Substance 3D Sampler 3.0.0 is the new name for Substance Alchemist now that it's connected to Adobe Creative Cloud. It brings a complete UI rework, support for creating Environment Lights, fully reworked and new filters, Send To functionality and ASM shader support.

Release date: 23 June 2021

Major features

New interface and panel management

With a new name, comes a new look. Sampler's UI has been completely revamped to allow for more customization and easier access.

Panels can be docked and undocked, letting you fully utilize a dual screen set up.

New Project workflow

Sampler now works with projects. The Project panel lets you manage and group your assets per project. Projects are stored in Substance Sampler files, easily shared.

New Assets panel

The asset panel is a new and common design of the Resources panel, combined with your collections.

• 3 Sections: Starter Assets + Your Assets + Connected local folders
• New Asset types support: filters and images
• Narrow/Wide view
• Filter and search filters

New Environment Light authoring

Sampler now lets you make more than just materials. Environment Lights are a new type of asset with their own set of filters. Start from bracketed 360 photo's, build an environment light from scratch, or edit an existing HDR file.

Reworked and new filters

All existing filters have been reworked:

• Support for spec/gloss channels.
• Support for custom masks
• Standardized parameter names
• Icons for nearly every filter

The Adjustment Filter has been split into separate filters based on functionality, to mimic Photoshop:

A few new filters have been added:

• Warp Transform
• Weave
• Panel

New Send To Functionality

Sampler can now easily share materials and light environments with Substance 3D Painter and Stager, in just a single click.

New Real-time Rendering Engine

• Support of ASM materials, enabling consistent looks between applications with more material channels.
• Switch between 2 Real time engines
• Ability to control default textures on a mesh

General improvements

• New languages
• Application responsiveness
• Non-square textures support
• Tools Undo/Redo
• Assign custom usages to images in the Image Import Layer
• Reset a parameter value
• Export progress in Windows' taskbar

Tutorials

Below are our video tutorials covering the new features:

Release notes

3.0.0 Waffle

(Released June 23, 2021)

Added:

