# Dash Documentation Dash is a world building ecosystem for Unreal Engine 5. It features a vast array of tools that cover the smallest to most complex tasks. Just to name a few: * Content Browser: Browse assets from any project, Megascans, Polyhaven, and much more. * Scatter: A suite of tools that help you scatter along curves, on a surface, decals, etc... * Physics: Intuitive physics tool to paint objects or drop objects. * Image Board: Familiar with Pureref and Miro? You're going to love this. * Channel packing, vines, blend material, pivot tools, color grading, asset export, etc... {% hint style="success" %} #### To learn Dash, you can jump straight into our [Getting Started Guide!](/getting-started/quickstart) 🔥 {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} In this (work in progress) documentation, we hope to give you all the knowledge you need to thoroughly enjoy Dash. {% hint style="info" %} Tip: We’ve got a Discord server rich with information and day-to-day problems being solved, so make sure to check it out! [Join the Dash Discord Server](https://bit.ly/DashDiscord) {% endhint %} {% hint style="info" %} Dash is an Editor-only tool, meaning you can’t keyframe its properties in Sequencer, neither can you adjust it in-game. {% endhint %} ## AI Assistant We natively ship an AI assistant in Dash that'll help you with most pressing questions. It feeds on this documentation + hundreds of questions/answers from our Discord, which means that if you've got an issue, chances are we've got you covered.\ It's fast, quite good, and our community + support is just one click away if you'd rather speak to a human :innocent: {% embed url="" %} *** ## Quickstart
Getting StartedLearn the ABCs of Dash./files/UHF7zjwcq36zmrwja3ub/pages/CyH2xJQs9yWJ1S8BYNav
User InterfaceLet's dive into the UI!/files/vxs1ER5I8VkIA0IaOqfo/pages/qP4hPeOgFLflbzM5djTe
FAQLet's troubleshoot!/files/WqTZslyWgLz3XWQj63oY/pages/pHkqGjQSktSpUoht7SmM
## How it Works
Scattering PrimerEverything you need to create environment./files/WqTZslyWgLz3XWQj63oY/pages/sDdR7dPu1sfJIoBOztp0
Content Browsing PrimerLearn how to use the best content browser out there./files/vxs1ER5I8VkIA0IaOqfo/pages/50X6TEU7eSt8Out251X7
Geometry Tools PrimerExplore mesh generation tools in Dash!/files/SdPaDKIKifbvNn0jWHM0/pages/f3qS0F9ia1sENOsX0pOC
# Getting Started {% hint style="info" %} Tip: We’ve got a Discord server rich with information and day-to-day problems being solved, so make sure to check it out! [Join the Dash Discord Server](https://bit.ly/DashDiscord) {% endhint %} Dash is a world building tool for Unreal Engine 5. It aims to solve every problem you face when creating 3d environments, from small things like automatic pivot setting, to scattering, physics-based asset placement, color grading, asset browsing, AI tagging, etc… I’ll be showing you how to go from zero to hero, so let’s get started! ### Downloading To start, you can download Dash here: If you’ve never tried it before, you can get a free trial, which is fully-featured, and requires no credit card info. You can start the this free trial when you later open Dash for the first time. If you already have a paid license, you can proceed with the download and installation, you will be able to enter your existing license key later in Unreal Engine.
### Installing Before you start the installation process, make sure that you’ve closed all running Unreal Engine software. During the installation, Dash will automatically detect all UE5 versions you’ve got available. In case it fails to get your UE5 path, help it by putting the engine’s installation path, which typically looks like this: `C:/Program Files/Epic Games/UE_5.X` Once you’ve set the path(s), click on next, and continue with the install.
As a final step in the installation, you will see a popup mentioning Console(s) Windows. This is an important step, as when you click OK on that popup one or two Console Windows will appear (depending on which UE versions you are installing Dash into). \ \ You must let these Console Windows run and close by themselves before proceeding to open Unreal Engine again. If these windows are closed before, our dependencies will not be installed properly, and then Dash will not work as it should.
