[Free Marketplace Assets] A Patreon page funded approach :D

[BenjaminDSmithy]

---

To get a better idea of how this came about, please take a look at the following forum thread: https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...Fps-Characters

Below is the summary of what is currently being considered:

---

Come to think of it,
Would anyone be interested if we were to setup a Patreon page and provide 1 of our artists part to full time to work on assets like those weapons you saw above from Enrico Santi and release whatever content we make for the public based on suggestions through our Patreon's comment page on the marketplace for free?

As I see that as being an interesting way to help out the overall community by having those with $$$ supporting those who are on a shoestring budget by adding funds to our Patreon page which will result in more content for EVERYONE + we could throw in some perks like Google Hangouts, training sessions, etc. for those forking over the $$$

---

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this and I will most definitely setup a proper forum thread to discuss the subject further if you guys feel that it's a good idea

This will not only support our internal projects but also allow us to venture out from our cave so to speak and meet the community a bit more (we have been pretty closed off this last year+)

---

UPDATE 1: I have created a dedicated room on our HipChat server for open discussion amongst the team regarding the possibility of doing something like this + to get a headcount of those who are interesting in taking part in such a thing

Also here's an embedded video of what Patreon is all about:

It sure beats Unreal Dev Grants for our type of situation & it keeps us accountable to the community on a month to month basis

We will also look at potentially setting up a BigBlueButton instance on one of our servers, as Google Hangouts isn't the best quality for streams, either that or perhaps Twitch streams? This could all be answered in a Poll that I will setup if/when I get around to making my own thread on the topic.

Source: https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...l=1#post245816

[n00854180t]

Would you guys be interested in doing a high quality base character (no clothes) pack via this Patreon, where you set up morphs for character customization sliders?

It would be awesome to be able to generate a variety of high quality (like really nice sculpts and materials pretty please) base characters. I'd be willing to put in a couple hundred bucks to the Patreon for something like this, as I think everyone here needs high quality characters and as others expressed there is not a huge amount of incentive to put those on the Marketplace - but a nice base character with customization morphs (and hopefully face morphs) would be useful to pretty much everyone.

(Heck you could even make clothes/accessories packs for it yourselves as well, and the more people that use it the wider customer base.)

[BenjaminDSmithy]

Would you guys be interested in doing a high quality base character (no clothes) pack via this Patreon, where you set up morphs for character customization sliders?

An old colleague of mine named Richard G Marcoux III or as his more well known alias of 1Richmar and Richmar1 on the old Crydev.net forums actually created just that

We still stay in touch and work together here and there. So perhaps he might be interested in coming aboard and working with our character artists to port over his code from CRYENGINE to UE4

Here are some examples of old prototypes he made in the field you're after in order of most polished to earliest prototype:

---

---

Let me know if this interests you and I'll make contact with Richard next week (he doesn't work weekends, as he likes to dedicate that time to his partner & kids)

---

EDIT: I would just like to add that we have been looking to create a multi-layer modular system similar to that of Kingdom Come: Deliverance's system they presented in the following Dev Diary:

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Video Update #2: Character Customization [YouTube Video] - Had to hyperlink due to 4 embedded video limit per-message on these forums...

But such a feature has been buried in our backlog for some time

Our main focus at the moment is on a plugin we have in development codenamed ODIN & our internal game IP which is yet to be announced (not really focusing much on characters at the moment)

In the meantime,
I would suggest checking out ClayBender's Modular Clothing Pack + Fabric Material [SUBMITTED] forum thread which should somewhat furfil your needs

[n00854180t]

Kingdom Come is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind in terms of the clothing/accessories customization aspect, actually.

When I posted above I was honestly just thinking you'd want to provide the art with appropriate morphs, but an actual slider system would be better.

[DaveFace]

Would you guys be interested in doing a high quality base character (no clothes) pack via this Patreon, where you set up morphs for character customization sliders?

It would be awesome to be able to generate a variety of high quality (like really nice sculpts and materials pretty please) base characters.

Mixamo fuse already does this - granted, the results are fairly average, but the customization is brilliant.

[n00854180t]

Mixamo fuse already does this - granted, the results are fairly average, but the customization is brilliant.

Well, for me the quality isn't there, for one... the characters look like potato. They just don't come out looking like high end character meshes. Secondly the materials seem to be not so great. The last thing is that you don't get any facility for making them in engine, which is a big benefit (e.g., for a customization system that works in game).

For spitting out a really basic prototyping character, sure. But we're kind of talking about having a character creator mesh/system in UE4 itself, which would allow for both higher quality of the mesh/materials, as well as using the customization system in a game directly.

