Creative software giant Adobe has acquired the French company Allegorithmic, makers of the Substance series of 3D surfacing software. This move is not unexpected: Adobe had previously invested in Allegorithmic, and Adobe Dimension (a tool for creating 3D product mock-ups) already includes Substance integration.
This acquisition reflects Adobe’s increasing focus on 3D design and follows the release of Dimension and the announcement of Project Aero (an augmented-reality authoring program).
In their announcement, Adobe emphasized the growing importance of 3D asset creation for marketing and entertainment. They pointed to Substance’s place as the industry standard for surfacing in game series such as Assassin’s Creed, Forza, and Call of Duty, and its role in films such as Blade Runner 2049 and Pacific Rim: Uprising. Beyond entertainment, Adobe also stressed the increasing dependence on 3D for animation, product marketing, print advertising, and mobile applications.
While Adobe tools already have a firm foothold in the film industry, this acquisition takes the company deeper into game asset development and AR projects. Stefano Corazza, Adobe’s head of AR, stated that Substance was among the first tools to focus on physics-based rendering, allowing for the creation of photoreal game and AR environments. Realistic lighting and real-time raytracing is the ultimate goal in the industry, with hardware tools such as NVIDIA’s RTX GPUs also helping to push those boundaries.
Adobe has not yet announced how the Substance tools will be integrated into their existing Creative Cloud suite, though details will be made available in the coming months.
To see the official Adobe announcement on this acquisition, check out the Adobe blog. TechCrunch also has a great write-up, emphasizing Adobe’s history and the intended use cases for Substance, which can be found here. For more information on Adobe tools, Substance, and how this announcement might affect your studio’s workflow, contact Nodal!