Software : Substance Designer 4.x and above
Level : beginner
Focus on : LibraryHey guys,
This little Guide will explain how to use the Library in Substance Designer 5 and how to create Folders & Filters.
For a better use with Filters inside the Library it is recommended to fill out the Attributes section of the Substance. You can find the Attributes section in the Explorer window when you double click an empty space in the Graph View.
Adding a Library Path- Save your Substance to your desired location.
- Go to ‘Tools -> Preferences -> Projects’ inside of Substance Designer and at the far bottom you’ll find the Library Tab.
- Add the path you saved your substance to to this section by pressing the Plus-Icon on the right side.
- Take a look at Screenshot 1(attached)
Now Substance Designer knows where to search for new Library Content and we can set up an custom Folder and a Filter to make the Substance available in the Library.
The Library Window is separated into two parts by default. On the left hand side are the folders and filters you can select to view the content corresponding to them on the right hand side.
Creating Filters & FoldersThe three Icon in the Filters Panel Toolbar from left to right:
- Create a new folder
- Add a Filter
- Edit Filter preferences

- Click on the ‘Add Folder’ Icon and rename the created folder if you want. Right/click the folder to rename it.
- After selecting this folder the ‘Add a new filter’ button becomes available. Click on that to create a Filter.
The Filter EditorInside the Filter Editor you’ll be presented with three Drop Down Menus and one text input field. This Panel lets you create rules for the filters you create, change its name and select the project.

The first Drop down window is set to ‘All’ by default. This option lets you define the kind of item you want to be filtered.
Other Options are:
- Bitmap
- Vector Graphic
- Mesh
- Graph
- Function
- Favourites
The second Drop down window is set to ‘Base Name’ by default. This option lets you define the kind of Attribute you want to be filtered.
Other Options are:
- URL
- Category
- Tag
- User Data
- Description
- Author
- Label
The third Drop down window is set to ‘Contains’ by default. This option lets you define the kind of input method equation you want to have for the custom text input right next to it.
Other Options are:
- Does Not Contain
- Equal
- Not Equal
The custom text input will be the variable Drop down two and three will be filtered through.
In our example let’s use the following setup:
Graph / Category / Contains / LibTest
This setup will search for Categories of Graphs which Contains the names ‘LibTest’.
I set up this name for the Category inside the Attributes section in the substance I set up.
When everything’s set up correctly you should be able to see your created substance Thumbnails Panel now.
Best Regards