{% hint style="warning" %} In case the installation steps above fail and you can't see Dash in Unreal, check the instructions in this[ FAQ post](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/getting-started#there-is-no-dash-icon-in-unreal-engine-or-the-installer-got-stuck-on-installing), or directly reach out at [**support@polygonflow.io**](mailto:support@polygonflow.io), and we’ll ensure that you get things going ASAP. {% endhint %} {% hint style="warning" %} If you’re using a custom build of Unreal Engine, you can [**download & compile the source**](/advanced/custom-build). If you encounter an issue during the process, please reach out to [**support@polygonflow.io**](mailto:support@polygonflow.io) {% endhint %} ### License & Trial Setup Once the installation is done, open Unreal Engine, and you’ll notice the Dash blue icon is now visible on the top left of the UE toolbar. Click on it, and the Dash bar, along with the license manager, will show up. From there, you have the following main options: {% tabs %} {% tab title="Get Free Trial" %} If this is your first time using Dash, click on that button, then insert your email, and your trial will start right away. You will have 100% access to all of Dash's features. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Activate" %} If you’ve got a license key (which gets sent by email on purchase), simply put it in the License Key field, then hit Activate, and that’s it. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Buy" %} If you’re planning to buy Dash, whether it’s before, after, or during a trial, click on the Buy icon to be redirected to our website, then buy one of the plans that suit you, and your email should receive the license key. Copy it from your email and paste it into Dash, and that’s it. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Get Free Limited License" %} If, after your free trial period, you aren't interested in a paid Dash license, you can also opt for a Free Limited License. This only gives you access to the Dash Content Browser. More info available here: [Free Content Browser](/advanced/free-content-browser) {% endtab %} {% endtabs %}
{% hint style="warning" %} If Dash does not open when you press the Dash icon, check the instructions in this[ FAQ post](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/getting-started#clicking-the-dash-icon-does-not-work). {% endhint %} Once the license is activated, you can close the License Manager, and this is where the fun begins! ### User Interface Basics At its core, Dash is a simple bar that’s jampacked with features. We separated them into broad categories that define various tasks in your workflow: * **Content**: Dash features an amazing content browser, with Megascans & Polyhaven support, custom assets support, an IES library, and the ability to access all your assets from other UE projects! In this category, you will also find the reference image board tool, similar to Miro and PureRef. * **Place**: This shows you a dropdown full of tools that help you with content placement. Features range from pivot setting to physics-based asset placement, and much more. * **Scatter**: This is where all the cool scatter tools of Dash reside: You can scatter on a surface, along a spline, scatter decals, scatter in a volume, etc… * **Create**: This is an extensive list of tools that help you create objects, from geometry & curve primitives to cameras, vines, fog cards, etc… * **Edit**: This is the main properties panel through which all your Dash tools will be edited.
You can make the dash bar smaller by going to the menu icon on the left, then selecting **Toggle Scale** to swap between full, minimal, and icon only. The shortcut for this is **CTRL+E**.
The “**Find tools**” text area is where you can search for tools. For example, we have a really useful tool called “draw curves” which allows you to interactively draw native UE splines. You can open it from the Create menu, or by just typing “draw curves” in the search field, then hitting Enter when you see it suggested. A lot of these tools are often in one of the menus; i.e. Draw Curves is in **Create -> Curve Tools**.\ But the search bar has a lot more tools broadly, from simple things like toggling nanite/collision on your selected objects, to more specific tools like the Channel Packer. And finally, you have the Dash logo, which you can drag around to unsnap the Dash bar from its default position and move it around your screen, or double-click to expand/collapse the list of all tools available in Dash.
We've got an extensive user interface guide that you can[ follow right here.](/getting-started/user-interface) Since this is a getting-started manual, and you've just got Dash working, let's create something! ## Creating a Simple Environment with Dash We'll scatter some foliage on a plane, then mask it out with a curve, and set up a camera to make it all look good! First, let's make a simple plane. In the Dash bar, go to **Create -> Mesh Primitives -> Create Plane**.
Next, let's assign to it a random material color.
You'll notice that a new clock/time icon has showed up on the left of the search field. That's the history icon, and it lists the last 10 actions you've run from the Dash menus.\ Clicking on it will show you a dropdown with all the recent tools, and you can even **CTRL+Click** on it to just run the last action. Here, that means switching between multiple random materials with just one click.
I'll do the same thing with a sphere and a cylinder: **Create -> Mesh Primitives -> Create Sphere/Cylinder**. As a side note, Unreal Engine's meshes are usually of type Static Mesh. Dash has a special type called `Dash Preview Mesh Component`. You can convert them to static meshes by selecting the mesh (like a plane) in your scene, then typing **To Static Meshes or Bake** in the Dash bar, then hitting Enter or clicking on the suggested action. This will convert it to a static mesh, and that mesh will now have its asset located at **Content/Polygonflow/StaticMeshes**.\ Additionally, you can also enable Nanite by typing "Enable Nanite" and selecting the suggested action "Actor Enable Nanite". I'll do both for my plane, sphere, and cylinder.
