Unreal Engine 5.2 PCG Plugin - Ep1 - Introduction

[@adrien_logut]

Hey there! Adrien from the future ;) for all the people who watch this video and are on 5.4 and beyond, the landscape pin doesn't exist anymore! Use the "Get Landscape Data" node instead!

[@danmanplayz6228]

you are a goat!

[@messiah001]

Whoa! How did you manage to travel through time!?! 😱😱😱 I'd pay top dollar for a tutorial of that 😂 Jokes aside, I just started the series and I'm loving it! Subbed and belled, hope to see more of your tutorials.

[@furlerer]

Thanks Adrien and the everyone behind PGC 😍I'm so excited to see how PGC grows

[@StrayVertex]

I'm ridiculously excited about this topic. Took it for a spin today and it's such a nice and intuitive workflow. Great introduction video, looking forward to more great content! :)

[@bastiandev]

Great start! I seconf Daniel Elebash here: Having the ability to use e.g. weight maps for distribution would be extremely important to follow your landscape - or just the ability to use the underlying landscape layer material as boundary

[@Gamer_Bastian]

I agree here: The more refinement possibilities where to generate points the better - and underlying landscape layer material would be my top ask, too!

[@adrien_logut]

Yes I plan to do that! I'm less knowledgable with all the landscape tools, so I'll have to dig a bit myself beforehand :)

[@Sky-iv8zm]

Looking forward to the next episodes! Very little on this new exp plugin. Opens up a lot of interesting use cases.

[@danielelebash3781]

Nice vid. Would love to see how to put points based on landscape height, slope, and material.

[@adrien_logut]

That will come! I have plans for this subject :)

[@SoyalicSinan]

Subbed! PCG is overwhelming.

[@thomashalpin2251]

Please continue this series!!!

[@gillgonzalez8479]

My friend someone pointed me to your videos because im a beginner and having a hard time with PCG. Thank you for explaining this to us and making great content. Please keep adding to this. Id love to learn how to add water bodies or planes and not have the trees spawn there. Id love to get more advanced with PCG. Thank you!

[@24pfilms]

Bloody Fantastic. I see Jorge's hands all over this...keep hammering.

[@dreambadger]

I'm getting in on something early for once. This could be cool for quickly building environments and stuff. Just downloading 5.2 while watching your videos.

[@touchstone1682]

Ayo, great time great topic!!! Do continue, I'm gonna follow you to the end

[@real2late]

Awesome! Love what you guys are doing!

[@PeteNicolai]

Super excited to see more. Keep them coming...

[@alekseizolotukhin6367]

Thank you! I hope you continue making video about PGC. Interesting about mixing stuff like i saw on SoU GDC) You are good teacher))

[@eggZ663]

Excellent stuff, looking forward to learning this!

[@sergeyfilin5204]

Awesome video! Thanks a lot for sharing!

[@BladeAflameStudio]

Thank you bro this is exactly what I need, please upload more videos in the future. It would be also amazing if you can show how this stuff worked in C++.

[@adrien_logut]

Code can be downloaded from GitHub if you want to have a look! Otherwise we'll see how we can extend the system with new nodes in Blueprints and C++

[@Dogefather-c8j]

惊人的工作！

[@juhaojala4]

Really cool! Waiting for part 2!

[@seehr]

Amazing stuff Adrien! Thank you a lot for the tutorial.

[@florentsolut1521]

Merci beaucoup pour cette introduction ! Trop hâte de voir le reste et pouvoir prendre en main ce super outil ! :D

[@toreholmem5818]

Amazing, off to a great start! One thing I would like to know: Can landscapes be shaped at runtime by changing the input in the form of i.e. a heighmap? Or is the actual landscape tools still editor only?

[@adrien_logut]

That's unfortunately not possible at the moment, as landscape editing is editor only at the moment, as far as I know

[@Rovetown]

@@adrien_logut you could however try a similar approach to a destructible voxel world. you just alter the mechanism behind it so it shapes the landscape

[@PLAYERUNOWNED]

Top tier work team really looking fwd to using the tools having just made a 1k by 1k... Having a play with this today :)

[@sigrid714]

Can you spawn stuff on the surface of a static mesh actor in the level instead of a landscape?

