Buyer guides
Decisions behind custom material production.
Written for art directors, producers and 3D teams deciding what to commission, what to keep in-house and what a useful material brief contains.
Relevant visual proof
The buying advice is grounded in published material work.
PBR material hiring, cost and delivery answers
Direct answers to the questions studios ask before commissioning custom textures, procedural graphs or a material batch.
Custom PBR materials vs stock textures
When a library asset is enough, when custom work earns its cost and what to test before commissioning.
Procedural vs scanned materials
Choose by the surface, required control, capture access, variation and final production use.
When to outsource material and texture production
External specialist, internal artist or broad outsourcing vendor: the tradeoffs and a low-risk test.
How to brief a material artist
The visual, technical and approval information needed for a useful estimate and predictable handoff.
Technical notes
Looking for artist-facing breakdowns?
The resource archive contains public Substance Designer quick tips, graph notes and downloadable source files.
Open Substance resources