What Files can I open and edit in SD?

[Pte Jack]

Ok, I'm confused here.. I understand that the SBS file is the standard base designer file when creating a new material. It contains all the information, graphs etc.

However if I open a sbsar file, I know the file opens in SD, but I don't see anything related to the opened file, no graph, nothing on textures used, etc...

There are other sb file types that I have no idea what they do or how I would use them...

I'm trying to understand the the file type relationships and how they work with one another.

For example, let's say I create a material, export it as a sbsar then accidentally delete the sbs, would I be able to recover/recreate the sbs by opening the sbsar and and be able to continue editing the material I'm creating?

[OnePlunsOne]

From what I understand the sbar is like a type of compiled/exported version of this graph. It basically contains the logic that makes up the material (including exposed parameters). It is meant to be used in other software, being a package ready to give you the output.

If I am correct I think you could reverse engineer the sbar to get back to that graph. However it is definitely not meant for that, and I think we end users can not do this just like that.

Also some information here in this post: https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=14926.0

[Pte Jack]

That's kind of what I was afraid of. I was hoping that bringing the sbsar back into SD would decompile it and reproduce the graph (kind of like what ZIP and RAR do for their file formats.) But that is not what I'm finding when I opening it.

The other thing I was hoping for with SD was the ability to open smart materials created in SP so they could be developed into something more....

[OnePlunsOne]

A dev might need to correct me here but I think smart materials are not normal materials so to speak. Smart materials consist of a bunch of layers within substance painter. So something Designer does not support. You should however be able to see what layers make up the smart material. If you drag a smart material onto an object you can click the folder icon to the left in the layers tab and it will open it up.
So you would make those in Painter anyways. Unless of course there is a way to do smart materials in Designer. Doing a quick search I found this on substance share https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/65 might be a bit outdated though (last update 2 years ago)

[Pte Jack]

I know. I have seen most of this documentation in my quest for knowlege. The difference between versions is one of the major headaches I have in trying to learn.

The few tutorials that are available from Allegorithmic seem to be thrown up forgotten. When you try to use them with the newer versions SD , you find elements have been moved or combined into other functions. Nothing seems really backward compatible or comparable as the versions change. (same applies to the other Substance Product videos)
I'm not complaining here, it's good to see that the software is being actively developed and made better.

The "What's New" videos are good, but I find you have to have some idea of how the older versions worked before the change. If your just stepping into the process with newest SD2018, I find that you can get very confused working from a newbie position like me using the older videos and PDF docs because of this.

Most tutorials are do as I say if you want to produce the same result as displayed in the tuts. They cover the elements being used to design the mats in the video fairly well, but there are tons of other nodes that aren't discussed. I can't find any real good videos that actually explain the different nodes/functions and what they do or are used for or a really good explanation of their underlying parameters.

Working through the video series, you learn how something works, then 15 steps later or in the next video you get the

"We used this to do that, but if we do somethings else like this, we can kill 3/4s of the graph and get a better result" 

type scenerios which can cause a

"WT_, you just lost me and now I have to backtrack to see what was done in the first place to understand what your doing now" 

situation.

There's a very steep learning curve here and since I don't have any type of fundamental background in material design, I find it gets confusing, quickly. (LOL)

I'm not faulting anyone here, I could walk through the written documentation and try to learn from that but, I tend to learn faster from seeing it done with detailed explanations and working along with a video type tutorial rather from reading and doing based on the written material.

[Jeff]

Here is everything you need and want to know about substance file formats. https://docs.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SDDOC/Substance+File+Formats
As for your troubles with version compatibility tutorials and what to do in this situation you can find some help on allegorithmic discord channel.

[Pte Jack]

Thanks Jeff... Much appreciated.