Dousen + Substance Painter
The Dousen addon for Substance Painter shows a docked panel where each texture set in the open project is an instance. You validate and publish the checked texture sets to Unreal as texture exports, assign catalog materials per texture set, and optionally publish on every save.
- Load: launch Substance Painter from the apps bar in DousenDesktop; the panel appears as a dock.
- Tabs: Publish, Perforce, Export and Tools.
- Default texture format: TGA, or the format in
export_presets.substance_painter. - Textures need a target Unreal mesh.
- Publishing runs a Perforce lock check and the naming check first.
How does the addon load?
DousenDesktop ships the addon and loads it when you launch Substance Painter from the apps bar. When another application sends a mesh to Painter, Painter replaces the mesh of the open project, or creates a project from the mesh if none is open.
What becomes an instance?
Each texture set in the open project. Nothing needs to be created by hand. Each checked texture set publishes as its own texture.export event.
What is the target Unreal mesh?
Textures need a mesh to land on. If Dousen exported the mesh, Painter reads the target from the mesh’s metadata sidecar. Otherwise, on the Export tab, enter the path in Target Unreal mesh, for example /Game/Props/S_Crate.S_Crate, and click Use target mesh. Without a target, validation reports an error named Target Unreal mesh.
Meshes can also come to Painter from other applications. Blender, Maya, 3ds Max and Houdini have a Send to Painter action that appears when Painter is connected. The Export tab also has Send to Unreal, which runs the same validation and publish as the Publish tab.
How do I validate and publish?
- Open the Publish tab and check the texture sets to publish.
- Assign materials on the Export tab: Load Materials, then choose one per set under Texture Set Materials, and bind textures under Material Details.
- Click Publish. Dousen validates the checked sets, exports them to the Textures folder under the source root, and publishes one event per set.
- Check Publish history in DousenDesktop.
When Dousen starts the export, with Publish or Export Textures, it refuses a format that isn’t in the project’s texture.allowed_formats setting and shows the reason in the results. Export Textures exports every set without publishing, and Send to Unreal runs the same flow as Publish. If you use Painter’s own export dialog, Dousen logs a warning for a format outside that list and still publishes each exported file.
Can Painter publish on save?
Yes. Check Publish textures on save on the Tools tab. Each save publishes one texture.export event per texture set, which needs a target Unreal mesh. The setting is stored in the project metadata.
Where does Dousen save its data?
Convention tags, the material assignment and the auto-publish setting are stored in the project metadata, in the Dousen namespace, so they travel with the project file. Painter uses the same material picker as the other Qt panels, with one catalog material per texture set under Texture Set Materials.
How does Painter show Perforce status?
The Perforce tab shows the project’s lock state with Check Out, Sync & Reload, Revert and Refresh. Publishing stops if another user has locked a file the export would write. 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.