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4.7 star rating
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What is the best alternative to Substance Designer?
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Substance Painter
All
4
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Allows you to paint in full 3D
Since Substance Painter allows users to paint in full 3D, it can be used not only to paint full textures, but can also paint masks which can then be used in other tools (like Substance Designer) for material filter generators (like the ones used to make edge wear and dirt)
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Top
Con
Expensive and impossible to run without an expensive graphics card
The free trial is the only thing free. You'll have to pay a lot of money for the full version, and even if you do get it, you will have to pay for an expensive graphics card to use it, which means a lot more money flying out of your wallet and/or bank account.
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Top
Pro
Painting and procedural editing of textures
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Top
Con
Cannot export in a procedural format
You can not export substance (sbsar) files in Painter.
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20$/m
113
16
Quixel Mixer
All
3
Experiences
Pros
1
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Free
Its freaking free.
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Top
Con
Seems to still be in beta
Many features missing, like layer deletion.
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Top
Con
Free version is technically non-commercial only
But, uh, "exporting" is as easy as opening up the file locations.
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Free / paid
44
4
Blender
All
25
Experiences
Pros
16
Cons
8
Specs
Top
Pro
Free and open source
Blender is licensed under the GPL. Some Blender modules such as the Cycles rendering engine are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.
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Top
Con
Too many possibilities, no unified workflow
The operations are not optimized enough for specific tasks.
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Top
Pro
Wide import and export format support
Support lots of modern 3D formats including DAE and FBX - ideal for game developers.
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Top
Con
The physics engine is a bit lagging behind, especially the destruction physics
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Pro
Has a powerful rendering engine
Blender runs the Cycles path tracing engine under the hood. Cycles is a very powerful rendering engine capable of full path tracing (light fall off, caustics, volumetrics). It is mostly compatible with OpenCL and CUDA rendering, and is implementing mycropolygon displacement features. The upcoming release has a viewport engine called EEVEE whereby you can see and interact with your work in render mode in real time!
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Top
Con
Difficult learning curve
Blender has a history of being unintuitive, but the 2.8 overhaul made the program far easier for beginners to pick up, and changes continue to be made to further improve the experience. However, there is still a learning curve.
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Top
Pro
Python extensibility
Blender embeds Python 3, which can be used to write add-ons, tools, extend the interface, rig characters and automate tasks.
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Top
Con
Not good for Industrial Design because it uses average vertex normals
You can not create a hard surface with a radius continuity degree along a surface using a specific radius value.
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Pro
Powerful animation suite
Blender provides a full rigging system, and automates animation by interpolating between keyframe positions.
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Top
Con
Vertex normal issues on edges after boolean operations.
After creating a simple boolean operation the vertex normals are broken. A lot of work to fix the issue and you loos surface continuity.
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Top
Pro
Supports both low-poly and hi-poly modeling
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Top
Con
Bad vertex normal after boolean operations
Does not handle well polygon intersections. And need tweaking by hand points or adding average vertex normals via modifiers.
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Top
Pro
Regular release schedule
Releases are made every ~3 months.
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Top
Con
Does not handle NURBs
Is not capable of real hard surface for industrial design because is not able to reproduce surface continuity degree as a NURBs does and average vertex normal destroy surface radius.
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Top
Pro
Sculpting and 3D painting features
Although Blender's 3d painting and sculpting tools (mostly painting) are not at par with specialized software like Substance Painter, ZBrush, or Mari, it is more than capable of getting most jobs done if the user takes the time to learn and understand it.
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Top
Con
Poor particle system
The Blender particle system can at times be a little limiting and finicky (and buggy) to get working. Even if it can get most straight forward jobs done, it is far from the most advanced system, and could benefit largely from advancements.
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Pro
Includes video editing & compositing tools
Blender's node-based compositor has comprehensive video sequencing and post-processing features.
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Top
Pro
Node based modeling support
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Pro
Keyboard shortcuts
Good keyboard shortcuts for everything. Keep your left hand on the keyboard and your right hand on the mouse.
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Top
Pro
Very useful for a freelancer
It offers a round solution (it covers many areas and professional fields) for a freelancer, for free, constantly updated, very polished, and allowing high quality results that clients do require. After some learning, it becomes very useful for professional work.
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Top
Pro
Has a large community
There's a huge community to help you get started immediately.
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Top
Pro
Coherent and streamlined workflow / internal use logic
The trick with Blender is to get used to its usage philosophy, as it keeps consistent through all the application. Once you get it, every feature or addition is learnt naturally, almost effortlessly.
