(Note: the winners have been announced! Discover them here!

MAT’s back!

After we introduced our little mascot with the first Meet MAT contest back in 2017, he has become kind of a big deal. With hundreds of paint jobs, a dedicated book, collectible figurines and various 3D printed versions, MAT has been busy!

And today, MAT is back. He changed, a bit. He grew. (There’s a new model of MeetMAT in Substance Painter). He needs new texturing, new looks. He needs you.

Once again, the rules are simple: texture MAT in Substance Painter and compete with fellow artists in front of a world-class jury for a trove of amazing prizes.

There’s a new take on the contest this year, though: with the addition of displacement in Substance Painter, you can now use height data to alter the shape and silhouette of our character.

The contest runs for 3 weeks: from Tuesday, January 14 to Tuesday, February 4.

A few simple steps:

★ Get Substance Painter. A free trial licence of Substance Painter will cover the whole length of the contest.

★ Get MAT. The ‘MeetMat’ model is included in the latest version of Substance Painter. If you’re using a previous version of the software, get the model here.

★ Texture MAT with Substance Painter. There’s no theme, just have fun!

★ Do your magic and hit ‘render’.

★ Submit your work in the submission form by February 4.

Play

The Rules

1. Texturing must be done in Substance Painter.

You may import resources (such as textures, alphas, filters or other assets into Substance Painter) as long as the creative texturing work is done in Substance Painter. You cannot simply import and apply final textures that have been created in another tool.

2. You must use the default Substance Painter shaders.

3. You may not modify any aspect of the mesh template.

Displacement within Substance Painter is allowed, to add some interesting details, as long as it does not break the ‘Meet MAT’ identity. Baking from a custom high-poly mesh is not allowed.

4. Submission must include two Iray® renders using the camera included in the ‘MeetMat’ project.

You have to make the cameras C1 and C7 from the MeetMAT scene. Ideal rendering resolution: 4096 x 2160 pixels. minimum resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Additional renders can be included as well. Make sure to have a look at the rendering guideline section to get the best results.

5. You are limited to 1 submission per artist.

The Jury

The entries will be judged on the following criteria: artistic quality and originality, creativity, execution, and technique.

Raouf Bejaoui, Tech Art Director | Splash Damage Raouf started his career as an indie game developer before joining Allegorithmic in late 2007 to work on Substance Designer as a technical artist. Raouf joined Splash Damage in 2013; he is now Technical Art Director on the upcoming Gears Tactics. Splash Damage

Christophe Pialat, Interior Designer | Peugeot Christophe has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry as an interior designer. He is currently Senior Interior Designer at Peugeot, and has recently been in charge of the interior design of the E-Legend concept car. He is also the father of ‘Leo’, and of the LEO’Z Peugeot Design Lab Artoys. Peugeot Design Lab

Gabriel D’Orazio, 3D Artist | Illumination Mac Guff Gabriel was born in São Paulo in 1989, and graduated in Graphic Design from the Fine Arts Center University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2014. He has played a significant role in several 3D projects at Brazilian studios during his more than 10-year career. He currently works at Illumination Mac Guff. Gabriel won the 1st Meet MAT contest! Gabriel on Bēhance

Mohit Sanchaniya, 3D artist Sanchaniya is a professional CGI artist and interior designer, who has worked directly in all stages of a traditional 3D production pipeline. He specializes in lighting, post production and photographic direction. Mohit on Bēhance

Alwyn Hunt, Co-founder | The Rookies Alwyn is co-founder of The Rookies. He has a background in Fine Arts, and is specialized as a Character Texture Artist. He has been active in the 3D industry for over 15 years, working at a number of studios around the world. He has a passion for helping create pathways for emerging artists into leading studios globally. Alwyn on The Rookies

Seb Deguy, VP 3D & Immersive | Substance by Adobe Sébastien Deguy founded Allegorithmic in 2002 to develop the ideas in his award-winning doctoral thesis, completed just a year earlier. As CEO, he led Allegorithmic in becoming a market leader for texturing, a critical component in the production workflows for games, film and TV, industrial design, and other industries. When Allegorithmic joined Adobe in January 2019, Deguy took on the position of Vice President, 3D and Immersive. Substance

The Prizes

This edition of Meet MAT comes with incredible prizes! Thanks to the support of our amazing sponsors, this is what the winners will get:

General: this section is available to pros, freelance – anyone who would like to participate, no matter their skill level or experience.

