Free Alternatives?

Super_nova · Jun 2019

Free software alternatives for software like substance painter/designer, zbrush(besides sculptris), marmoset toollbag, marvelous designer, and others (essentially every thing to take a game asset from step one to game ready

Mink · Jun 2019

Krita and blender.

So no, not really.

Zack Maxwell · Jun 2019

Blender should cover all those bases. It has sculpting and 3D painting. I think a Marvelous Designer like tool is being added in 2.8 as well. Or it was a plugin, I can't recall.

musashidan · Jun 2019

+1 for Blender. Pablo Dobaro is doing great work on a sculpting branch that will become part of 2.80 master. The MD like toolset is and addon by the same dev as Hair Tool addon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWrz-87f-AE

xrg · Jun 2019

A bit of a lesser known free addon for Blender is Modeling Cloth. He has a 2.8 version on his Github, but I haven't tried it yet to see how far along it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHGz7nEI23E

sacboi · Jun 2019

++1 for Blender and a burgeoning FOSS alternative IMHO to SP, recently on the scene is AmorPaint.
https://armorpaint.org/

Been following it's progress, the dev is an absolute Trojan workhorse he's already onto v3.3 within the space of a few months.

SnowInChina · Jun 2019

oh i've seen armorpaint and was thinking about purchasing it

from what i understand its a dumbed down substance painter ?

Andreicus · Jun 2019

Blender with the latest release has become an all around kick ass software really and i'm saying this from a non blender user perspective.
Although it's lacking in some departments like sculpting, texturing etc.

So here is what i would do if i don't want to spend money:

Main software: Blender

Sculpting: The only viable softwares for sculpting that have all the advanced features+retopo that you need are Zbrush ( 890 $ ) or 3D Coat ( 379 $ ) in my opinion but if you want to stay in the free realm than stick with Blender but you won't have any advanced and fast features like Panel Loops, ZRemesher, Voxel sculpting that let's you do everything etc.

Texturing: Armor Paint, maybe Blender with some tweaking but i still think that Substance is still the best.

Cloth: Blender although in my opinon if you don't make characters you don't need a cloth simulation system. I model all my cloth objects ( fabrics, towels etc. ) by hand using deformers then i apply a proper texture with normal map etc. and it works well ( it's also fun ).
Sometimes i also do a sculpting pass for wrinkles or similar if deformers are not enough.

Rendering: Blender with Eevee, Unreal Engine

2D software: Krita

Video editing: DaVinci Resolve that also offers color grading and audio editing for 0 $

gnoop · Jun 2019

I wish somebody would do Substance Designer replacement with Blender. Too bad I have zero codding experience myself.

Everything about Blender nodes are so right. They never ask you for gray scale conversion, node grouping is super convenient comparing to exposing parameters. Everything could be hotkeyed like in Photoshop. Nodes connect to each other magically on its own quicker than you think about it. Any node or a brunch could be bypassed with just M button and instant preview. It's super helpful when it's getting foggy how you did something.

I don't know what's the magic behind Blender nodes but sometimes they work and do exactly what you wanted even when you have no idea what you are doing math wise. While Substance Designer doesn't forgive you even slightest mistake.

musashidan · Jun 2019

SnowInChina said:

oh i've seen armorpaint and was thinking about purchasing it
from what i understand its a dumbed down substance painter ?

There's also the BPainter addon for Blender, and from what I hear 2.81 release will have some big improvements in this area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73kxBzU26Zk

Having said all that though, S Painter is so far advanced in features and workflow at this stage that it would probably be years before a lone dev software like the addons mentioned would catch up.

As for S Designer, there is no other software out there, free or paid, that does what it does.

sacboi · Jun 2019

...yeah agreed but all the same, kudos too those lone wolf dev's for having a crack and if development continues at pace...who knows?!

xrg · Jun 2019

They want to do better procedural texture tools, but need to get 2.8 out of the door first.

https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/1088096551044632576

Mink · Jun 2019

gnoop said:

I wish somebody would do Substance Designer replacement with Blender. Too bad I have zero codding experience myself.
Everything about Blender nodes are so right. They never ask you for gray scale conversion, node grouping is super convenient comparing to exposing parameters. Everything could be hotkeyed like in Photoshop. Nodes connect to each other magically on its own quicker than you think about it. Any node or a brunch could be bypassed with just M button and instant preview. It's super helpful when it's getting foggy how you did something.
I don't know what's the magic behind Blender nodes but sometimes they work and do exactly what you wanted even when you have no idea what you are doing math wise. While Substance Designer doesn't forgive you even slightest mistake.

Blender nodes are abysmal, and require manuel greyscale conversion in my experience. They get the job done, but compared to substance designer or Unreal's Material editor they're pretty abysmal. Node grouping isn't exactly a replacement for designer's exposed parameters, and while faster, leaves a lot to be desired. All of blender's competitors also have instant preview, and the way nodes automatically connect is far more of a hassle than a feature in my experience. I like blender and all, but it's node system is one of the worst things about using the program.

Free Alternatives?

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