Content Browser
Last updated
Last updated
The "Content" button on the Dash bar opens the Content Browser. Why use this instead of UE's native content browser?
Dash is rich with lots of tools that rely on content, and making it easy to blend the content & the tools is a top priority for us. For example, you should be able to just drag a plant from our Content Browser onto the viewport, then hold CTRL+Release your mouse, and scatter it, or make vines out of it, or scatter it along a spline in case it's a lamp post, etc...
People often have content they built, content from Megascans, Dekogon, Sierra Division, PolyHaven, some free asset pack of the month, etc... We've built dedicated features for Megascans & PolyHaven, and are actively working to extend support for more content creators/libraries. This means better/faster interaction with those libraries.
Your own content can be hard to sift through, and we've integrated a world-class AI tagging solution to make all your objects easy to find.
We've also made it possible to browse & import all content from all your projects inside the one you're current working with!
Later in the year (2024), you'll be able to not just browse local but also free or paid content, and purchase it right from this panel. This will make content acquisition an afterthought, as you no longer have to go through the UE Marketplace, or Gumroad, or any of the billion other variants that sell content packs. Just type "barrel", see the one you like, buy it for a few bucks, and that's it.
The Content Browser is split into 4 vertical slices:
The top one has its title, then a dropdown containing all the libraries we currently support:
Megascans is a massive scan library of 18K+ assets, created by the team Quixel, which was acquired by Epic Games in 2019. You have access to regular 3D objects like rocks or trash cans, tillable surfaces like forest grounds and brick walls, 3d plants, atlas textures, decals, and much more. We've written an extensive guide on how to get this library set up, and get the most out of it.
We've built a fairly big materials library, and most of them are tailored for Megascans, but we'll make them work for more libraries in the future, too.
Next, you have (from left to right):
The search bar in which you can type keywords such as object names or object colors. Some examples: rusty bucket, red carpet, car, rock, stone, garbage, damaged, etc...
The next slice is a simple notification area that's also specific to your current library. It shows a simple message about the library your currently in, and if available, one or multiple buttons that may be of use for that specific library.
Finally, you've got the library itself; which is a typical thumbnail grid that you can scroll through to view all your assets.
Megascans is a high-end content library that's available for free to all Unreal Engine users. It features nearly 15,000 assets, with various subcategories: 3D objects, decals, surfaces, 3D plants, etc... We've got an extensive guide on this library right here, but for now let's get things set up quickly:
First, you need to make sure that you've downloaded some assets through the Quixel Bridge plugin, which is natively available in UE5.
Once you've downloaded some, Right-Click on an asset, then Go to Files, and copy the parent folder, which usually looks like R:\Megascans Library\Downloaded\UAssets
The Preferences panel will open up, and from there, set the Bridge Plugin Path to the path you've copied before. You'll notice that there's a second path Bridge Software Path, which allows you to add support for Atlases, an asset type that's available in the Bridge standalone software, but not the UE plugin. More on that here.
Hit Save, and that should do it! Dash's Content Browser should now start to fill up with all your Megascans assets. If it doesn't, restart UE and see if it works. Worst case, reach out to us.
This free & open source library provides high quality content that you can download right inside Dash. Using it is fairly simple: Switch to this library in the dropdown, then click on the download icon on the asset of your choice to download it. Once the download is done, drag & drop it onto your scene, and voilà.
The folder in which Polyhaven content gets downloaded is automatically set by Dash, though you can change it by going into the Preferences -> Path Settings section.
We're proud sponsors of this open source initiative, and if you find yourself enjoying their content, be sure to donate!
Why would you use Dash to browse your local content, when UE's content browser is right there? Because Dash makes it more convenient to sift through your content by using AI to tag all your content, making it easy to sift through, no matter how good or bad the naming convention might be.
Most importantly though, Dash's Content Browser aims to be a unified space to navigate all your assets. This includes local content, Megascans, content from other projects, etc...
If you click on the libraries dropdown and go to Current Project, this is what the view will look like:
The folder hierarchy on the left is the one you have in the UE content browser, and the count on each is the number of static meshes available in the folders. If you click on a folder, a button will show up suggesting you to compute the assets in the folder, and use AI to tag them. You can enable or disable AI tagging by using the checkmark within the compute button.
Why would you disable tagging? Tagging is a financially costly process for us, which means we have to limit it to 4000 assets (10K for enterprise users) you can tag per month. Therefore we recommend you to tag the assets you'll need by picking specific folders and tagging them, vs processing everything. You could for example compute everything, then tag the folders whose content you want to tag.
We only compute static meshes by default, though you can also compute materials. To do it, locate the specific folder that contains your materials in Dash's Content Browser folder view, then right-click on the folder, and select Include Materials. An icon will show up to indicate that the folder will now have its materials computer.
The computing process takes time, as we load your assets into memory and render thumbnails out of them, then use OpenAI's vision API to extract relevant tags from each asset. It's a RAM-intensive process, and the more RAM you have, the less time it takes.
If an asset fails to compute, its thumbnail will have some info informing you of that, and you can recompute it by right clicking on it, and clicking Recompute.
Dash also lets you browse content from any other project in your computer! Go to the Current Project, then in the menu, select the option Manage External Library. You'll be shown the preferences window, and in there you can add the path of any UE project you have locally. You can add as many as you want, too.
UE5 is forward compatible, but not backward. In the case of browsing external content, this means that if your current project is in UE5.3, you'll be able to access the content of all versions below it, but not above it.
The folder icon to expand the current content folder hierarchy.
Then you have the Favorites icon . If you hover on some asset, it'll show up on their thumbnail. Setting an asset to favorite, then clicking on the Favorites icon near the search bar will ensure that all your favorites assets show up on top.
Then you've got the dotted menu icon , which opens the settings of the current library you're viewing. Each library has some specific settings. For example, Megascans has an option to set your Bridge plugin and Bridge standalone paths, whilst the Current Project library has an option to add libraries from other Unreal Engine projects on your computer, etc...
Open the Content Browser, then switch the dropdown to Megascans, and click on the menu icon to open the library's settings. There, click on Set Megascans Folders.