## AI Assistant We natively ship an AI assistant in Dash that'll help you with most pressing questions. It's fast, quite good, and our community + support is just one click away if you'd rather speak to a human :innocent: {% embed url="" %} Now that we have a ground, a sphere, and a cylinder, let's start using some tools! ## Surface Scatter First, we'll scatter the sphere on the ground. Go to **Scatter -> Surface Scatter**.\ Surface Scatter is an extremely flexible scatter solution that allows you to scatter instances on surfaces, be it meshes, landscapes, procedural meshes, dash meshes, other scatters, etc... Dash has *actions* and *tools*. Actions are like "to static mesh" or "random material"; they're operations that work on your selection or some other context, and usually don't open any panel.\ Tools are like Surface Scatter: They open a panel, are non-destructive, and stick in your scene even when you restart Unreal Engine, until you delete them for good.\ When you open Surface Scatter, the **Dash Tools Panel** will show up and house your Surface Scatter:
Let's get straight to business: Select your plane, then hit the icon on the **Surface** property, then select the sphere, and do the same for the **Scatter** property. That's it! You should see your object scattered around, and now, you can just play with the density, scaling, and other values.\ For our case, I mostly adjust density, min/max scale, and sink. {% embed url="" %} Next, we'll draw a curve across our plane, and use it to remove some scattered spheres, which will give us a nice little path.\ To draw the curve, go to **Create -> Curve Tools -> Draw Curve**. This will start the curve context mode, and if you drag your mouse around the viewport with the left-mouse button pressed, a curve will be drawn.\ Additionally, you'll also notice that the Dash bar changes the buttons it shows, and now has options relevant to this specific tool. We can increase the number of points for our curves, smooth them, etc...\ Keep in mind, this works on even existing splines! Just select them, run the tool, and start smoothing/resampling them. {% embed url="" %} And now, let's use it to mask our instances! {% hint style="info" %} The Dash Tools Panel is selection-sensitive; meaning if you select the scattered spheres, it'll show the tool attached to it. If you have multiple Dash tools running in your scene, just select their output, which in our case is those instanced spheres, and the panel will show you the tool bound to it. {% endhint %} Scroll down in the properties view until you see a group called **Proximity Masking**.\ Expand it, and with your curve selected, add it to the **Objects** property by clicking on the "+" icon, or double clicking on the property itself. {% embed url="" %} Surface Scatter is filled with amazing masking features: Landscape layers, raycasting, textures, volumes, sunlight, directional, height, vertex colors, clumping, angle, noise, mesh border, etc...\ As a brief side note, here's how easy it is to mask by texture: Load up the texture in your project, make sure your mesh has UVs, give it to Surface Scatter, and voilĂ .\ \ PS: You can clear your property from some objects by **Right click -> Clear Objects**, or **Right Click -> Reset to Default**. {% embed url="" %} ## Path Scatter Back to our scene, the next step is to scatter the cylinder mesh we built earlier along the path, to have some kind of wooden posts. To do this, we'll use another tool called **Path Scatter**.\ Go to **Scatter -> Path Scatter** in the Dash bar, and its properties should show up in the properties panel. Give it the cylinder and the curve, and it'll do its magic. {% hint style="info" %} Surface Scatter will scatter on geometry, while Path Scatter will scatter on curves. If you give Path Scatter some geometry, it'll try to scatter on its border meshes, but that's about it. This distinction is very important when thinking about what you're working on. lamp posts along a road? Path Scatter. Pebbles along a road? Surface Scatter. etc... {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} Since our cylinder originally had a uniform size, I made some adjustments in the **Scale Properties** group by enabling **Use Custom Scale**, then toying with the min/max on all axes until I get the look I'm after.\ I then switched the pivot mode to **Bottom**. Path Scatter and Surface Scatter both have this pivot mode system, which allows you to override the original pivot of the object you're scattering. This can be very useful as you interact with content from asset libraries, all having different pivot standards/qualities. Next, let's go to the group **Path Width**, and play with the width value!\ Let's also open the group **Feature Masking**, and pass our plane to the **Projection Mask** property. This ensures that all instances that aren't above the plane don't get spawned. {% embed url="" %} ## References Look at that! We've got ourselves a cool little scene. Let's do a couple of things to make it all a bit more intuitive. First, both Surface Scatter and Path Scatter rely on the curve to set up a path with a given width. What we want to do is have the property in both tools to be controlled by one value, just so we don't have to jump between them anytime we feel like making the path wider.\ This is where **References** come in: You can right-click on a property, like say Distance in Proximity Masking, then create a reference property out of it. Then back in Surface Scatter, you can right-click on the Parallel distance, and assign to it your newly created reference. You can even double-click on the name of the property to change it! {% embed url="" %} When you make a numerical (float, integer) property a reference, you'll notice a **Weight** value appear on the right side of the slider. This weight is unique to each referenced property. So for example, while both the sphere and cylinder instances now share the same path width, you could tweak the weight on the spheres to make a bit of space between them and the cylinders. To remove a reference, simply right-click on a property, then select **Remove Reference**.