I’m currently going through the “Creating Sci-fi Door” course and was wondering if there’s a free (not having to pay after a trial) version of Substance Painter.
If you are in the education business you can apply for an educational version for 1 year IIRC.
If you are looking for an alternative, there is the non-commercial version of Mari. And also other software for texturing.
And there is the free ... Blender ... using 'smart materials' composited with the help of masks - not exactly how and what substance does, but good enough in most cases IMO.
There is also BATS for Blender 2.8 (doesn't work with 2,79). It is not free, but for 15 bucks onetime fee at a really nice price. It is still in developement, and looks very promising. I have the Substance Subscription, but one of my older laptops which I use a lot to play with Blender 2.8 can't run Substance Painter, so I was looking for an alternative for the laptop. I have just bought BATS a few days ago and didn't have the time to test it very much. So far I really like the addon. Substance Painter still has a lot of more features, not to speak of Substance Designer, but for quick procedural texturing BATS is IMHO a good solution.
You can also use the free material library of Substance. There are over 1200 materials for free, and you can tweak them with the free Substance Player, then export the PBR maps and use them in Blender. All you need is a free account with Substance, you can use it to download the free Player as well as download the materials.
Substance Player (free without time limit)
Substance Share (over 1200 free materials)
For Substance Share: You can not use the "Smart Materials", they don't work with the Player. The Player needs the file format .sbsar, and those are under "materials".
You can also find free .sbsar on CC0Textures.com
For Mari Noncommercial: I believe the UDIMs are limited, as well as the size for the textures, but now with the just released 4.5 (which finally has a new material system with some kind of smart materials as well), it could be worth a look. But be prepared for the steep learning curve. Mari is complex with a ton of features, and takes a while to learn. I don't know if they already offer the new version 4.5 for noncommercial, If not, try again in a few weeks. I can't check it out, because I have the full version, so it doesn't offer me the noncommercial version to download.
Hope that helps.
nnobi Thanks for the info, although I have no use for the NC version. I was only trying to check for Nathan if 4.5 is already available for NC. Otherwise the NC version makes no sense for me. But thanks anyway.