Introducción al Shelf

What is the Shelf in Substance Painter?

The Shelf in Substance Painter is a powerful tool that allows you to add details and customize your projects. This resource houses a wide variety of options, such as layers, procedural generators and a diversity of tools that will help you modify your objects, applying weathering, colors or painting directly on them. It is located at the bottom of the user interface, but you can change its position for convenience.

How is the Shelf divided?

The Shelf is organized into several sections, each of them dedicated to different types of tools:

Default and per-project tools.

• Default tools: here you can search for any tool you need from a search bar.
• Tools per project (bake maps): you can import materials, textures and save them in your project to work with them without overloading your program.

Alphas and grungees

• Alphas: allow you to customize both brushes and procedural tools, using a variety of options such as patterns and brush types.
• Grungees: offer specific textures that can be applied to paintings and details, modifying materials or textures.

Procedurals and textures

• Procedurals: similar to grungees and alphas, these are black and white images that you can modify with a Substance Painter plugin to adjust scale and detail to suit your model.
• Textures: include default textures and bake-created maps. They can be imported for use in your project.

What else is in the Shelf?

Hard surfaces and skin materials

• Hard surfaces: help to create volumes with patterns. You can select or create your own patterns to apply to your model.
• Skin materials: useful for creating characters, offering a variety of skins suitable for different body parts.

Filters and brushes

• Filters: work procedurally to add unique details to your objects, such as changing colors or light balance.
• Brushes: selectable from a menu similar to Photoshop, they allow you to modify properties such as size, flow, opacity and spacing.

Particles and tools

• Particles: ideal for creating details such as sandblasting or rain, respecting the volumes of the model.
• Tools: help to create displacement or volume maps inside the object.

Basic materials and smart materials

• Basic materials: offer a varied catalog to add details without extending the work time and optimizing results.
• Smart Materials: these are customizable materials with specific properties, whose behavior can be modified to interact with the PVR shader.

Smart mask and environments

• Smart Mask: useful to create dust effects, flaws or scratches on models by adding details through a procedural shader.
• Environments: images used to illuminate scenes, optionally you can import new ones to modify lighting and shadows.

How to import new resources to the Shelf?

To add new textures or materials, use the Import Resources option. In the dialog box, define the type of resource you are importing and decide whether you want to integrate it into the current session, into the overall project or directly into the Shelf. When importing, you will be able to find the new resource in the specific section it belongs to.

How to apply a material from the Shelf?

To apply a material, simply drag the desired material from the Shelf onto the layers of your object. Instantly, the material will be applied, offering the possibility to customize and optimize the appearance of your models.

This knowledge strengthens your Substance Painter skills, allowing you to empower your projects with creativity and unique details. Dare to explore these tools on the Shelf and transform your work into something truly spectacular.