General – 1st place

Hardware: 1 workstation (HP Z4 with 27-inch monitor with NVIDIA RTX5000), 1 Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16.

Software: 1 year Substance Indie, 1 year Creative Cloud All Apps.

Art toys: 1 3D print of your entry model (10″ Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full color), 1 art toy from Artoyz (Beastie Head by Alexöne) and, of course, 1 Meet MAT figurine.

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

General – 2nd place

Hardware: 1 workstation (HP Omen X 2s RTX 2080), 1 Wacom Cintiq Pro 16

Software: 1 year Substance Indie, 1 year Creative Cloud All Apps.

Art toys: 1 3D print of your entry model (8″ Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full color), 4 art toys from Artoyz (Teddy Troops Series 2 + 1 Teddy Troops DIY OG + 1 Teddy Troops DIY Caps + 1 Teddy Troops 6-inch DIY) and, of course, 1 Meet MAT figurine.

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

General – 3rd place

Hardware: 1 workstation (HP Z27 27-inch display), 1 Wacom Intuos Pro Medium

Software: 1 year Substance Indie, 1 year Creative Cloud All Apps.

Art toys: 1 3D print of your entry model (6″ Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full color), 3 art toys from Artoyz (Toxic Candies Pomme d’Amour + Toxic Candies Berry + Toxic Candies Marge Mallow) and, of course, 1 Meet MAT figurine.

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

Students: this section is for all students artists.

Student – 1st place

Hardware: 1 workstation (HPZ4 with Z27 27-inch monitor with NVIDIA RTX4000), 1 Wacom Cintiq 16

Software: 1 year Substance Indie, 1 year Creative Cloud All Apps.

Entry into the professional world: ‘Secret’ Studio Tour offered by The Rookies (a full day behind-the-scenes look at a post-production studio).

Art toys: 1 3D print of your entry model (10″ Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full color), 1 art toy from Artoyz (Story Killer – Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) and, of course, 1 Meet MAT figurine.

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

Student – 2nd place

Hardware: 1 workstation (HP Omen X 2s RTX 2080)

Software: 1 year Substance Indie, 1 year Creative Cloud All Apps.

Entry into the professional world: A 1-on-1 session with the founders of The Rookies giving valuable career advice and demo reel feedback.

Art toys: 1 3D print of your entry model (8″ Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full color), 1 art toy from Artoyz (Sentai Maria) and, of course, 1 Meet MAT figurine.

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

Student – 3rd place

Hardware: 1 workstation (HP Z27 27-inch Display)

Software: 1 year Substance Indie, 1 year Creative Cloud All Apps.

Merch: Merch from the Rookies shop.

Art toys: 1 3D print of your entry model (6″ Mimaki 3DUJ-553 full color), 2 art toys from Artoyz (Teddy Troops DIY 6″ + Teddy Troops OG 4″) and, of course, 1 Meet MAT figurine.

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

This year, we’re introducing a new section: schools. Schools will be picked from the best-rated student entries.

Schools – 1st place

Software: 15 Substance annual licenses

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

Trophy: A Meet MAT Gold Trophy

Schools – 2nd place

Software: 10 Substance annual licenses

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

Career advice: A webinar session with the founders of The Rookies giving valuable career advice and demo reel feedback to your class.

Schools – 3rd place

Software: 5 Substance annual licenses

Books: Meet MAT: The Art Book of the 3D Painting Contest, Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu, The PBR Guide: A Handbook for Physically Based Rendering.

Career advice: 3 x demo reel reviews to selected students of your school.

After the contest? There’s more!

We are not done yet! Once the official contest is over, you still have one more week to upload your model on Sketchfab and make the community vote for it! On February 11th at 11:59 PM (LA time), the 3 MATs with the most vote will win:

1st place: Sketchfab Pro (1 year)

2nd place: Sketchfab Pro (6 months)

3rd place: Sketchfab Pro (3 months)



Just don’t forget to add the hashtag #meetmat2 when you are exporting 😉

Resources

Here’s a list of what is available to help you win this contest!