Kind of apples to oranges to my mind. Sure Fuse and Makehuman are options, but the quality isn't really there out of the box and there's no facility for using those customization tools in engine/at runtime.

[BenjaminDSmithy]

- QUICK UPDATE -

Hey guys,
We have created a Patreon page draft/template which we will release to the community once it's a bit more polished before we even consider officially launching it whenever that may be

I would also like to state that we are currently having discussions internally regarding what assets we might release first for FREE before we even start an ongoing Patreon campaign as a way to showcase our ability and quality of work to the UE4 Community.

Currently we’re thinking of releasing a weapons pack, since who can go wrong with a weapons pack and better yet a Russian themed one at that



So this is not set in stone but we are discussing releasing something along the lines of:

• Kalashnikov AK-47
• SVD (Dragunov)
• PPSh-41

And who knows,
We might even throw in a KGB era Makarov Pistol

These weapons would be either partially or fully animated.

---

The current goals we have in mind on our WIP Patreon page template in order from lowest to highest are:

1. Material Pack
2. Prop Pack
3. Environment Pack
4. Weapon Pack
5. Animation Pack
6. Asset + Animation Pack
7. Character Pack
8. UE4 Game Sample and/or Template

These are of course subject to change but should give you all an idea of where we are heading with this

---

For those who haven't followed the reference forum links above (I don't blame you), here are a couple of pieces from some of my colleagues to give you a general idea of the level of quality we strive to produce week in week out:

Leo Li aka ImBrokeRU

Enrico Santi aka RubixLight













Benjamin Mikhaiel aka BigFish




John Yau
http://www.johnyaudesign.com/ (I'm going to stop posting images now)

---

P.S. I am aware that the 1st post on this thread is pretty shoddy and it should be updated come early next week if not sooner.

[alanconrad]

I would love to see some WW2 stuff

[BenjaminDSmithy]

I would love to see some WW2 stuff

weapons, vehicles, tanks/planes/ships, bunkers, historic locations and/or other?

[alanconrad]

I would love to see maybe some weapons and/or environment props such as destroyed vehicles, sandbags, rubble, military tent and stuff like that

[BenjaminDSmithy]

I would love to see maybe some weapons and/or environment props such as destroyed vehicles, sandbags, rubble, military tent and stuff like that

Hi alanconrad,
I have been talking to an old colleague of mine who has worked on multiple games in the WWII time period including such titles as Traction Wars, who is interested in participating on the team/division I am building inside my company to support this community effort, as it is better to be over prepared over that of being caught off guard if this thing blows up in popularity

One of the many assets he has which is set to a WWII theme is a fully animated working spitfire plane, all animated for CRYENGINE and flyable.

Which includes:

• Cockpit
• Propeller
• Arions
• Rudders
• Machine guns

All working and machine guns are all setup too

He is still considering whether or not to provide the above listed assets to this community project and we would obviously need to port it all over to UE4 if the assets are provided but that shouldn't be too much of a hassle if so.

He has also mentioned some WWII themed searchlights and generators assets which might be of interest to the public as well?

NOTE: We could also take a look at making an entire WWII themed modular bunker asset pack if there is enough interest.

---

UPDATE:

Expect to see this forum thread drastically updated in the coming days

This would have come sooner but I was occupied with the news that my younger brother is having another kid & I was helping him + his partner out when I could throughout the week.

[alanconrad]

Sounds awesome! Thank you

[thanatosx]

I will support this.

[Valachio]

Weapon models looks amazing. Hopefully you'll be able to release all the these modern weapon models in the pictures + more.

[BenjaminDSmithy]

- QUICK UPDATE -

Hi all,
Just a quick update that we will be announcing early next week

We figured that announcing around the week of April Fools was probably not the best idea & this gives us a bit more time to polish things off + we can also theme part of our announcement towards the Easter holiday season

We are also going the whole nine yards when it comes to marketing material, a dedicated website & hopefully a short video if we can complete it in time.

Not to mention that we are working on an 'Asset Crate' which we will be releasing for FREE! to show our commitment to this community focused initiative we are working towards & to give you an idea of what kind of quality bar you should expect to see from us moving forward with future 'Asset Crates' as we've decided to call them.

Disclaimer - the 'Asset Crate' which we will be releasing for FREE! will most likely come sometime after our announcement & will most likely not be apart of the announcement itself. This is due to not wanting to lower the quality standards of the asset(s) to meet the announcement deadline.