Dousen + Substance Designer
The Dousen addon for Substance Designer shows a docked panel where each compositing graph in the loaded packages is an instance. You bake and publish the checked graphs to Unreal as texture exports, send a .sbsar file, and assign catalog materials, one per graph.
- Load: launch Substance Designer from the apps bar in DousenDesktop; the panel appears as a dock.
- Tabs: Publish, Perforce, Export, Materials and Tools.
- Formats: TGA textures by default, or
export_presets.substance_designer;.sbsarpackages. - Auto-publish on save: not available.
- Designer saves tags and material assignments in sidecar files next to the package.
How does the addon load?
DousenDesktop ships the addon and loads it when you launch Substance Designer from the apps bar. When another application sends a mesh to Designer, Designer stores the file path for use in your baking graph; it doesn’t connect the mesh to a node.
What becomes an instance?
Each compositing graph in the loaded packages. You don’t create instances by hand.
What do the Publish and Export tabs do?
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Publish | Bakes the graphs in each package once, then publishes one texture.export event per checked graph with the material assignment. Dousen can’t bake a single graph on its own. |
| Export Baked Textures | Renders the graphs and exports textures to the Textures folder under the source root. |
| Export .sbsar | Exports the package as a .sbsar file to the Materials folder under the source root. |
| Send to Unreal | Runs the validated publish flow for the checked graphs. |
| Send .sbsar to Unreal | Exports and publishes the .sbsar file. It doesn’t run if validation reports errors. |
How do I assign materials?
Open the Materials tab, click Load Materials and choose a catalog material for each graph. Bind the textures under Material Details. The Publish tab and Send to Unreal send the assignment, and it also decides whether the Nanite or NonNanite validator category runs.
How does validation work?
Click Publish and Dousen validates the checked graphs first. Designer has graph and naming rules; errors stop the publish and the panel has no built-in fixes. Rules are listed under DCC coverage.
Where does Dousen save its data?
Designer has no metadata store, so Dousen saves convention tags in <package>.dousen-tags.json and the material assignment in <package>.dousen-material.json next to the package. Unlike the other addons, Designer has no auto-publish on save, so publish from the Publish tab after you save.
How does Designer show Perforce status?
The Perforce tab shows the package’s lock state and offers Check Out, Sync & Reload, Revert and Refresh. Publishing runs the lock check and the naming check before it exports. Check in the .dousen-tags.json and .dousen-material.json sidecars with the package. See Dousen + Perforce.
Related
Dousen is free during the studio beta, with access by request, and free forever for teams of up to 5 users. Request early access.