---
title: Substance Designer Reviews
meta_title: 'Substance Designer Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2'
meta_description: Filter 56 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to
  find out how Substance Designer works for a business like yours.
aggregate_rating:
  rating_value: 4.5
  review_count: 56
  scale: '5'
date_modified: '2026-07-17'
parent_category:
  name: 3D Design
  url: https://www.g2.com/categories/3d-design
---

# Substance Designer Reviews
**Vendor:** Adobe  
**Category:** [3D Rendering Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/3d-rendering)  
**Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0  
**Total Reviews:** 56
## About Substance Designer
Substance Designer is a node-based non-destructive application for creating materials. Edit complete texture sets fast with the non-linear workflow and see your changes apply simultaneously to all your outputs. Unleash the power of Substance Designer and focus on what really matters: your art.



## Substance Designer Pros & Cons
**What users like:**

- Users admire the **accuracy** of Substance Designer, enabling precise creation of complex, high-quality procedural textures. (1 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Substance Designer, enjoying its intuitive interface for texture creation. (1 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **high-quality material creation** in Substance Designer, enabling precise and complex procedural textures. (1 reviews)
- Users value the **full control over materials** in Substance Designer, enabling the creation of intricate, reusable textures effortlessly. (1 reviews)
- Users value the **full control over materials** in Substance Designer, enabling the creation of complex, reusable textures effortlessly. (1 reviews)
- Texturing (1 reviews)

## Substance Designer Reviews
  ### 1. 3D Painting using Substance Designer

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** srinivas j. | Production Desktop 3D Artist, Media Production, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** October 20, 2017

**What do you like best about Substance Designer?**

This is painting using presets inside designer over 3d objects in layers

**What do you dislike about Substance Designer?**

little more fluidity and easy interface could make it easier for beginners

**Recommendations to others considering Substance Designer:**

 to design render assets using presets or faster methods 

**What problems is Substance Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Painting 3D Art assets for Games

  ### 2. Lots of materials

**Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2018

**What do you like best about Substance Designer?**

It’s unique ability to make material designing for 3D objects makes it complex and fun

**What do you dislike about Substance Designer?**

Can be hard to use but still easier than other programs similar to it 

**What problems is Substance Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It was less for business and more for fun playing around with 3D materials 

  ### 3. Comprehensive 

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** January 17, 2018

**What do you like best about Substance Designer?**

Ability to adapt to unique needs & services, easy to use, adaptive to various functions 

**What do you dislike about Substance Designer?**

Really like it, nothing unfavorable. Compared to orher products, this was is on top

**What problems is Substance Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?**

More products showcased

  ### 4. Material Master

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Roberto T. | Lead Artist, E-Learning, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 02, 2017

**What do you like best about Substance Designer?**

I find Substance Designer one of the best texturing softwares.
It allows for creating procedural and PBR materials, and has plug in integration with all the softwares and real time engine I am working with.
Moreover, community and documentation are very clear and easy to find.

**What do you dislike about Substance Designer?**

I don't think there is something I dislike in this product.
It does its job, the user only need to learn and experiment the software to obtain better results.

**Recommendations to others considering Substance Designer:**

I deeply recommend this software.

**What problems is Substance Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I can create procedural and re-usable texture, this speed up my job and allow for more variety in my materials.

  ### 5. Substance Designer better tools for better textures

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Michael H. | Freelance Artist, Computer Games, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** June 07, 2016

**What do you like best about Substance Designer?**

Easy to change procedural texture settings that can be viewed in realtime. Noise generators to help with texture tiling. Ability to create animated textures with real time adjustments. in engine texture adjustments, Easy export of texture maps (Normal, ambient occlusion, opacity, height).

**What do you dislike about Substance Designer?**

Having to triangulate mesh for normals. Occasional program crashes when exporting.  occasional loss of quality upon export. 

**Recommendations to others considering Substance Designer:**

Still in the early stages for game development studios, but is becoming more and more widely used. A great program to add to your development cycle

**What problems is Substance Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Used to help speed the process of texturing assets in production. Increase quality and production.

  ### 6. Great way to make unique textures and materials

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Connor R. | Virtual Reality Lab CLC - Environment Artist, Higher Education, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2016

**What do you like best about Substance Designer?**

The node base system is a big plus. Also it is not to hard to learn which makes the program better and more open to all. $150 is not to much out of pocket for any user also making it a great program to obtain. 

**What do you dislike about Substance Designer?**

Some bugs do accrue from time to time which can mess up a how project.

**What problems is Substance Designer solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Unique game textures that are procedural and are at top quality.


## Substance Designer Discussions
  - [What is the latest version of Substance Designer?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-latest-version-of-substance-designer)
  - [What can Substance painter do?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-can-substance-painter-do)
  - [Is it any good?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/37692-is-it-any-good) - 1 upvote
  - [Is there any plan to link Unreal Engine 4 material node graph to Substance Designer graphs?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/36328-is-there-any-plan-to-link-unreal-engine-4-material-node-graph-to-substance-designer-graphs) - 1 upvote
  - [is there any live link in between substance painter and designer](https://www.g2.com/discussions/36179-is-there-any-live-link-in-between-substance-painter-and-designer) - 1 upvote

- [View Substance Designer pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/substance-designer/reviews?page=2&section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-18+16%3A50%3A51+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=d35ca57f-23f1-493e-982f-0eda53b89647&secure%5Btoken%5D=86d0097abd6108a6b54ea79408eb4ca0405428213610f0c7210f60bdb0e1e176&format=llm_user)

## Substance Designer Features
**Design**
- Sculpting
- Topology
- Drawing
- Brush Variety 
- Effects

**Generative AI**
- AI Text-to-Image
- AI Text-to-Video
- AI Text-to-3D

**Move**
- Animate
- Render
- Views

**Store & Manage**
- Pipeline 
- Controls
- Template library 

**Generative AI**
- AI Text-to-Image
- AI Text-to-3D

## Top Substance Designer Alternatives
  - [Blender](https://www.g2.com/products/blender/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (310 reviews)
  - [3ds Max Design](https://www.g2.com/products/3ds-max-design/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (279 reviews)
  - [Maya](https://www.g2.com/products/maya/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (260 reviews)

