The templates are good examples of what can be achieved, but artists should in no way feel limited to have to start with one of them. When creating a brand new texture, there is a blank_template that’s also included in the templates.sbs file. It has pre-made custom gradients for diffuse colors, a pattern switcher, and a few other things an artist might need when creating a totally new texture.

Although there are definitely a lot of features in Stylized Tile Gen that may feel intimidating, everything is laid out in clear linear sections and every single slider has a detailed tooltip. All an artist needs to do is move down the tabs one-by-one, setting the shape of their tiles, adding surface details, adding sand or dirt, adding rocks or grass, tweaking diffuse colors, and setting the roughness values – it’s quite easy to create something brand new.

Advice for SD Learners

Substance Designer can feel very abstract at first, so it’s very helpful to have other Substances for a reference. I often referenced Daniel Thiger‘s .sbs files (he mostly releases the .sbsar files, which cannot be opened in Substance Designer, but all the Signature Series materials he did for Allegorithmic include the full .sbs files). If I ever got stuck on how to achieve a certain effect, or just wanted to see exactly what went into making a rock, or sand, or leaves, I could dig into his network and see how it was done.

After doing that for long enough, you will start to find your own preferred ways of doing things and it will become just another tool in your kit. Substance is kind of a puzzle, and you’re always trying to find the most procedural, efficient, and simplest way of achieving things. There are a few videos on YouTube that I found helpful (mostly those done by Daniel Thiger), but ultimately the best way to really learn (as opposed to just copying a video step-by-step) is to set a project for yourself, find good reference images (also super important – you should constantly be comparing your work to your reference images), and then just do your best until completion.