Substance 3D Designer Learn & Support

Get Started

Install, learn the basics, and start your first project.

Get Started

User Guide

Get quick answers and step-by-step instructions.

User Guide

Tutorials

Find tutorials from novice to expert to help you expand your skills.

Tutorials

Troubleshooting & help

You can download Designer from the Creative Cloud website. If prompted, sign in to your Adobe account, then click either Download or Install for your app. For more information, see Download your Creative Cloud apps.

For solutions to a "failed to install" error, see Error: "Failed to install" Creative Cloud desktop app. To resolve other download, installation, and update issues, see this download and install troubleshooting guide.

Read these simple solutions to common Adobe ID and sign in issues to regain access to your account.

You can install Designer and other Creative Cloud apps on up to two computers. If you want to install it on a third computer, deactivate it on one of your previous machines. Learn more about activating and deactivating Creative Cloud apps.

Still need help? Find more download and install solutions.

Designer is an application intended for creating 2D textures, materials, and effects in a node-based interface. It has a heavy focus on procedural generation, parametrization, and non-destructive workflows.

Substance 3D Designer's documentation has information and solutions for known issues. The documentation is available here.

The forums are also available to speak to fellow Designer users and Adobe Developers. Visit the forums here.

Read more about the HBAO node here to find out more.

The resolution of your nodes depends on the resolution mode. Find out more about the resolution modes in the documentation.

To connect two nodes, the output type of the first node must match the input type of the second node. For example, connecting a grayscale output to a color input will not work. The grayscale conversion node and gradient map node can help convert output types.

Minimum and recommended system requirements are available here.

Learn how to publish SBSAR files or export images here.

There are different methods of importing resources. Often you can drag resources into Substance 3D Designer from your file browser to import them to your project. Sometimes you may want to use a link so that the resource is updated whenever the file is updated. To learn more, see this article about linking and importing resources.

Optimizing materials for other applications is a good idea, especially if you will share your materials with multiple people. Find out how to optimize materials here.

Exposing a parameter lets other applications dynamically update materials without needing to jump between applications. Find out how to expose parameters here.