[@adrien_logut]

Episode 2 is out! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqqzfGqDj7lkpq8

[@archsteel7]

Hey, this is extraordinarily helpful for what I'm currently working on, but I've also noticed it may have some applications for another project I tried in the past. Toying around with the available PCG graphs in 5.3, I found one called "Flatness Detection." And I was wondering, is it possible to use PCG to detect the edges of flat surfaces such that I could place actors along the edges of every flat surface in a level for a procedural climbing system? Basically generating a set of "climb points" that the system could use to determine whether something is a handhold or not?

[@arnoldsoko]

🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿 thank you!!!!

[@RV-bc9yi]

Super séries vidéos sur cet outil génial. Bravo et merci beaucoup pour ton partage ;)

[@Pharoah1224]

So in the presentation you guys did not flesh out how you implemented assemblies on the spline. Can you explain?

[@modz7014]

Please do more videos like this one, about this tool, i subscribed to watch more videos, thanks

[@adrien_logut]

It's planned! I'm in the process of recording the next one!

[@sergioprodriguez2434]

Great job!! thank you!!

[@MarkOfArgyll]

Nice stuff indeed! PCG is PFV on steroids😇

[@Navhkrin]

Can this be used to place more complex objects such as Blueprint actors? For example can I use this to generate a city where every "building" is a random building constructing blueprint actor?

[@adrien_logut]

Yes with the "Spawn Actor" node :)

[@Navhkrin]

@@adrien_logut Impressive stuff!

[@CalmBurger]

Awesome stuff, now we need MOAAAAR! :D

[@azrhyga]

Very great!! Good job!!

[@Highcastle_of_Geek]

This is so useful!

[@PixelFrustum67]

So cool. More more!!

[@dantheman7953]

Waiting for Episode 2

[@javisartdesign]

awesome! It would be nice to see Geometry Scrips and PGC using similar graphs like houdini or blender

[@ureliaurion7814]

Interesting video. Thanks. I was wondering if it can adapt based on what is happening currently in the game. For example, if my player spawn a rock, would it adapt the world around to fit that rock in the landscape ?

[@adrien_logut]

It depends on a few factors, but you can regenerate at runtime, but it might be costly if the rule is complex. We also leverage a caching system, and use with WP maps, we can detect if nothing change within the bounds and skip generation all together.

[@Rydn]

First: Thank you for this. I cant wait to try this out. Second: A question! Would populating grass be more performant using the classical landscape grass node on a landscape material or would you recomend to spawn grass alongside the rest of the assets as another rule?

[@adrien_logut]

Good question! I'm not familiar with the landscape grass node unfortunately so I can't really help you on this one :(

[@Daniel_Crane]

Really cool tool! Which node do i use to run the surface sampler on static meshes as well as the landscape?

[@adrien_logut]

Try "MeshToPoints" :)

[@michalbusik8621]

Hello, when i open my PCG graphs i cant extend the input node and i dont see other options like landscape etc.... Can you please help me with it?

[@cmdrschime4840]

Had the same problem but i notice in video its PCG Version 1 and we have Version 2 , that means you cant extend but on the right side you can find option to setup (small plus sign and drop down menu, choose Landscape) .. Thas all .. 😊

[@michalbusik8621]

@@cmdrschime4840 oh i see. Thank you very múch!

[@adrien_logut]

We deprecated the default input pins. You have to use the "Get X Data Nodes" such as Get Landscape Data. You can have a look a later videos for an up to date UI/UX usage.

[@50shadesofskittles9]

In your intro did you say you work at Epic Games?

[@adrien_logut]

I do :) I'm a tools programmer on PCG

Very cool stuff to in the engine directly. It reminds me a lot Geometry Nodes with how data is moved and transformed so onboarding should be easy ! I'm curious to see if it can apply shaders or modify their parameters per instance, or use external data (via csv) as inputs or even export some of that data.

[@BROCKSGAMING]

Awsome for content creationg , but as shown in GDC , how does so many individial static meshes get stacked correctly , and when they are close to each other they automatically generate things like fallen tree bridge between them , river gets displaced , rocks formation change , so much more to learn , cant wait

[@adrien_logut]

That's with more advanced and complex graphs :) It's just an introduction for now, more will come!

