This presentation was shown at GDC 2016 and showcases the Substance pipeline in the Amazon Lumberyard game engine.

1. SUBSTANCE TEXTURING PIPELINE
Artwork by Anton Cheikin and Ekaterina Stoycheva

2. Modeling UV Mapping
Sculpting
Retopology
SUBSTANCE
B2M
Source Input
Textures - Scans
SUBSTANCE
PAINTER
Baking
SUBSTANCE
DESIGNER
Baking
Game Engine
3D Application
Bitmap
Substance
Material
Asset Creation Phase
Texturing Phase
SUBSTANCE TEXTURING PIPELINE OVERVIEW
3D/2D painting:
Props and characters
Node-based
pipeline tool
Substance Integration
• Unreal Engine
• Unity
• Lumberyard
• Marmoset Toolbag 2
• Maya
• 3ds Max
• MODO
• Cinema 4D
• iClone
• Fuse
Create material from single
source
Integrated bakingIntegrated baking

3. WHAT IS A SUBSTANCE MATERIAL?
A Substance is a set of dynamic textures that are used to describe
the attributes of a surface and are packaged into a lightweight and
versatile format.
Substances are shader agnostic and can be used in a wide-range of
applications and renders. The textures in a substance can be either
procedural, bitmap or a combination of both.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
A Substance is most commonly used to dramatically lower texture
size and thus ultimately the overall binary size of the game.
When comprised of only procedural textures, Substances weigh in at
only a few Kbs in size. They have the ability to create full materials
that can be regenerated to various resolutions.
Furthermore, textures in a Substance can be dynamic. Parameters,
created by the Substance artist, can be changed in a host application
through a simple user-interface. The parameters can randomize the
textures or even create new iterations such as adding snow to
ground. All of this without ever leaving the host application. The
Substance parameters can be accessed at runtime as well using
scripts in your game engine or animated in a 3D program using
keyframes.
SUBSTANCE
MATERIAL
Base color
Normal
Roughness
Ambient Occlusion
Substance Native
Integration
• Unreal Engine
• Unity
• Lumberyard
• Marmoset Toolbag 2
• Maya
• 3ds Max
• MODO
• Cinema 4D
• iClone
• Fuse

4. WHAT IS SUBSTANCE DESIGNER?
It is a node-based texture compositing tool that allows you to
create Substance materials or bitmap textures.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
Substance Designer is used to texture assets and also bake model
information (ex: normal, displacement, curvature etc.).
It contains a wide library of tools, materials and procedural effects
to help you achieve your goals in a fully non-destructive workflow.
It is best suited for texturing props and environment assets and
creating reusable templates. Typically, Substance Designer is
used by tech artists.
WHAT FORMATS DOES IT EXPORT?
Substance Designer can output a Substance Material that can be
used in a 3D app or game engine through the Substance plugin. It
also exports various bitmap formats It will auto-export bitmaps so
that any changes in the graph, will export the textures.
Artwork by Andreas Stromberg

5. WHAT IS SUBSTANCE PAINTER?
Substance Painter is a 3D Painting app with unique features and
workflow improvements to make the creation of textures for 3D
assets easier than ever. It is acknowledged as the most innovative
and user-friendly 3D Painter available.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
Substance Painter is used to texture assets and also bake model
information (ex: normal, displacement, curvature etc.).
Substance Painter allows you to paint full PBR materials across
several channels in 3D or 2D. It has a wide-array of painting tools
and allows you to work with alphas, stencils and project textures
onto the mesh. It also has an innovative particle brush system to
paint with particle simulations.
It is best suited for texturing props and character assets.
Substance Painter is an artist tool.
WHAT FORMATS DOES IT EXPORT?
Substance Painter exports various bitmap formats that can be
used in any game engine or application. The export utility allows
you to pack maps into channels using presets that are fully
configurable.
Artwork by David Connely

6. WHAT IS SUBSTANCE B2M?
Substance B2M is an incredibly powerful tool that helps you
generate full, seamlessly tiling materials from any bitmap image,
right within your favorite DCC tool & game engine. This includes
PBR (Physically-Based Rendering) channels, based on the most
accurate conversion algorithm available.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
Substance B2M is used to generate full PBR and non-PBR
materials from a single texture input. It can be used to extrapolate
normal and height images as well as create seamless textures.
WHAT FORMATS DOES IT EXPORT?
Substance B2M can export various bitmap formats from the
standalone application. You can also import B2M as a Substance
material into a 3D application or game engine and have full control
over the generated textures.
Source image
Substance B2M 3 in Unreal Engine 4

7. WHAT IS SUBSTANCE B2M?
Substance B2M is an incredibly powerful tool that helps you
generate full, seamlessly tiling materials from any bitmap image,
right within your favorite DCC tool & game engine. This includes
PBR (Physically-Based Rendering) channels, based on the most
accurate conversion algorithm available.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
Substance B2M is used to generate full PBR and non-PBR
materials from a single texture input. It can be used to extrapolate
normal and height images as well as create seamless textures.
WHAT FORMATS DOES IT EXPORT?
Substance B2M can export various bitmap formats from the
standalone application. You can also import B2M as a Substance
material into a 3D application or game engine and have full control
over the generated textures.

8. WHAT IS SUBSTANCE LIVE?
Substance Live is a unique rent-to-own system. It gives you freedom on how you
want to spend your money: our payment system allows you to pay monthly, and
lets you pause, resume or pay the remaining amount at any time, making you own
the licenses. You can also choose to make a single payment and still benefit from
the services!
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Substance Live is available as soon as you have the 3 software on your
Allegorithmic account.
New customers: purchase Substance Live either in one-time payment or monthly
payment.
Existing customers: Upgrade to Substance Live to own the whole Suite and benefit
from exclusive services.
WHAT DO I GET?
Substance Live Indie
$19.90 per month - $320 total
Includes
• Substance Designer
• Substance Painter
• Substance B2M
• Technology preview access
• Monthly Substance drop
Optional
• Premium support
Yearly revenue limited to $100K
Substance Live Pro
$64.90 per month - $990 total
Includes
• Substance Designer
• Substance Painter
• Substance B2M
• Technology preview access
• Monthly Substance drop
• Premium support
Yearly revenue limited to $1M