Introducing Dash for Unreal Engine 5

[@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! :)

[@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!

[@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!

[@JaidevCGartist]

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

[@polygonflow]

😄

[@PetitGarconAdam]

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

[@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!

[@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!

[@J3R3MI6]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@BombsAwayMusic]

ooohyeha, nice

[@Yogntv]

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

[@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!

[@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

[@thetriangleforge]

I just saw the future of Environment creation. Incredible!

[@DesignwithTP]

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

[@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!

[@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 👍

[@absystudio]

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

[@polygonflow]

Thank you very much!

[@juanpaulomardonez9151]

Amazing showcase Josh!

[@polygonflow]

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

[@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 👏

[@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 :) )

[@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

[@stedbenj]

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

[@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!

[@SiLiDNB]

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

[@maxedee]

Great work guys! Excited to git it a spin.

[@polygonflow]

We are excited to seeing your results!

[@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 :)

[@gouthammannuru4520]

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

[@yranos7500]

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

[@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.

[@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?

[@EliteInExile]

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

[@hellothere8121]

Wow, this looks actually very interesting

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear it!

[@adorethered]

The color grading is such a cool feature. Does the color grading work with gameplay? (Ie, I make a 1st person perspective game, and the color grading works with the 1st person camera)?

[@polygonflow]

Happy to hear you like it! The Dash camera is a slightly different version of the normal UE cine camera. So for the gameplay camera, it is probably easiest if you grab the grading preset you like from Dash and drag and drop it into the game camera post process grading slot :) You can find our presets in Content/Polygonflow/Assets/LUTs :)

[@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 :)

[@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 :)

[@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 👏

[@MagistrTheOne]

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 👋

[@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.

[@monterotorrent]

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

[@polygonflow]

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

[@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!

[@EnterMyDreams]

this is soooo good! I am definitely paying for this

[@cjk2590]

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

[@polygonflow]

Sounds good, good luck!

[@Clydiie]

this is amazing!

[@polygonflow]

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

[@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 :)

[@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! :)

[@NnotKnott]

finally a reason to open up a project in UE 😩

[@haya3sa]

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

[@polygonflow]

haha, love the reaction!

[@viralvekaria]

Very Usefull, Thank you

[@polygonflow]

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

[@kishore_art]

Now this is a game changer 😮♥️

[@polygonflow]

That is the reaction we are looking for🤟

[@snook-official]

How easy is it to make adjustments to the procedurally generated content? Like, if there was one tree that it had placed that you wanted to remove would it be easy to do that? Also, let's say you added a landscape material as shown in the video and you wanted to replace it with one that had layer blend materials and RVT, could you easily swap it out? My concern is that if you had a very specific outline for a scene that had to be created, how much control do you have over it? In this case would it just make things more complicated?

[@polygonflow]

Hi! All the scenes we've showcased in this video have been made with Dash from A to Z, and there's quite a bit of variety in how we approached them, vs just a very set of scenes. Yes, you can dictate where you want or don't want to scatter stuff. You can use the proximity masking to cull out one or any specific amount of trees away from an area, and it's basically just 2-3 clicks away. The material workflow is definitely an area where we've yet to polish the experience just yet. We'll work on a solid material blending workflow interface that makes it easier for users (pros and newcomers) to blend various materials. Back to the instance editing, we're also working on giving you the ability to remove specific instances from your scatter, without using proximity based removal. So you could select that tree, and just delete it.

[@aaayerus]

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

[@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!

[@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.

[@ARCTECHGAMER]

This is awesome.

[@otsoya]

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

[@polygonflow]

Yep it's available! :)

[@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 :)

[@ahmedelattar8259]

Can you make it to tutorial for an interior and the exterior scene? For a small house for example?

[@polygonflow]

Thanks for the suggestion, will try to do it in the future :)

[@stivan_music]

Where to download?

[@polygonflow]

Just head to our website, polygonflow.io :) There you find a free trial download :)

[@awakenwithoutcoffee]

as a professional myself I am both excited and reluctant to start working with these tools. If we want custom shaders can we hook them into our Dash workflow ? For this demo, you show how to apply a material to a terrain. How do we add another layer and height blend it ? can we set a custom heightblend function etc. ? Can the Scattering be localized to certain areas and re-used so multiple artists can freely re-use scattered presets ? how does it compare to Unreal's native PCG ?

