Advertisement

You're blocking ads, which pay for BlenderNation. Read about other ways to support us.

Substance Painter Live Link by Hedgehog Labs

7

A new Blender add-on is creating a live connection between Substance Painter and Blender - with one click it will update Blender's material settings to match those in Painter.

Ymmanuel writes:

Substance Painter Live Link is an add on that enables a connection between Substance Painter and multiple DCC’s such as Blender, Maya and MODO.

Essentially it allows you to set up textures sets easily as well as updating them directly from Allegorythmic’s Substance Painter.

Backstory

I am an avid fan of the stuff CGI companies do to innovate and help artists and creators, and while approaching some projects I noticed that the best results for said projects comes from the diverse use and integration of the tools you have at hand. This lead me to think in a way to entwine those tools and make it easier and faster to visualize results may them be in Maya, MODO, Blender, etc.

As soon as I started testing this plug-in on my own projects it has already saved me time in going from a basic shaders to multiple texture sets in many assets and scenes and hope it will help CGI artists all around too.

About the plugin

The plugin currently works with Maya, Blender and MODO by allowing you to connect Substance Painter with the DCC you use or prefer.

Basically you just have to set up the connection via the plug in UI, and send the texture sets you are working on. The Live link will create or update the materials on your DCC automatically. Allowing you to tweak your textures in Substance Painter and update them really fast without having to rely on multiple exports

The current version of the SPLiveLink works for:

  • Substance Painter 2017+
  • MODO 10 and 11 (Default PBR,UE4 Materials,Unity Materials)
  • Blender 2.79 and 2.80 (Using Principled Shader)
  • Maya and Maya LT (Arnold version must have the latest Surface Shader to work)

Upcoming Pipeline of features/integrations (no particular order)

  • UDIMS support
  • Linux compatibility
  • Vray integration (all platforms)
  • 3DS Max integration
  • Marmoset Toolbag integration
  • C4D Integration
  • Houdini Integration
  • Corona Integration (3DS Max)
  • Octane Integration (all platforms)
  • Renderman Integration (all platforms)
  • Arnold (pre Surface shader)
  • Blender (pre Principled shader)
  • Unity integration (alternative to allegorithmic's implementation)
  • UE4 integration (alternative to allegorithmic's implementation)
  • Lumberyard integration (alternative to allegorithmic's implementation)

After I tested it on my workflow I really thought this should be a default functionality of Substance Painter and that is why I decided to give it out for free and opened for people to put their own price depending on how useful they found it was for them.

If you want to support the development, all the sales from the plug in will go towards the acquisition of the licenses and hardware needed to develop the rest of the features and integration with new DCCs and platforms.

You can find more about what we are currently working on in:
Twitter: @hedgehog_labs
Youtube: /hedgehog_labs

7 Comments

  1. Nice project, i have tried to install you plugin in substance painter linux vertion, it looks painter see plugin, but when i trye to install in blnder 2.79 (kubuntu linux OS) it gives me python errors

    search for unknown operator 'VIEW3D_OT_cursor3d_enhanced', 'VIEW3D_OT_cursor3d_enhanced'
    fake_module: addon missing 'bl_info' gives bad performance!: '/home/User/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/addons/VrayMaterialConvert-master/__init__.py'
    fake_module: addon missing 'bl_info' gives bad performance!: '/home/User/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/addons/hh_painter.py'
    fake_module: addon missing 'bl_info' gives bad performance!: '/home/User/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/addons/io_export_u3d_blender249.py'
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/home/User/Documents/blender-2.79-linux-glibc219-x86_64 OFICIALUS/2.79/scripts/modules/addon_utils.py", line 331, in enable
    mod = __import__(module_name)
    File "/home/User/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/addons/hh_connect/__init__.py", line 33, in
    appdata_path = os.path.join(os.environ['APPDATA'],"Hedgehog Connect")
    File "/home/User/Documents/blender-2.79-linux-glibc219-x86_64 OFICIALUS/2.79/python/lib/python3.5/os.py", line 725, in __getitem__
    raise KeyError(key) from None
    KeyError: 'APPDATA'

  2. So I have this set up in Substance and Blender , but it does not seem to work I get an error message in Sub saying "(map exporter) the map "default material Opacity" cant be generated for the texture set "default material.
    It also seems to be missing the input maps.

    Is there any documentation on how to set this up , in the video I can see it working but now how to make it work.
    Thanks for your time.

  3. Purchased it in the morning, small issue solved by support in less than an hour.
    The plugin is simply genius!
    Keep on!

  4. Is there any way to control which maps this outputs? I use a custom setup in Substance Painter, with a couple of different maps, this always wants to export a standard set.

Leave A Reply

To add a profile picture to your message, register your email address with Gravatar.com. To protect your email address, create an account on BlenderNation and log in when posting a message.

Advertisement

×