Misc Tools

Mesh Pattern

Mesh Pattern is a tool designed for creating procedural, tileable patterns, either using the included presets or creating your own with custom assets and patterns. It's perfect for roofs, walls, floors, or any other man-made surface that needs more depth and detail than a simple material.

You can find it either by search or from the Dash bar, in the Create -> Mesh Tools category. To start using it, simply assign one or several surfaces, and it will, by default, use the Tile A preset on your surface.

Presets

In order to cover most use cases of the Mesh Pattern, we have included more than 30 high-quality presets with different assets and patterns. For example, presets for Broken Floor, HerringBone, Tiles, and Bricks. To switch to another preset, simply expand the drop-down list at the top of Mesh Pattern and select another preset. If the assets of said preset are not already present in the level, they are automatically added.

Mesh Pattern on Curves/Splines

Instead of assigning a mesh or a flat surface as the surface object in Mesh Pattern, you can also use a curve or spline, perfect for creating fences or walls. When using the curves from our Draw Curves tool, you will get the best results if you draw mostly straight curves. If you want more rounded shapes, it's best to use our Draw Spline tool instead.

Settings

As with any Dash tools, you can, of course, adjust the results exactly to your liking. We recommend experimenting with the settings and reading their descriptions by hovering over them, but here is a summary of the settings available:

• Base Properties: You can adjust the tile scale, angle, padding, and sink.

• Noise: You can add noise to either the points or the meshes themselves.

• Projection: You can project/push the pattern onto one or several objects.

• Slice Tiles: Use a Boolean mesh to slice the pattern objects in a specific shape, for example, with a cube or a sphere.

• Proximity Mask: Mask out an area around an object/curve or keep it just next to the object/curve.

• Noise Mask: Remove random objects in the pattern according to a controlled noise.

• Object Masking: Mask out an area around an object or keep it just next to it using raycasting.

• Pattern Details: Add and control the pattern variation. And create an Area mesh for the custom presets.

It can happen that the pattern repetition doesn't fit well with the surface, and then you can use the slice feature to slice your tiles in any arbitrary shape using a Boolean mesh. This feature is also useful if you want to "cut" a perfect square or circular pattern in your pattern.

When using 3D meshes instead of flat planes, the pattern is applied to the biggest planar surface in local space. If you want to control where the pattern appears exactly, you can instead use Mesh Pattern on a flat plane and project it onto the 3D mesh and a specific surface/side. To get the best possible results, match the plane angle with the surface angle and then experiment with the Max Distance value to make sure it ain't projected onto anything other than the intended places.

Custom Presets

If our preset objects and patterns don't cover your use case, you can also create your own patterns with any assets. These can then be saved and used easily through the preset list, in all your projects.

To create a custom preset, simply select one or more objects in your scene and assign them as Pattern Objects. Once you do this, you will notice that the placement of these assets matters, both relative to each other and to the Z axis. When you move, rotate, and scale the objects, you can see how the pattern adjusts on your surface.

For most patterns, you will need a special “area object” to define how big the pattern is relative to the pattern objects. You can create and add an area actor with the utility button "Create Area" at the bottom of the Mesh Pattern tool.

Now that you have defined your pattern with correct repetition, you might want to add some variation to it. By placing other objects very close to the ones defining the pattern and adding them as Pattern Objects, you can tell the tool to treat them as variation through the Pattern Details section. Set the Variation Threshold above zero and experiment with the amount of variations and the placement of the variation assets.

Once you are happy with your Pattern Objects and their pattern, you can save this pattern as a custom preset in order to reuse it easily. Simply open the preset drop-down and use the Create Pattern button to add your preset to the preset drop-down. When loading this custom preset in another project, if the objects are not part of that project, they will be automatically added.

Adjusting Pattern Meshes

If you want to adjust the materials on the included preset meshes in Mesh Pattern, that is possible through the Material Edit tool. Select the Mesh Pattern output in the viewport and then open Material Edit through the Active Tools list in the top left corner of the Tools Panel.