[@polygonflow]

In this first version of Dash, our content browser either uses the default materials that ship with Megascans, or our custom ones. We're working on expanding it to support any kind of asset, and therefore any type of material as well. You should be able to decide to use our materials, the material that's on the asset by default, or any other custom material of your choosing. This is a massive undertaking, and we'll slowly roll out the features over the next few weeks/months until it becomes future-proof. Regarding terrain, our current terrain workflow definitely doesn ot lend itself to a smooth experience when dealing with blend materials. What we want to do here is give you a proper interface with procedural controls over your blending workflows, vs just asking you to go learn Unreal's solution. Our scatter system is custom built, and much easier to use than PCG. Yes you can constrain it to specific areas. In PCG, you can draw a curve and use it as a bounding area in which to do your scattering. Dash is no different: you can feed a curve as a mask, and it'll ensure that you only scatter what's "inside" that curve. Ofc, you're not constrained to just curves; you can mask by static meshes, level instances, other instances, etc... Every scatter setup you do can be "duplicated" and adjusted subsequently. There's no "save as preset" interface for just that atm, as it's much harder in practice to ship such presets without bringing in all the assets and whatnot. But that's something on our todo list, and should be a fairly low hanging fruit as well :)

[@awakenwithoutcoffee]

@@polygonflow thank you for the clear answer. Unfortunately due to these functions lacking it does mean we cannot use it in production just yet but we are eagerly awaiting further development

[@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 !!!!!

[@adzer0_0]

This is quite amazing!

[@aizen3d120]

Amazing!

[@polygonflow]

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

[@brenden0820]

Is Dash for personal use only or can I publish a game later on using Dash? (Obviously giving credit)

[@polygonflow]

You can use it however you see fit! :) Credit would be appreciated, but up to you.

[@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?

[@futureframe1985]

Just simply wow

[@brianmolele7264]

This is a dream tool 😮

[@polygonflow]

Grab yourself a free trial and tell us what you thought about it!

[@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!

[@iggynore]

This is great. What are the specs on the player's machine to run something like this is real time? Might make me take the leap from Unity to Unreal if it won't need a 3090 from player's side

[@polygonflow]

I answered you in Discord :)

[@dddharmesh]

Very nice. This will help a lot

[@colin_actually]

Pretty cool.

[@GamingwithJael]

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

[@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 :)

[@BeatsOnSub]

Just popped into your website about to download it, just have some small questions, if I do freelance plan will I have same commercial rights as Enterprise? If not what rights can I have with the freelance? (Might end up with the enterprise in future but would like to kick it with freelance for now). Thank you in advance tool looks superb already without even trying it yet!

[@polygonflow]

Yes you can ship commercial work with the freelancer option! :) The Enterprise one is for companies with more than $250K in yearly revenue.

[@BeatsOnSub]

@@polygonflow LOVE IT!!! Thank you so much for the reply!!

[@JoshuaLundquist]

YESSSS this is what we all needed

[@tommywer]

This is a life changer!

[@rogueronin1010]

This is so much powerful

[@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 :)

[@RichardRiegel]

This is Iiterally a game changer

[@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 :)

[@squeaky_buddha]

Sorcery! 🧙🏽‍♂

[@polygonflow]

We know 😁

[@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 :(

[@毛大侠]

I created terrain with Dash but can't sculpt with the default terrain sculpting tools, are they incompatible?

[@polygonflow]

Yes right now they are sadly incompatible, our terrain tool does not create a landscape. But we are looking into changing the tool so that it does just that. So hopefully you will be able to sculpt it in the future! :)

[@Nirnaeth]

When I drag the material, the material icon doesn't show. I click on the terrain and I click everywhere and I don't have those icons...

[@polygonflow]

Join us on Discord and we'll be able to help you out! bit.ly/DashDiscord

[@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 :)

[@Prez3D]

I'm having an issue right in the beginning. I can't seem to path to my Quixel library of assets in the preferences. What exactly is the location or what am I pathing to? The library of already downloaded assets or some arbitrary location?

[@polygonflow]

Hey! You are supposed to point it toward the folder where your Bridge (UE integrated Bridge) is downloaded on your PC. You can find that location by right-clicking an asset in Bridge and check where it is located. Then in Dash, make sure to use the path button on the right, and not just paste the path directly in the Dash Preferences, a Windows panel should pop up and in there, you give the path :) I hope this helps, send us a message on our Discord if you need more help! :)

[@FRGRANDS]

wow!!.It's amazing.

[@Dante02d12]

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

[@markhamilton2885]

Looks great - hope you make a mac version soon

[@storiedknowledge]

How does this work with a large landscape with multiple landscape materials?

[@THAUTOPIANDREAMER]

Cant wait to try this. Does this work on Apple silicone?

[@polygonflow]

We've done a great deal of work around Windows-specific optimization, so I'm afraid it's not yet available on MACs, but that's definitely on the roadmap :)

[@1lllllllll1]

soon, I hope we will have midjourney-style authoring. "midieval town set near a forested river with vistas of distant snowy mountains" and poof, Riverwood.

[@TorQueMoD]

This is really cool, but why name it terrain when Unreal uses the term Landscape? That's just confusing. Are you using your own terrain system? I'm guessing so based on the fact that you just placed a plane for the water instead of using UE's built in water tool. That seems counter intuitive. Why create new systems instead of just using the built in ones? I'm also wondering if your scattering tool is just scattering the mesh or if it's actually using the foliage system?

[@davidpurple3698]

Thanks a lot. Does it work for Mac version? And you could add an avatar just to have a feeling for the ratios

[@polygonflow]

No mac version right now sadly! Thanks for the idea!

[@davidpurple3698]

@@polygonflow Thank you - hopefully Mac version will come