Substance 3D materials for Photoshop

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Substance Materials Overview

Substance Materials can be created and customized using specialized Adobe applications, Substance 3D Designer or Substance 3D Sampler. Materials represent photorealistic surfaces (like cloth, stone, marble, brick, metal, etc.) with customizable attributes (like light reflectivity, lighting angles, patterns or random effects like scratches or aged material) that can be wrapped around objects in 3D-enabled applications to blend them realistically into a 3D composition.

Materials can be shared and used in Adobe and other 3rd party applications to add state-of-the-art realism to any 3D composition.

Pioneered by the Adobe Research team, the Substance Photoshop plugin is an extension that allows Photoshop users to have access to the power of Substance materials, formerly reserved for 3D native applications. Within Photoshop, these materials are great for boosting the photo-realism of architectural renditions or interior designs, or as added content options for more abstract digital creations. They can be thought of like Photoshop’s existing patterns, but with controls for limitless variations and a more sophisticated (and different) workflow for editing and applying than existing Photoshop patterns.  

Panel interface

Additional points to remember when working with the Substance 3D plugin

• The panel is context-sensitive, meaning that it will not allow interaction unless there is a valid ‘target’ layer. A valid layer is either a pixel layer or a selection on a pixel layer, or a smart object. The plugin will either create a new layer or replace a material previously applied to a layer.  
• Note that currently, the Photoshop plugin only supports .sbsar format; .sbs, .sbsm, .spsm are not supported.  
• Panel Resize: You may resize the entire panel using the Resize control at the bottom and sides of the panel. The divider between the material previews and properties can be adjusted with the divider following the Built-in Materials section.  

Variable material parameters (Substance Properties) are properties that vary by material and only the properties that are exposed by the material author are available for tweaking.

Lighting Panel & Properties: The lighting applied to materials can be edited in the Lighting tab. Here there are controls to change the rotation and height of the lighting relative to the material’s surface: 

A. Change the color and exposure of the light 

B.  You can adjust these controls to modify how the light reflects on your material.

Working with Materials 

• Applying a Material: To apply a material, select one of the material previews in the panel while the layer is selected. This will duplicate the selected layer as a Smart Object with the selected material applied as a Smart Filter. To create additional material layers, select another layer with no materials applied before selecting a preview in the Materials tab.
  
• Applying Materials to Layers with Marquee Selections: If a layer has a marquee selection, applying a material to that layer will create a duplicate of the selected layer as a Smart Object with the selected material applied as a Smart Filter and a layer mask created from the marquee selection. 
• Applying Materials to Text Layers: Applying a material when a text layer is selected will create a new layer over the text as a Smart Object and the selected material applied as a Smart Filter. This layer will be set as a clipping mask to reveal the material only where there is text.
• Duplicating Materials: When duplicating a material layer (shortcut: Ctrl/Command + J), a copy of the layer is made with the same material assigned to it. Any parameter adjustments made in the original will be copied over to the duplicate. 
  
• Tiling Materials: In the material properties, the Repeat X and Repeat Y properties are automatically configured to the ratio of your image to avoid stretching. These can be adjusted individually to tile the material along the X and Y axis. Additionally, Repeat Uniformly can be enabled to adjust the tiling uniformly along both axes via the Repeat Uniform Scalar slider. This slider will preserve the current Repeat X and Repeat Y ratio. 
• Adding a new Material Layer: To add a material layer, select one of the material presets. This will convert the currently selected layer into a Smart Object with a layer mask, and the selected Material will be applied as a Smart Filter. If a material layer already exists, selecting a non-material layer before selecting a preview in the Materials tab will convert it into a new material layer.
• Updating material: When a material layer is selected, selecting another preview in the Materials tab will update the material in the selected layer.
• Transforms: Before applying transformations, the material layer must be converted to a Smart Object. This parent Smart Object will display transformations applied to it. The material parameters can be adjusted by opening the Smart Object and selecting the material layer. Saving after making parameter changes will display those changes in the parent Smart Object.
• Blending material layers: Blend modes can be used to improve the realism of your image. In the following example, a black and white copy of the base image is placed on top of the material layers and set to an Overlay blend mode. This has the effect of transferring lighting and shadows from the base image to your material layers. The blend mode of individual material layers or the Smart Objects containing them can also be adjusted to achieve the desired look.