Here you will be able to adjust the basic settings such as Hue, Saturation, Brightness, etc, but also add a layer of Dirt, Snow, or Rain. And a new inclusion is the ability to add a color variation directly from the Material Edit tool. By default, it is enabled and set to max strength in order to give the presets the best possible look, but if you want to turn it off or change the strength of the variation, you can do that through the variation settings in Material Edit for the Mesh Pattern.

Advanced Water Shader

This is a new water shader we introduced in our 1.9 update that comes with waves, caustics and underwater effects. By going to the Create tab, you will find the Advanced Water shader. Click on it and there you have it! This shader comes with a rain-on-water effect as well.

Let's go through how to use our Advanced Water and some of its Properties: Creating Water: In the Dash Toolbar we go to the Create tab, and in the dropdown menu, we select Create Advanced Water.

There are several properties to play around with in order to get a result that suits you; In the Tools Panel, you can tweak the values of the properties to get the best result for your project.

Let's dive into the available properties of our Advanced Water Shader, Starting with Base Properties:

Surface Proximity Color controls the color surrounding the objects overlapping your water. Depth Color controls the perceived depth color. Calmness which controls the agitation of the water. The higher the number, the calmer the water. Water depth allow you to set the distance at which you want your river bed to be visible. Foam Surface Proximity sets the amount of visible foam. Water Undulation controls the intensity of the Wave Undulation. For calm waters, a small value like 0.1 and below should be ideal. Wave Height controls the height of the wave. Wave Length controls the size or tiling of the wave. Wave Sharpness controls the smoothness of the wave. Wave Speed Controls the speed of the wave.

These settings work hand in hand and are the key to having nice waves and Undulations.

In the video below, we will go through some settings.

Based on your requirements you can set the Calmness and Water Depth to behave as you want. Check the example in the video below:

We have some additional Properties that allow you to have more control over how the normal map of the water behaves.

Rotation: Gives you full control over the direction of the water normal map Foam Tiling: This controls the tiling of foam, the bigger the value, the smaller the foam. Foam Depth: The depth in which the foam is still visible. This also allows you to have more visible foam on the edges of an asset. Wave Undulation Strength: Controls the undulation of the water normal map. Wave Strength: Defines the intensity of the water normal map. Wave Size: Controls the tiling of the normal map. Rain: Control the amount of rain ripples on the water surface. Ripple Tiling: Controls the Size of the Rain Ripple.

Let's get to the Underwater Properties. These properties gives us full Art Direction of how we want our under water to look like.

Under Water Fog Color: Determines the color of the fog. Underlying Color: This is the color of the underwater. Usually it's like green moss. Underlying Roughness: This value represents the wetness of the under water. which usually is fully wet by default. Underlying Hue: The hue of the underwater. Fog Distance: This is the amount of underwater fog. For a more foggy effect it is ideal to have a fairly small value. Something like 0.08 and below should be a good start. Blurriness: Controls the sharpness of the underwater. Underwater Warping: This gives you that beautiful warp effect when you go underwater. Underwater Brightness: This is to control the underlying brightness. Underwater Saturation: This works well with underlying hue. it controls the underlying saturation. Bloom Intensity: Controls the underlying Bloom effect.

In the video below, we are going to go through some essential Properties:

Last but not least, this new Water Shader includes some nice Caustics, with a bunch of controls to own its look.

Caustic Intensity: Defines the intensity and brightness of caustics. Caustic Scale: Controls the Scale or Tiling of the caustics. Caustic Speed: This controls the speed at which the caustics move. Caustic Rotation: Controls the rotation of the caustic in degrees.

We hope this new shader will help you create some cool projects and give you control over every aspect of how you want your water to look.

FAQ

Rain Fall

With a single click, you can add a fully procedural rain effect to your scene, complete with parameters you can easily adjust to match your environment. You can find the Rain Fall tool either by search or in the Create menu on the Dash bar.

