists wanting grungy metals. Its everywhere. It’s fun and I keep finding myself purchasing a license every other month but when dealing with creative director/tech artists, on a tight deadline, substance is good for a look dev concept art basis. When you have someone who knows lighting, know your shaders. Redshift is king. :)
I love mixer, but holy hell is substance versitile! As an environment artist, I need as much versatility as possible, from massive bakes to simple cubes, from insanely layered stuff to simple stylised or basic PBR materials, and any material type.
If mixer can add a baker and better material customisation, then I’d definitely choose it over Substance for personal stuff, simply because it’s free. But right now, Substance is just faster and more streamlined for what I need, so I’m sticking with Substance, as much as I hate Adobe’s business model.
Epic Games really should just develop software for the entire pipeline with the whole free for consumers kinda thing. Would be really cool to for example model, sculpt, texture etc all the things as, say, UAssets and have no trouble whatsoever importing that to unreal. Just a thought
2024 and in quixel mixer u still cant use decals or anything of such sort.
Teddy from Quixel has said they are working on baker and I'm almost certian eventually UDIMS as well. Haven't used mixer in a while but I remember it goes super slow on you when you have like 10-20 layers. Also, during installation, I always get a message that it has failed to download smart material packs. I think there are 4 of them.
Hopefully those come down the pipeline soon! I love Mixer so I hope it gets more attention :)
If you're talking about Blender's fast update pace, you weren't using it before 2.80. It was years between 2.79 and 2.80. they really only started adding all the features after they started getting grants.
Don't get me wrong. Blender is amazing. I'm just saying.
The one thing that made me switch to substance is... The displacement... Granted mixer does it well but you can not get the displaced mesh while with substance you can Wich is great if you need to make walls or pavement without having to model them in a 3d software
Well on the other hand you can displace your texture in almost any other app be it blender, zbrush or unreal. For me personally feels like mixer is fast but limited in procedural texturing. The sunstance might require more time but the texture will be modular and you will be able to reuse it later on and make tons of modifications to it
@@ahtiandr well I ended up just using mixer and unreal engine material... They are free
Substance painter "is very mature and Adobe has done a great job making the feature set both comprehensive and reliable"
Did they? or did they just buy it, rebrand it, and stop adding the cool new features algorithmic was adding. genuinely asking, cuz that's how it looks to me.
Its still a fantastic product, but i worry about its future for sure.
I am here because Substance has not released 2023 yet. Holding off buying 2022 as I feel 2023 is around the corner. Thinking of trying out Quixel before new version of Substance drops.
It is so odd... They usually release the next year version a month and a half before the next year comes
I would add Marmoset Toolbag 4's Texturing Tools to this as well. They are really amazing and in some ways also more flexible than SP, albeit also still lacking some features, like stencil projection. But, they at least have Opacity via Pen Pressure! ( This is huge, especiall forstlized) which similar to a color picker, Substance Painter never had and probably will never have (which makes the brush engine quirky for stylized, as you said in another comparison). So It is not really SP vs Mixer anymore , Marmoset is seriously good now and an even more mature alternative than Mixer already, which last time checked, even lacked decent tablet support. Marmoset pricing is also not similar to Adobe, you don't need to go subscription and they offer one time payment perpetual licenses. Huge difference.
Bro, I had no idea there was a one time payment plan on steam. Thank you so much! I was not gonna get it because of the subscription, but this is great!
Thanks for the tip! Didn't know this existed.
Excellent summary, thanks! As soon as you said Adobe I new price would be an issue.
xNormal is suppose to be good for baking. If so, and is good enough, may make Quixel all that much more appealing. Seeing as xNormal is free.
Why compare them? Substance isn't just a painter it's an entire suite that covers every aspect of texturing.
There really isn't any competition
'Adobe stepping up their game...' Wouldn't count on it
Can confirm the Course is fanatic. :)
As a Toolbag user, I'm going to give Quixel Mixer a shot. Honestly I have never enjoyed working in Substance. It feels very clunky and unintuitive. I honestly think it only took over because of Substance Designer's ability to pair with it.
ohhh Thomas
The 3D Coloring Book course seems what I need 😉✌
Since i'm fed up with adobe's shennanigans, I just stuck with Painter 1.x released on steam back on the day. Is the course still relevant for that version?
