User Guide Cancel

Environment variables | Substance 3D Painter

Search
Substance 3D Painter

Substance 3D Painter

Open app
  1. Substance 3D home
  2. Home
  3. Getting Started
    1. Getting Started overview
    2. Activation and licenses
    3. System requirements
    4. Project creation
    5. Export
      1. Export overview
      2. Export window
        1. Export window overview
        2. Export settings
        3. Output templates
        4. List of exports
      3. Export presets
        1. Export presets overview
        2. Predefined presets
          1. Predefined Presets
          2. USD PBR Metal Roughness Preset
          3. Default Presets
        3. Creating export presets
    6. Glossary
    7. Performance
  4. Interface
    1. Assets
      1. Assets overview
      2. Navigation
      3. Customizing the layout
      4. Filter by path
      5. Saved searches
      6. Advanced search queries
      7. Adding a new library
      8. Sub-library tab
    2. Substance 3D Assets
    3. Color picker
    4. Display settings
      1. Display settings overview
      2. Environment settings
      3. Camera settings
      4. Viewport settings
    5. History
    6. Layer stack
      1. Layer stack overview
      2. Creating layers
      3. Managing layers
      4. Masking and effects
      5. Blending modes
      6. Layer instancing
      7. Geometry mask
    7. Main menu
      1. Main menu overview
      2. File menu
      3. Edit menu
      4. Mode menu
      5. Window menu
      6. Viewport menu
      7. Plugins menu
      8. Help menu
    8. Project configuration
    9. Properties
    10. Settings
      1. Settings overview
      2. General preferences
      3. Shortcuts
      4. Libraries configuration
    11. Shader settings
      1. Shader settings overview
      2. Updating a shader
    12. Texture Set
      1. Texture Set overview
      2. Texture Set list
      3. Texture Set settings
      4. Texture Set reassignment
    13. Toolbars
    14. Viewport
      1. Viewport overview
      2. 2D view
      3. 3D view
      4. Camera management
    15. Miscellaneous
      1. Sliders
      2. Log
      3. Update checker
  5. Painting
    1. Painting overview
    2. Tool list
      1. Paint brush
      2. Eraser
      3. Projection
      4. Polygon fill
      5. Smudge tool
      6. Clone Tool
      7. Quick mask
      8. Path tool
    3. Straight line   
    4. Lazy mouse 
    5. Symmetry
      1. Symmetry overview
      2. Mirror Symmetry
    6. Fill projections
      1. Fill projections overview
      2. Fill (match per UV Tile)
      3. UV projection
      4. Tri-planar projection
      5. Planar projection
      6. Spherical projection
      7. Cylindrical projection
      8. Warp projection
      9. UV set to UV set projection
    7. Presets
      1. Presets overview
      2. Creating and saving presets
      3. Creating particles presets
        1. Creating particles overview
        2. Installing the particle editor
        3. Overview of the particle editor
        4. Creating a new particle script
      4. Photoshop brush presets (ABR)
        1. Photoshop brush presets overview
        2. Exporting Brush Presets from Photoshop
        3. Importing Photoshop Brush Presets
        4. Photoshop Brush Parameters Compatibility
    8. Dynamic strokes
      1. Dynamic strokes overview
      2. Enabling Dynamic Stroke feature
      3. Dynamic Stroke Performances
      4. Creating custom Dynamic Strokes
    9. Advanced channel painting
      1. Channel painting overview
      2. Ambient Occlusion
      3. Flow Map
      4. Height Map
      5. Normal Map
    10. Vector graphic (.svg & .ai)
    11. Text resource
  6. Effects
    1. Effects overview
    2. Generator
    3. Paint
    4. Fill
    5. Levels
    6. Compare Mask
    7. Filter
    8. Anchor Point
  7. Baking
    1. Baking overview
    2. How to bake mesh maps
    3. Baking visualization settings
  8. Content
    1. Creating custom effects
      1. Creating custom effects overview
      2. Generic filter
      3. Channel specific filter
      4. Generators
      5. Mesh map
      6. Mesh based input
      7. User data
    2. Importing assets
      1. Adding resources via drag and drop
      2. Adding resources via the import window
      3. Adding content on the hard drive
      4. Receiving assets from other Substance 3D applications
  9. Features
    1. Automatic UV Unwrapping
    2. Physical size
    3. Smart Materials and Masks
    4. Subsurface Scattering
      1. Subsurface Scattering overview
      2. Enabling Subsurface in a Project
      3. Subsurface Parameters
      4. Subsurface Material Type
    5. Dynamic Material Layering
    6. UV Reprojection
    7. UV Tiles
      1. UV Tiles overview
      2. Image Sequence
    8. Color Management
      1. Color management overview
      2. Color management with Adobe ACE - ICC
      3. Color management with OpenColorIO
    9. Post Processing
      1. Post Processing overview
      2. Color correction
      3. Depth of Field
      4. Glare
      5. Lens Distortion
      6. Tone Mapping
      7. Vignette
      8. Color Profile
    10. Iray Renderer
      1. Iray Renderer overview
      2. Iray Settings
      3. Viewer and MDL Settings
    11. Plugins
      1. Plugins overview
      2. Autosave
      3. Resources Updater
    12. Sparse Virtual Textures
    13. Custom Shaders
    14. SpaceMouse® by 3Dconnexion
    15. Universal Scene Description (USD)
    16. Send to
  10. Technical Support
    1. Performance Guidelines
      1. Performances guidelines overview
      2. Conflicts and background applications
      3. Mesh and UV setup