\ To view all references in your scene, from the Tools Panel, open the tools list , and go to **Reference Tool**.\ There, you can add, remove and edit your referenced properties. {% embed url="" %} In the video above, we're creating a **Scene Container** property, which can hold objects in our scene. We're giving it our curve, then going to our Path and Surface Scatter tools to make them use that reference instead of the curve directly. This makes it easy to add, replace, edit or do whatever we want with our reference, and see all tools update. ## Compounds When right-clicking on a property, you'll notice that we have a "Compound" section in the menu that shows up. In short, compounds are custom tools that can be used to group properties from multiple tools. For example, the setup we have so far could be a compound called "Path Creator", and in it, we could expose some reference properties, some regular properties, etc... from any number of tools.\ You can't create compound properties, you can only add existing properties to them. In the video below, we start by **Right-Click -> Add to New Compound** on a property, then we do this again and again on multiple properties until we've covered all the basics.\ From then on, we don't need to even touch Path Scatter or Surface Scatter; this is our hub from which all major adjustments are made. {% embed url="" %} ## Editing Several Existing Tools As you accumulate tools, it's important to keep in mind that there are multiple ways of accessing them to keep editing them later on: * By selecting their result in the scene they will pop up in the Tools Panel and you can continue to edit them. * By switching amongst them from the Active Tools list located in the top left corner of the Tools Panel, with this menu icon . * Note, by pinning tools with the pin icon inside of the Tools Panel you ensure that changing the viewport selection doesn't switch tools within the Tools Panel. When you create a new tool, it is pinned by default, as you might, for example, want to select some instances to pass them to this new tool, but don't want to accidentally start switching tools. Always keep an eye on the pin icon if you notice the panel isn't refreshing and showing the tool you expect to see. {% hint style="info" %} If you are struggling with editing existing tools, here is a [great FAQ post](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/getting-started#how-can-i-edit-an-existing-tool). {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ## Detailing With just a few primitives and some scatter passes, we can create a really cute scene.\ In the screenshot below, we've created a few more spheres, scattered some on the ground, some on other scatters, etc...\ We've also used some of the scattered instances as proximity; you can see the dark green spheres are mostly clustered near the orange spheres, and that's because we used the orange spheres as proximity mask.
## Camera & Grading Finally, let's make a shot out of this! Go to **Create -> Common -> Create Camera**.\ This will create a Dash camera, which is a custom blueprint tailored for cinematic shots.\ The viewport will automatically switch to this camera, and the tools panel will also show its properties. From there, we can start toying with the color grading presets, shuffle through them, adjust the aspect ratio, bloom, etc...\ This part is mostly messing around with values and figuring out what works. {% embed url="" %} I then added a water plane from **Create -> Common -> Water Plane**, scaled and moved it around a bit, and here's the final result:
## Closing I hope you've learned the basics of Dash! We cover the user interface in more detail in the next page, and also have some more extensive use cases in this documentation. Most importantly, we can't recommend you enough to join our [**Discord**](https://bit.ly/DashDiscord) community: It's a calm space with artists honing their craft, and our team is there around the clock to help you if needed. # User Interface Dash is an ecosystem that sits on top of Unreal Engine 5. Its user interface aims to be as minimal as possible, showing you only what you need, without hiding anything from you either.\ When you start Dash, you'll notice there are two main panels: The Dash bar, which is a vertical widget that sits at the top center of your viewport, and the Tools Panel, which is pinned to the right of your viewport, and is where you control your Dash tools. When you install Dash, its icon will be visible in the Unreal Engine toolbar:
From there, click on it, and the Dash bar will show up. {% hint style="warning" %} If clicking on it doesn't show up the Dash bar, check this [**FAQ guide**](/getting-started/getting-started#clicking-the-dash-icon-does-not-work) on how to solve the problem. If that doesn't work, please reach out to us on our Discord or {% endhint %} ## Dash Bar This widget is your main gateway to Dash, and is jampacked with features: * **Content**: Dash features an amazing content browser, with Megascans & Polyhaven support, custom assets support, an IES library, and the ability to access all your assets from other UE projects! In this category, you will also find the reference image board tool, similar to Miro and PureRef. * **Place**: This shows you a dropdown full of tools that help you with content placement. Features range from pivot setting to physics-based asset placement, and much more. * **Scatter**: This is where all the cool scatter tools of Dash reside: You can scatter on a surface, along a spline, scatter decals, scatter in a volume, etc… * **Create**: This is an extensive list of tools that help you create objects, from geometry & curve primitives, to cameras, vines, fog cards, etc… * **Edit**: This is the main properties panel through which all your Dash tools will be edited.
You can make the dash bar smaller by going to the menu icon on the left, then selecting **Toggle Scale** to swap between full, minimal, and icon only. The shortcut for this is **CTRL+E**.
