Unity 2018.3 Information

[Wes McDermott]

Hi,

We will have support for Unity 2018.3 with our 2.2 update. We are going into beta now and will release 2.2 in early January.

We had planned to have it roll out with the 2018.3 release, but unfortunately, we ran into errors with .NET4 and needed to make sure these issues were addressed. This unforeseen issue has pushed the release back a little, but we are working to have the plugin available for 2018.3 ASAP and it's of highest priority.   


Here is the changelist for the upcoming 2.2 update:

2.2.0 changelist
Release Date: Early January 2019

Core Substance Plugin

• Updated Substance Engine
• Improved code stability
• Unity 2018.3 support
• .NET 4.x support
• The graph, and corresponding material, now have the same object name
• Added Unity Pro skin GUI readability improvements
• Added support for material's output assignments
• Fixed a bug with sRGB handling
• Fixed a bug where an user could could delete all instances of a graph
• Fixed a bug where attempting to render Substances while changing parameters at runtime would only cause two to be able to rendered at a time
• When importing a package that contains old Substance files, the plugin will now let the user know that it contains old Substance data and delete the package files when Unity is attempting to import them (this is so the user does not have to delete everything manually if it came in broken)
• Added an 'About' button in the Substance menu to show Substance plugin related build information
• Added mouse-over tooltips in the Substance GUI to show exposed Substance parameter names
• Added Navigation buttons in the Substance GUI to link to Substance graph and materials
• Added new icons for the Substance graph/material/textures in the Content Browser
• Updated the Substance thumbnails in the content browser
• Removed the .mat from the front of Substance material names
• Added the ability to rename Substance graphs and materials
• When changing Substance graph resolution, the apply/revert popup will no longer appear forcing the user to commit the change at that moment
• Fixed a bug where the Reflection process would only use the default Substance resolution, instead of one defined by the user
• Added a mouseover warning to the Substance GUI that informs the user if the color space is set to Gamma
• Changed functionality of Substance graph instances: Users can now create graph instances in a Substance without being prompted for each created instance in the Substance graph GUI

Scripting

• We have hidden some functions not meant for script support
• Added function to duplicate Substance graph instances through script: Duplicate()
• Added function to query procedural input information via C#, returns an array of 'InputProperties' elements: GetInputProperties()
• Added function to check if an input exists in a graph, returns true/false: HasInput(string inputName)
• Added function to check if a visibleif input is visible, returns true/false: IsInputVisible(string inputName)
• The rendering scheme has been re-designed. As such, RenderSubstancesAsync() has been deprecated, this has been changed to graphName.RenderAsync()

Known Issues in 2.2.0

Core Substance Plugin

• User must disable 'Enable Bitcode' in the Build Settings menu in Xcode to build for iOS
• Substance object previews in the Content Browser show up black when the build target is set to Android/iOS
• The Alpha button and Mip Map preview slider are missing on the non-Substance texture GUI after importing the Substance plugin
• The user has to use powers of two to define a Substance graph resolution through script
• Substance materials are not persistent when exported/imported using a Unity package
• Substances do not work with Asset Bundles
• Substances are not restored back to their original state when going back from play to editor after changing them at runtime

Scripting

• Scripting does not work at runtime if the project is set to x86 in the build settings
• Issues using il2cpp scripting backend with certain build platforms

Substance Painter Live Link

• Building a project after painting with Substance Live Link will set the painted mesh back to a default material
• AO channel not sent with Painter live link
• Meshes with multiple materials do not work in Unity Live Link
• The way Unity LiveLink uses SimpleJson clashes with other instances of SimpleJson in a project

Substance Source

• The Substance Source window sometimes does not look correct

[Arugin]

Great news, thank you very much for info.

[Jeff Lynch]

Thanks, Wes, looking forward to the update in January!
Just so everyone knows, from my experience with testing the Unity upgrade this morning:

If you upgrade your project to 2018.3 and it previously used  .NET 3.5, Unity will not automatically convert the project to .NET4.x.
It will still use .NET 3.5 if that is how it was originally configured before the upgrade, so Substance still works just fine

[hikiniku]

My understanding is, that using substance materials adds some runtime overhead.

Therefore it would be very appreciated if you could add a way to export substance materials as regular Unity SRP materials with texture bitmaps.

