Substance 3D Designer 14.0 introduces several new nodes for managing color and tonal values in images, many of which are designed for creating stylized effects. The new Quantize Color mode simplifies reducing the number of colors in an image, replacing the outdated version of the node. It can be used in conjunction with a set of new nodes for creating and managing color palettes, allowing users to extract a palette of up to 16 colors from a source image and then apply it to a target image using a palette map. Additionally, it's possible to generate palette maps using Quantize Color, which can then be converted into grayscale masks using the new ID to Mask Grayscale node.
For more painterly, stylized effects, the release includes a pair of related filters: Anisotropic Kuwahara Color and Anisotropic Kuwahara Grayscale. In both cases, anisotropic blurring is applied that aligns with the image details, creating the impression that the image flows in the direction of the shapes within it, resulting in a brushstroke-like effect.

In addition to the existing Normal Combine node, Substance 3D Designer 14.0 introduces a new Normal Uncombine node for removing surface details from normal maps. The existing Curvature Smooth node now has new outputs for creating bump and dent maps and correctly supports all tiling modes. New Slope and Direction Distance nodes are available for blurring mask edges to create smoother bevel effects. Additionally, new nodes for histogram alignment and grayscale image output have been added.

Workflow improvements include a “completely revamped” trackpad handling on macOS and enhanced parameter management, particularly parameter inheritance. Performance has been improved in large projects, especially when removing nodes from graphs or composing graphs that reference the same bitmap multiple times. The software has also been updated to comply with the current VFX CY2024 benchmark platform specification. As a result, CentOS is no longer supported—Linux users now require RHEL 8/9—and “almost all plugins” for Designer will need to be updated due to the transition to Qt 6.5.

Substance 3D Designer 14.0 is compatible with Windows 10 and above, RHEL 8.6/9.2 and above on Linux, and macOS 12.0 and above. The perpetual licenses on Steam are priced at $199.99. Substance 3D Designer is also available through Adobe's Substance 3D subscription. The subscription for Substance 3D Texturing costs $19.99 per month or $219.88 per year, while the subscription for Substance 3D Collection is $49.99 per month or $549.88 per year. For Linux subscriptions, a Creative Cloud for Teams plan is required, costing $1198.88 per year.