[@BROCKSGAMING]

@@adrien_logut can't wait for that to come soon

[@redtroll80]

Fantastic. Epic could probably just buy Houdini :p

[@shallyjohn5556]

Thanks for your video,if you can make more , it will be more cool.🥰

[@TheeScienceExplained]

Awesome video! I was playing around with it and it is an amazing tool! Were those procedurals from the Demo made with PCG? Cant wait to see more about this :)

[@adrien_logut]

Yes it was!

[@TheeScienceExplained]

@@adrien_logut Crazy. Wish Epic would let us try the demo. There is so much to learn!

[@musikalniyfanboichik]

i wish you'd talk more about what kind of things this pcg is really meant for because rn i struggle to see. Foliage? Grass shader and foliage tool. Architecture? Isn't it bad for performance if meshes aren't grouped? Clutter - meh... I'm a junior so maybe i don't know, but i just don't get it.

[@adrien_logut]

Have you seen our tech talk? It dives more into why we developed this plugin and different usecases. kzbin.infoteTroOAGZjM?feature=share&t=6308 And in the "Electric Dreams" demo, we use PCG for this big assembly, which is adapting automatically to its surroundings, with manipulators. It is close to what you would have for building generation. And all the mountains are also procedurally generated. This tutorial series is meant to introduce the various concepts around PCG step by step and let people play with the plugin :)

[@dreambadger]

Adrien, what would it take to be able to set up these procedural worlds with an AI prompt like from a chatGPT llm or something? Like what would be neccessary? The PCG in Unreal seems like one of the major elements to create a world from words. Like maybe it would need integration with the new Unreal store to source quixel assets to use as a base, then based on prompts or some sliders to set up the underlying graphs and such.

[@adrien_logut]

Not entierely sure, I didn't think about that one. Perhaps with the Python interpreter directly in Unreal you can query pieces of code or description of a node then use Python to parse it and add nodes to a graph? Just thinking out loud, I don't know the full extents of chatGPT

[@Latvian3Dman]

Thank You for video

[@Dogefather-c8j]

how to expose those param to detail pannel?

[@adrien_logut]

Not sure I understood the question there, but some settings from the details panel view can be overridden with what we call AttributeSet (previously known as ParamData), which are attributes you can manipulate. It's a big topic so it will be in a future video for sure !

[@IamNeighborlee]

Yes I’m registered as epic user

[@LudvikKoutnyArt]

I've been waiting for something like this for years. I am just concerned about the UI, specifically the node socket icons. I think unreal should have visually simple unified visual language for nodes. Having unique node socket icons for each different graph editor within one software - Unreal Editor, will become very confusing very fast.

[@BetaraptorLP]

Hi, thanks for this, I'm excited about this ever since seeing it work in the demo. I have a question after seeing this tutorial, what is the relation of this tech to the procedural foliage spawner? Is it meant to merge, replace or work alongside it? PFS is quite good but still quite limited in what it can do (for example the assemblies and details to break up the procedural monotonous terrain are impossible) and this seems like it would be able to do much more, but then the PFS is a bit doomed to be forgotten for being inferior.

[@adrien_logut]

That's a good question! Unfortunately I don't know yet, I'm assuming it will be communicated in the roadmap at some point.

[@BetaraptorLP]

@@adrien_logut Thanks for the reply! I'm eager to see where this goes. I have one more question, the one feature I'm missing from PFS a lot is making clusters of same species but different meshes (for example variation of berry bushes patches in the forest or piles of rocks) and this seems like it could make that possible?

[@adrien_logut]

Yeah definitely possible, what you saw during the demo is PCG assemblies, it can be handcrafted first and then generate multiple variations of the same handcrafted assembly!

[@DevGods]

Is this plug-in’s goal to replace Houdini? Or is it similar to what control rig is doing? Which is giving you the tools of another program without the need to have a specialist in said program?

[@adrien_logut]

No of course not, our goal is to provide tooling directly in engine to avoid having to rely on external software. But it is planned to support import features from other software. Like importing a point cloud generated by Houdini.