• Smart Objects: Smart Objects are layers that preserve an image's source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer. Smart Objects can be used with substance materials to transform and make other secondary adjustments to a layer without altering the base material layer.
• Masks: Material layers are created with a layer mask, which can be used to hide and reveal parts of the layer. When applying transformations to a layer, first unlink the layer mask and move it to a temporary layer before converting the layer to a Smart Object and applying the transformation, then re-attach the mask (see Transforms) 
  
• Materials as brushes: Substance materials can also be used as brush presets. To start, load a new Substance material into a new document with a large resolution at a 1:1 ratio. Transparent Substance materials work best, such as Medium Road Eroded Cracks from the Adobe Substance 3D Assets page in the example below. Once the material layer is created, go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and name the preset as desired. In your working document, create a new layer, switch to the Brush Tool, and select your brush from the list. In the Brush Settings, attributes such as Spacing, Angle Jitter, and Size Jitter can be customized to randomize the brush strokes. Note that this method does not include the color information of the material in the brush.

If you would like to include the color of a Substance Material in the brush, you can load the material into a document and sample it with the Mixer Brush tool set to Dry, Heavy Load.

The Brush settings can be adjusted as described previously, and the brush layer can be blended as desired.

Filters: Filters applied to material layers will be applied as Smart Filters. This type of non-destructive filter remains listed under the Smart Object and can be re-adjusted or turned on and off.

Common questions

How can I match the material’s lighting to my composition?

Matching the lighting on your material with the lighting of other images on your canvas can be done by editing the light’s settings in the Lighting tab of the plugin. While each composition or photo you are trying to match may have unique lighting, try to match it by looking at the direction of the strongest light in your photo. This might be from the sun in outdoor images, or a bright point of light in interior images. You can then tweak the exposure to adjust the brightness of your material’s light to match your image, and the color tone of the light. As you start working with materials layers, you will notice that the light’s effect can be seen more distinctly on some materials than on others. This depends on the type of material you are using, for example a rock wall material might show more distinct shadows and highlights (i.e., more contrast), while a flat paint material might show less. Generally, it’s helpful to adjust the material’s light settings until you get something that is close to your overall composition. 

Where can I get additional materials? 

Adobe offers a large repository of Substance 3D assets online. The plugin provides a direct link to this asset library (buttons next to the search field). More free materials shared by other Substance community members  can also be fetched from Substance 3D community assets.

How can I make my OWN materials presets? Should I learn how to use Substance Designer or Sampler?

You can create your own materials using Substance Designer or Substance Sampler. 

Substance 3D Designer is a node-based materials and model authoring tool. Nodes are used to provide deep levels of creative control with unique noises and patterns.

Check out Designer's Product Page for more details on Designer, as well as learning material in our Designer First Steps tutorial series.

Substance 3D Sampler transforms real-world photos into 3D materials. An extensive library of filters, generators, and effects let you quickly explore the endless variations with a familiar layer-based approach.

Check out Sampler's Product Page for more details on Sampler, as well as learning material in our Sampler First Steps tutorial series and some specifics on the Image to Material capabilities.

What material formats are supported? 

The plugin supports .sbsar files which could be generated from Substance Sampler or Designer. Substance Painter files are not supported in this version.

Can I export Materials presets from Painter, Stager, Dimension etc.?  

Materials from Substance Painter or Stager cannot be exported and imported in the plugin. Additional materials can be downloaded from Substance 3D assets or Substance 3D community assets websites.

Why and when should Substance materials be used in Photoshop?

Substance materials are a great replacement for any workflows in Photoshop where a texture or pattern is needed. Since Substance materials are parametric and highly customizable, you will find you have much more freedom to get unique visual results. Plus, you can always go back and edit them if you want to keep exploring.

How can I change the visual perspective of my material layer?

As described above you can convert your whole material layer to a new smart object and then use Photoshop’s transform controls such as skew or distort (found under the Edit > Transform menu) to adjust the perspective of your material. Another way to adjust your material layer’s perspective without converting it to a smart object is to use Photoshop’s Perspective warp (found under the Edit > Perspective warp menu item). This will allow you to tweak the visual perspective of your material layer nondestructively and see the results in real-time on your canvas. 

Why do some materials take longer to update when I change parameters? 

Materials can have large bitmaps integrated as part of the design, and these larger presents can slow down the rendering time. Please be patient with these larger models, and expect that sometimes very large bitmaps might be embedded in additional materials that you might download from the web.

Known issues

The following text may not be translated in some locales:

• Updating...

• Restore default materials

• Material Deletion Warning 

• The selected material is currently applied to a layer, if deleted, it will no longer be editable.

• Default included materials can now be hidden and restored; Panel sections can be resized