Im an environment artist user in C4D // Octane. The way Quixel / Bridge worked was wonderful and helped iterate ideas / scene builds with so much ease and speed for all DCC’s.
With Fab, this ‘ease/speed’ slows to a halt, may as well be in reverse as this workflow now (without an app/bridge) is clunky, slow, and 5 steps backwards. Why ditch Quixels greatest feature in this migration?
Ontop of this, search and filtering is so terribly implemented, and broken in most cases as its impossible to find anything via categories. You are reliant on search, but even then its such a mixed bag as there is so much to filter through. Very tedious.
Ontop of this, you can no longer search for Quixel ID’s. How am I meant to re connect an offline project without ID’s?
Please consider at least making Fab a 1:1 of what we had in Quixel / Bridge instead of stripping back all the features that made it enjoyable to work with. IE, a bridge tool for just the official Quixel portion of the content.
Very disheartened by all the oversights, and as it stands I’m very much not looking forward to using Fab (as at a professional level its currently not usable).
We now need to download a “ZIP” file, unzip it manually, store it manually in a manually created folder, import the “FBX” asset manually into our scene, then fix the shader issues manually.
Without forgetting the literally catastrophic search and filter system.
Fab is currently simply unusable for artists.
Why have you done so well in the past?
Quixel Bridge was extremely well organized and ergonomic, choice of textures, choice of lods, import export…
Why do they want to get rid of it?
Why not just replace the name “Quixel Bridge” with “Fab Bridge”?
Then having currently blocked downloads on Quixel Bridge knowing that there is no bridge alternative for “Fab” other than for the EU remains an incomprehensible decision…
Epic Games has seriously dropped the ball with this overnight move to disable the Quixel/Bridge integration. Whoever thought it was a good idea to completely gut such a critical feature without a proper replacement deserves serious scrutiny—this kind of decision-making shows a staggering lack of foresight. You’ve single-handedly crippled the productivity of countless artists who relied on the previous workflow. As a designer who routinely uses UE5 to visualize my professional work, my workflow has been obliterated overnight with no clear communication or timeline for when these features will return.
What’s even worse is that the alternative you’ve forced on us is pathetically inferior. There was absolutely no reason to disable Bridge until Fab was fully rolled out with features that matched Bridge. This move is a gross misstep, one that shatters the goodwill Epic/Unreal had built with artists as it tried to expand beyond game development.
Its totally unacceptable. As you said, it really is not usable for a whole lot of fundamental reasons. I am kinda in disbelief honestly, Fab feel’s like the furthest implementation of a professional tool.
Absolutely agree, the launch state is simply tone deaf to the repour they have established via Quixel’s amazing footing in the industry.
I did a video this morning covering my points, first time making one. Going to send this onto Epic via a support form but hopefully someone over there is willing to hear us out:
I agree, just want to say this launch was brutal. Highly anticipated this, was hoping it would be a better marketplace that offered better search and categories, but losing Bridge has brought my projects to a halt! Fire whoevers idea this was to disable Bridge.
Am genuinely shocked this was allowed to happen. To have a working system that was so good, and to throw it all out and send thousands of artists into confusion is mind blowing. I seriously now have to go from a drag and drop system into downloading zip files, storing them locally, unpacking them, importing them?
This is utter madness. How can this be released like this?
The Quixel assets were practically hidden from me. If I filter it down in any of the Quixel sections it tells me Quixel have no products for that category. How do you promote something for SO long, and then mess it up as royally as this on release?
Totally agree, and I dont think it’s possible to integrate an export plugin directly from the website, I dont know how is it for Unreal, but the main idea beside this is to kill non Unreal user workflow.
Hi everyone. Thank you for this feedback. The Fab integration for UE has launched; right now it’s at a starting point and we’re working on improving it so that it is, to @AZAWESTIE 's point, at least 1:1 with Bridge. I’m sharing the pain points that you’ve called out above with the team so that we can keep them top of mind as we iterate on the plugin.
Please continue sharing your feedback - and thanks for your patience as we keep making improvements.
