DocumentationSubstance 3DSubstance 3D Painter

Metal Edge Wear

Last update: August 11, 2026

In: mask, generator
Description
The Metal Edge Wear generator creates the appearance of damage and wear on areas of your mesh that are most likely to be knocked or scratched.

The Metal Edge Wear generator outputs a monochrome (black and white) texture. As a result, it’s useful for generating masks to add edge wear details to a layer.

Baked position, curvature, ambient occlusion, and world space normal maps are required as image inputs. Learn more about baking here.

Inputs

Input name
Description
World space normal Color
Use the baked World Space Normal map.
Position Color
Use the baked Position map.
Custom grunge Grayscale
Use a custom texture or an anchor point.
Curvature Grayscale
Use the baked Curvature map.
Ambient Occlusion Grayscale
Use the baked Ambient Occlusion map.
Micro Normal Color
Use a custom normal texture or an anchor point.
Micro Height Color
Use a custom texture or an anchor point.

Parameters

Parameter name
Description
Seed

Set the seed value used to generate the dirt texture.

  • Click Random to switch to another random seed.
  • Click the pencil to see the current seed value, and enter a specific value if desired.
Invert
Invert the metal edge wear mask.
Wear Level
Set the total amount of wear.
Wear Contrast
Adjust the contrast of the final wear result.
Use Triplanar

When Use Triplanar is enabled, the texture is projected from three directions (X, Y, Z axes) instead of relying only on UVs.

  • Without triplanar enabled, the texture follows the UV layout.
  • With triplanar enabled, the texture is projected from multiple angles and blended.
Triplanar Blending Contrast
Adjust how smoothly a texture blends when it is projected using triplanar mapping. This adjusts the softness of the blending between the projections from each direction.
Grunge Amount
Adjust the amount of the grunge details.
Grunge Scale
Adjustthe scale of the grunge details.
Use Custom Grunge
Toggle usage of a custom grunge map on or off.
Edges Smoothness
Adjust the smoothness of the overall edges.
Ambient Occlusion Masking
Use the ambient occlusion as a mask to prevent occluded areas from receiving the weathering effect.
Curvature Weight
Adjust how much the curvature map affects the final result. The Curvature map is what the generator uses to define edges, so a very low Curvature weight can remove all edge wear, leaving only the grunge.

Micro Details

Parameter name
Description
Micro Height
Toggle usage of a custom Micro Height map on or off.
Micro Normal
Toggle usage of a custom Micro Normal map on or off.
Curvature Type

Set the Curvature type.

  • Standard: Produces a usually quite sharp result, but can lack wider details.
  • Sobel: Produces similar results compared to standard, but slightly blurrier because it evaluates the normal map using a Sobel filter.
  • Smooth: Produces different levels of blur (like mipmaps) to accumulate information. This usually provides smoother curves, but details can get lost.
Curvature Intensity
Adjust the intensity of the Curvature in Standard and Sobel Curvature mode.
Height Details Intensity
Adjust the intensity of the Micro Height details.
AO Radius
Adjust the radius (range) of the Ambient Occlusion in micro details.
AO Depth
Adjust the depth (intensity) of the Ambient Occlusion in micro details.
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