From what I read in the course page, I could even apply that to 3DCoat's workflow, right?
Cheers, mate
If you get Painter on Steam does it stop working after a year? Or do you get to keep that version forever?
I may be missing the point here, but if I have to bake my maps in blender anyway, and I can use the shading editor in blender to adjust materials I find for free off the internet anyway (considering I'm not going to use any of Quixel's from their paid library), and Quixel's paint brushes are almost just as shitty as blender's base brushes, then why the hell would I use Quixel Mixer? Because it has layers and blender doesn't? Seems really like the only advantage. I'm not opposed to paying for software that saves me a lot of time. I'm glad you mentioned the $150 for substance painter on steam because I wouldn't pay $20 a month to use it, but I would consider paying a one time fee to use it. Actually, having looked into it after I've written this, the $150 is only for updates for one year. After that you're stuck with your legacy version I guess? I have zero issues sculpting details in blender. I'm an amateur and the level of detail I can get with my wacom one tablet and pen are fine for me for now with blender. The problem I have is when I want to touch up details manually in blender, blender's default Texture Paint tab sucks balls. If you take the time to setup your brushes, it could be improved, but there are still no layers, which makes it god awful. Bpainter looks to be a great addon for blender that would work good for my workflow, but it is $40 normally, right now $30. Given that, the state of Armor paint, the state of Quixel Mixer, and Blender, I think Blender with Bpainter might be the least masochistic way of texturing for texture artists on the cheap.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t just crack all the programs. I find it weird that there is a pay wall to enter the games industry to even learn these software. Especially when in the future if more joined the games art community there would be more games and therefore more commercial uses of this software.
And Quixel mixer is free to use with ue4 for commercial use too. In fact, it's only free to use with ue4.
I am using Substance painter since it's first release, but as soon as Adobe gobbled it in it's ecosystem I just stopped updating and held on the last non-adobized release.
I am not so happy working on a 2017 version but it does it's job, and it's almost the same as the latest Adobe version.
This to say subscription business model slows down development speed and forces customer's devotion.
So when Mixer will be mature enough I'll jump ship, and I could be willing to pay for it. But only once.
If you're fed up with using 2017 version get the 2021 version on Steam with a lifetime license before Adobe take it away.
@@noneofyourbuisness2539 Thanks, I didn't know it was still there.
quixel mixer just got updated to 2022 version.
Would you like to make a new comparison video on this topic~
From a professional stand point, learn both.
Quixel Mixer and Armor Paint!
Yea you're right. We are barely into the future and we already have these features.
I have a feeling after recent news this video needs an update
you aren't wrong 👀
Which one should I learn? The one made by Adobe (no explanation needed) or the one that Epic Games made free and specifically for 3d/game design?
I think the answer is obvious, specially after yesterday's painter rebrand
Adobe doing a great job innovating Substance Painter? you mean good at buying out competition, then increase the monthly subs again.
I don't know man, I just bought Substance Painter on Steam today (the 2021 version) and synced it to my Substance account, and actually paid less for it than I did for the 2019 version... Sooo.
@@realtyrone I was talking about the usual Adobe, buying out competition then justifying a new software added to increase the monthly subscription(talking about the bundle subscription of Adobe)
Substance Painter itself is still great as long as the old team is still there withought being too much on a leash.
Kinda annoyed sometimes when they call it Adobe Painter or something when all they did was buy out the company.(or was it, the company was sold off)
You better start learning now, the learning curve is quite steep
@@MangaGamified I get your point, yes. I've had Substance Painter in my workflow for the last two years or so, and just upgraded to the latest version via Steam. I've enjoyed it so far. I've seen a few reviews saying the syncing option has been removed, but to my surprise, it hasn't. Quickly linked it by just clicking on the "resync products license" button (or something along those lines) and was presented with a .key file. Now running it outside of Steam like I did with the 2019 version. All in all, if I'm not binded to Adobe with a subscription, I'm happy! I even made the switch to Affinity Photo, just to get rid of Photoshop as a whole. Has worked out great. :)
Thank you for this video. I was looking exactly for this.
open source is the future, for the future, a future together, of harmony, and creation. 😎💖
Thanks for the video ! Did you tried ArmorPaint and if so what did you think about it ?
