Megascans

What's Megascans & How it Works

Megascans is a content library created by the company Quixel, which was acquired by Epic Games in late 2019. The library has a dedicated UE5 plugin called Bridge, a standalone software from before the acquisition also called Bridge, and a website called megascans.se. You can access the assets through all three venues, and with an Epic Games account, all the assets are available to you for free.

All three access points have a similar interface, but also key differences, like the Bridge plugin missing 5K+ assets compared to the software or website, for example. Let's dig into those differences:

Bridge Plugin

This is a plugin that natively ships with Unreal Engine 5. It has about 15K assets as of summer 2024. The categories of assets it provides are 3D assets, 3D plants, surfaces, decals and imperfections.

When you download assets from this plugin, they're directly available in your current UE project, with material setup and all.

Bridge Software

This is a standalone software that Quixel developed prior to its acquisition, and is still quite robust. It has about 19K assets as of summer 2024. The categories of assets it provides are 3D assets, 3D plants, surfaces, decals, imperfections, displacements, brushes, and most importantly, atlases.

When you download assets from Bridge, you get them as FBX for the geometry, and JPG/EXR for the textures. You'll have to set up your materials in UE5 yourself.

It has some DCC integration, though most don't seem to have been updated for years.

Megascans Website

This website used to be the only way to access Quixel's assets, and is still quite robust. It has about 19K assets as of summer 2024. The categories of assets it provides are 3D assets, 3D plants, surfaces, decals, imperfections, displacements, brushes, and most importantly, atlases.

When you download assets from Bridge, you get them as FBX for the geometry, and JPG/EXR for the textures. You'll have to set up your materials in UE5 yourself.

Setting up Megascans in Dash

First, let's make sure that all assets you've downloaded from the Bridge plugin are available in Dash's Content Browser. Right-click on an asset you've downloaded, and select Go to Files.

That will open the Windows Explorer, with a folder path that looks roughly like this: X:\Content\Megascans Library\Downloaded\UAssets\ve0icepdw

Now go to the Dash bar, click on Content to open the Content Browser, then make sure that the dropdown at the top right is set to Megascans. With that, click on the three dots on the top right corner, then Set Megascans Folders. A popup will show up with a couple of paths that you can fill.

The one you should focus on is Bridge Plugin Path: Give it the folder path you copied above, except go one level up to UAssets, so that the path becomes like this:

X:\Content\Megascans Library\Downloaded\UAssets

Click on Save, and your assets should start to show up in the Dash Content Browser..

Here's the whole step by step in video:

One last thing: The Bridge plugin allows you to download assets with different quality presets, like High Quality, Medium Quality, and Nanite Quality. In Dash, we display those tiers through a simple bar that shows up when you hover on an asset's thumbnail:

With that out of the way, let's look into atlases; why you should use them, and how to use them in Dash.

Megascans Atlases

The main difference I want you to get from these three access points for Megascans is atlases, which aren't available in the Bridge plugin, but through the standalone Bridge software, or the Megascans website. Atlases are 2D textures that represent flat assets like leaves, twigs, flattened trash, etc...

There are 4K-5K of them in total, and we can't recommend them enough for detailing your environments. Usually, you'd bring them into your 3D software like Maya or Blender, then manually/automatically cut out polygons around the leaves, and use that geometry + the opacity map provided to create PBR leaves. You can find an old guide on Quixel's blog: Creating and Scattering Atlases.

With Dash, you don't even have to think about that; we handle the cutting and everything else for you, and the result is instant use of 5000+ assets nobody using the UE Bridge plugin has access to.

Check this quick demo:

As you can see, everything is seamless: From finding the right atlas to making an environment with it.

Using Atlases in Dash

First, make sure that you download and install the standalone Quixel Bridge software. Once that's done, log in with your Epic Games account to ensure that you have access to all assets for free. Then you can either type "atlas" in the Bridge search bar, or go to the Atlas category on the side bar.

Download as many of them as you want, then right click on one of them, then select Go to Files. You should be redirected to a path that looks roughly like this: R:\Content\Megascans Library\Downloaded\atlas\atlas_other_vdsebcxp2

Keep just the path until Downloaded, and copy it: R:\Content\Megascans Library\Downloaded

Then head over to Dash, open the Content Browser, and in the Megascans library view, click on the three dots menu icon on the top right, and set the Bridge Standalone Path to the path you just copied.

That should do it! Your atlases will now show up. Remember, you can always click on the folder icon on the left of Dash's Content Browser search bar to view all asset types, kind of like what Bridge does. That should help you quickly go to the atlas, or 3d asset, or surface, or decal category.