      4. GPU Drivers
      5. NVIDIA Drivers Settings
      6. GPU VRAM amount and bandwidth
      7. GPU VRAM and other applications
      8. Texture Sets amount
      9. Layer management
      10. Channels management
      11. Substance filters and materials
      12. Viewport display
    2. Configuring Pens and Tablets
    3. Exporting the log file
    4. Exporting a DXDiag
    5. Technical issues
      1. GPU Issues
        1. Crash when working with overclocked GPU
        2. Forcing the external GPU on Mac OS
        3. GPU drivers compatibility
        4. GPU drivers crash with long computations (TDR crash)
        5. GPU has outdated drivers
        6. GPU is not recognized
        7. GPU is not recognized and is mentionned as GDI Generic
        8. Issues with Nvidia GPUs on recent Mac OS versions
        9. Multi/Bi-GPU
        10. Running on integrated GPU
        11. Painter doesn't start on the right GPU
      2. Startup Issues
        1. Application failed to start because of Qt
        2. Crash or freeze during startup
        3. Software conflicts
      3. Rendering Issues
        1. Artifacts and glitches on Mac OS with Custom GPUs
        2. Blocky artifacts appear on textures in the viewport
        3. Mesh appears pink in the viewport
        4. Mesh flash to white when moving camera
        5. Some HDPI scaling values are not working
      4. Stability Issues
        1. Crash during export
        2. Crash when opening or saving a file
        3. Crash while baking
        4. Crash with low virtual memory
        5. Windows Blue Screens
      5. Miscellaneous Issues
        1. Corrupted texture error message
        2. Shelf resources are gone after 7.2 update
        3. Error there is no disk in the drive
        4. Error with missing api-ms-crt dll
        5. Impossible to drag and drop files into the shelf
        6. Impossible to use the ALT keyboard shortcut on Linux
        7. Assets (or shelf) previews are empty
    6. Workflow Issues
      1. Export Issues
        1. My exported opacity map is totally black
        2. Texture dilation or Padding
      2. Tools Issues
        1. Normal map looks incorrect when loaded in layer or tool properties
        2. Paint Tool bleeds on other UV islands
      3. Project Issues
        1. A project has been processed as a text file and is now corrupted
        2. Loading files from a network
        3. Preserve brush strokes setting stays disabled
        4. Projects are really big
      4. Library Issues
        1. Thumbnails in the shelf look incorrect
        2. Error when importing a Font
      5. Viewport Issues
        1. Mesh faces disappear when looking at them from behind
        2. Viewports and textures are blurry or lack sharpness
      6. Plugins Issues
        1. Substance Source plugin doesn't load
      7. License Issues
        1. Maintenance is expired dialog on startup
  11. Pipeline and integration
    1. Installation and preferences
      1. Preferences and application data location
      2. Automated installation
      3. Retrieving the installation path
    2. Configuration
      1. Command lines
      2. Environment variables
      3. Firewall Configuration
      4. Querying Current Software Version
      5. Remote Desktop
    3. Resource management
      1. Shelf and Assets location
      2. Resource paths
        1. Adding resource paths by editing preferences manually
        2. Editing resource paths manually
        3. Editing the Shelf Preferences with Python
      3. Adding saved searches manually
      4. Preferences and content migration
      5. Excluding resources in a resource path
  12. Scripting and development
    1. Scripts and plugins
      1. Creating a Javascript plugin
      2. Remote control with scripting
    2. Shader API Reference
      1. Shader API overview
      2. Changelog - Shader API
      3. Libraries - Shader API
        1. Lib Alpha - Shader API
        2. Lib Bayer - Shader API
        3. Lib Defines - Shader API
        4. Lib Emissive - Shader API
        5. Lib Env - Shader API
        6. Lib Normal - Shader API
        7. Lib PBR - Shader API
        8. Lib PBR Aniso - Shader API
        9. Lib Pom - Shader API
        10. Lib Random - Shader API
        11. Lib Sampler - Shader API
        12. Lib Sparse - Shader API
        13. Lib SSS - Shader API
        14. Lib Utils - Shader API
        15. Lib Vectors - Shader API
      4. Parameters - Shader API
        1. All Custom Params - Shader API
        2. All Engine Params - Shader API
        3. All Rendering States Params - Shader API
        4. Layering Bind Materials - Shader API
        5. Layering Declare Stacks - Shader API
      5. Shaders - Shader API
        1. PBR Material Layering - Shader API
        2. PBR Metal Rough - Shader API
        3. Pixelated - Shader API
        4. Surface Shader - Shader API
        5. Toon - Shader API
  13. Release notes
    1. Release notes overview
    2. All Changes
    3. Version 10.1
    4. Version 10.0
    5. Version 9.1
    6. Old versions
      1. Version 9.0
      2. Version 8.3
      3. Version 8.2
      4. Version 8.1
      5. Version 7.4
      6. Version 7.3
      7. Version 7.2
      8. Version 2021.1 (7.1.0)
      9. Version 2020.2 (6.2.0)
      10. Version 2020.1 (6.1.0)
      11. Version 2019.3
      12. Version 2019.2
      13. Version 2019.1
      14. Version 2018.3
      15. Version 2018.2
      16. Version 2018.1
      17. Version 2017.4
      18. Version 2017.3
      19. Version 2017.2
      20. Version 2017.1
      21. Version 2.6
      22. Version 2.5
      23. Version 2.4
      24. Version 2.3
      25. Version 2.2