The “**Find tools**” text area is where you can search for tools. For example, we have a really useful tool called “draw curves” which allows you to interactively draw native UE splines. You can open it from the Create menu, or by just typing “draw curves” in the search field, then hitting Enter when you see it suggested. A lot of these tools are often in one of the menus; i.e. Draw Curves is in **Create -> Curve Tools**.\ But the search bar has a lot more tools broadly, from simple things like toggling nanite/collision on your selected objects, to more specific tools like the Channel Packer. And finally, you have the Dash logo, which you can drag around to unsnap the Dash bar from its default position and move it around your screen, or double-click to expand/collapse the list of all tools available in Dash.
The Dash bar is responsive, meaning scaling the UE viewport will adapt its position and scale too.\ You can disable this behavior by clicking on the dots menu, then **Toggle Responsive UI**. {% embed url="" %} ### Dash AI Assistant To help you get the most out of Dash, the product ships with an AI assistant you can speak to.\ It is trained on this documentation, and will do its best to answer your questions, such as: > * *How do I mask objects by proximity?* > * *Where can I find my license key?* > * *Where do I find physics tools?* > * *I'm unable to scatter more assets after 1.0 when using surface scatter.* > * *etc...*
Like most modern AIs, this assistant is not perfect, and occasionally make mistakes. Based on our testing, it seems to be helpful at dealing with most issues users encounter, and we've made sure to include links to our discord, documentation, and support email in the assistant window, just so you know where to reach out in case it's not helpful.\ We've also exposed a *History* button that helps you see all the questions you've asked during your UE session; meaning from the moment you started it, 'till the moment you closed it.
Does Polygonflow save my questions & AI answers on their servers? Yes we do.\ We use that data to better improve Dash, and only that. For example, we might see that a lot of users ask how to scatter moss, and we'll take it as a signal that we need to ship a moss preset for the tool Surface Scatter.\ We might also notice that the answers from the AI assistant have a pattern of being unhelpful in a certain way, and that would be a good signal for us to adjust and deploy it again.
{% embed url="" %} The assistant is limited to 25 questions per session, after which we usually recommend you to just read out to us and we'll troubleshoot the issue with you. You could of course just restart UE5 to ask more questions, but at that point, one of our developers would likely be a better assistant :smile: # Dash Bar
This widget is your main gateway to Dash, and is jampacked with features: * **Content**: Dash features an amazing content browser, with Megascans & Polyhaven support, custom assets support, an IES library, and the ability to access all your assets from other UE projects! In this category, you will also find the reference image board tool, similar to Miro and PureRef. * **Place**: This shows you a dropdown full of tools that help you with content placement. Features range from pivot setting to physics-based asset placement, and much more. * **Scatter**: This is where all the cool scatter tools of Dash reside: You can scatter on a surface, along a spline, scatter decals, scatter in a volume, etc… * **Create**: This is an extensive list of tools that help you create objects, from geometry & curve primitives, to cameras, vines, fog cards, etc… * **Edit**: This is the main properties panel through which all your Dash tools will be edited. You can make the dash bar smaller by going to the menu icon on the left, then selecting **Toggle Scale** to swap between full, minimal, and icon only. The shortcut for this is **CTRL+E**.
The “**Find tools**” text area is where you can search for tools. For example, we have a really useful tool called “draw curves” which allows you to interactively draw native UE splines. You can open it from the Create menu, or by just typing “draw curves” in the search field, then hitting Enter when you see it suggested. A lot of these tools are often in one of the menus; i.e. Draw Curves is in **Create -> Curve Tools**.\ But the search bar has a lot more tools broadly, from simple things like toggling nanite/collision on your selected objects, to more specific tools like the Channel Packer. And finally, you have the Dash logo, which you can drag around to unsnap the Dash bar from its default position and move it around your screen, or double-click to expand/collapse the list of all tools available in Dash.
The Dash bar is responsive, meaning scaling the UE viewport will adapt its position and scale too.\ You can disable this behavior by clicking on the dots menu, then **Toggle Responsive UI**. {% embed url="" %} ### Dash AI Assistant To help you get the most out of Dash, the product ships with an AI assistant you can speak to.\ It is trained on this documentation, and will do its best to answer your questions, such as: > * *How do I mask objects by proximity?* > * *Where can I find my license key?* > * *Where do I find physics tools?* > * *I'm unable to scatter more assets after 1.0 when using surface scatter.* > * *etc...*
Like most modern AIs, this assistant is not perfect, and occasionally make mistakes. Based on our testing, it seems to be helpful at dealing with most issues users encounter, and we've made sure to include links to our discord, documentation, and support email in the assistant window, just so you know where to reach out in case it's not helpful.\ We've also exposed a *History* button that helps you see all the questions you've asked during your UE session; meaning from the moment you started it, 'till the moment you closed it.
