Substance Basics [CGMA, Martin Teichmann]
- Publisher
- CGMA
- Product Type
- Video Course
- Author
- Martin Teichmann
- Language
- English
- Duration
- 18:51
- Release date
- May 1, 2025
- Skill level
- Project Files
- Yes
- Product Price
- $650
Substance Painter & Designer Beginner Bootcamp
Course Description
Substance Painter & Designer Beginner Bootcamp is a 4-week beginner-friendly course designed to help students get comfortable with the Substance suite from day one.This course is built specifically for absolute beginners who want to learn modern texturing without feeling overwhelmed. Students will learn how to navigate Substance Painter and Substance Designer, understand where each tool fits in a production workflow, troubleshoot common issues, and create their first PBR materials and texture maps.
The course focuses on practical, step-by-step exercises that help build confidence and muscle memory. Students will learn how to prepare 3D assets for texturing, bake essential maps, create materials from scratch or scan data, and export high-quality textures ready for use in game engines or offline renderers.
By the end of the course, students will have a clear understanding of the Substance workflow and will complete a fully textured 3D prop or small environment piece.
What You’ll Learn
- How to navigate the Substance Painter interface
- How to navigate the Substance Designer interface
- How Painter and Designer are used in modern production workflows
- How to prepare 3D assets for texturing
- How to bake essential texture data
- How to troubleshoot common baking and texturing errors
- How to create custom materials from scratch
- How to work with scan-based material data
- How to build a reliable PBR texturing workflow
- How to export texture maps for real-time engines or offline rendering
Course Curriculum
Week 1 - Getting Started with Substance
Students begin by learning the basics of Substance Painter and Substance Designer, including interface navigation, essential settings, viewport controls, and project setup. This week focuses on becoming comfortable with the tools and understanding how they fit into a 3D production pipeline.Week 2 - Preparing Assets and Baking Maps
This week focuses on preparing meshes for texturing, checking UVs, setting up bake settings, and generating the necessary texture data. Students also learn how to identify and fix common baking errors.Week 3 - Creating Materials and Textures
Students begin creating their own materials and textures, either from scratch or using scan data. The focus is on understanding PBR principles, layering materials, building believable surface detail, and developing a repeatable workflow.Week 4 - Final Texturing and Export
In the final week, students complete a textured prop or small environment piece. They learn how to polish materials, organise texture sets, export maps correctly, and prepare assets for use in a game engine or offline renderer.Requirements
This course is designed for absolute beginners, but students should have a basic understanding of 3D space and UV mapping.Recommended tools and hardware:
- Substance Painter
- Substance Designer
- 3-button mouse
- Drawing tablet
- Minimum 16GB RAM
- Dedicated GPU
Who This Course Is For
This course is ideal for absolute beginners who want to learn texturing for games, film, animation, or personal 3D projects.It is especially useful for:
- Beginners who want to learn Substance Painter and Designer
- 3D artists moving into modern PBR workflows
- Hobbyists who want to improve their material creation skills
- Artists who want a clear, practical introduction to professional texturing tools
About the Instructor
The course is taught by Martin Teichmann, a seasoned Environment Artist and Lead at The Walt Disney Company.
Martin has a strong background in AAA game production, having worked on major titles such as Uncharted 4 at Naughty Dog and Crysis 2 at Crytek. His experience in professional environment art gives students practical insight into workflows that are actually used in modern 3D production.
Final Result
By the end of the course, students will complete a fully textured 3D prop or small environment piece.
The final project will include clean baked data, custom materials, polished PBR texture maps, and exported files ready for integration into a real-time engine or offline renderer.