Environment variables

This page list environment variables that can be used to override the default behavior of the application.

Variable

Description

Version

SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_LICENSE

Value: Direct path to a license file itself.

Allow to override the default location of the license file. Example : if the license file is on H:/allegorithmic/licenses/substance_painter.key, the variable data should be "H:/allegorithmic/licenses/substance_painter.key".

Note:

Use SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_2_LICENSE instead for version earlier than 3.x (2017.x).

  1. 1

ALLEGO_LICENSE_IDLE_DELAY

Value: 7200

Specify how long in seconds before releasing a license seat in case of a multi-user configuration. Default is 2 hours (7200s).

  1. 1

ALG_PAINTER_SKIP_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES

Value : 0 or 1 (1 = Disable update check)

Allows to skip update check when the application starts. Disable the What's new panel.

  1. 2.2

SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_SVT_HARDWARE_ACCELERATION

Value: 0 or 1 (1 = Enabled)

Use the Sparse feature on the GPU. If not supported by the GPU or the Operating System the setting will be ignored.
For compatible hardware configurations refer to the documentation : Sparse Virtual Textures

This variable override the parameter available in the Settings window.

  1. 3

SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_TEMP_LOCATION

Value: Direct path to a folder

Defines where Substance Painter should write its temporary files (including the SVT cache).

This variable override the parameter available in the Settings window.

  1. 3

SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_PREVIEWS_MEMORY_BUDGET

Value: 500

Defines the amount of memory (Ram) that the application can use to load and temporary store previews from the Assets window. When the limit of the budget is reached old previews are unloaded. This value only controls the display of previews in the Assets window.

The value is defined in megabytes. Default value is 500MB.

  1. 2

SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_PLUGINS_PATH

Location of additional Python plugins.

6.1

PYTHONPATH

Additional Python modules to load with the Python integration of the application. For more information see Loading external Python modules.

  1. 1

OCIO

Path to a config.ocio file which will be used to drive the Color management settings with OpenColorIO.

Note:

This environment variable has priority over the PAINTER_ACE_CONFIG variable.

  1. 4

PAINTER_ACE_CONFIG

Path to a json file which will be used to drive the Color management settings with Adobe ACE.

  1. 1

SUBSTANCE_DISABLE_SPECIFIC_FEATURES

Disable several functionalities inside the applications:

  • Links to external resources (help, webpages, samples, etc)
  • Disable checks for updates
  • Disable sending of usage statistics
  • Disable export to Substance Share
  • Disable Welcome and What's new panels

  1. 1

ALG_PAINTER_DEBUG_FPS

Display inside the viewport a counter of how many frames per second are rendered by the viewport.

  1. 1

SUBSTANCE_PAINTER_VRAM_BUDGET

Specify how much GPU memory Painter can uses. This define a global budget in MB. For example to define a limit of 4GB use the value 4000.

A command line argument can also be used to perform the same action. See Command lines.

  1. 2.1

Get help faster and easier

New user?

Quick links

View all your plans Manage your plans
View quick links
Hide quick links

Legal Notices    |    Online Privacy Policy