• [Branding] Substance Alchemist becomes Adobe Substance 3D Sampler
• [Branding] New application icons
• [UI] New User Experience and User Interface
• [UI] New Splashscreen
• [UI] Panels are undockable and dockable in the interface
• [UI] Dock up to 3 panels in the same column
• [UI] Dock up to 3 panels in the same panel (Tabs)
• [UI] Undock panels to create a separate window in the same or a different screen
• [UI] Closed panels pop-over when clicking on their icons
• [UI] Re-arrange your left and right bar by moving panels icons
• [UI] New toolbar to access directly specific filters (Crop, Transform, Perspective Transform, Clone Stamp)
• [UI] New "Get Content" button in the left bar
• [UI] Import files directly in your assets with the Get Content button
• [UI] Import files directly to your Layers with the Get Content button
• [UI] Access directly Adobe Substance 3D Assets website with the Get Content button
• [UI] Resolution widget is now directly accessible in the viewport
• [UI] All UI elements now are loaded dynamically
• [UI] Shortcut - Use "2" to toggle the visibility of the 2D view
• [UI] Shortcut - Use "3" to toggle the visibility of the 3D view
• [Welcome Screen] Create a project in one-click with the New button
• [Welcome Screen] New artwork banner
• [Project] All projects are now associated to a unique file
• [Project] New project file extension .ssa
• [Project] Save as a project will ask you to select where to save your project
• [Project] Closing Sampler will ask you to save your project if not saved
• [Project] Closing Sampler will ask you to save your project if there are modifications since the last save
• [Project] The name of your project is displayed above the viewport
• [Project] The project name is in italics with a star if it is not saved or if it contains modifications since the last save
• [Project] Open a .ssa project file directly from your OS explorer
• [Project] Open a .sbsar from your OS explorer will launch Sampler with a new project with this .sbsar file ready to use
• [Project] Open a .alch (legacy Substance Alchemist file) from your OS explorer
• [Project Panel] New panel that will contain all assets created within a project
• [Project Panel] Create an asset (material or environment light) using the + icon
• [Project Panel] Right-click on asset opens a context menu
• [Project Panel] From the right-click context menu, you can delete an asset
• [Project Panel] From the right-click context menu, you can duplicate an asset
• [Project Panel] From the right-click context menu, you can rename an asset
• [Project Panel] Switching between assets won't lose modifications
• [Resolution] You can now set non-square resolution for all your assets
• [Resolution] The resolution value is saved by asset within a project
• [Environment Light] Create environment light within Substance 3D Sampler
• [Environment Light] When creating an environment light, dragging and dropping image(s) will display the Environment Light Creation Template Window
• [Environment Light] In the Environment Light Creation Template, select Environment Import to assign your image to the environment in the 3D view
• [Environment Light] In the Environment Light Creation Template, select HDR merge to create an environment light from several 360-degrees images with different exposure
• [Environment Light] In the Environment Light Creation Template, select "Use as bitmap" to edit your image(s) before creating an environment light
• [Environment Light] Assign the environment usage in the Image Import layer to directly assign the image to the environment in the 3D view
• [Environment Light] In the 2D view for the environment channel, there is an automatic color correction to have the rendering appear the same as in the 3D view
• [Environment Light] New dedicated content for environment light creation
• [Assets Panel] The Resources and Filters panels are merged in a new Assets panel
• [Assets Panel] The Assets panel now supports the following asset types: materials, filters and images
• [Assets Panel] All Starter Assets are accessible in the Starter Assets section
• [Assets Panel] Starter Assets section is read-only
• [Assets Panel] New "Your Assets" section
• [Assets Panel] "Your Assets" section is the place where you can import all your resources
• [Assets Panel] All assets in "Your assets" are added in a specific folder in your Documents
• [Assets Panel] Connect local folders in the Assets panel to add new sections
• [Assets Panel] The search will search in the current folder and its subfolders
• [Assets Panel] Navigate between folders and subfolders with breadcrumbs
• [Assets Panel] Filter the current folder by material, by filter or by image
• [Assets Panel] Combine several filters to get only materials and images
• [Assets Panel] Change the display by switching between a grid or a list
• [Assets Panel] Filters are represented with their icon
• [Assets Panel] Images are represented with their preview
• [Assets Panel] Increasing the width will change the layout of the panel with a specific view to navigate between folders
• [Assets Panel] On non read-only sections, delete an asset by dragging an dropping it on the bin icon
• [Assets Panel] Right-click on asset opens a context menu
• [Assets Panel] From the right-click context menu, access the asset metadata (name, category, location)
• [Assets Panel] From the right-click context menu, delete the asset (only available on non read-only sections)
• [Assets Panel] From the right-click context menu, browse your asset in Adobe Bridge
• [Layers Panel] New icon to directly add a base material on top of your layers
• [Layers Panel] Shortcut - Shift + B will add a base material on top of your layers
• [Layers Panel] Layers now have a thumbnail preview (Material thumbnail, filter icon or Image preview)
• [Properties Panel] New design of the Properties panel title with the asset name and the asset thumbnail
• [Properties Panel] Filter Layers now support presets
• [Properties Panel] On Image Import Layer, right-click on the image preview to edit the image in Photoshop
• [Adobe Bridge] Browse your Asset in Adobe Bridge, will launch Bridge at the location of the asset
• [Adobe Photoshop] Edit in Adobe Photoshop will open the image in Photoshop ready to be edited
• [Adobe Photoshop] At each save in Adobe Photoshop, the edited image will be reloaded in Sampler
• [Substance 3D Designer] Assets sent from Adobe Substance 3D Designer will arrive directly in the "Your Assets" section of the Assets panel
• [Export] Send assets directly to Adobe Substance 3D Painter and Adobe Substance 3D Stager
• [Export] Send materials and environment lights to Adobe Substance 3D Painter
• [Export] Send environment lights to Adobe Substance 3D Stager
• [Rendering] New material properties are now supported and rendered in 3D
• [Rendering] Adding Sheen support (Sheen color, Sheen opacity and Sheen roughness)
• [Rendering] Adding Coating support (Coat color, Coat Roughness, Coat Normal, Coat Specular Level and Coat IOR)
• [Rendering] Adding Anisotropy support (Anisotropy Level and Anisotropy Angle)
• [Rendering] Adding Specular Edge Color support
• [Rendering] Activate these new properties in the Channel Settings panel
• [Rendering] Introduction of a new Realtime Engine (2021) renderer in Beta
• [Rendering] Switch between the two Renderer versions in the Viewer Settings panel
• [Rendering] The Realtime Engine (2021) renderer supports translucency, absorption and scattering material properties
• [Rendering] The Realtime Engine (2021) renderer introduces a new way to compute shadows from the environment light
• [Rendering] The Realtime Engine (2021) renderer computes in realtime the irradiance of the environment light
• [Shader Settings Panel] New Shader Settings panel to tweak specific material shader parameters
• [Shader Settings Panel] New parameters (Normal scale, height scale, height level, Emission intensity, IOR, Coat normal intensity and Coat IOR)
• [Shader Settings Panel] Specific parameters for the Realtime Engine 2021 (Subsurface Scattering, Scattering Distance, Red Shift and Rayleigh Scattering)
• [Shader Settings Panel] The settings values are saved per asset
• [Viewer Settings Panel] Added a preview of the default environment lights
• [Viewer Settings Panel] Added a preview of the default meshes
• [Viewer Settings Panel] New environment opacity parameter
• [Viewer Settings Panel] New environment blur parameter (specific to the Realtime Engine 2021 renderer)
• [Localization] New translations in German and French
• [Content] New default starter materials
• [Content] New default environment lights
• [Content] All filters have been updated, cleaned, and optimized
• [Content] The Adjustment filter has been split into several filters
• [Content] New Brightness/Contrast filter
• [Content] New Hue/Saturation filter
• [Content] New Vibrance filter
• [Content] New Sharpen filter
• [Content] New Normal/Height adjustment
• [Content] New Panels filter
• [Content] New Smudge filter
• [Content] New Weaves filter
• [Content] New Warp transform filter
• [Content] New Height to AO filter
• [Content] New Height to Normal filter
• [Content] Color Replace - Replace in new supported channels (Sheen, Coating, Anisotropy,...)
• [Content] Color variation - Manual mode to select exactly the colors to change
• [Content] Tiling - option to visualize the seams cut
• [Content] Tiling - option to paint the seams cut for a perfect tiling
• [Content] Match - option to add a material to match its color and its roughness
• [Content] Match - it now works on images to match the color of another image
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Color Temperature filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Exposure filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Exposure Preview filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Nadir Patch filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Nadir Extract filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Lights filters (Sphere, Line, Shape, Plane)
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Panorama Patch filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New Straighten Horizon filter
• [Content] Environment ligth - New HDR merge filter

Known Issues:

• [Realtime Engine 2021] Changing the layout, crash the application
• [Realtime Engine 2021] Heavy computation, crash the application
• [Panels] MacOS - Undocked panels are in front of all applications
• [Widgets] Transform and Positions widgets can disappear. Hide and Unhide the layer to make them appear.
• [Export] SBSAR export of an environment light loses the 32bit depth precision
• [Assets Panel] Assets can be highlighted when opening a folder
• [Properties Panel] Resetting the parameters doesn't reset the combobox UI
• [Localization] Changing language doesn't affect the project panel until it's recreated