[@aukehuys2297]

@@adrien_logut Uhhh, that would be really neat! Currently we are using the Rule Processor for this kind of task, but it would be really nice to have more options in how to interpret the incoming data in engine. Nice

[@DezorianGuy]

One question. My Volume is going crazy, can't keep it in its bounds. The volume box doesn't confine the procedural generation but stretches it throughout the map. The whole map is a forest now. :O I cannot find the option "Unbound" to uncheck in the details panel of the world outliner of the volume. Also, what Unreal version did you work with when creating this video? Mine is 5.1.1 and does seem to be visually altered. The Nodes do not look the same, have different options and symbols. The "Input" node does not feature those 2 green symbols, but purple ones like the rest. When right clicking a node I do not get "inspect", but "Start Inspecting" and other similar changes. Also the SurfaceSamplerNode has no "Surface", "Bounding Shape" options, just an "In" (and "out") point. Edit: I found out that I was trying this PCG plugin within an existing project I experimented with. By creating a new level I seem to have my volume "bound" again, all is working fine. But the question remains, how do I fix that problem with my old project. :O?

[@adrien_logut]

We are not supporting 5.1, the plugin was not announced yet, and a lot have changed since. But in your case, you might want to change the input on the component to Landscape, and use the In pin of the Input Node instead.

[@dr_j0nes]

Will we be able to also spawn actors instead of only static meshes so we can for example interact with the procedurally spawned content? Would grass also be a good idea to spawn with PCG or would it be too imperformant?

[@adrien_logut]

That's a topic for another video, but yeah you can spawn actors too!

[@DeadlyApples666]

Don't know if anyone can help but when I try to use PCG the trees I have use WPO for wind effects and it causes the trees to act weird and fly and wobble up and down with increasing severity the further away from the center point of the PCG volume

[@n1lknarf]

Can the seed be modified at runtime using blueprint? Or is there an option in the plugin to use a random seed on every generate event?

[@adrien_logut]

Yes it can just change the seed on the PCG component and call Generate with the Force option on

[@plasid2]

Its possible somehow take information about Landscape material layers?

[@adrien_logut]

Yes you can! Try to plug the landscape pin instead of the landscape height pin, and if you inspect the surface sampler node, you should see the layers as attributes for each points.

[@alexb4886]

Are there any plans to integrate the use of neural networks to generate/arrange Megascans/Fab assets for UE5 scenes?

[@adrien_logut]

Machine learning could be very interesting to integrate in this tool, especially for the sampling :) AFAIK it's not in our immediate roadmap.

[@mic007129]

I love it! If its deterministic that mean it could work well with multiplayer game, but is there a way to store the changes (exemple chopping trees and saving them as chopped)?

[@adrien_logut]

We had a proof of concept with PCG spawing actors and static meshes in a multiplayer environment and it worked well with the fact that it is deterministic. If each tree is an actor, after the initial generation, it will behave as any other actor.

[@aylanlops]

@@adrien_logut But if I instantiate many actors like this for collection of sticks, rocks, wood. The simple fact of instantiating so many actors, would it kill the performance of the game, right? Or did they find a way to prevent this from affecting? but these use a lot of performance. Thank you very much for your reply.

[@ethanwasme4307]

I'm still using 4.X, is this a full replacement for the old procedural foliage spawning volumes?

[@adrien_logut]

No we don't plan to retrofit it in 4.X nor providing any support. We only support 5.3 at the moment, since we are experimental.

[@hunter7777]

I have now tried this several times over the last few days, and I cannot get it to generate any points or anything at all. I have enabled the PCG plugin, restarted, & followed step by step yours & some other videos on how to set this up & use it. But nothing is ever generated, unless I check unbounded (which means it covers the entire landscape).

[@adrien_logut]

If unbounded works but not otherwise, it is probably because your bounds doesn't intersect with the landscape! Check your volume and make sure there is part of the landscape in it!

[@hunter7777]

@@adrien_logut How do I do that?

[@adrien_logut]

You can look at the outline of the PCG volume in the viewport and just move the volume to make sure it overlaps with the landscape

[@constatnine]

Hello., I just want to know if it's possible, for the PCG tools that you show in here , to work with 5.1.1 ? i choose that version because in 5.2 preview the lumen has a weird shadow flickering with VR (and could not figure it out why). Lumen works perfect in 5.1.1 with VR and nanite (and also DLSS support)

[@adrien_logut]

No it is not planned to backport it in 5.2 There is the PCG plugin in 5.1 but in an old state that we don't support anymore.

