What’s fun in Stager

In June, you discovered Substance 3D Stager, our new staging and rendering app. Now, along with the presentation of today’s fresh update, we’d like to take you through a tour of what’s fun in Stager.

After the 1.0 version, and the subsequent releases, we’re continuing our plan to ship often, listen to your feedback, and deliver important features and functionalities to make sure Stager becomes exactly what you need.

Today’s release includes improved performance, GPU render layers, new selection tools, and many more enhancements.

Incredibly customizable with Substance models, materials, and lights

Every scene begins with an object. Whether you import your own model file or download something new and ready-to-go from the Substance 3D assets library, models will populate your scene.

Painter: Send to Stager

Maybe you’ve already been working on your models in other Substance 3D apps. You can directly send your textured model from Painter, and it’s going to keep its ASM (Adobe Standard Material) properties exactly the way you set them up.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421516?autoplay=true

Designer: Send to Stager bot

There’s another kind of model you can use. It’s parametric and it comes from Designer! Imagine tweaking a model directly inside the scene: you’ll be able to fine-tune its shape and position so that it matches its environment exactly. There’s even a ‘send to’ feature that helps you get your models from Designer to Stager in one click.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421511?autoplay=true

Materials

Materials are a great way to add details to your scene. In Stager, you have access to a set of base materials, but you can also leverage Substance materials: your own or those from the 3D assets library.

Parameters

The thing is — playing with your material’s parameters in Stager can even be a great way to create a quick environment! Play with the parameters, crank up the displacement, snap models together, and voilà!

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421513?autoplay=true

Test things quickly: No UVs

And if you want to test things quickly on a model you can now deselect the automatic UV unwrapping. This will allow you to import a model more quickly and see it in Stager non-textured; this is very convenient when you’re not planning to texture the model, or when you just want to make sure it works.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421510?autoplay=true

Hotkeys to navigate hierarchy of elements

All right, so we’re importing models of all kinds and populating our scene here and there. This is when things can start getting tangled. But we have new functions to help you deal with a scene that’s become a bit complex. Today, we’re introducing hotkeys to navigate the hierarchy of your elements.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421515?autoplay=true

All-new Marquee Select tool

With the all-new marquee select tool, you’ll be able to make multiple selections in complex scenes with no empty spaces. That’s especially useful when your background is full 3D.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421514?autoplay=true

Getting your final render right

Ability to edit in context

The ability to edit in context is a big part of Stager’s DNA. We want you to have an accurate view of what you’re doing to make the best choices for your creation. Accuracy is essential, and we continue to update Stager with better presentation. For instance, with today’s release, your area lights have improved in real time, so they are more realistic, and therefore closer to the raytraced result.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421509?autoplay=true

Photoshop to Stager workflow

Your Photoshop to Stager workflow is more flexible as well: your PSD files are now rendered with multiple layers containing useful masks such as depth, object, and material IDs, on both CPU and GPU.

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421508?autoplay=true

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3421512?autoplay=true

Automatic detection of compatible GPUs

And if you’re using an NVIDIA laptop, there’s no need for complex setups anymore: Stager now automatically detects compatible GPUs.

As always, you’ll find all the details for this release in the documentation. There’s so much more we want to tackle! Join us on Discord to give us your feedback, share your tips and tricks, and meet other artists.

What are the differences between Adobe Dimension and Substance 3D Stager?

Simply put, Stager is Dimension 2.0. We’ve put together a detailed comparison between the two apps to give you a clear overview of the feature differences in both apps: check it out here.

All the visuals from this release are made by Wes McDermott. The main artwork is a creation by Giovanni Nakpil, Geoffrey Rosin, Lazar Svrkota, and Wes McDermott.