Why Substance Designer feels so outdated.

gnoop · Nov 29 2025

While I still see no real alternative. Just wonder if it's only my impression. For years I see only cosmetic improvements . Node bypass been best of them IMO yet took decades of users prays .

Coming to Blender nodes feel so much like breath of fresh air . Any custom node saved in a library could be done local to the file with a single click or be just local override. Groups are so simple end easy , sharing or "exposing" inputs is so easy too while SD is a non stop search for mistakes and never ending puzzle of why some resources are missing now.

Blender never makes you such issues. They did curves in SD but my gosh managing curves procedurally is so much easier in Blender geometry nodes and they are svg exportable . Too bad SD can't even import svg properly .

With Blender any output in any place is instantly understandable either by viewer node and even could show indexes like Houdini now while in SD you need a special voodoo to see what your math change is actually doing if its doesn't match pixel processor expected output.

Adobe and SD never even tried to add some conveniences typical for 2d editors. A transform gizmo that could scale around precisely placed center , a modern style gradient gizmo. I am so tired of multiple node knitting where it's 2 sec thing in any 2d image soft.

I really wish Blender would do some image processing tools like blur, distance and loop based warp aka slope blur plus something like fx-map node.

poopipe · Nov 29 2025

Adobe have completely stifled any forward progress since the icon went green - this is true and it's a real shame. It's still as powerful as it ever was though.

and I'll say it again..

Difficulties with dependency and library management are and have always been a skill issue - the system is robust, customisable, portable and works with version control systems.
For any 'normal' use case, you save things into a folder and they appear in the library. you can move that folder, update library aliases and everything sorts itself out. If you don't organise your work you'll get into trouble it but that's true of literally everything and is 100% the fault of the user.

Managing live dependencies across multiple projects, multiple contributors and multiple versions of designer is awkward but it is possible to manage with some guidelines and/or tooling.

Working with 'embedded dependencies' like you describe with blender and as are present in painter is a nice short-term win for those that don't name things properly or keep their stuff in order but it bites you in the arse long term when you have to go manually update 300 files cos you made a fix to something.

gnoop · Nov 30 2025

Thanks poopipe for you opinion . I agree that dependency management is something that sure works there when you spend some of your energy on keeping it all consistent . The problem SD forces it on you while in many other soft including Blender it works other way too, nothing is forced on you and it's what I call convenience. In a rush of last week before deadline I don't want to waste my stamina on such kind of self discipline. I need something that just work .

A simple option of looking all missing resources in certain new path/folder could solve it all at once. Or showing not just red "ghost" node but rather what it was last time when it worked , a name at least.

In a word there might be many ways to make it less prone to even slightest omission and mistakes . Yet no conveniences for easily fixing it. Blender uses local overrides for library items . it's super convenient vs my SD libraries where I have already dozens of same but updated versions after years while still have to keep older ones for older graphs.

And what about quick link to Photoshop or vector soft to bring splines or manual mask editing . Both bitmap node brushes and svg node are so hopelessly outdated and ancient. Why not bring it from Painter at least .

Why Substance Designer feels so outdated.

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