Adobe releases Substance 3D Connector

Adobe has released the Substance 3D Connector, a new open-source framework for writing tools that send files directly between its Substance 3D applications and other CG apps.

With it, third-party developers should be able to write plugins connecting Adobe apps like Substance 3D Painter and Designer to tools like Blender, Maya and Unreal Engine.

The framework, available under an Apache 2.0 license, is intended to streamline workflows in industries including game development, VFX and architectural visualization.

In the 1.0 release, data transfer is not real time, but Adobe aims to add support for live sync.

Send data from the Substance 3D tools directly to other DCC software
Announced last year, the new Connector system extends the Send To functionality in the Substance 3D applications, which makes it possible to transfer data between them directly.

Adobe hopes that the new framework will make it easier for third-party developers to write tools that provide similar workflows with non-Adobe applications.

In the announcement livestream, it showed a slide with the logos of key DCC tools, including 3ds Max, Blender, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Katana, Maya, Omniverse, Unity and Unreal Engine.

Initially non-real-time, but support for live sync coming in future updates
The initial release is focused on non-real-time transfer, with the framework identifying which other applications are available to receive data, then co-ordinating the exchange.

Future updates will include a Live Connection system, with any changes made in one application instantly showing up in others.

Other planned features include support for presets, but Adobe says that development will be driven by community feedback.

The Connector framework is Adobe’s second major code release in two months, the firm having open-sourced its internal plugins for converting USD files to other 3D formats in March.

System requirements and release date
The source code for the Substance 3D Connector is available under an Apache 2.0 license. It can currently be built on Linux or macOS.

Read more about the Substance 3D Connector on Adobe’s blog

Download the source code for the Substance 3D Connector from GitHub

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