What is the “Substance” plugin for Maya and what can it actually do?

What is it?

It’s a free plugin for Maya 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020.

It lets you:

import Substance materials – in “.sbar” format – from:
- the free Substance Community website or
- the paid Substance Asset website
apply those materials to objects in your scene
export the textures (once applied to your objects) as standard ‘image maps‘ (eg. myobject_basecolor.png)

How do I get it?

The official help files website is here: https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-integrations/3d-applications/maya/substance-in-maya-overview.html

The official release notes can be found here. (Useful to know what has recently changed or been fixed).

How do I install it?

Just download the file and double click, then it will walk you through the installation.

However, even once you install the plugin, it does not automatically load in Maya. You need to do this:

Open Maya, create a new scene
Go to WINDOWS > SETTINGS/PREFERENCES > PLUG-IN MANAGER
In the search bar, type “substance“
Then at the top next to APPLY TO ALL click “loaded” and “auto load”
Click CLOSE

What are the buttons the shelf?

You should now have a new shelf in Maya called ‘Substance‘.

The buttons are:

	Substance Settings (opens the Substance settings menu)
	Batch Import (imports and creates the selected Substance files)
	Batch Bake to Disk (bake selected Substance nodes to a folder)
	Upgrade Old Nodes (convert all old plugin nodes to new nodes)
	Apply Workflow to Maps (apply Substance workflows to image maps)
	Open Content (open sample ‘sbsars’ in content browser)
	Open Substance 3D Assets (Open the paid ‘Substance 3D Assets’ website in a browser) https://substance3d.adobe.com/assets/
	Open ‘Substance Share’ (Open the free community assets website in a browser) https://substance3d.adobe.com/community-assets/
	Open Documentation: Open the ‘Substance in Maya‘ documentation in a browser https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-integrations/3d-applications/maya.html
	About Substance in Maya: Display ‘About’ window

Free materials that come with the plugin

If you click the Open Content button you’ll see a list of free included materials:

These “.sbsar” files are on your hard drive: C:\Program Files\Allegorithmic\Adobe Substance 3D for Maya\2024\sbsars

bark_pine.sbsar
bricks_bond_variations.sbsar
carbon_fiber_twill_weave.sbsar
cardboard_torn.sbsar
chrome_plated_rusty.sbsar
concrete_damp_wall.sbsar
concrete_layers_stacked.sbsar
fabric_jeans.sbsar
golf_bunker_sand.sbsar
leather_fine.sbsar
metal_grinded.sbsar
parquet_american_chestnut.sbsar
plastic_vinyl_glossy.sbsar
pounded_asphalt.sbsar
powdery_snow_marks.sbsar
rotten_wood.sbsar
rust_corrosion_drip.sbsar
rusted_painted_metal.sbsar
scrapped_paint.sbsar
slate_tiles_with_moss.sbsar
tarmac.sbsar
wood_fence_painted.sbsar

How do I actually apply an .sbsar to something??

To apply a Substance material to a mesh, you first IMPORT the “.sbar” and then construct the Material in Hypershade.

To do that:

Go to WINDOWS > RENDERING EDITORS > HYPERSHADE
Above the graph, click the icon with the ‘diamonds‘ to clear the graph
Right-click and hold in the GRAPH, then swipe upwards and click CREATE NODE:
In the dialogue box that appears, type “subst” in the text field, then click SUBSTANCE NODE
The following will appear, and the ‘substancenode’ node will be selected:
In the Property Editor, click the browse file icon next to ‘Load Substance’:
In the file explorer that pops up, choose an “.sbsbar” file
In the Property Editor, click the WIDTH drop-down and change the resolution to something like 4096 (for cinematic-quality textures)
Scroll down, and under WORKFLOWS click the workflow on the left that you’d like to use (Standard Surface, Arnold, Renderman, Vray Next, Redshit, Maxwell, Vray 6). If you don’t know, just choose ‘Standard Surface’. Then click ‘Create Network’.
The system will pause for a few seconds, then various nodes will appear in the graph, and a preview of the material will appear in the “Texture Viewer”.
Click to select the tile of the material in the ‘MATERIALS’ tab of Hypershade:
Change the name of the material in the Property Editor.
Now your scene, right-click on the mesh you want to apply the material to, and choose ‘Assign Existing Material‘, then the material you just named:
Make sure the ‘Texturing’ option is enabled in the Viewport, and you’ll see your material applied:

But the tiling of the texture will be too large.
In HYPERSHADE, click the ‘place’ node (the first node) in your material
In the Property Editor you will now be able to adjust the ‘Repeat UV’ value to adjust the tiling. Increase it to maybe 3.
You will see that the tiling of the material in the viewport improves: