Introducing Dash for Unreal Engine 5

We’ve worked for the past 2.5 years on GraphN, a workflow automation software that aims to make the 3D creative process more focused on artistic decision making. Today, GraphN sheds its skin to become Dash, a better, easier, friendlier and faster toolset that’s made for artists by artists.
TRY IT FOR FREE: www.polygonflow.io/
JOIN THE COMMUNITY: / discord
3d, unreal engine, UE5, unreal engine 5, tutorial, beginner, guide, graphics, nanite, lumen, world building, environment, create, creating, how to, quick, scene, level, art, artistic, polygonflow, megascans, quixel, epic games, epic, art, landscape, tutorial, foliage, grass, moss, easy scatter, scatter Unreal Engine
0:00 Dash Overview
1:21 Dash Prompting
3:27 Water Creation
4:50 Surface Scatter Intro
6:18 Constrain Scatter to Paths
8:10 Dash Color Grading
9:06 Manmade Environments with Dash
9:41 Forest Creation
10:30 Create Leaf Scatter

[@MichaelPavlovich]

Nice! I'm suddenly more enthusiastic about building some environments!!

[@polygonflow]

Thanks Mike, your Halo workflow breakdown way back in the day was a huge influence in my tech art, and ultimately Polygonflow Journey :D Let me know whenever you give Dash a go, would love to hear your feedback!

[@KrazyRobot]

all hail the king

[@bonyfist]

For a moment I mistook this for a complete AI assisted level design toolset ..turns out its a very simplified, seamless system making use of available tools with ease..

[@Flewda]

Correct. No artist or programmer had their work stolen for the creation of this toolset ;)

[@Raitan2008]

Me too...I was getting excited

[@Dante02d12]

@@FlewdaAI doesn't steal anything. Get informed.

[@danbellian5617]

@@Dante02d12Training data comes from somewhere. Even in nonprofit research programmers are required to get consent before utilizing other people’s data.

[@knopperdog6960]

​@@danbellian5617 When artists learn from or take inspiration from other art, its fine, but when an algorithm does it, it's stealing? How did artists learn to draw or paint? where does their inspiration come from? how can they be certain that their art is truly theirs?

[@VLRN_]

This is literally a new workflow. Really excited to try it out, especially since everything is aimed towards creativity, ease-of-use and removing friction as much as possible.

[@polygonflow]

Thanks, we really tried making it easy to use! :)

[@laurensdesmet70]

Sometimes I see insane timelapses in games like The Sims or City Skylines and I can't help but wonder why these people seem to enjoy doing what in Unreal feels like a drag. Turns out it really does come down to the interface and the (assisted) approach to building levels and environments. Recently I bumped into another tool called CityBLD which also adds a different approach to building levels, not unlike the way it's done in City Skylines. Epic would do well to further gamify their own game engine in similar ways for creatives that grew up with these games.

[@A5tr0101]

Completly agree, many game engines need an easier way to place assets , a build mode of some kind.

[@PetitGarconAdam]

This is perfect time for Kids to start Creating Games and 3D Animation. Thanks to Polygonflow Team!!!

[@JaidevCGartist]

This is like Twinmotion functionality inside Unreal. The world has come a full circle. Excellent.

[@polygonflow]

😄

[@tr4x1ymus]

the start of the video had me going like pls not another chat gpt thing... i had a sigh of relief when you showed the plugin. Interesting work cant wait to see more

[@polygonflow]

Thanks!

[@thronosstudios]

Bro this reminds me of when I first started doing 3D with Cinema 4D ages ago. No nodes, not a lot of clutter, just sliders. I miss those days. Thanks for bringing them back and then some, lol.

[@polygonflow]

You are very welcome!

[@m.ubaidaadam]

This just got recommended to me today and this is a game changer for my workflow! You’ve earned a subscriber and I’m excited to see how you can improve in the future

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear it! We are excited to seeing your results. Feel free to send suggestions/feedback!

[@Knightimex]

Great, this is THE gateway drug to get me into 3d art. lol

[@polygonflow]

Haha, you should give it a chance for sure! Quite fun with the right set of tools! /The 3D newbie in the team

[@alxleiva]

Not bad but I think people are perceiving it too expensive because Dash doesn't not provide any assets and we all know how restrictive the Megascan collection is, so $20 a month for a scattering tool and I still have to provide with the content seems not that appealing for many.

[@lacehu]

It's embarrassing how everybody wants to sell services nowadays, instead of a product. This should be a product. Imagine this company going bankrupt, then you no longer have access to your tool.....

[@ToreHolmem]

​@@lacehuyou can buy a lifetime license. And the output is frozen into conventional assets. They could be hit by an ICBM and you would still have your project, unchanged.

[@ToreHolmem]

If this saves hours it's a no-brainer in a professional setting.

[@the_ericklima]

What a time to be in the 3D industry! thanks for this

[@RandMpinkFilms]

Amazing tool!! Please keep expanding this as it's so very much needed for cinematics in Unreal Engine.

[@A120AMIR12]

My mind was blown by this It's an amazing work and it seems to be just the beginning I can't wait to see more

[@J3R3MI6]

THE best tool I’ve seen for Unreal 🤯 🙏🏽💎

[@marcesmack]

This is great. Awesome work! I’ll start the trial tonight and start using this from now on. Thanks for making it!

[@polygonflow]

Awesome to hear that! Best of luck!

[@Yogntv]

I was just about paint grass on my terrain for an hour but now you guys saved me an hour of work.

[@PresentDayProduction]

This looks incredible, can't wait to try it in my workflow! I thinik having this workflow for the scene composition will be best, then manually setting up the camera myself until I master the technique using Dash. I can't wait to give it a go!

[@SiLiDNB]

Wow, this is insane! I feel like this would be very useful to get ideas down quickly.

[@The3Dsmash]

INCREDIBLE! Thanks for this tool. I just discovered Dash and will be going through all your vids. To be able to create environments so quickly without using the Unreal Quixel workflow, no foliage scatter etc. is so exciting.

[@polygonflow]

You are very welcome! Happy to hear you are excited!

[@absystudio]

now this is what i was talking about,, love it,, keep it up!

[@polygonflow]

Thank you very much!

[@christiandebney1989]

I am loving this! been going nuts with it the last few days

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear it! Feel free to share something you have made in our Discord 👏

[@yattysaliman6101]

whoa whoa i can feel my eyes vomiting heart emojis. this is exciting!

[@polygonflow]

haha, love the reaction!

[@brushrunner]

Gotta have that perpetual license. Specially if you`re going to market it for blender at some point. It’s a mod, and not a fully fledge rendering/modelling software

[@polygonflow]

Thanks for the feedback, maybe at some point!

[@polygonflow]

Hey, not sure if you have seen but we are now offering a perpetual license on our website, polygonflow.io :)

[@danskog]

Have truly been looking forward to this ever since hearing about it! Love it already! Yeah I know what I will be doing today 😆

[@polygonflow]

We hope it will live up to your wildest dreams! (Tack för en trevlig lunch sist :) )

[@stedbenj]

This is amazing!!! Watching closely, going to sign up soon.

[@joaquimley]

This looks like the tool for a project that I have ongoing. Will definitely give it a go. Thanks for sharing.

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear it! Our Discord is a great resource 👍

[@viralvekaria]

Very Usefull, Thank you

[@polygonflow]

Yes we really believe most people in UE will find this very useful! :) Glad to hear you agree :)

[@maxdayan]

Great work guys! Excited to git it a spin.

[@polygonflow]

We are excited to seeing your results!

[@monterotorrent]

Another useful tool that I will surely use! Thank you guys! 🤟🤟❤❤❤

[@polygonflow]

Thanks! Give it a try and see what you think :)

[@gouthammannuru4520]

this is awesome, can't wait to try it out.

[@MagistroFF]

very cool thing. I speak as a level developer, it speeds up the process of creating a game environment by 10 times

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear that! Exactly what we are trying to achieve 👋 Make sure to try Dash 1.5 if you haven't already 👋

[@jiteshkumar208]

Wow! Amazing! Would love how far this tool can go.

[@polygonflow]

Thanks! Give it a try and see what you think :) Free 14 day trial :)

[@DesignwithTP]

I'm laser focused on using this tool! Well done!

[@Dcgame]

For the past few years I have dabbled with blender and more seriously with C4D, still got a loooot to learn. I tried UE5 few times and went back and forth now and then in it but I always ended up shutting down the program after 1 or 2 hours of use because I never really could wrap my head around the UI, the logic behind some tools, the settings and just the whole build of UE5 in general, which is a shame because I am very much aware of how much you can do with it but for some reason I am really allergic to it. Now seeing this gives me a new perspective on UE5 for sure, definitely a more intuitive and mostly encouraging way to try it again.

[@polygonflow]

That's great to hear! I worked at Quixel for quite some time, and even once we had created the Megascans library, we still noticed that most users had a hard time either being creative with them, or knowing enough about their 3D software to make cool art with it. My hope with Dash is that first, we can help remove the knowledge barrier around 3d software, and second, we can start giving users suggestions on what makes a good compositions, etc... Please give it a go and let me know what you think; you sound like the ideal user for the software, and any feedback you have for how we could make it more intuitive would be more than appreciated 🙏

[@avistryfe4534]

Blender feels way harder to me. Maybe i just dont have the right addons to make it easier. Unsure.

[@avistryfe4534]

​@@polygonflowhello. I am wanting to sub to this badly as building worlds/lvls is my thing. Does it work in 5.3?and how does it work with nanite? Would i just setup all my meshes prior to building as usual? When they say terrain they arent landscape right? Just meshes? Do the randomized terrain bits come with a nanite/displacement setting on generate option? Works that way with foliage?

[@thetriangleforge]

I just saw the future of Environment creation. Incredible!

[@EnterMyDreams]

this is soooo good! I am definitely paying for this

[@bernard2735]

Wow. As a team of one, this looks like a fantastic way to accelerate my World building and allow me to focus on gameplay. Can’t wait to try it out.

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear you think so! Let us know what you think in our Discord after your free trial 👏

[@LittleFellaDynamics]

This looks very useful indeed (!) I am just starting out learning UE5 so a tool like this looks super handy and makes me more keen to get trained up >> looking forward to future updates 👌💯👀🎥😎🌟

[@polygonflow]

Awesome! Let us know how it goes in our Discord! :)

[@Native_Creation]

This is brilliant, had already streamlined workflow quite a bit with keyboard shortcuts, but this takes it to the next level. If you can add voice prompts (voice to text), that would sweeten the deal.

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear you like it! That's a cool idea, maybe at some point!

[@NnotKnott]

finally a reason to open up a project in UE 😩

[@dracullbo]

Incredible! I dream with this in a long time, when AI was going to make processes interactable, instead of brute-forced. Well done!!❤❤❤

[@juanpaulomardonez9151]

Amazing showcase Josh!

[@polygonflow]

Hey Juan, long time no see! :D /adnan

[@hellothere8121]

Wow, this looks actually very interesting

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear it!

[@cjk2590]

what an amazing tool i will definitely be checking out just wow

[@polygonflow]

Sounds good, good luck!

[@UnchartedWorlds]

Damn this look amazing, I'll be willing to give this a try to see how it can help me :)

[@polygonflow]

Thanks, sounds good, feel free to share feedback afterwards! Here or on Discord :)

[@squeaky_buddha]

Sorcery! 🧙🏽‍♂

[@polygonflow]

We know 😁

[@aizen3d120]

Amazing!

[@polygonflow]

Thanks! Give it a try and see what you think :) Free 14 day trial :)

[@dddharmesh]

Very nice. This will help a lot

[@wilismatrix9847]

This plugin looks pretty good and practical for building simple scenes for rendering stills, but it looks like it is not practical for creating environments for games or archviz. Therefore, I would like to know, is it working on world partitioning? can we create a landscape with different biomes and painting layers ? what about optimization, can we access the scattered assets by selecting the foliage for example to control their view distance as well as other rendering options ?

[@polygonflow]

Hi! Dash lends itself to environment artists making scenes for various purposes, from archviz to film and other cinematic purposes, or even just game environment showcases. But the software is a toolset, and not just scattering or content browsing. Yes you can scatter with Dash, but you also have a state of the art content browser, a decal placer that's unmatched. A physics placement system that's extremely easy and fast. A tool that allows you to convert any atlas texture to 3D mesh cards ready to be scattered. A tool that gives a plethora of amazing color grading presets, etc... I think there's two types of users for Dash: the first are those who see the whole ecosystem as something that fits their needs, and the second are those who may not be able to use say scattering for example, but can leverage the physics placement or whatever specific system that they think is worth the sub. Over time, we'll add enough features and upgrade the existing ones, enough for both users to find the subscription worth it.

[@alxleiva]

With Reverie you can build any biome in the world and game ready.