Once you have opened the tool it is super easy to use. Move the new Dash_RainFall actor to anywhere in your scene and start adjusting its settings to reach your prefered look. We recommend experimenting with the settings and reading their descriptions by hovering over them, but here is a summary of the settings available:

• Base Properties: Including the rain; amount, radius, brightness, velocity and angle. But also the splash fog density.

• Additional Rain Fall Properties: Control the Fog; Hue, Saturation and Brightness

• Distant Fog Properties: Control the Distant Fog; amount, density, radius, spread, hue and Saturation

Snow Fall

In Dash 1.9.2, we introduced the tool Snow Fall, giving you a beautiful procedural snow effect with full control over its look and behavior. Whether you want a light flurry or a heavy blizzard, Snow Fall adapts to your scene with just a few tweaks.

Once you have opened the tool it is super easy to use. Move the new Dash_SnowFall actor to anywhere in your scene and start adjusting its settings to reach your prefered look. We recommend experimenting with the settings and reading their descriptions by hovering over them, but here is a summary of the settings available:

• Base Properties: Including the snow; amount, radius, size, brightness, velocity and Turbulence.

• Fog and Wind Properties: Control the Fog; amount, density, size and Velocity. But also the wind direction in X and Y axis.

• Background Fog Properties: Control the Background Fog; amount, density and radius.

Falling Leaves

When creating a scene, we often want to add some leaves falling in a certain direction to make our environment feel more lively. All this is now possible with a single click.

In the Dash toolbar go to the Create menu and select Create Falling Leaves. Some beautiful leaves with all the settings necessary for nearly any scenario will appear in your scene. In your Tools Panel you can control several aspects of the tool.

The following Properties give you full art direction of your falling leaves.

Leaf Spawn Rate: Controls the amount of leaves that are being spawned. Spawn Radius: The radius in which they spawn, the bigger the value, the larger the radius. Wind Speed X: Control the speed of the wind on the X axis Wind Speed Y: Control the speed of the wind on the Y axis Min Hue: Define the starting hue of the random hue the leaves will have. Max Hue: Define the last value of the hue. These 2 values together give you a range of Hue. Wetness: Define the roughness of the falling leaves. Saturation: Controls the saturation of the color of your leaves. Min Leaf Rotation: Control the minimum speed in which the Leaves rotate on themselves. Max Leaf Rotation: Control the maximum speed in which the Leaves rotate on themselves. The video below is a demo of our falling leaves:

Fog Card + Volumetric Fog

By searching for Fog in Dash, you can find our Fog Card and our Volumetric Fog. Both of these are perfect to give any UE5 environments a bit more depth, and they can, of course, be customized to perfectly match your environments from the Tools Panel. Simply select the Fog Card or the Volumetric Fog in the UE outlier, and from the top right menu in the Tools Panel, you can then open the tool and tweak its settings.

Simple Water Plane

If you just want a simple water plane and the Advanced Water Volume is overkill, you can create it easily from either the Create menu or by searching for water in the Dash search field. Scale and place it wherever you like, and then tweak the settings by selecting the water plane, opening the Tools Panel from the Edit button, and then opening Material Edit with the top right button in the Tools Panel.

Draw Curve

If you need a simple curve to use for masking or anything else in your UE5 level, you can draw one interactively with Dash. You can start the Draw Curve mode from the Create - Curve Tools menu or by searching for Draw Curve. Once in draw mode, you can start drawing by holding the left mouse button, and you will also see that some settings have appeared in the Dash bar. Here you can control the Offset from the ground, the Distance between the points, the Smoothness of the curve, and also switch between modes, Freeform and End Points. While in the End Points mode, you will also see a Gravity setting that controls how far down the points between the end-points hang.

There also exist some hotkeys you can use to adjust your already created curves. Hover over one of your created curves and then hold SHIFT + middle mouse button to control the smoothness, hold CTRL + middle mouse button to control the number of points, and hold only the middle mouse button to control the Offset from the ground. This also goes for curves you created in a previous draw session. Simply select an existing curve, open Draw Curve mode, and use the hotkeys to adjust existing curves.

