Substance vs. Marmoset?

[utopius21]

I've been considering a purchase of the Substance tools for some time now, and this tool is intriguing as well. I'm a little confused though where Substance ends and this tool begins. They both seem to offer PBR rendering (Marmoset seems to be focused here), and both seem to have some shader/material creation tools as well (Substance seems to be focused here). Substance is also adding IRay rendering later this year.

Since Substance Designer/Painter have both OpenGL PBR and IRay rendering capabilities, as well as first in class texturing tools, what would be the purpose of purchasing this tool as well?

[Mangetsu]

Good point. There will be much more competition from now on.

New Substance software will get an NVidia iRay integration [with full MDL support] plus there is Yebis already integrated for postprocessing.

If you have Substance or planning to get it, it may be no reason to buy Toolbag but it still have some minor pros:

• it is more lightweight, much more simpler and efficient for presentation creating;
• it has Viewer for creating portfolio [Wordpress plugin included].

Viewer: you can use Sketchfab, yeah [and now they have animation support].

So in the end it's really tough competition with current price of Toolbag but it still have it's audience like hand-painted texture artists for example [mainly 3D-Coat & Photoshop, almost no signs of Substance in workflow].

[EarthQuake]

Marmoset Toolbag 2 is a focused rendering tool that enables you to create complicated scenes and lighting setups with tools for managing multiple assets and materials, while providing excellent image quality. If you're curious to see how it fits in your workflow, we offer a free trial: http://www.marmoset.co/shop/tb2

It sort of depends on what you're looking for, if you only need a simple preview of your work, Substance tools may suffice. If you're looking for something to give you a greater level of control over your presentation, Toolbag is probably a better fit.

As noted above, Toolbag 2 comes with Marmoset Viewer as well, which you can see in action here: http://www.marmoset.co/viewer/gallery (and all over ArtStation).

[utopius21]

Thanks for the responses! I really appreciate the clarification. I will say that the images I see coming out of Marmoset are amazing, it's hard to believe they are real-time renders. I will take a look at the demo and decide whether it's something that would benefit my workflow.

[Jonny Tenebrous]

I'm thrilled to see Toolbag 2 on Steam (why does the sale have to end the 24th? Payday is the 25th for me! Now if you had released this before I went on holiday, I could've told my wife I needed to cancel and get more software, instead). Steam is a fantastic floating license platform for those of us who work from multiple machines. As a Substance user, I think the typical workflow would be to author your materials with Substance, then create your beauty renders with Toolbag (which is what I intend to use it for). Yes, Substance has a PBR viewport, but even with Yebis, it's not very fully featured compared to something like Toolbag, which focuses on this aspect. It's great for previewing your materials while you work, but from what I've seen, it looks like the flexibility and final results will be much better coming from Toolbag. Exciting stuff.

[stevej1967]

I bought this yesterday, and I have a substance Live account. I use substance products to create and modify textures and apply them to meshes that I create. The main reasons I bought toobag were to create a portfolio and to see how my textures would react in different lighting environments. So far, I'm extremely pleased with the results.

[OlaHaldor]

Me too, the same as you Steve. I purchased Toolbag to make presentations of my assets faster than before. Previously I've been using Octane with LightWave, but it requires a bit of time before you have anything decent to show, whereas Toolbag is mostly import mesh and textures set up lighting, and you're done in a flash.

[Sgt. Pepper]

So this is more of a SHOW THE FINAL PRODUCT than a 3d painting application?

[Mangetsu]

nmargie21122, it's NOT a texturing software!
You CAN'T create and/or paint textures with it.
So yeah, it's about SHOW.

Just watch a trailer on Youtube or read a page on website.

For 3D texture painting check 3D-Coat, Substance Painter or MARI Indie.

[Sgt. Pepper]

Originally posted by CalibrationMaker:

nmargie21122, it's NOT a texturing software!
You CAN'T create and/or paint textures with it.
So yeah, it's about SHOW.

Just watch a trailer on Youtube or read a page on website.

For 3D texture painting check 3D-Coat, Substance Painter or MARI Indie.

Thanks for the info. I seen some videos where people used photshop and other (non 3d) applications to paint the textures so I did not think it was for painting

Then I seen on the site they talk about using it for games, so i thought 'Well maybe it can paint"

Just wanted to make sure

[Mangetsu]

nmargie21122, Toolbag users are mainly from gamedev, they use it for fast realtime model preview. You don't need to run your game engine, setup scene and so on. Just smash model/textures into Marmoset, click some buttons and it's done. You can export it for your portfolio as pic|sequence or show it to your coworkers in realtime with different lighting setups. Really fast way to evaluate your assets, especially when your game is in prototype stage and you don't have proper lighting setups in levels to check it all out.

[Sgt. Pepper]

Yeah I figured when I started seeong people on youtube using photoshop to paint that I miss understood what the software was all about

I am not at the level that I need this yet but will definatly keep it in mind as a future purchase.

[Wanderer]

As someone who's a bit more on the art and design side of the industry, though on a hobbyist rather than professional level, I can totally appreciate this for what it gives the artist. Imagine a room, wall, or gallery filled with cheaper tablets that would function as digital frames, or even other devices as expense permits. I could totally get into giving people a real-time interactive frame to experience my art from an entirely new perspective: their own.

[MorningGhost]

I was pondering on getting Marmoset since I have Substance V4 but now Substance V5 has a Real-Time PBR viewport with Iray I'm thinking I may as well just upgrade Substance to V5 rather than buying Marmoset which is only performs rendering. By the way DigitalTutors has a nice intro to using Marmoset.

[netseeker]

Originally posted by MorningGhost:

I was pondering on getting Marmoset since I have Substance V4 but now Substance V5 has a Real-Time PBR viewport with Iray I'm thinking I may as well just upgrade Substance to V5 rather than buying Marmoset which is only performs rendering. By the way DigitalTutors has a nice intro to using Marmoset.

Dude, I personally recommend you upgrading your substance v4 to v5. I have been working with v5 since it came out. It has some improvements over V4 and after build 5.3.0. They integrated nvidia Iray as an alternative preview solution and it helps me a lot when adjusting roughness map on metal material, and it renders beautifully with real time indirect lighting.
But, if you feel substance v4 is enough for your workflow, and you want to show your work with high quality image, you will need marmoset toolbag. It is up to you.