[@GoodguyGastly]

This is pretty sweet. Can we scatter decals? Is that a thing? EDIT: Nvm found the decal stuff at the end. oh lordy. Next Question: Can we use our own assets? Like If I want to use this with low poly assets?

[@polygonflow]

Yes! Though we are currently working on the Content Library accessing all assets in your project, you can use your own assets manually. In the video above, there is a section where trees are placed in the scene, this is done as a custom asset since Megascan Trees are not available through Bridge. If you follow those steps with your own assets, it should work exactly the same!

[@GoodguyGastly]

@@polygonflow bees knees

[@adzer0_0]

This is quite amazing!

[@CrownKing2499]

Damn, this is really sick, I am excited for all of this to bring our world to life with such details :)

[@polygonflow]

We are excited to seeing your results!

[@gallystops]

wow! Buying now. How soon will more detailed tutorials be rolled out?

[@polygonflow]

The video above is a solid starting point. But we'll be having a steady stream of video--both formal and more informal--tutorials very shortly.

[@gallystops]

@@polygonflow terrific! Looking forward to it.

[@Chillfolio]

Wow this is a great tool, makes it look so easy :)

[@polygonflow]

It is just as easy! Give it a try and see if you agree :)

[@Clydiie]

this is amazing!

[@polygonflow]

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing your results! What you have been creating so far with GraphN is pretty cool :)

[@yranos7500]

Epic will do everything to acquire your company lol you guys are incredible

[@kishore_art]

Now this is a game changer 😮♥️

[@polygonflow]

That is the reaction we are looking for🤟

[@JoshuaLundquist]

YESSSS this is what we all needed

[@tommywer]

This is a life changer!

[@EliteInExile]

Oh man, I might actually be able to use this over the tool clutter with Unreal

[@predator1286]

Cool plugin, thank you for your work)!!! And will there be a procedural creation of a planet by one click)? It would be cool at all !!!!!

[@basedovi]

Looks like procedural content creation with manual modification wins once again over AI which mostly catapults us 50 years back in terms of control over computer generated content. Good solution, love it!

[@red4666]

the instant scattering is nice. not sure if i want to be locked into another monthly SaaS pricing model, I already have so many.

[@FloMNIB]

This is probably one of the most amazing things I have seen recently. Love the fact that isn't just another AI tool. Can't wait to see more of these videos and to get my hands on Dash.

[@polygonflow]

Love to hear it! Just grab a free 14 trial and give it a go! Download is available on our website :)

[@futureframe1985]

Just simply wow

[@SauloCollado]

This is awesome.

[@rishirajmitra2017]

This is incredible! Are you guys planning to release the version for Mac as well? I know Mac users in Unreal are a minority. But its definitely worth paying for, considering the amount of accessibility and speed. 🤞

[@polygonflow]

At some point, hopefully, but sadly not in the near future I would say :(

[@Young_Drizzy215]

This is crazy! I love it! Will you guys be doing perpetual licenses at all?

[@polygonflow]

There's no immediate plans to provide a perpetual license, but it's definitely something we're actively considering :) Just gotta make it make sense for us economically.

[@Young_Drizzy215]

@@polygonflow sounds good to me! thank you for the response!

[@polygonflow]

Hey, not sure if you have seen but we are now offering a perpetual license on our website, polygonflow.io :)

[@rogueronin1010]

This is so much powerful

[@FRGRANDS]

wow!!.It's amazing.

[@GamingwithJael]

This is amazing. I am looking to learn UE 5 so I can start creating mods for Ark :)

[@BerkeAltay]

This looks very promising. Im going to try the free version and if i get a hold of it i might get the freelance subscription.

[@polygonflow]

If you run into anything that is unclear just send a message on Discord and we will assist you :)

[@MetalGearMk3]

Can you update(sculpt) the terrain and have the assets(grass,rocks,etc) update also?

[@theadnart1]

Yes you can! :)

[@MetalGearMk3]

@@theadnart1 Okay I think that is a killer feature. I will sub to it!

[@cantstopthefunk22]

Definitely seeing a big future with this if it can be integrated with a natural language AI.

[@supermattis108]

Awesome 👍 I just wonder how does the system know where to do what? And can it be used on an already created terrain? And how does the mask work, can I mask out the water so not any grass goes there ? I couldn't see it went so fast when you created the road , I have tons of roads.. will this be a problem when my terrain is 32x32 km ? And does your system support landscape materials from other authors? And world partition? Thanks! More tutorials coming?

[@lancemarchetti8673]

Totally Awesome!