Does Polygonflow save my questions & AI answers on their servers? Yes we do.\ We use that data to better improve Dash, and only that. For example, we might see that a lot of users ask how to scatter moss, and we'll take it as a signal that we need to ship a moss preset for the tool Surface Scatter.\ We might also notice that the answers from the AI assistant have a pattern of being unhelpful in a certain way, and that would be a good signal for us to adjust and deploy it again.
{% embed url="" %} The assistant is limited to 25 questions per session, after which we usually recommend you to just read out to us and we'll troubleshoot the issue with you. You could of course just restart UE5 to ask more questions, but at that point, one of our developers would likely be a better assistant :smile:
### Place Menu Features This menu contains various options to move, scale, rotate, drop and adjust your object's positions. * **Select Nearby**: Given some selected objects, this option will select all objects near it. It'll ignore any object that's larger than the biggest object in your selection. Use `SHIFT+Click` on this option to only keep the nearby objects, and not the originally selected ones.\ This action will ignore any objects bigger than the largest in your selection, and only focus on objects close enough. Think grabbing all items on a table, without picking the ceiling. * **Select Above**: Given a set of selected objects, this will select all objects that are above them. your current selected objects. Use `SHIFT+Click` on this option to only keep the nearby objects, and not the originally selected ones. \ This action will ignore any objects bigger than the largest in your selection, and only focus on objects close enough. Think grabbing all items on a table, without picking the ceiling. * **Physics Drop**: Given some selected objects, like say some dishes or trash, this options will start a physics simulation and drop them to whatever's below them. The Dash bar will be in the physics mode, and you'll be able to adjust a few properties. * **Physics Paint**: Select some objects like debris, trash or anything you want to make a pile of, then select this tool, and you'll be able to paint instances of your selection ultra fast. The Dash bar will be in the physics mode, and you'll be able to adjust a few properties. * **Project Below**: This option will move your selected object towards whatever's below it. Useful for quickly snapping objects on a table, floor, etc... * **Random Swap**: Select a couple of objects you want to swap, and this feature will pick them at random, and switch their positions. #### Pivot Tools * **Center Pivot**: This will center the pivot of your selected actors. Keep in mind, it won't change the pivot on the static mesh/asset of an actor, just the actor's pivot itself. * **Bottom Pivot**: This will move the pivot of your selected actors to its bottom. Keep in mind, it won't change the pivot on the static mesh/asset of an actor, just the actor's pivot itself. * **Top Pivot**: This will move the pivot of your selected actors to its top. Keep in mind, it won't change the pivot on the static mesh/asset of an actor, just the actor's pivot itself. In case you're trying to change the pivot for scattering reasons, our scatter tools have pivot overrides and a "sink" feature to help you adjust your object's position at will. #### Transform Tools * **Average Scale**: Takes the average scale of all your selected objects, and applies it to all of them, until they roughly have the same bounding box size. * **Minimum Scale**: Grabs the smallest object in your selection, and conforms the size of all other selected objects to this, until their bounding box is of the same size. * **Maximum Scale**: Grabs the largest object in your selection, and conforms the size of all other selected objects to this, until their bounding box is of the same size. * **Random Angles**: Randomly spins your selected objects on their Z axis. * **Reset Rotations**: This is a quick shortcut to reset the rotation of your selected objects. * **Reset Scale**: This is a quick shortcut to reset the scale of your selected objects. That's it! If you have some feature suggestions for more quick operations along these lines, please feel free to bring it up on our Discord! ### Scatter Menu Features This menu contains all the major scattering features in Dash. One thing to keep in mind is that these tools work with actors, not assets. If you want to scatter a rock or a decal, first put them in your scene, then scatter them. You can't scatter directly from the UE content browser, yet.\ There's a few more that you can find by right-clicking on the Dash logo to expand the tools list, but the most important ones are here: * **Surface Scatter**: Got a ground you want to scatter objects on? This is your tool. Surface Scatter is incredibly powerful, and can be used to create entire forests, or moss, or garbage near bins, or debris near destroyed building, etc... We've got plenty of video on our [YouTube channel ](https://www.youtube.com/@polygonflow)highlighting its use. * **Path Scatter**: Want to scatter some objects along the points of a curve/spline? This tool has everything you need, and then some. You can use it for wooden posts along a path, lamp posts on a road, hanging lights, etc... Its "Parallel Width" feature allows you to scatter on both sides of a curve, which is very practical for roads, paths, etc... * **Decal Scatter**: Select a few decals in your scene, pass them to this tool, give it a surface, and it'll scatter them all around. Features like scaling, depth control, random spin and surface alignment make this tool extremely useful for urban environments. * **Volume Scatter**: This tool allows you to scatter objects *inside* other objects. For example, you could fill a cube with some objects, or create a blobby mesh and scatter birds in it, then move it up in the sky and now you've got birds in the sky. * **Grid Scatter**: This is a powerful tool to quickly scatter objects in a grid pattern. Its jittering features help you break up obvious repetition fairly quickly. * **Radial Scatter**: Arguably the most powerful radial scattering tool in UE, you can use this tool to create radial object layouts, or capsule layouts, etc... With its concentric and "every nth" logic, this can help you do simple stuff to entire stadium chair/crowd setups. ### Create Menu Features This menu is filled to the brim with some of the most useful features in Dash, from terrain creation to mesh & spline primitives, curve tools, camera, water, etc...