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Frequently asked questions | Substance 3D Viewer

Substance 3D Viewer (beta) is now available for creative professionals to incorporate 3D into their 2D designs using an integration with Photoshop (beta) app, or as a standalone application to view, customize, and create imagery from their 3D files. 

Anyone with an Adobe ID can download Adobe Substance 3D Viewer (beta) app. Simply log into Creative Cloud using your Adobe ID. Navigate to the Beta apps and scroll to find the product listing. If you don’t see it, check with your IT department as your Adobe ID may be linked to an Enterprise account. Your IT manager may have disabled access to Beta apps through their admin access. They may have to request access on your behalf at the account level.   

Substance 3D Viewer (beta) is a desktop app that allows graphic designers to seamlessly open, view, and integrate 3D models directly in Adobe Creative Cloud, unlocking 3D as a new creative medium to create, iterate, and enhance designs – all within the Creative Cloud tools they use and trust every day. Designers can use it to create product visualizations and marketing materials or to simply open and view 3D models on their desktop. It works with Photoshop (beta) app and runs on Windows and Mac OS. For more information, visit our beta page

Announced as an open beta at Adobe MAX, October 14, 2023, Adobe Substance 3D Viewer is a free download for everyone with an Adobe ID for the duration of the beta. It does not require an active Adobe Creative Cloud or Substance 3D subscription during public beta.   Customers can download Substance 3D Viewer from the Creative Cloud desktop app. For more information, visit our beta page.  

Customers can download Substance 3D Viewer from the Creative Cloud desktop app. Viewer is available in English, French, German, and Japanese. It will default to English where the local language is not available. For more information, visit our beta page.  

Adobe Substance 3D Viewer (beta) runs on Windows and Mac OS. It requires at least 4 GB of VRAM or unified memory, and 5 GB of free disk space is recommended for installation and project saving. More detailed system requirements are available here.

Viewer is available as an open beta for free to anyone with an Adobe ID.  No active subscription to Creative Cloud or Substance 3D is required to use it. Users can download Viewer from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

  1. Substance 3D Viewer (beta) has a unique integration to Photoshop (beta) app that allows 3D objects to be added as smart objects. It also has unique generative features that allows to use a 3D scene to drive the look and composition of Firefly image generation, as well as creating 3D models from a text prompt.
  2. Viewer does not yet support decaling, advanced lighting, and multi-object layout tools but
  3. you can export your Dimension and Stager data using USD and import those files into Viewer. You may experience some differences in appearance, but generally most files should import correctly. More tools to bring the workflow capabilities closer in line will be expanded in the future.
  4. Stager and Dimension have more features for layout, lighting, and rendering control at this time.

Please see the Stager product page for more information

No changes to plans for Adobe Dimension or Substance 3D Stager are happening at this time.  

While in beta, we encourage you to use the Substance 3D Viewer community to report issues.  Official support channels will be open, but will have limited support until after the beta period. Visit our forums page

In the Photoshop (beta) app, you can use 3D models as Smart Object layers within your 2D designs, allowing you to move, scale, and apply filters to them like any other Photoshop layer. When you need to adjust the 3D model itself, Substance 3D Viewer (beta) allows you to modify camera angles, lighting, shadows, and even edit materials on the model with changes automatically sent back to Photoshop. In this workflow, Photoshop is used for overall composition, placement, and 2D editing of designs, while Substance 3D Viewer is used to make detailed adjustments to 3D objects. For more support, visit our forums page.

If you don't see Substance 3D Viewer (beta) in the Creative Cloud Desktop app:

  1. Make sure that you're looking at the beta apps section.
    1. In the header bar of the Apps section, select Beta to display Beta apps.
  2. If Viewer doesn't appear in the Beta section, Check if your device meets the minimum system requirements.  Unsupported devices like Windows ARM and Linux will not show the application.  Check the system requirements for more details.
  3. If your device meets the system requirements, it's possible that your account is part of an organization and IT may have disabled access to the Beta. If this is the case, contact your IT department to request access.
  4. If your account is not part of an organization, please contact support for assistance.

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