Substance Painter. The software is free for the duration of the contest. If you’ve used up your free trial, contact us and we’ll make sure you can access Substance Painter. Everyone gets a chance.

The ‘MeetMat’ 3D Model. The model is integrated in the latest version of Substance Painter, so we recommend you use that version. In case you’d prefer to use an older version of the tool, you can download for free the newer ‘MeetMat’ model right here. Do not use the older ‘MeetMat’ version!

Substance Source free materials. The Source team has made a selection of beautiful materials to kickstart your inspiration. Check it out here!

Loads of cool new features in Substance Painter! Have fun with displacement, with photoshop brushes, with subsurface scattering, with new smart materials.

Join the conversation!

Show your WIPs, tips and tricks, cool ideas, and help others grow, on Discord.

Ask your questions on the Forum.

Share your art: #meetmat2 #createwithsubstance

Get the brand package, and add the logos to your artwork.

FAQ

Which version of Substance Painter should I use?

We highly recommend using the latest version of Substance Painter (2019.3 or higher) to benefit from the latest features and get direct access to the latest version of the MAT scene in the samples. Note that you will be able to download the trial of our software during the contest (send a mail here if you need to renew it for the contest).

You can also use older versions of Substance Painter, but you might not be able to leverage more recent features!

Where can I find the mesh for MAT?

If you have the latest version, you can find if in the template menu (File/Open template…). For older versions, you can find it here.

Can I edit the mesh?

No: you can neither edit the mesh, nor add or remove elements. (Changing the UVs od each texture set is allowed)

Can I modify the mesh or change the pose of MAT?

No, you can’t for the official renders. If you feel inspired, you can still add some optional renders with different poses, but they won’t be taken into account by the jury.

Can I use shaders other than the original one?

No: you can only use the shaders available within Substance Painter (note: ‘shaders’ are not materials, and are available via the ‘shader settings’ panel).

Can I use emissive, subsurface, or other specific channels?

Yes, you can use any feature provided by default within Substance Painter

Can I use tesselation?

Yes, you can. Just make sure we can still recognize MAT.

Where should I make the render?

The official renders have to be made in Iray within Substance Painter. You are free to do more renders within Iray or any other application.

Which resources am I allowed to use?

You can use any resources from Substance Painter, and from outside (like alphas, .sbsar, and more). Just keep in mind that we are evaluating the creative process within Substance Painter: applying an external resource on the model might not be enough to impress the jury!

Can I use Substance Source or Substance Share materials in the process?

Yes, you can, but please keep in mind that they are only resources and that we are judging the creative process within Substance Painter.

Can I submit different models?

You can only submit one model.

Am I allowed to share my WIPs on the forum or social networks?

Yes, and you are encouraged to do so! Use the hashtag #MeetMAT2 to get spotted!

Is the contest international?

Yes it is.

Does the model have to be free of current IPs?

Each company has a different policy about the usages of their IPs, so we won’t take any official responsibilities on this topic. That said, if you get inspiration from a brand or a famous universe, make sure to mention it, and to remain creative (not just copy/paste an existing work)

I submitted my model by mistake, and I want to change it: how can I proceed?

You cannot cancel a submission, but you can make a new one : we’ll take into account the most recent one.

What are the conditions to enroll as a student?

You have to be part of a learning institution, and to mention this when submitting your work.

Can I use other software in the process?

You can import resources from other software (.sbsar, alphas, and more), but the creative work has to be carried out in Substance Painter. You cannot sculpt the mesh in another software tool and import the details within Substance Painter via a height map. The official renders have to be done within Substance Painter.

What are the mandatory renders?

You have to make the cameras C1 and C7 from the ‘MeetMat’ scene.

What are rendering specs?

The ideal rendering resolution is 4k (4096 x 2160 pixels). If you feel your workstation is not powerful enough for this level of resolution, the minimum allowable resolution is 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels).

Please watch the introduction video to get more information about rendering within Substance Painter.

Am I limited in the numbers of renders I can submit?

No. Just make sure to do the mandatory ones first!

I would like to do a video render: am I allowed?

You can, but this won’t be taken into account in the jury decision.

Get inspired!