[@constatnine]

@@adrien_logut Then i'll wait for the 5.2.? lumen fix for VR :P

[@cultura_ue]

Very interesting - very same as Houdini. One question - how to feed custom actor geometry from outliner instead landscape? upd. OK, seems it doesn't work with plane geometry, sad. I'd like to use it as an offline instrument. So there is no documentation yet and I try to explore it by myself

[@adrien_logut]

We'll see in another video, but you can try the MeshToPoints node.

[@cultura_ue]

@@adrien_logut Looking forward! Will try MeshToPoint

[@lukasschulz9567]

Is there a way to sample the landscape paint layers for point distribution yet?

[@adrien_logut]

Yes it is possible! I'll have a future video for that, but the landspace pin will have attributes with different layers :)

[@MrGeek76]

Hey, ty for this tutorial! I don't have anything else than "In" when I open the Input... What did i miss ? :(

[@adrien_logut]

We deprecated the input pins, so you'll have to use Get Landscape Data and Get Actor Data for the equivalent :) Have a look to more recent tutorials!

[@MrGeek76]

@@adrien_logut great! ty for your quick answer :) I'll definitely follow your serie for PCG

[@brainshack9077]

Can PCG Framework modifiy the landscape, like changing textures and heightmap?

[@adrien_logut]

Unfortunately no, not to my knowledge at least.

[@CR4FTVR]

nice

[@Lv7-L30N]

gracias

[@wco3095]

Does this have any performance benefit vs the foliage tool in terms of gameplay fps or is it just more convenient?

[@adrien_logut]

I didn't use the foliage tool, but I'm assuming it was also using Instanced Static Mesh (ISM) so after generation, performance should be the same. The advantage of PCG is that it is a more complete tool, not just scattering meshes, and it also works at runtime (I don't know about the foliage tool if it works at runtime).

[@wco3095]

@@adrien_logut thank you for your response. What does it mean when you say it works at runtime? Does it recalculate the foliage when I'm playing the game or is it like a culling thing?

[@adrien_logut]

I mean that the procedural generation can be done at runtime too. You could hot swap graphs in a volume and it will regenerate it with the new rule, even during gameplay!

[@wco3095]

@@adrien_logut I think I understand. So this tool is actually ideal for spawning meshes during gameplay, such as random appearing loot in the world or falling leaves during autumn

[@cherryVision]

Debug doesn't change my meshes to the debug icon meshes :(

[@cherryVision]

fixed by changing "scale method" under surface sampler node

[@nisecg2789]

yesssss

[@nisecg2789]

8:01 : i see what you did there lol

[@yamikanikalonge2346]

Is there a way to point the trees to a direction of another mesh like for example if I was building a city and had to point the building to a road?

[@adrien_logut]

You can extract point transforms and do vector operation on them, so yeah it is possible! A bit more advanced though

[@yamikanikalonge2346]

Would really love a tutorial on how to as city generation in unreal engine isn’t that easy

[@thomashalpin2251]

Would this work for procedural buildings?

[@adrien_logut]

Yes! A member of the team did prototype something to generate building procedurally. You can check the techtalk given by my colleagues :) kzbin.infoteTroOAGZjM It starts at 1:45:00

[@MowGohhldRequired]

4:03 will not work anymore on UE5.4. Instead search for "Get Landscape Data"-Node and connect it to "Surface Sampler". No need to connect "Input node".

[@adrien_logut]

Indeed things have changed!

[@looniper3551]

New content for me, was hopeful I could put it to use, but it seems to be defective in the current version. Input doesn't expose anything, and working through the cpp, I'm reminded why I retired.

[@adrien_logut]

Indeed input pins are deprecated now, you can have access to the landscape with Get Landscape data node. Have a look to later videos, PCG is in active development so a lot have changed between 5.2 and 5.4

[@UlrichThümmler]

Work this only with Landscape? Or Support other LevelActors (static meshes)

[@adrien_logut]

No you can sample on other things, like volume, splines and even meshes!

[@adrien_logut]

Try the MeshToPoints node!

[@LukiGames0]

@@adrien_logut Also this is not even final release and only 0.1 preview version. It will have for sure a lot more things available in a future.

[@larbibenmhidi3054]

Adrien, est-ce que avec une nvidia RTX 3060 on peut activer nanite, lumen et surtout PCG. Bref, on peut faire tourner tout ça dans un PC avec une GU nvidia RTX 3060 ?

