Hello,
This forum topic is so users and potential users of the products, can discuss what they would like to see, if they are having any issues and need help and to share pictures of your scenes (I’d love to see how you are using them, will give me better insight as to what to make next).
There will also be announcements of all Volumes hosted on the Market place.
Posts must stay on topic, must not share links to other products and no personal remarks that maybe construed as derogatory and or inflammatory.
ALWAYS SET YOUR MESHES TO STATIONARY, NOT STATIC, to prevent the false reports of overlapping UV’s.
There maybe concerns as to how the Ivy and Plant volumes may render within scenes. Here are some screenshots taken from within the editor of the Hanging Plants Free project. Unfortunately the versions of these screenshots displayed with the product are much smaller in both size and content. The ones linked here are the raw png versions.
Being screenshots from the editor, all but one is taken in the editing window, one is while in Play mode. The scene was lit with the standard lighting and settings of an empty new project and no alterations. The materials do not use any maps apart from a base colour texture. In full products other maps maybe used.
I have posted the project on the market place, initially I set the price as FREE, but during the process, FREE was replaced with a price. Should I not get this set to free by Unreal, then I will post a link here to the full content.
If you have a bespoked model or models within a scene, and you want Ivy growth meshes created, PM me with the details.
In all cases, the Ivy meshes must not be sold as part of a product on any engine, and or outlet, without express permission in writing. It is solely intended that they be used as part of a larger project that will be built in the form of a finished product, whereby the Ivy meshes cannot be accessed in the finished product or distributed by any other means. Copyright remains with Immersive-Games 2018.
I have been researching for encapsulated material/texture files within an importable file format for Unreal. It is not so much which format will work, but which format Unreal CAN import which is the real issue. Without which, none can supply any product through the MarketPlace that includes third party items that are exposed to the buyer, that can give them the ability to ignore the licencing and distribute them in breach. This I understand and have racked my brains around this issue. I tried using placeholders to models that I used to create the bespoke Ivy growths, in a scene but without the models loaded. Providing links to said models that can be imported into the editor, then re-establish the mesh links to the models to complete the scene and make the models into a useable model combining both. Then the models combined will then be ready for incorporating into a distributable media (Movie, Game, Presentation, Interactive Scene etc).
Even with the models being 100% free and under CC license that only requires a link to that model at source (which I supply anyway) Unreal will not allow it.
Textures are even worse. Unless I make those textures myself from source material I have made (Photo/Artwork etc), I cannot use it when it is available for distribution, once they have purchased my goods.
Believe me, I fully support 100% licensing and copyright surrounding this, but it does seem a huge hole in anyone’s workflow when they want to sell any goods which include other goods, even when complying with copyright and licensing, Unreal says you are in breach on sub-distribution rules!!
Moving on from this issue as it cannot be surmounted at this time.
I will be releasing two volumes called Mega Bush 01 and 02.
Volume 01 has 19 unique meshes that can be combined, and or used individually, to create more unique bushes, or 1 to the power of 19. Combined with the 20 unique leaf materials that can be used on each mesh (each mesh takes 2 leaves and one branch material), potentially you can make 144,400 unique bushes from a single volume.
Volume 02 will share the same materials as Volume 01, but has yet another 20 unique bush meshes, that will give any scene creator a mind boggling amount of permutations for creating unique bushes in their scenes. With both Volumes and the mixture of materials, the total number of unique bushes you can make is 608,400 unique bushes (39 meshes squared x 20 leaves squared) this is not including rotating the meshes within the cameras view, tinting and scaling!
In addition, you can add your own leaves and even flowers to suit your needs.
In the selection of leaf materials/textures are also a collection of dead and dying leaves to create seasonal bushes.
I will post here once the volumes become live in the MarketPlace.
Looks like according to those that make decisions for you, Unreals users will not be allowed to use these bushes on the basis they are not sufficient variety… TBH, these are FBX models, materials and standard textures, you can pick up both Volumes on the Unity Asset Store and they will port in without issue (except the materials).
The same can be said for all the models I create and have been selling for over a decade. Most can be found on the Unity Asset Store, as long as they are not scripted objects like the Security Systems.
The Bushes_Gen02_01 is a collection of compiled bushes created from the Mega Bush series of 2. Sadly the assessor of the Mega Bush series did not see the potential and said that I was trying to sell a random group of unrelated meshes and said they were unfit for hosting on the Marketplace.
The feedback I get from other purchasers on other engines, is that with the 2 series, they are able to create scenes with bushes that are all unique and look like nature had created them. The variety of bushes run into the 10’s of 1,000’s. This possible because I ‘grew’ the meshes around a common form so they became parts of a whole, that could be combined into a huge variety of a model by swapping components. They would all snap together no matter what, the combination of choice. This was the principle of Mega Bush.
Bushes_Gen02_01 is a fixed set of bushes created from combining a small selection into a single model. Needless to say, there are only so many of these fixed models I want to spend time creating. Furthermore, to own all the possible combinations, would not only run into 100,000’s but cost in the region of $30,000 whereas Mega Bush 01 and 02 together would have costed only $25.
With regard to a workflow for getting Unreal editor assets (Bush Gen02 01) into previous engine 4 versions, you must have 4.26 on your system.
Double Click on the Bushes Gen02 01 project to open it, or any project you want to transfer to a lesser version engine.
Navigate to the Mesh folder.
Select the first bush mesh, then holding the shift key, select the last bush mesh. All meshes should now be selected.
Right Click over any of the selected files and choose ‘Asset Actions’, then ‘Bulk Export’.
Choose a Folder in the project of your earlier version engine, click ‘Select Folder’.
In the FBX export window, click Export All.
All the meshes and materials with textures will now be created in that selected folder.
Open each material that has masks (leaves and flowers) and select Blend Mode as Masked, connect the A channel of the Texture to the Opacity Mask node of the Material.
Check the Two Sided box in the Material.
That just leaves you to drag and drop the bush meshes into your scene. Make sure each bush mesh is set to Stationary before you build the Lighting, otherwise you will get errors.
I got this workflow transferring assets from 4.26 into 4.23
NOTE: I have not tried this method with Blueprints, Scripts etc.
Any issues, post them here and I will do my best to assist you.
Just published TreesGen02_06 Dead Forest, add this pack to any of your TreesGen02 packs to increase the variety in your forests. This pack consists of dead trees that are covered in Ivy or Autumn Leaves, or Decayed leaves.