\ For all things primitives, be it curves or meshes, they're spawned right in front of you when you click on them #### Common Features * **Create Terrain**: Creates a mesh-based terrain with various features to deform it with noise, curve its borders, adjust its subdivision level, UV scale, etc... * **Create Water**: Create a plane with a simple water material. * **Create Advanced Water**: Create an advanced water volume * **Create Camera**: Creates a Dash camera, which is a custom UE camera built to give you a quick and easy cinematic look. With a wide range of color grading & aspect presets, lens distortion and much more, this camera is perfect for some quick shots. * **Randomize Material**: Dash ships with a bunch of color swatch materials, each having a unique color. This action will go through your selected objects, and assign one such material to each one of your objects at random. We find it very practical for quickly separating objects by color.\ You can press `SHIFT+Click` on the option to assign one color swatch to all of them.\ Combined with the recent feature, you could click on that icon multiple times with `CTRL+SHIFT+Click` on the recent icon to sift through a couple of swatches that are all applied to your selection, or just `SHIFT+Click` on the recent icon to quickly assign random swatches to each object. * **Create Fog Card**: This is a powerful fog card creation tool. It'll spawn a plane that has a fog material on it, and also the fog card tool, which allows you to adjust the density, distance fade, motion speed, etc...\ You can at any point select one or multiple of these fog cards, then in the Tools Panel, click on the tools list icon , and select "Edit Fog Card" to batch edit all your selected fog cards at once. * **Spawn Character**: Spawns a simple 3D character, which is useful for keeping track of your environment's scale, or just as a blockout thing before you swap it with your final character. * **Spawn Dash Box**: Spawns a cute little box with the Dash logo on it :) * **Create Falling Leaves**: Create a blueprint volume of falling leaves that can be adjusted to get the perfect look. #### Mesh Tools * **Draw Mesh**: If you need a mesh in a custom shape, our Draw Mesh tool let's you draw any shape and we create a basic mesh in this shape. * **Create Alpha Cards**: If you've got an alpha/atlas/opacity texture of assets like leaves, debris and other flat 3D objects, this tool allows you to convert that texture to actual meshes, with orientation and pivot options just a click away. A common use case is using it on leaves, then enabling Nanite on them, and scattering them.\ Keep in mind: In case you're using Megascans' atlas textures, we've got a [quick guide](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser/megascans#using-atlases-in-dash) on that. #### Curve Tools * **Draw Curves**: Instead of drawing curves/splines by placing points one by one, this interactive tool gives you the ability to just draw curves on your viewport.\ \ The Dash bar will switch to the draw curve context, from which you can adjust your curves' point density, smoothing and offsetting.\ You can even switch the draw mode to "End Points", which allows you to draw a curve between your mouse press point, and mouse release point.\ Switching to this mode also shows you a gravity property, which makes it quick to realistic add some sagging to your curve. * **Draw Vines**: This is a simple way of drawing curves in your scene, which then automatically spawns vines alongside them. Once you're done, the vines tool will open up, and allow you to further tweak your newly created vines. * **Create Vines**: This tools makes it easy to create vines: Give it some surfaces you want to have vines grow on, and some origins, like an empty actor or even a curve, and they'll be used as the source of the vines from which all growth happens. * **Create Roads**: This is a powerful road creation tool that can be used for much more than just roads. Besides the usual width/edge sink and whatnot, you have extensive geometry features to subdivide it, adjust the density, smooth it, add noise (which makes it useful for cave walls!) and much, much more. * **Create Cables**: Feed this tool multiple meshes, and it'll scatter cables on them. There's multiple modes that allow you to scatter cables, or just use the input object positions as your source points, etc... * **Create Pipes**: Simple, fast and powerful pipe creation tool. Like the cable and road tool, the Parallel width feature set of this tool makes it extremely useful for usages beyond basic pipes. #### Mesh Primitives * **Create Plane**: Creates a plane with fairly high density. * **Create Box**: Creates a box/cube. * **Create Sphere**: Creates a sphere. * **Create Cylinder**: Creates a cylinder. * **Create Disc**: Creates a disc. * **Create Rounded Cylinder**: Created a cylinder with rounded borders. #### Curve Primitives * **Create Line**: Creates a simple spline/curve line. * **Create