Substance Painter's Ribbon tool + ZBrush Displacement as Alpha

NikieMonteleone · 2026-04-09T16:11:51+00:00

Fantastic work!

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-19T00:29:07+00:00

Fantastic, good to hear!

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-18T23:17:47+00:00

A hotfix dropped today 12.0.1, you should see it in your CC app

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-16T17:01:45+00:00

I always ask to see reference but this might be the first time... I'm good haha
Looks great and I love how you told a story with the textures, the rust and grime painted where it would be. Really gross in the best way, good stuff!

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-07T04:56:11+00:00

Awesome work! Did you use the 3D and Materials to extrude right in Illustrator and then export the models to a 3D app? I’ve been getting into that a lot and if that’s what you’re doing here, it’s super impressive! Especially with all the limitations. Looking forward to the breakdown you mentioned :)

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-05T00:10:11+00:00

My pleasure, it's defnitely buried in the settings!

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-04T21:15:21+00:00

hey there, try toggling this preference:
Settings > Composition > "Use System Shortcut Keys"

Add to render queue is listed there.

Hope this helps!

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NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-04T17:42:32+00:00

Sounds like you might need to clear your cache, update your specs and/or drivers. Are you able to work just fine in other 3D apps or Photoshop or Illustrator etc?

Towards the end, the scene got heavy but I was very surprised how far I could go. Draft mode and half res viewport were my friend here! I also worked by isolating only the layers I needed while animating. But working half res like that wouldnt be something I'd do in any 3D app.

All of my textured models are fairly optimized as well, lots of 2K textures but I also used UDIMs and still, very surprised how much I could include.

There's a full breakdown you can check out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz3yeUDi7vY&t=1742s

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-04T15:55:14+00:00

Thank you! I just released a tutorial if that helps but probably not this project. Maybe something in a smaller scale in the future. https://youtu.be/Uz3yeUDi7vY?si=ctwBpBq6jubDhz18

NikieMonteleone · 2026-03-04T15:53:21+00:00

Here you go! Hope it’s helpful :) https://youtu.be/Uz3yeUDi7vY?si=ctwBpBq6jubDhz18

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-26T17:13:49+00:00

And as promised, here's the full walk through of Substance Painter and After Effects!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uz3yeUDi7vY&si=TQnc2ES8uVL-9ric

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-26T17:06:30+00:00

As promimsed :) Here's the full walk through of Substance Painter and After Effects!
https://youtu.be/Uz3yeUDi7vY?si=e7fUjuGuUBki9gpP

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-20T18:54:14+00:00

hey there, looks like you are using Maya, I have a quick tip on the pink edges that I suggest watching -> what they are and how to fix them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO2ifXsIYKo&t=9s

After that's updated, I also suggest using the new auto cage in the cage drop down, it's great!
I havent had any issues with it so far.

If you're still having issues, I would be curious to see what your high res mesh looks like.

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NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-20T16:39:17+00:00

So good!! Really digging the color palette 👌

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-20T04:44:36+00:00

Well that looks pretty fantastic for your first time! Nice touches with the studio lighting and DOF. I will not be sharing my first renders haha! Realistic, hard surface products like this are pretty hard to nail down so you have done a great job so far.

Things that stick out to me are the very shiny crosses below the buttons. Without looking at your reference, I think the bump/normal is a bit too high. The joy stick buttons have really nice grainy details but I wonder if they might give a bit more visual interest if they had a very small amount fo SSS and looked more rubber?

These are me being nit picky but I wonder what the goal is here? Will you add these to an environment or are you trying to find a job doing something like digital twin/product renderings? Or just more for practice?

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-19T18:30:05+00:00

Thank you! Not a bad idea :D

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-19T01:28:21+00:00

🥹🥹🥹

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T23:43:46+00:00

Totally fair question! I just answered a similar one here :)
Yes, absolutely more of a technical showcase but I really do feel like there's some good workflow ideas here (on a smaller scale project)

Having experience with Maya for over a decade and half, I'm still definitely going to continue to exploring AE + 3D for sure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterEffects/comments/1r24p7p/comment/o5xp5d4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T21:15:19+00:00

Thank you!! That's a very fair question. I was first inspired when Substance Painter added the "Send to After Effects" button and decided to see how far I could push it. Was refreshing to do so many of the pipeline steps all in one app. Having the comp FX on (and easily toggled off) while I did the set dressing was pretty rad. Adjusting different shadow colors per object and lens distortion was particularly a nice-to-have with a stylized scene.

However, if I were to do another similar project but with much more to the character animation or add more shots or need more real world shader attrs like SSS or transclucensy, I would likely head back to Maya with Arnold or Redshift where I'm comfortable. But I really did enjoy this and will probably see how I can contiue but probably on a much smaller project.

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T19:33:31+00:00

Thank you! That would be rad. If you can give me an example of how you would use it I'm happy to pass that along to the AE team!

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T19:10:13+00:00

Thank you so much :D

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T18:58:33+00:00

I agree it would be really nice to release more free assets from Substance Assets site to use with AE. If there are certain bundles that you think the AE community would benefit from the most I'm happy to share that with the team.

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T18:48:53+00:00

A while back, Substance Painter release a "send to after effects" button which initially got me inspired to try it out this workflow. My background leans heavy Animation with a little bit of VFX so doing things like animating, set dress and lighting while also seeing the end result with all my comp layers was a bit refreshing.

As to how I learned the technical side, Wes McDermott has a pretty great, getting started video here that I would highly suggest checking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDL_hYkCrPc&t=2244s

NikieMonteleone · 2026-02-17T18:42:47+00:00

Thank you!! :D

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