I mean this as kindly as possible, but the UE talking point has to stop. I made it very clear in my first sentence as well as my video im not a UE user, and you are the 5th point of contact from Fab that has countered my points with “but UE”. I see this all across socials with people echo’ing the same sentiment as mine, to also be hit with a “but UE”. Im sure UE users are facing the same things we are too so no slight on them, but this is a global issue with Fab’s standard.
Its not productive and feels like a copy/paste. I understand UE is Epic’s tool, but there are many working professionals like myself who are dependent on Bridge for all the other DCC’s Quixel supported since its foundation.
All other tech companies have software and driver rollbacks for a reason, to protect the user and allow options to navigate issues, especially when livelihoods are at play. This SHOULDNT be a starting point, but a seamless continuation of everything that was before it.
Again, I really do appreciate the response, but hoping for something more tailored to the points I mentioned.
I work with Megascans at one of the largest VFX houses for highend VFX work for film and tv. The above points raised in Aaron’s video is applicable for us as well. This site and the lack of a dedicated app outside of UE, makes it extremely frustrating and almost unusable to use its current state. It is a MAJOR setback in terms of user friendliness.
These issues mentioned above needs to be at the teams top agenda to address.
I think it was mentioned in the video it currently feels like shopping at a discount store, which couldn’t more right. It feels and looks cheap. It is NOT a professional site. It feels like it appeals to indie game developers… gah I could on. Whoever is the product manager/supervisor needs to view the above video asap.
@skfabby - When you say “plugin”, do you mean the the plugin within Unreal Editor or they are working on a separate app/plugin with other DCC’s that are NOT Unreal Editor?
Because the whole point of this is that we are NOT using UE at all… we use Maya, Houdini, Cinema4D, 3DSMAX, etc - Hence the frustration of the lack of an app outside of UE.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people over the last few days in your shoes also, from ILM down to independent contractors and literally everyone unanimously shares our viewpoint. There is just a zero percent chance Fab went through QA.
I think the toughest thing is not only is Fab clearly an unprofessional tool, but so far communication across the board has been completely unprofessional. That holistic lack of awareness is the strangest thing to me.
This is precisely one of the major problems, we are currently required to download new mecascans on the fab market but no realistic person is going to come and download a “ZIP” file and have to manage everything manually behind knowing that Quixel Bridge manages it automatically.
You offer us several file formats on Fab, but each format must be managed independently and manually, so we can have the same model several times under multiple texture and mesh qualities grouped in several independent “ZIP” folders. It is completely absurd that to simply obtain the 2k, 4k, or 8k textures for the same model, we must install 3 independent “ZIP” files and have to manually reorganize them in a single folder, knowing that nothing tells us whether we have already installed a file or not, the fact of “adding an item to its library” or acquiring a model does not tell us in any way whether the model has been installed or not.
Hence the essential interest of a bridge. I regularly work in a team on environment projects under Houdini. As it stands, the only alternative available to us is to continue using Quixel Bridge and make do with the Megascans already acquired. It is unthinkable to go through a manual “Zip” file system to acquire new ones via Fab. Offering megascans is very generous and I imagine that each artist sincerely thanks you for it, but Fab does not currently have a realistic option unlike Quixel Bridge for a professional and independent workflow.
I wish I could double like this comment, and its something I wished I covered more in my video (the horrendous .zip situation).
Ontop of that (somewhat highlighted in my video), lets say you are working with 2k assets as proxy and want to online with higher res scans or the raw .fbx. You wont be able to find the asset on Fab to do this unless you remember the asset name or what the thumbnail looks like. There is no other metadata that works in search that correlates to the downloaded string / file name. So elementary.
Fab has clearly been made without any professional in mind. What’s wild is we aren’t asking them to match a competitor in the space, we are asking them to match themselves (Bridge)
As a concept artist I always look for way of making my process as easy, straightforward and hassle free as possible. I want fast results and less technical hurdles. I know I’m speaking for many when I say that Bridge made a huge impact on that. In times of tremendous competition and pressure on digital artists, and as a leading part of a forward thinking industry, Epic should have handled this one better! You want more money and therefore come up with a new business model - sure, go ahead, that’s fine. But why roll your tools back into the dark ages in the process?