[dgoyette]

My understanding is, that using substance materials adds some runtime overhead.

Therefore it would be very appreciated if you could add a way to export substance materials as regular Unity SRP materials with texture bitmaps.

I'd say you can already do that in two ways.

• Just export from Substance Designer.
• Within Unity, all those generated textures you see collapsed under the SBSAR, you can drag or copy those to a folder in Unity, and it'll make a copy of the texture as an asset. So, it's not exactly an "export" button, but pretty easy.

[hikiniku]

Thanks for the heads up dgoyette.
Option two sounds like it could work.

I wasn't very clear about it but I was actually talking about the new Scriptable Render Pipeline which would require the textures to be packed in a certain way:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/Upgrading-to-HDRP#converting-materials-manually

[Wes McDermott]

Thanks for the heads up dgoyette.
Option two sounds like it could work.

I wasn't very clear about it but I was actually talking about the new Scriptable Render Pipeline which would require the textures to be packed in a certain way:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/Upgrading-to-HDRP#converting-materials-manually

Hi,

The substance texture outputs can be used with HDRP shaders. We will be providing a new packing method to fully support this. However, to be transparent, we are not putting priority on this yet as Unity still has HDRP slated for beta until mid-2019. Our primary goal is to bring our plugin out of beta first. You can setup a packed map in Designer and that output can be used in the HDRP shader. https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=172818842

Cheers,
Wes

[dgoyette]

Thanks for the heads up dgoyette.
Option two sounds like it could work.

I wasn't very clear about it but I was actually talking about the new Scriptable Render Pipeline which would require the textures to be packed in a certain way:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/Upgrading-to-HDRP#converting-materials-manually

Yeah, that built-in support for MaskMap would be convenient, but it's easy to add to your substance. The steps Wes pointed out are pretty simple. I created my own custom node, so I can reuse it in all my substances, to make it easier. It just does an RGBA merge of the different raw inputs (metal, AO, smoothness).

And just a note, the node I made also outputs those raw channels as well, because I don't know of a good way to get Substance Designer itself to actually use the MaskMap in the 3D output, so I just plug metal/ao/roughness into plain old outputs so that it looks correct in the 3D output.

[hikiniku]

Thanks for the heads up dgoyette.
Option two sounds like it could work.

I wasn't very clear about it but I was actually talking about the new Scriptable Render Pipeline which would require the textures to be packed in a certain way:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/Upgrading-to-HDRP#converting-materials-manually

Hi,

The substance texture outputs can be used with HDRP shaders. We will be providing a new packing method to fully support this. However, to be transparent, we are not putting priority on this yet as Unity still has HDRP slated for beta until mid-2019. Our primary goal is to bring our plugin out of beta first. You can setup a packed map in Designer and that output can be used in the HDRP shader. https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=172818842

Cheers,
Wes

Fair enough. Thanks for being so clear about it.

[justifun]

Where do i download and how do i install the unity live link plugin ?

[Wes McDermott]

Where do i download and how do i install the unity live link plugin ?

Please take a look at this video to see how to use the live link plugin. The livelink functionality is part of the Substance plugin.
https://tutorials.allegorithmic.com/courses/substance-in-unity/youtube-FHOnN1A9Qgs

Cheers,
Wes

[saehoon]

I am not sure if this info counts for anything, but I have forced .net 3.5 and the plugin did load. But when I opened Substance Source and then downloaded one of the substance file, it crashed Unity. Unity 2018.3.f2

[Wes McDermott]

I am not sure if this info counts for anything, but I have forced .net 3.5 and the plugin did load. But when I opened Substance Source and then downloaded one of the substance file, it crashed Unity. Unity 2018.3.f2

I can repro this crash as well. I have added a ticket for the dev team to address this. We will soon be releasing our 2.2 update which should resolve this issue as well.

Cheers,
Wes

[kevin.faure]

Any news ? Pleeasseee, I really need this plugin soon
Good luck for the last fixes !!!

[Wes McDermott]

Any news ? Pleeasseee, I really need this plugin soon
Good luck for the last fixes !!!

Oh! Very sorry to not post here at the end of the thread. I updated the first post. The plugin was released last thursday. You can can grab it from the Asset Store now. Here is the change list.

https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/integrations/Release+Information+and+Upgrading+Projects

Cheers,
Wes