[@adrien_logut]

PCG est CPU only pour le moment. Donc t'es limité principalement par ton processeur et ta RAM. Après les meshes utilisés et leur nombre va être limité par le GPU. De mémoire, Lumen et Nanite ont juste besoin de DirectX12 et d'une carte capable de faire du Ray tracing. Ce que la RTX 3060 supporte.

[@larbibenmhidi3054]

Merci bien Adrien.@@adrien_logut

[@alessiobelli]

Hi, I installed the preview version but I have no Descriptor in the Mesh entry section for the staticmeshspawner, anyone else with the same problem?

[@adrien_logut]

Preview 1 is an older version of 5.2, we continued working and changing stuff. It will be available in the final release of 5.2

[@alfaunicorn81]

Can you have several PCGV volumes on a terrain map?

[@dr_j0nes]

Of course

[@adrien_logut]

Of course you can! That would be bad if it was not possible 🥲

[@sirflexyt]

3rd :)

[@DmitrySinditskiy]

please do more

[@DKJens44]

In the mesh selection you have Component Class above it, I don't have that. and thanks

[@adrien_logut]

If you are on Preview 1, it's normal we have pushed a lot of new stuff that will be in the final version of 5.2

[@MickaelSchaack]

Adrien tu es français ?

[@adrien_logut]

Ça s'entend! :D

[@MickaelSchaack]

@@adrien_logut oui ahah ça fait 4 mois que je boss sur unreal et je galère parfois merci pour tes tutos, pour me constituer une équipe pour bosser et recruter des gens tu me conseil discord ?

[@adrien_logut]

Bonne question, je n'ai jamais entrepris cette demarche mais oui Reddit ou Discord semble etre une bonne place.

[@herblewis6250]

Sad that this is already out of date.

[@adrien_logut]

Living on the edge, no time to waste! Most of what is described here can be found in later videos, with the up to date way of doing it. You can check the Ep 1 and 2 about new features ;)

[@0805slawek]

great of course the same shit as paint foliage you must one by one add to node, becouse they not implement adding one folder

[@adrien_logut]

Do you mean dropping a folder full of different static meshes into a single static mesh spawner node? That could be an interesting option indeed! One other thing that can be done, and I couldn't talk about it in the intro otherwise it would have make the video very long, but you can control which mesh is spawned by each point using attributes. Then you can create a simple blueprint, that will take the list of points and add an attribute with the path to the mesh you want for this point. I don't know if you can parse folder in BP, that's something I need to look at! But dealing with attributes is what make the PCG graph flexible, so I'll definitely have a few videos talking about that!

[@0805slawek]

@@adrien_logut yes, drop one folder, for example I have folder call grass with 100 different grass meshes and just drag and drop all folder to those nodes

[@steffenaaland1580]

And as always with Unreal, I follow the tutorial, but nothing works. I can’t even get the debug boxes to display. So tired of UE everything is a problem, nothing is possible to figure out logically by yourself. I have to use hours on YT for the simplest things. You say you want to enable artists, but the whole software is made for engineers.

[@adrien_logut]

It's an experimental plugin and we are working on giving more information to the user about what went wrong in the generation. Few tips: use the log window, there are a few info there. And make sure your volume is intersecting with the landscape.

[@Eschen_]

I was stuck on the same issue for a bit, keep in mind the "Surface Sampler" node only samples on landscapes, not the static mesh platform that's in the level by default. Unfortunately there's no feedback about it when it doesn't find a surface.

[@HakaiKaien]

Can we have someone that speaks english a little bit better? I barely understand what this guy is saying

[@eggZ663]

That's your problem then, I'm English and I understood him just fine

[@adrien_logut]

French accent here! Trying hard to articulate but yeah it takes practice :) I also provided subtitles, if someone has trouble understanding me.

[@HakaiKaien]

@@adrien_logut Perfect. Thank you for the subtitles

[@modz7014]

Hes English is so clear, i think your to slow, your the problem here not him 😏

[@Igotthatjizz]

find nothing in the input under 3:50

[@adrien_logut]

Landscape is now retrieved with a Get Landscape Data node

[@fddesign]

Is this method supported with ''path tracer''?