Katelyn McConnell FIEA Art Blog

Adobe Substance Stager

What is Adobe Substance Stager?

Adobe Substance Stager is a 3D Rendering software most often used to showcase already created assets in a professional capacity. It offers a wide range of rendering options and pre-made scenes to ensure that the rendering process is as seamless as possible. Having been created by Adobe to match with the rest of the Substance line (Substance Painter & Substance Designer making up the rest of the trio), the UI is very similar to those programs.

A UI Breakdown

1 & 2 :

The entire program is split into two different screens. The first screen is the Design screen, which is where you create your Render. The second screen is the Render screen, which is where you finally run your render and export it with the settings you have selected.

3. On the very left most side of the screen, there are several buttons that will mostly be used through hotkeys while traversing the scene. The first is a + sign, used to import content into the scene. You can also drag your objects into the scene by clicking and dragging them into the viewport (4). The one after that which is an arrow and a circle is the "Select and Rotate" mode, which allows you to select and rotate the object in the scene. This mode is multipurpose, and behaves very similarly to Maya. You hold down Alt+Left Mouse, Middle Mouse, and Right Mouse to Orbit, Pan, and Dolly respectively. (These are also listed as buttons in this column) The next tool is the Magic Wand tool, which works very similarly to the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop. It selects things that are similar. The one following that is the Eye Dropper tool which can be used to quickly move materials between objects by selecting them, holding down control, and then right clicking another object to place what you have picked up onto the new object. It also has it's own basic model creator, which can be accessed on the next button which resembles a cube. The tool that is a plane with sparks coming off of it is used to select the Environment in the scene.

4. This is the viewport that shows the camera view you are currently utilizing.

5. This will show you Basic Shapes and Models that come as Starter Assets with Stager.

6. This will show you Materials that come as default with Stager.

7. This will show you all of the light options that you have. They are broken down into "Physical Lights", "Environment Stages" and "Environment Lights". Physical Lights are actual light actors that you can manipulate in the scene. Environment stages are complete light set ups with backgrounds that you can utilize. Environment Lights are specific lighting scenarios that have been curated by Stager. I find combining Environment Lights together is the best method to creating a great Render, by using one of the Environment Options with one of the lighting options toward the top of the list.

8. This is a list of images that can be used as background for your object and can also be used as the base set up for Environment Stages.

9. The "Scene" panel shows everything that is currently in the scene. To the right of this there are also the options for creating a new Camera and switching between which Camera is the currently active one.

10. The Actions tab gives you quick actions that you can take. The ones shown in this screenshot are Delete, Duplicate, Group, and Move To Ground. These will change depending on what you have selected.

11. The Properties tab is multi-functional and acts as the hub for every detail you'd like to change about your object, or your environment. For an Object: The first tab is "Transform" which can be used to change the pivot location as well as the position, rotation, and scale of the object. The second tab is the "Object" tab, which allows you to add a collider to your object. The last tab is the "Material" tab which allows you to change many different details about the material you currently have attached to your object. For an Environment: When you select your "Environment" under the Scene panel, you get a different selection of options under the Properties panel. These include "Ground", "Background", and "Lights". These are fairly straight forward, and keep it very organized while you are working.

12. The last thing that is important to point out is the "Ray Tracing" option box. Turning this on will slow the time that things load in the program significantly but will give you a far more accurate representation of what your final Render will look like compared to the regular view.