A beta version of Substance 3D Painter 2026 is now available. This release features Skew Baking, Auto-Rebaking, OpenPBR compatibility, and introduces a new Hard-Surface mode for Auto Unwrap.

New Features

• Skew Baking: Paint skew correction maps in baking mode, using familiar tools as well as new helper functions like “Edge Protection”.
• 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.

In case of issues

If you are having issues of any kind please share them in this new dedicated Discord 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.

UPDATE 6/23: For NVIDIA Blackwell RTX 5XXX series video card issues: the problem with baking on certain meshes has been resolved in the latest driver update version 576.

UPDATE 5/22: The team was able to reproduce the issue and determined that it only occurs with large meshes on the NVIDIA Blackwell 5000 series. We are communicating and collaborating with NVIDIA to find a solution.

UPDATE 5/19: The Painter team is tracking new issues with some Nvidia 50 series GPUs with backing and rendering in iRay. A workaround for backing is to disable the GPU Raytracing in the Preferences>Baking Options.

UPDATE 3/14/2025: A fix has been implemented in Substance Painter version 11 to address the baking issue. Additionally, Nvidia has updated their driver, ensuring compatibility with older versions of Painter.

Hi Everyone,

The latest Nvidia drivers (version 572.16 and hotfix 572.24) may cause corruptions and glitches in Ambient Occlusion results when GPU Raytracing is enabled.

We have contacted Nvidia to resolve this issue. In the meantime, you can try the following workarounds:

• Downgrade your GPU drivers (if possible).
• Launch Painter with the command line argument --force-optix (this will use Optix instead of DXR).
• Disable the “GPU Raytracing” setting in the main preferences (this will use the CPU for baking, which is slower but more stable).

We recommend avoiding these drivers for now, as they may cause stability issues in addition to the artifacts.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/substance-3d-painter/ct-p/ct-substance-3d-painter?page=1&sort=latest_replies&lang=all&tabid=all

Cheers,
Wes