Substance Painter 2026 Skew Map Painting & OpenPBR Public beta
A beta version of Substance 3D Painter 2026 is now accessible through the application settings. This release features Skew Baking, Auto-Rebaking, OpenPBR compatibility, and introduces a new Hard-Surface mode for Auto Unwrap.
New Features
- Auto-Rebaking: toggle auto rebake for a baked map to instantly rebake that map as soon as any baking setting changes. Useful when painting skew maps.
- OpenPBR: support for the OpenPBR material standard. Includes new channels and shader.
- Hard-Surface Auto Unwrap: a new mode for auto-unwrap that works much better for non-organic, hard surface objects, with the additional bonus of calculating much faster than the default method.
Why we made this beta
We’re releasing this beta to gather feedback on a first version of our new features. While all features are working, some may feel unfinished since it’s still early. By participating, you can help shape how these features develop.
We're especially interested in your thoughts on baking workflows, as improvements are ongoing.
How to switch to the beta
On Steam, when inside the Library tab, right-click on Substance 3D Painter 2026 and select Properties. Next click on Betas, then in the dropdown menu next to the Beta participation select "12.1 Beta 1".
You can revert this at any time by selecting the "None" option instead.
In case of issues
If you are having issues of any kind please share them in this
new dedicated forum.
We definitely want to hear how new features do or do not fit into your workflow.
If you happen to crash or encounter a bug, you can also report it as usual via the crash report window or the Help menu within the application.
About Painter and project version
As the Beta introduces changes to saved files, they are not compatible with 12.0, we strongly recommend not to use the beta for production work, and to keep a backup of work created in older versions before you open them.
Added\ Skew Painting Tools
\ Change Polygon Fill behaviour to work on first channel of the current stack instead of basecolor or mask only
\ Add Skew Preview shader and Skew Direction Vector visuals when painting skew map
\ Rework Mesh map List UI
\ Update baking mode icon
\ Change viewport toolbar buttons
\ Show Symmetry toggle for brush in top toolbar
\ Rename Options in mesh map List Sync menu
\ Create Grayscale color picker variant
\ Update Sync and Checked state dialogs
\ Integrate Hard Surface option
\ Add support for OpenPBR 1.1
\ Add new “mesh_hard_edges” engine map input
\ Add new “mesh_hard_edges_triangle” engine map input
\ Add warning in the viewport when trying to paint on another Texture Set
Several minor improvements to USD exports
Update Adobe Color Engine to version 7.0
\ Allow to flatten all instanced layers across Texture Sets
\ Allow to select several channels at once via new window
\ Update Export Textures window to show OpenPBR naming convention
Make OpenPBR the default workflow and shader
\ Add documentation about changes to support OpenPBR
Fixed
\ Infinite load when high poly file path is invalid
\\ Apply settings to other texture sets
\ Default paint value is 0 with UV tile project
\\ Color picker can sometimes be fully black or not appear
\ Only the first usage of an input/output node is taken into account
\ Ambient Occlusion is applied twice with Texture Sets using different mixing methods
\ \ Baking with custom cage enabled but no file selected crashes
\ Normal textures with empty blue channel (black) can lead to wrong blend results\ \ crash when .assbin file can’t be written in folder
\ Saving with insufficient disk space can crash or corrupt projects
\ Updated ID map color source tooltip
\ Preview has lower resolution than painted result
\ Shadows appear inverted