Draw Spline

If you want actual splines with curvature and tangents between each point, you can instead use the Dash Draw Spline tool. This tool lets you interactively draw and edit splines with tangents. You can start the Draw Spline mode from the Create - Curve Tools menu or by searching for Draw Spline.

Once in Draw Mode, you use the left mouse button to place points and then move the mouse to adjust the tangent of the points. To move an existing point, simply select it with the left mouse button and move it. To edit an existing tangent on a point, use the middle mouse button. In order to make sure the tangents don't point downwards or upwards, you can hold SHIFT to project the tangents to the surface you are drawing on. To edit an existing spline from another draw session, simply select the spline before opening the Draw Spline tool.

Spline Primitives

If you need splines in specific shapes, you can use the Spline Primitives shipped in Dash. These are found in the Create - Curve Primitive menu, and the options available are Circle, Square, rounded square, or Line.

Draw Mesh

If you ever need a plane mesh in a custom shape, you can use the Draw Mesh feature in Dash. You can find this tool either in search or from the Create - Mesh Tools menu. Once in the Draw Mesh mode, you can hold the left mouse button to draw your shape.

Borders to Curves

If you want to create a curve based on the borders of a flat mesh in Unreal Engine, the action Borders to Curves is exactly what you need. Simply select your flat mesh and run the action from search or from the Create - Curve tools menu. If you want to adjust the output curve, you can select it and open the Draw Curve tool mentioned above to customize the number of points, the offset, and its smoothness.

Create Alpha Cards / Alpha Cut

One really powerful feature of Dash is the ability to convert atlases/opacity maps into actual meshes in UE5. To do this, run the Create Alpha Cards action from search or from the Create - Mesh tools menu and select your atlas/opacity map. In a few seconds, you will see the meshes have been generated in your level. If you want some control of this process, you can instead open the Alpha Cut tool from the search bar.

Select/Place Tools

To make your UE5 experience a little easier, we have added a few utility tools in Dash as well. When it comes to asset placement, in the Place menu, you can find Select Nearby/Above, which you can use to easily select the assets that are nearby or above your initial selection. Then we have Project Below, which you can use to project the selected assets downwards onto the underlying surface. And lastly, there is Random Swap, which swaps the location of all the selected assets randomly.

Transform Tools

In Dash, we also offer a few transform tools that you can use to adjust your selected assets. The options available in the Place - Transform tools menu are Average, Min or Max Scale, and Random Angles.

Pivot Tools

And the final category of utility tools is the Pivot Tools available in Dash. Simply select one or several assets and then choose between Center, Bottom, or Top Pivot from the Create - Pivot tools menu. With these 3 tools, it is super easy to adjust the pivots of your assets.

Camera Tool

We are also shipping a Camera Tool in Dash, which consists of a special Dash CineCamera. You can create this camera from the Create menu or from the search bar. Once opened, you will see that the Camera Tool opens in the Tools Panel, and in here you can control all the important camera settings easily and also cycle through a bunch of included grading presets. If you have closed the Camera Tool and need to reopen it, simply open the Tools Panel with the Edit button in the Dash bar, select your camera in the outlier, and then you can find the Camera Tool in the top right menu of the Tools Panel. Once you are piloting the DashCineCamera, you can also drag and drop an image right into the Dash bar to extract its grading to the camera.

Image Board

To make sure you don't have to be dependent on too many separate softwares, we have integrated an Image Board into Dash. This gives you the features of PureRef or Miro, straight inside of Unreal Engine. Here you can collect all your reference images to make it easier to create amazing UE5 art. Simply open it from the Content menu and start adding and adjusting your images with the tools in the left side menu. All the available shortcuts are shown in the top menu. One of the most popular features of this Image Board is the ability to extract the grading from one image directly to the camera selected in the viewport. (Only works if you are using a camera from Dash)