As the concept of instance material is quite the same as for creating a Substance material, it was really easy to switch from one to another. Now we mix the best of these two worlds for our projects.



What would you say Substance brings to your workflow, compared to previous solutions?

First, Substance simplifies and brings flexibility to our workflow. We no longer have to deal with dozens of variations of the same textures as a Substance material allows us to virtually create an infinite number of textures of the same type. As the plugin is available for every software we use (Unreal, 3ds Max…), we had no pain switching to Substance.

Another noticeable improvement in our workflow was the ability to add very subtle aging effects to our materials. In architectural visualization world, everything has to be as clean as possible. So clean it can sometimes be unrealistic. That’s sad but that’s how it is. I mean, most of the time, architects laugh at you when you try to add dirt, stains or leaks to your materials. As Substance uses a PBR workflow, it is possible for us to add subtle aging effects in any of our materials (using normal channel, grunge generator, etc.). This way you keep your materials clean but you are able to just add a little dose of realism into it. To me, it is much more difficult to remove lights and shadows from a bitmap file in order to have a clean albedo to start with.



We have recently seen a growing interest in our products in the archviz industry: in your experience, what do you think the Substance tools can bring to architecture visualization professionals?

Architectural rendering is a very specific branch of 3D rendering. To me, the rules are different compared to visual effects or video game creation. Most of the time you have to deal with super tight deadlines (most of the time, one to three weeks from the first brief to delivery), small teams and a very chaotic work environment.

Before I started working in architecture, 15 years ago, I thought architects were super skilled in terms of project management. At first, you expect to work peacefully from Autocad files fixed in stone for people amazed by a simple ray traced shadow on a teapot.

Reality is different: everything changes constantly until the last minute and your clients are expecting you to deliver at least the same level of quality as the special effects of the last Star Wars movie - not to mention the price they are willing to pay :)