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Pro
Very versatile
You don't have to switch between software when you want to do different things. Because modeling, sculpting, composting, video editing etc can all be done in blender.
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Top
Pro
Generative geometry using nodes
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD
Technology:
C, Python
3D:
Yes
2D:
Yes (as of 2.8)
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Experiences
Free
663
95
Material Maker
All
13
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
6
Specs
Top
Pro
One-click PBR material export to pupular game engines
Material Maker allows exporting materials ready to use in Unreal, Unity, Unity HDRP and Godot instantly.
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Top
Con
No proper funding and development
Maintained by author rodzill4 as a hobby, the project doesn't have any serious structure or long-term funding whatsoever.
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Top
Pro
Full GPU acceleration
All the nodes are actually shaders, so Material Maker works as fast as your GPU. For complex operations like blurring a buffer is used, but you can add a buffer node yourself to further optimize the texture generation.
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Top
Con
UI needs work
Using the node editor with a very complex graph gets difficult - using node groups is recommended to mitigate this problem.
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Top
Pro
Free as in Freedom
Open-source and completely free to use.
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Top
Con
Export to
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Top
Pro
Powerful nodes
Material Maker has a lot of interesting nodes that together allow artists to create amazing materials. You'll find many nodes similar to what Substance Designer offers.
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Top
Con
Should aim at a more professional goal
The project should consider becoming serious, and aim for not just indie but more professional users because that's the only thing can keep a project prevail.
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Top
Pro
Easy to create new nodes
All nodes are made in GLSL and are editable.
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Top
Con
Lack of learning resources
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Top
Pro
Inputs are functions
This means that nodes can use sub input graphs as part of their behavior to make complex stuff like raymarching or fractals.
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Top
Con
Lack of course or training
Given different workflow from Substance, there should be courses on different aspects.
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, Windows, MacOS
License:
MIT License
3D:
Yes
Graphics:
OpenGL 3
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Experiences
FREE
36
1
Neo Textures
All
6
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
3
Top
Con
No longer being developed
Neo Textures is no longer being developed. The project seems to be abandoned.
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Top
Pro
Powerful control on procedural nodes
Can easily modify all of the multipliers and alligorithm values of procedural generation.
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Top
Con
Doesn't support PBR
Neo Textures was created before PBR was a thing, and it's based on the deprecated Diffuse/Specular rendering pipeline, which is no longer used.
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Top
Pro
Faster than Substance Designer
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Top
Con
Lot of bugs
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Top
Pro
Open-source
Neo Textures editor is a free and open source project available on SourceForge.
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free
11
1
Substance Bitmap2Material
All
3
Experiences
Pros
1
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Generates several outputs from a single image
B2M generates any output that you may need from a single image automatically (base color, normal, metallic, roughness, ambient occlusion).
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Top
Con
Comes at a price
Sets you back over 100 dollars.
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Top
Con
Not a complete tool
B2M will only allow you to create a normal map from an existing image. You cannot create a custom texture from scratch with it.
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Get it
here
28
3
Filter Forge
All
7
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
3
Top
Pro
Not only a Photoshop plugin, has a lot of other hosts
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Top
Con
Slow development cycle
New versions come fast enough, but for example, the beta version of 7 doesn't have a lot that 4 didn't have.
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Top
Pro
Several filters
Filter Forge includes a lot of filters and each of them has several presets. Filters are grouped into different categories (Organic, Patterns, Creative, Distortions, Photo, etc...) so it's easy to locate them.
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Top
Con
No free tier
Filter Forge is not free. The basic edition (cheapest one) is $149. It does go on sale regularly though for around $30.
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Top
Pro
Large online library of filters
The website has thousands of filters available for download. This is the only thing that makes the basic edition feasible.
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Top
Con
Hefty price tag
Its $399 for the professional version, whereas a big competitor used by large studios is only $149.
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Top
Pro
Standalone application or PhotoShop plugin
Filter Forge can be used as both a standalone application and as a plugin for PhotoShop.
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Experiences
150$
16
2
PaintCube
All
6
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Con
14 day trial
Limited options during trial.
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Top
Pro
Accessible on the web
You can use this software on your devices for as long as it has a browser. This means you can work on your projects using your personal computer, laptop, and soon on your tablet.
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Top
Con
Not free
It's a subscription-based program. you'll have to pay between $5 and $20 in order to continue use of PaintCube once the free 7-day trial is over.