[@vera4176]

This is very exciting! Wondering if it is also possible or will be possible to use in game/simulation mode?

[@polygonflow]

Dash is designed to be an editor plugin that allows you to create your scenes faster than ever before in UE. This means that it is only working with the editor and not with the game mode. Was there anything specific you were thinking about?

[@markhamilton2885]

Looks great - hope you make a mac version soon

[@colin_actually]

Pretty cool.

[@robertprescott9577]

wow amazing!!

[@CGeneralist92]

Incredible!

[@polygonflow]

Thank you!

[@mae2309]

More tutorials of dash.. I take it back I was bitching about renting the plugin. but Its an AMAZING plugin. .. it saves you lost of time when it comes on to creating environments and more... thumbs way up!!

[@polygonflow]

More is coming! Just uploaded a short timelapse actually, and more actual tutorials are coming! Happy to hear you like it!

[@RichardRiegel]

This is Iiterally a game changer

[@auto_Silencer]

Just What I wanted.

[@Dante02d12]

Combine this with speech recognition! We're so close to a very intuitive game making workflow...

[@S41L0R]

This is really cool.

[@egretfx]

this is awesome❤🎉

[@proxima7199]

Looks awesome, nice work! Do I understand correct, that it will cost 10$(first 3 month), 20$ after it per month for freelance? Has it been already released and ready to use? Will it support generation of ocean with islands?

[@polygonflow]

Yes, you understand correctly! Yes, it is released and ready to use already. We do have a tool for assigning a water-material to a plane or a terrain, and we do have a terrain creation tool. So you could try that out and see if you get decent results But we do not have any specific ocean and island tool :) Give the free 14-day trial a spin and see what you think :)

[@proxima7199]

​@@polygonflowThank for the answer. I'll try it )

[@foxy2348]

Super cool!!

[@polygonflow]

Thank you! Have you tried it yet with our free trial? :)

[@user-vu3kk2fm2j]

DAMN THIS IS COOL!

[@MetalGearMk3]

I wish there was a non-subscription option.

[@polygonflow]

Yea, we understand, sorry about that. Maybe in the future :)

[@ArjunMehrotra]

This is insane!!! Will it be coming to Mac anytime soon?

[@polygonflow]

Thanks! Not anytime soon, but maybe in the future!

[@shefo1994]

Great work! Want to ask if this scattering systems is generated with blueprints or pcg? And it is possible for user to create his own systems or edit existing ones to be more art directed? (Of course this needs some technical knowledge)

[@polygonflow]

Thanks! This is our custom tools, not built with BP or PCG at all. Right now we do not offer any way to add tools/systems by the users, but maybe in the future. We had something like that before, but decided to focus on creating amazing tools ourselves, of course based on what the community want/needs. If you have any specific requests, we would be happy to hear it and discuss. The best way to have that converstation is in Discord, if you are able :)

[@joshcooop]

Had to take a break from 3D. Too many migraines🤣But this inspires me to jump back into Unreal and make something. Great video!

[@polygonflow]

We know the struggle! Hopefully, you will feel your workflows can become better by using Dash :)

[@UEArchvizTools]

Like what you did with the megascan content library, you could give the ability to open a window library with the objects we put in "collection". What do you think about it? I would like ability to smoothly find my Meshes/BPs/materials/textures

[@polygonflow]

Good idea! We are currently working on improving our Content Library :)

[@whoisdkm]

I was waiting for this to happen, nice job on actually creating this type of plugin. This is how it should be and probably, hopefully, will be in the future. Pricing a little weird on your side and too high though.

[@polygonflow]

Thanks for the feedback! It is always a hard balance, but we are certain everyone will get way more value out of it than they are paying. But getting feedback on it is very important of course :) Let me know what you think once you have given the trial a spin :)

[@whoisdkm]

@@polygonflow I will sure try it out and I already know that I will love it, but I simply see our future moving towards more accessibility, rather than more resource intensive endeavors. Not wanting to take anything away from the effort you put in, you deserve every bit you can gather from this, but still.. Thanks you anyway!

[@otsoya]

Is the physical placement tool that shows in your website is already available ? game changer for environment credibility

[@polygonflow]

Yep it's available! :)

[@user-fj3dm2gt9p]

Very impressive! I am a believer

[@polygonflow]

Thank you!

[@omkarkulkarni6145]

Soooo sooo sooo gooood❤️