Overview
Painter changed how texturing is done by putting the paint on the model rather than on a flat unwrapped sheet. You brush directly onto the mesh in a lit viewport, the strokes land across UV seams without a break, and every layer carries a full physically based material rather than a single colour. What comes out at the end is a set of maps ready for whatever engine or renderer the model is going into.
This is the full desktop build with the licensing applied. There is no seven day trial, no sign-in requirement, no export restriction and no watermark baked into the maps. The shelf of materials, brushes, alphas and smart masks is fully populated offline rather than streamed from an asset service, so the program is completely usable with the machine disconnected.
Painting on the mesh
Layers work the way an image editor's layers work, which is why the program is easy to pick up if you have textured anything before. The difference is that a layer here writes to several channels at once: base colour, roughness, metalness, height, normal and whatever else the shader exposes. Painting a scratch puts down the colour, the roughness change and the height displacement in one stroke.
Masks are where the real work happens. A mask can be painted by hand, driven by a procedural pattern, or generated from the mesh itself. Curvature, ambient occlusion, thickness and world space position are all baked from the model, so a smart mask can put dirt in the crevices and wear on the exposed edges of any object without being told where those are.
Baking, materials and the shelf
The baker takes a high polygon sculpt and transfers its detail onto a low polygon model as normal and height maps, along with the utility maps the smart masks depend on. Baking is done inside the program rather than in a separate tool, and cage handling and per material baking are both supported for meshes that need them.
The shelf carries several hundred materials, a large alpha and brush collection, and the smart material and smart mask presets that make the program fast. Everything in it is editable, so a bundled metal can be taken apart and rebuilt as your own preset, and custom resources can be added to the shelf as files that travel between machines.
Export and engine handoff
Export presets cover the common engine and renderer conventions, which matters because every one of them packs its channels differently. Choosing the right preset means the maps drop into the target without being rearranged by hand, and custom presets can be built for a studio's own shader and saved as a file.
Resolution is independent of what you painted at, so a texture set can be authored at one size and exported larger or smaller without repainting. Texture sets per material are handled separately, and UDIM workflows are supported for film style assets that need more than one tile.
What you get
- Direct painting on the mesh across UV seams in a lit viewport
- Layers writing to all shader channels at once
- Smart masks driven by curvature, occlusion, thickness and position
- Baking of normal, height and utility maps inside the program
- Several hundred materials, brushes, alphas and smart material presets offline
- Export presets for the common engines and renderers, plus custom presets
- Resolution independent output, exportable larger or smaller than authored
- UDIM support and per material texture sets
- No watermark and no export restriction in this build
Inside the archive
- Substance 3D Painter desktop application, offline installer
- Complete shelf of materials, brushes, alphas and smart masks
- Export preset library for the common engines
- Example projects and sample meshes
- Notes on adding custom shelf resources
System requirements
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | 64-bit multicore |
| Memory | 16 GB minimum, 32 GB for large texture sets |
| Graphics | 8 GB VRAM minimum, more for 4K texture sets |
| Storage | 15 GB free for the install and shelf |
| Input | Pen tablet strongly recommended |
Installing it
- Unpack the archive to a local drive.
- Suspend real time protection before running setup.
- Install as administrator and let the shelf assets finish copying. This is the slow part.
- Skip the sign-in panel on first launch. The licence is already applied.
- Point the shelf path at a shared drive in preferences if several machines will use the same custom resources.
Mirrors
| Route | Region | Note | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct, primary | Europe | No wait, resumable | Online |
| Direct, secondary | North America | No wait, resumable | Online |
| Torrent magnet | Global | Recommended above 3 GB | Online |
Release history
- Baker cage handling fixed on meshes with overlapping shells
- Faster shelf loading on installations with large custom libraries
- Export preset list extended for the current engine conventions
- Smart masks recalculate correctly after a mesh update
- Reduced VRAM use on 4K texture sets
- UDIM workflow reworked for sets above sixteen tiles
- Fixed stroke breaks across mirrored UV seams
Questions about this release
Does the shelf need an internet connection?
No. Everything is installed locally in this build rather than streamed from an asset service.
Are exported maps watermarked?
No. Exports are clean at every resolution.
Can I bake inside the program?
Yes. Normal, height and the utility maps the smart masks need are all baked in the program with cage support.
Does it handle UDIMs?
Yes, including sets with many tiles, and each texture set exports separately.
Comments
Exported to two different engines with the presets and neither needed channel rearranging. Clean maps.
Cage baking fix is real, my overlapping shell mesh bakes properly now.
Comments are read before they appear. If a build stops working, say so here and it gets rebuilt rather than quietly left up.
Whole shelf is offline, checked with the network off. Smart masks all generate fine after a bake.