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Top
Pro
Supports layers
You can build your work in layers of texture information as you complete your model.
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Top
Con
Still in Beta
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Specs
Dev platforms:
Browser-based
Desktop targets:
Windows; Macintosh; Linux
3D:
Yes
Hide
Get it
here
22
3
Mari
All
6
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
3
Top
Pro
Free Trial
Though it is expensive, if you wish to use it continuously you can constantly renew your trial with lovely fake emails. Learning this can benefit your career into games or film.
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Top
Con
The most expensive one yet
Not made for hobbyists or indie game developers.
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Top
Pro
FIlm Industry Usage
Though Substance Painter is catching up to Mari in terms of texturing wiht higher res textures, this program is what is used in tandem with Zbrush most commonly in Film. For the Game industry it is Substance Painter and Zbrush.
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Top
Con
Eye wateringly expensive and inaccessible like all their products
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Top
Pro
Great at handling large texture sets
Mari can handle 32K textures since 2010. It was used in creating the characters faces and such in the Avatar movie, as close-ups require such high-res textures.
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Top
Con
Not object oriented
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$599 anual fee
43
6
MapZone
All
3
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Top
Con
Discontinued
MapZone is a discontinued procedural texture creator for windows. (Web page is discontinued but you can download from Dropbox or Google Drive.)
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Top
Pro
Resolution independent
All maps will be resolution independent because of procedural techniques which MapZone uses. So you can work at a decent resolution, resize when done and you have a higher resolution texture immediately.
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Top
Pro
Map focused
MapZone focuses on maps which are the core components of any texture. Your diffuse and normal maps created with it match perfectly. And because it's not linear and all are related to each other, if the diffuse is modified then all the other maps will sync automatically.
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Get it
here
4
1
ArmorPaint
All
9
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
4
Top
Con
It's NOT free (even though it's open-source)
Armor Paint is open-source, but the official binaries are not available for free. Unless you can compile it yourself, or you run Arch Linux or a system based on it and can use an AUR package that'll build it for you - you'll have to pay to use this program.
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Top
Pro
Paint on multiple maps at once
ArmorPaint allows artists to paint across multiple maps at once. This allows for easy creation of coherent color, roughness, and bump maps.
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Top
Con
Beta
It is not completed yet, which may lead to support drop, or a software that is not entirely usable.
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Top
Pro
Entirely GPU-run
Supports GPU acceleration. Since it is run entirely on the gpu, it makes painting huge maps nice and smooth on modern graphic cards.
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Top
Con
No lossless upscaling of brush strokes
When exporting your maps in higher resolutions in Substance Painter - it'll re-draw all your strokes in the background to make sure the exported textures have as much detail as possible. Armor Paint doesn't have such a feature so far - if you paint on a small resolution texture - you're stuck with it, or you'll have to manually re-paint it yourself to get a higher resolution texture.
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Top
Pro
Node-based brushes
A simple and robust "blender-based" node system to modify brush channels.
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Top
Con
No projection on normals
The brushes are projected with a simple viewport projection, which can lead to weird warping of the brush on irregular surfaces.
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Top
Pro
Open-Source
ArmorPaint falls under the zlib license. The zlib license has been approved by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a free software license, and by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) as an open-source license. It is compatible with the GNU General Public License. As such, the program is FREE if you compile it from source, and (as of August 2, 2020) costs only €16 to purchase pre-compiled binaries.
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Top
Pro
Epic MegaGrant's recipient
ArmorPaint received a $25,000 Epic Mega Grant. This is a large donation of money given by Epic Games through their MegaGrant Program to programs that show great promise. These grants are unconditional and recipients are expected to continue program development as they see fit. These grants can not be used to purchase unpurchasable software (open-source software).
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Experiences
FREE+
38
11
ZBrush
All
12
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
5
Top
Pro
Plays well with others
Can transfer work between other packages via AppLink and/or Bridge seamlessly.
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Top
Con
UI is far from user friendly
Though, it's fully customizable. Like for any software, there is a learning curve.
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Top
Pro
Powerful brush system allows for lots of creativity
ZBrush lets the user sculpt an object in fine detail with customizable 3D brushes.
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Top
Con
Expensive
A single-user license for ZBrush costs $795. But, Pixologic has not charged a penny for upgrades to licensed users since inception. Anyone who has purchased Zbrush has not been left behind.
