I am looking for some software that does PBR Painting like Substance Painter and 3D Coat. Looking over the two I think I like 3D Coat the best.
A: It’s cheaper
B: It has more tools in one package which substance painter you need multiple software packages
C: It supports the 3 major Operating Systems (Huge plus since I am using a Linux Operating System)
So, before I make any final decisions, I would like to know is there any open source software that has PBR Painting within it, or even software that is better that the mentioned 3d coat (with linux support)?
I saw the video of PBR material support in 4.5, for 3D coat. But I’m not sure where to go for more details, I’m curious as to how it stacks up against some of the features in substance. For example…being able to see your painting at multiple texture resolutions is pretty darn cool.
But sorry, I don’t have any other software recommendations.
marmoset?
shader forge?
mudbox
zbrush
One thing to mention - substance has a subscription option which allows you to pay the monthly fee and after you reach the flat rate total price - you own the software outright, and the subscription fee ends. It’s a pretty nice option I don’t know of other software developers who offer that option.
One other thing to mention - 3D coat has several other useful tools than just pbr painting tools.
3D Coat would most likely be your best bet. Besides SP and 3DC, there aren’t many PBR 3D-painting software out there, especially for Linux. The Quixel Suite is alright and easy to use but it requires Photoshop and it’s quite buggy. nDO is a fantastic tool, though.
Personally, I’d say go for SP if you can, as it’s used more in the industry and will most likely stay more recent than 3D Coat due to the fact that it’s solely a painting software, whereas 3DC does much more, so there’s no guarantee that the painting tools will ever be on par with SP. The fact that you can also modify your materials inside Unity after painting them (allowing you to, for example, add rust to objects over time or make objects gather dust over time) in SP is a huge plus.
If you haven’t tried out the free trials of both the software, you really should, as it’s pretty much impossible for us to say which one you should use because ultimately it mostly comes down to personal preference.
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