I'll wait until Mixer uses UDIM (Edited a few minutes later: oh! It already supports it!!)
Getting tired of these anti customer mindsets these companies are trying these days. CAN I JUST BUY THE DAMN PRODUCT ANYMORE!!! Either it’s free with limitations or a subscription. Just got into 3d sculpting the last couple years and it’s close to $100 a month just to art. I print all my stuf so this thing is meaningless to me its just crazy that almost every aspect of digital art is a subscription.
All of these texturing apps need proper 2D tool sets that include basic things like a pen tool and selections. Painter, Mixer and Designer all have shockingly bad 2D tools. In Painter and Mixer they're pretty much non-existent, meaning you have to roundtrip between them and Photoshop as soon as you need accurate selections or masks. Designer has an SVG node (not a painting app I know) but again that is severely limited compared to a proper vector editing tool like Illustrator etc. Obviously it's unlikely you're going to get all the functionality of Photoshop or Illustrator in a painting app but there's definitely a gap in the market for a tool that does this stuff to at least an acceptable level in a single tool. 3D Coat is about the closest out there to a fully cohesive 2D-3D workflow and has some great curve tools that allow it to do things impossible in Painter and Mixer. But its 2D tools are still not great and the UX/UI is markedly poor compared to the other tools, especially the layer stack. Hopefully one of these developers will address this stuff in the future because it could and should be possible to do all of your texturing work in a single app.
Payed for Adobe cloud "All apps" ongoing plan and this is one of the many apps not included. I guess il go back to torrent sites and discontinue my plan.
personally I now hope that mixer's going to allow for more procedural texture generation as well. :)
Hey, I use Daz3D and would just like to design sometimes my clothes new or give my chars a few new skin details, like a blushed face.
Using Gimp to draw on a flat map sucks really.
Is Mixer good enough to use it for Texturing my Surfaces? And can I save the result as PNG layer or whatever? That I can add it to every char, as example a new tattoo or a scar?
Saying "Adobe has made the feature set comprehensive" just sounds wrong. 0:25
I wish they would do more stylized quixel mixer tutorials
I have to wonder if either are worth it when I already have 3D-Coat.
Great video, Have you looked into armor paint? It's fully free!(provided you compile it yourself) or just a pre compiled version for €16.
The developments had a good steady speed so I think it's definitely worth a look.
Yes I have! I'll probably do a 'free substance painter alternatives' video in the future :)
I haven't played with mixer yet, the last time I saw it it was only used to mix negacans materials, no baking and no symmetry is pretty much awful, but w/e might as well try. I'll also have to check price for pro usage
mixer seems dead to me. old tutorials.. no updates.. no support :(
If Epic delivers on their promises for unreal engine 5 then at least for unreal artists the lack of baking won’t matter. I’m sure they’ll add it eventually anyway though.
Why do people think devs will just use their meshes straight from zbrush? Baking will still exist and still be used in UE5 nearly as much as it is now. Theres no need to package a game with characters that span over 1,000,000 triangles as its just a waste of disc space.
@@SneakyKittyGameDev Because it *won't actually BE* 1,000,000 tris once it's in the game. Everything will be compressed down on it's own. That's the whole thing they were trying to explain.
@@MiketheNerdRanger I didnt say in game I said disc space
Mixer can be used for commercial use for free
maybe with mixer 2020 it was a question open but with the release of mixer 2021, there is no reason left to pay further stupid subscriptions. Let's not talk about this proprietary file format in my pipeline to profit from all the goodies. Quixel has done a great job, in combination with Bridge, it works with all software flawless.
Just use mixer for organic texture and substance for hard surface and artificial textures. Never rely on one software.
Thanks for the insights!