I saw people reccomending Ucupaint as a substance painter alternative, but i can't find a comparison with instamat. What are the reasons to pick Ucupaint vs instaMat? Which is better?
Hi Samuele,
I haven't used either, but one obvious advantage of Ucupaint, is, that it's an Addon, so you stay inside Blender, so you don't have any Export problems.
Another advantage is, that, because it's an Addon, it also works on Linux (as far as I know Instamat still doesn't work on Linux).
Instamat might be a bit more robust and closer to Substance Painter, but that's just a 'feeling' I have.
Hey there! Ultimately you will decide which one is "better" once you try them out and see how they work!
That being said, on top of what is already mentioned, here are some of my thoughts.
Ucupaint allows you to stay within the Blender ecosystem which cannot be understated. Not having to re-export your models and navigate proper model formats and potential import/export errors is stellar. The other benefit is that you already know how to use Blender, Ucupaint is simply an extension of that knowledge. You will have to learn how to use it's tools but you've already got a large bulk of that learning out of the way. In terms of texturing ability, all I can say is that I think it will allow you to get the job done. I haven't used it myself yet, but from seeing assets online that have used the addon, I can say that it will likely be able to achieve the results you are looking for.
A con that I can foresee for Ucupaint is that due to it being an extensions of Blender, you end up working out of the Side Panel primarily. That may not be a big issue for you, but I know that sometimes it can feel a little lackluster when the primary UI is just the side panel in the viewport. As well, while not necessarily a "con", from what I've seen the workflow deviates a bit from what the current "standard" of texturing suites are doing right now, which means that if you have any experience in other applications, the knowledge may not entirely translate right away. Again, I haven't used Ucupaint myself yet so there may be more pros or cons that I haven't mentioned here.
Where InstaMAT shines is that it is an entire suite dedicated to making textures (among other things). It is an equivalent to the Substance Suite in terms of functionality, with advantages in some areas in my opinion.
You will be able to create procedural materials by painting on your model like Ucupaint, by using nodes like Substance Designer, or a combination of the two. A major pro of InstaMAT is that it is intended for "scalability", that's kind of their main selling point. Many of their tools will allow you to essentially create "template files" that will allow you to set up a file once, and run multiple assets through that file to essentially automate the texturing process. They even harness the power of InstaLOD, a decimation tool they also make which will allow you to process meshes seamlessly within the software to create more optimized versions of your assets.
This functionality comes at a cost though, being complexity. Everything I praised Ucupaint for is opposite here. You will have to deal with importing and exporting meshes a lot, the interface is completely different from Blender and will require time spent learning how to use this tool.
So in terms of "better", you will have to make that call yourself by testing both of them out! Since they are both free, there is no reason not to! In summary, this is my opinion on why you'd want to use either:
Ucupaint: A capable tool that allows you to stay within the Blender ecosystem. Because it ties into the Blender material system, it inherits some of Blender's jankiness. However, you will likely already be familiar with how to use Blender thus reducing the knowledge required to likely get comfortable with the tool overall. A great option if you aren't texturing an entire library of assets.
InstaMAT: Much more complex and robust in terms of options available to you, however that complexity comes at the cost of having to learn more. If you are looking to create not just textures for your models, but tiling or procedural textures/materials as well, InstaMAT's node based system covers that quite well. It is more equipped to process a larger amount of assets, simply because it was built with the intention of creating those "template files" where you can set up how the assets will be textured, and then run all of your models through those files.
By no means is this exhaustive, and is definitely skewed more towards InstaMAT since that is the only one of the two I have actually used. However, I hope it provides a jumping off point for you to go and take a look at them both, and figure out what is best for your needs!
Thank you so much for the in depth answer. I never used texturing software so i lacked the ability to judge them from what i read, this was exactly what i needed. As a learner i guess i'll be going with instamat since it seems the better option on the long run even though it might be more difficult to begin with.
Ucupaint is probably ok for the occasional hobbyist use,
however if you intend to be a texture artist, a more professional purpose built product such as Instamat would be the better choice.
Instamat is an open source contender as a viable alternative to Substance.
Just like Blender is an open source contender to Maya.
Additionally, although Ucupaint is downloadable via the Blender extensions platform, it isn't a Blender foundation product. If the developer doesn't keep up with Blender development it will be dropped from later versions of Blender.
As mentioned previously, the choice is yours to make.
