I don’t wish to point fingers at content packs or target anything in particular, but I have to vent my frustration on this matter.
I just purchased the Semi-Arid Environment pack that went on sale on Marketplace this week, only to be left massively disappointed - and to be honest, unwilling to buy any environment content from Marketplace until this issue is resolved. This is one of several packages on the Marketplace that DOESN’T specify whether it’s content is actually PBR ready or not. I feel as though this is a pretty big oversight on the Marketplaces part, since it means that the content has blatantly not been designed with this engine in mind - or the content creator isn’t experienced enough to work properly with PBR or the Engine.
Now admittedly, the pack doesn’t say that it IS PBR ready, and it was relatively cheap. However, it’s still a complete waste of money to me - because I now don’t have content that I can use properly with the engine or with the rest of my project. Instead it’s kind of bodged together. A large portion of the materials don’t even have Specular maps (the old workflow that STILL doesn’t work with the engine) - and instead just uses a different diffuse channel. The content in the pack is frankly (in my opinion), sub-par from what people should expect.
The thing that irks me is that I bought this from the Unreal Engine Marketplace, which means it should be fully compatible with the Unreal Engine. I don’t think this kind of content qualifies. If the content is on Marketplace and is supposed to have been ‘vetted’ by Epic Staff, I’d expect much higher quality than this.
Additionally, I know that there is a LOT of content on Marketplace that certainly isn’t PBR ready. From my understanding (and experience on some of the content), none of ManufacutraK4’s content is PBR either - which makes up a huge proportion of all environment assets available on Marketplace. When people are paying nearly $80+ for this kind of content, this should expect it to be designed for the Engine it’s supposed to be used with. They should at least be given a heads up before buying it, because otherwise the only way you’ll know is by either taking a stab at it and buying it, or trying to contact the creator.
While I’m here… how come we still don’t have region-based pricing on Marketplace too?
Sorry guys, I hate giving negative feedback more than anyone. I’m not fishing for a refund or anything like that, I just really want to see this change.
I completely agree with you. I have noticed that most of the assets on the marketplace (besides some of the blueprints) are very poor quality relative to the cost. I moved from Unity to UE4 for a better quality and the better workflow, but the marketplace makes me wish for going back to Unity asset store. I have no problem paying more for better quality, but not more for the same quality or even less than a 10USD item in Unity
The problem is that this is not only limited to PBR issues but quality of product in general.
A quick scan at the marketplace forums clearly shows assets being “approved” that made use of generated collisions leaving some assets useless unless you export the fbx and fix the issues yourself.
Some assets have super low res resolutions and some don’t even have collisions.
Generally i would not have much to say about this issue, but considering the long turn around time to get assets approved one would think that the bar is set quiet high for quality approval… so i wonder why the long turn around time when assets are being pushed through the process that clearly does not meet any standard.
Some of the assets should be rejected until the author fixes the issues. Where as now it seems its the opposite. Approve and let the buyers try to get the author to resolve any issues.
Things that should be checked and specified
-PBR
-Collisions (with screenshots so we can determine if its proper collisions or some convex generated nonsense, it should not be approved if there is no evidence of the collision complexity)
-Target platform (PC = must be at least 2048 x 2048 textures, Mobile can be lower for example and this should hold true for poly count)
-Current features (some blueprint systems were sold on the premise of features to come, this should not even be included… only what is currently in the system should be displayed… or you sit with something like what happened with the system where people are now complaining that the author abandoned the product and they bought it because it promised to include more features in the future, i was almost one of those people but logic prevailed and i opted to rather buy it when its done… it never got done)
Looked at one way it’d be a bandaid, but I actually think that it’ll go a huuuuuuuuuge way toward addressing these issues once the web marketplace and launcher marketplace are finally brought into parity. It’s good to be able to browse the marketplace in your browser, but anybody who’s actually buying stuff is pretty much looking at it through the launcher, where you can’t rate, leave or even view reviews. It is a problem.
Thanks Ray! Like I said I hate giving negative feedback, but I definitely think some stricter submission guidelines and better indication of what’s in a package should be put up.
If Epic wants to keep non-PBR content on Marketplace I would say that’s okay - but I would enocurage sellers to update their packages to PBR. The introduction of a Checkbox system that ticks off certain properties of the packages could then be put in place. It could even change the categories based on what kind of content it is (whoever curates it could decide on categories / checkboxes of their own accord). This does extend past just PBR content too, things like whether models conform to the Epic Skeleton. for example, there was a top-notch weapon on Marketplace recently that didn’t conform to the Skeleton - so whoever wanted to use it had to use the .FBX files it came with to rotate and re-export it.
Perhaps even average performance statistics in the test map that the content maker provides too. That way we can truly judge whether content is ready for the platforms it says it is etc.
Thanks Joe, like I said I don’t want to target people so don’t feel like this is me poking holes in peoples hard work - I just think it’s an oversight on the Marketplace side of things.
I would not make this a mandatory requirement.
But it should be clearly indicated, like polycount, resolution and type of collision.
Not every asset needs a 2048x4048 Texture. And not all assets need a collision.
KVogler is right, and also remind that there’s a lot of content that has been ported from other packs in other engines that is mainly intended for non Photorealistic rendering and mobile compatibility.
That being said, I second this, and think that you should have a badges system like Turbosquid has.
If the pricing is right i don’t see the harm in putting packs on the marketplace that are not up to spec for seriuous development, but that could be clearly staten.
So, Either checkboxes or badges for premium quality standards.
What I think would be really helpful is a table of specifications found on each Marketplace asset. These tables are similar to those found on 3D modeling websites. For example, each Marketplace item (depending on the category) would have something like the following on their product pages:
You get where I’m going with this. Of course, each Marketplace category would have a varying amount of specs to list (eg. Music packs don’t need a poly count :p)
Maybe even a “level of detail” screenshot that shows a zoomed-in view of a texture to see how the quality is. Sometimes it’s hard to tell in some screenshots (especially in the Environments), because there isn’t enough close-ups of some of the assets, more of a generic “Here’s a wide-shot of an entire environment I made with just these assets”.
Em, it’s already implemented and mandatory for any pack for Marketplace…
Well, it WAS mandatory when I sent files, but I’m looking at Semi-Arid Desert environment, Horror pack and other Environment - I can’t see any technical details
I felt the same way when I purchased the M4A1 pack. It’s just a model, the blueprints are for 4.6 but the pack itself is only for 4.7. None of the assets work out of the box and the animations aren’t done in the same way as the sample content. I got very disappointed and I originally wanted to purchase even more assets before this happened. I really understand where you’re coming from.
The marketplace itself needs to be a lot more clear on what we’re actually purchasing, or I won’t touch it again. I remember back when they talked about the 5-piece rule, and that they might ignore it in some cases if the content is of very high quality. I guess I’m wondering what “good quality” is, since the M4A1 pack doesn’t even plug into the Unreal Engine without substantial modifications.
To be totally honest I’d say Non-PBR content shouldn’t even be released in Unreal Marketplace, unless we have a proper way to be fully non-PBR in-engine, which sounds like a huge step back for me.
This may be my lack of understanding showing through, but how do you even create a non-pbr material in the engine? Are they literally just slapping a diffuse texture in there and zeroing out the Metalness and Roughness channels? If so, I agree that that is sloppy.
