What is a Smart Asset?
Smart Assets are custom assets which can become aware of the regions/biomes they are close to and spawn context sensitive assets accordingly.
Why do you want this?
Smart Assets can speed up worldbuilding and iteration time. Especially when it comes to last minute creative notes. In the quick start guide we look at a Smart Tree example where it generates the correct tree for the region with appropriate scatter/rocks/grass. The one asset is adaptive and can bring with it all the appropriate set dressing required, saving valuable time.
How Art Directable are Smart Assets?
The Smart Asset plugin is the underlying logic you need to support an art directable solution. You can build custom Smart Assets with the plugin functions and build them to be fully art directable, most notably through seeds generated via Blueprints. We include an example of a fully art directable Smart Asset in the Quick Start video guide.
How does it work?
This plugin leverages Geometry Script logic to calculate barycentric coordinates based on the three closest regions. This is used to weight the regions, allowing your Smart Asset to build the correct version for the location it is placed, or to distribute PCG points accordingly between regions.
Additional Information:
The Smart Asset plugin was first presented at Siggraph 2023. It is a free plugin that feeds barycentric coordinate weights into various Unreal systems such as PCG, materials, Niagara, etc.
Version Information:
This is an experimental plugin originally built for Unreal Engine 5.2 but feel free to use it as is or expand upon it for your own needs. Future versions of PCG may not be compatible with the version of PCG graphs found in this plugin.
The Box link below provides the Plugin and a video quick start guide.
Box Link:
https://epicgames.box.com/s/kxf9l09p9748ptoapq1x5kv64cw3vqae
Don’t forget, your feedback is welcome and I hope you find some use in what I find a very exciting tool for worldbuilding and iteration.