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Top
Pro
Best for hi-poly modeling
Due to the nature of the program and how it uses high poly mesh sculpting it is best to consider this app when wanting high poly models, as that is what it aims to do best.
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Top
Con
An odd perspective view
Does not lend itself to cinematic or artistic renderings due to a strange perspective system found nowhere else in 3D which warps according to the relationships between models and rendering viewpoint - there is no real 'camera'. It is sufficient for rendering your work on a sculptural piece or industrial design, but KeyShot Pro or any other PBR rendering program that uses a camera are recommended for scene rendering, at least in 4R7.
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Top
Pro
Has low poly modelling tools with 4r7 version
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Top
Con
Open, Save, Export, Import not conventional standard UI
Authors refuse to use standard layout and the New, Open, Save, Export, Import are in unexpected positions. There will be no UI improvements.
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Top
Pro
Can easily simplify mesh topology
Meshes sculpted with ZBrush can contain billions of polygons, but tools are provided to cleanly reduce the poly count.
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Top
Con
Hi-poly only
Not, the case as there is now the Zmodeller Brush system which has a full suite of polygon Modelling options.
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Top
Pro
Always evolving and innovating
Every iteration of Zbrush has evolved beyond the last and has kept all other 3D package devs on their toes consistently.
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Top
Pro
Best support
No other 3D package has had continued support from their parent company or community like ZBrush has had since inception.
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Experiences
$895
65
23
Sculptris
All
6
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
3
Top
Pro
Free
Sculptris is provided free of charge from Pixologic.
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Top
Con
Small scope
Doesn't do much besides sculpting.
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Top
Pro
Sculpting allows for easier creative expression
Sculptris has great editing tools that allow designers to concentrate on sculpting and completely immerse themselves into making models, forgetting about all the complex methods modelers usually have to use in their daily business.
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Top
Con
No Linux version
Only for Windows and Mac.
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Top
Pro
Works on Lower-End Devices
Sculptris is essentially a lesser version of ZBrush that works on low-end PCs.
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Top
Con
Limited sculpting toolset
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Get it
here
33
13
Photoshop
All
19
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
9
Specs
Top
Pro
Industry standard
Photoshop is used by professionals everywhere in a wide variety of fields including photography, graphic design and digital art. It is the de facto standard for image manipulation. If you've seen a magazine ad featuring a model, you've probably seen the effects of Photoshop. You won't be alone when using Photoshop.
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Top
Con
Expensive
The standalone version of Photoshop costs $19.99/month, though it can be leased as part of the Creative Cloud Photography bundle that includes Lightroom for $9.99/month.
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Top
Pro
Trove of plugins that extend functionality are available
A wide variety of plugins that add new effects, improve existing functionality and simplify workflow are available.
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Top
Con
Latest versions of Photoshop are subscription-only
While you can still buy CS6 from 2012 without needing a subscription by contacting Adobe support or the cut-down Photoshop Elements, any full-version version of Photoshop past CS6 requires a subscription.
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Top
Pro
Lots of tutorials
There's a huge number of both free and paid tutorials available online. Websites like Lynda.com offer premium high-quality, in-depth tutorials, but there are plenty of free alternatives to be found on YouTube, blogs and specialized sites on the Internet.
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Top
Con
Learning it can take some time
While you can relatively quickly learn how to perform a few basic image editing tasks, understanding Photoshop's ins and outs can be difficult. It's partially due to the sheer amount of functionality that Photoshop packs (and understanding that some of the advanced functionality can take a while to understand on its own), and partially due to it being aimed at professionals with little hand-holding for novice users.
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Top
Pro
A cheaper, standalone version called Photoshop Elements is available
A stripped down version of Photoshop, called Photoshop Elements can be bought as a standalone application for $100.
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Top
Con
Very slow
It needs a very power CPU and GPU and many GBs of RAM and still it is so slow.
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Top
Pro
Includes powerful content-aware tools
Photoshop includes content-aware tools such as content-aware fill that can fill in a select area based on what surrounds it.
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Top
Con
Stop paying, it vaporises
With Adobes adaptation of the "subscription world" PhotoShop too is available as subscription software only. This means it will never become yours. And if you stop paying, you won't have any PhotoShop any more. Whether you are OK with that or not, it also means that PhotoShop for a large part becomes software for those "who can afford it". Or "push cost to others". Like customers of professionals. Which is also a way to become an "industry standard".
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Top
Pro
Packs a staggering amount of functionality
Photoshop is the most fully featured image editing software available today allowing you to perform highly advanced image manipulation. It has tools for RAW image adjustments, lens correction, retouching, image stitching, HDR, fixing framing. It supports most professional color modes and file formats. It includes extensive lists of filters, styles, effects, fonts as well as tools for painting, sketching and typography work. It understands both raster and vector graphics. It even includes tools for video editing, working with 3D objects and support for 3D printing.
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Top
Con
Affinity Photo is just as good at a fraciton of the price
Switching from Photoshop to Affinity Photo and it's hard to notice the difference quality of a professional's work. They say that PS is the industry standard, but so very few pros that tried Affinity Photo ever look back.
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Top
Pro
Integrates with Creative Cloud
You can save all projects directly to the Creative Cloud allowing you to access them from any device and with any relevant Adobe software.
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Top
Con
Not good enough to be so expensive
Probably the only big advantage Photoshop has over the other free software is the adjustment layers. But still too expensive for just one feature.
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Top
Pro
Creative Cloud Photography subscription includes Lightroom
Lightroom is another image editing software from Adobe that's specifically designed for photo editing and managing of large quantities of digital images.
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Top
Con
Batch editing of images is not straightforward
Photoshop is designed to work extensively on one image at a time and while batch editing support exists, it's not that intuitive to use.
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Top
Pro
Mobile companion apps available
There's a free mobile app available for iOS, Android & Windows Phone.
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Top
Con
Asset management capabilities are lacking
In Photoshop asset management is done through a separate program called Bridge. As Bridge is supposed to be a file management tool for not just Photoshop's files, but for files generated by all of Adobe's applications it covers a breadth of capabilities, but not depth.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS
License:
Hagu
Tethered capture:
via Bridge
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Experiences
$9.99/mo
114
47
3D-Coat
All
9
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
3
Top
Con
Not a voxel program
This is a paid texture program. Why is it in this list?
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Top
Pro
A known app for retopology
3D coat is also known in the game industry to be a great app to preform retopology.
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Top
Con
Voxel sculpting hits your system
Voxel is quite heavy on your computer, if you intent to use this as your main model and sculpt app do enough research to see if your computer can handle it and if you have the right graphic card for it. If you really have doubts , just go ask in the forums.
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Top
Pro
Link to Photoshop, or any app that can open PSD files
You can save and open your texture work in apps like Photoshop, work on them and send them directly back to 3D coat. It will remember your layers and update.
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Top
Con
7 layer restriction in the affordable version
The cheapest version available only lets you paint on 7 layers, which is very unfortunate.
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Top
Pro
Professionals recommend 3D Coat for Handpainted textures
You can texture in many styles with this app, but when it comes to Handpainting, as seen in World of Warcraft and Torchlight, 3D Coat is the one that many professionals will advice you to as their top choice.
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Top
Pro
PBR materials
3D Coat supports the creation of your own PBR materials that are ready to be used in the PBR workflow.
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Top
Pro
Voxel sculpting
Voxel sculpting is entirely free from the bounds of polygons and topology.
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Top
Pro
A fast and fun way to UV
3D coat has made UVing my work go super fast and it's actually quite fun because you're finished in a breeze.
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Experiences
Get it
here
112
53
Quixel Suite 2
All
8
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
5
Top
Pro
You don't have to leave Photoshop
If you like Photoshop so much, Quixel Suite is for you as you never have to leave any tools behind.
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Top
Con
High hardware specs for smooth performance
This loads alot of texture data during typical use and comes with a fancy 3d viewer. If your hardware isn't up to spec, you will experience some major slowdowns when using it.
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Top
Pro
Massive material library
You never have to download textures off the internet ever again as it comes with a very large material library to work with.
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Top
Con
Obviously isn't free
It's the price of the full version of PixPaint plus $10
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Top
Pro
Ability to paint directly on 3d models
The included 3Do viewer allows you to both view and paint on your models so you don't have to guess where that one spot is within your UV unwrap. Note that this is limited to painting masks, you cannot project textures.
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Top
Con
Only Works with Adobe Photoshop
Lack of options when it comes to Image Editing Software, especially since Photoshop is.not even free.
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Top
Con
No longer supported
The development has stopped.
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Top
Con
Doesn't always play nice with manually added layers
Quixel Suite basically takes over Photoshop in terms of layer creation and management. While you can still create layers manually, Quixel isn't always aware of it and may confuse the software.
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Experiences
$139.00
1
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