Square**: Creates a square curve. * **Create Rounded Square**: Create a rounded square curve with beveled corners. * **Create Circle**: Create a circle curve. ### Menu Features Let's go through all the features available in the menu, which is a three dots icon on the left corner of the Das bar:
* **Documentation**: Clicking on this will open the documentation in your default web browser. * **Discord**: This will open up your web browser, and invite you to join our Discord, which we really recommend whether you're facing an issue, wanting to share art, or just chatting with artists :) * **Tutorials**: This is a link to our YouTube channel, which features a bunch of videos covering all kinds of use cases. * **Website**: A link to the **polygonflow\.io** website. Then we have the Layout section: * **Toggle Scale**: This will switch between the three scale modes of the Dash bar, its shortcut is **CTRL+E**. * Full: This is the default mode, and shows the name of all dropdown menus in the Dash bar. * Minimal: This mode hides all the dropdown names, and sticks to an icons only UI. * Icon Only: This one collapses the Dash bar into one single icon . Clicking on this icon will show your favorites and recent commands. * **Toggle Responsive UI**: This will switch between the Full, Minimal and Icon only modes. * **Move to Left/Right/Center**: You can change where the Dash bar is snapped by default with these options. Those positions are at the top of the viewport, left of the viewport, and right of the viewport And finally, the "Others" section: * **Preferences**: This opens up the Dash preferences panel. * **Check for Updates**: Quick way of seeing if there's a new Dash update. * **License Manager**: This is where you can activate/deactivate a license, start a trial, etc.. * **Close Dash**: Simple action to close the Dash bar. You can also hit **Escape** twice in the Dash bar for the same effect. # Tools Panel The tools panel is accessible from the Dash bar by through the **Edit** button.\ This panel is where you'll be editing all Dash tools. For instance, if you want to scatter objects, you'd go to the Scatter menu in the Dash bar, then click on Surface Scatter, and it would open the Tools Panel, then fill it with Surface Scatter's properties. If you select some objects you've scattered, their tool will become active in the Tools Panel, as you'll see all their properties. ### Panel Features Since the panel is selection-sensitive, new tools are pinned by default, which allows you to select objects that have tools, and pass them to the current new tool if needed. Click on that pin icon to unpin it.
Let's go from top to bottom and describe all the features in this panel. First, you'll notice that it always spawns at the center-right corner of your viewport, and scaling your viewport also changes its position to make it fit that place. \ At the top-right corner, we've got an icon to close the panel, and a menu icon . Clicking on that icon will open a menu with a couple of options:
* **View Tools**: This will open a dropdown list showing all tools that are currently running in your scene. * **Hide All**: This will hide the result (meshes from cable tool, scattered instances, etc...) of all Dash tools in your viewport. An easy way to quickly identify what's from Dash and what isn't. * **Show All**: This shows all Dash tool results. * **Freeze All**: Dash tools will update whenever their inputs change. For example, if you've got some cables hanging by a curve, moving that curve will update the cable geometry. Same with scattering; scaling or rotating the surface/ground you're scattering on will update the scatter.\ Freezing will block that process, and let you adjust your scene as you see fit, without Dash tools ever updating their generated actors. * **Unfreeze All**: This will make all Dash tools update again when you change their properties or adjust actors they depend on in the scene. * **Show Execution Time**: This will show you a small counter in millisecond to the left of the "Tools Panel" text. When the active tool runs, that timer updates, indicating how much time Dash took. * **Move Right**: Moves & snaps the panel to the right corner of the viewport, which is the default position. * **Move Left**: Moves & snaps the panel to the left corner of the viewport. * **Move Top Right**: Moves & snaps the panel to the top right corner of the viewport. * **Move Top Left**: Moves & snaps the panel to the top left corner of the viewport. * **Detach Active Tool**: This will open another panel that contains the active tool. Sometimes you might want to have a few panels open side by side when adjusting values, and detaching a panel will help you do exactly that. * **Close Panel**: This will close the Tools Panel. You can reopen it by going to the Dash bar, then clicking on the **Edit** button. Next, we've got the active tool's workspace:
The left icon will show you a dropdown of all available tools in your scene.
Dash has different types of tools, each serving a specific purpose. * **Transient Tools**: These are tools that are selection-specific. For example, if you select an object that has a Dash material or Blend material assigned to it, you can find the Material Edit or Blend Material tool in this menu. Same with editing a Dash camera; first make sure that your viewport is set to it, then you'll see the Edit Camera transient tool available in the tools list. Same for fog, too. * **Regular Tools**: These are tools like Surface Scatter, Decal Scatter, Road Tool, Terrain Tool, etc... * **Compound Tools**: These tools are empty vessels of sorts, and they can store properties from regular tools. You could for example have a complex "Road in Forest" workflow that involves Surface Scatter for the trees near the road, Path Scatter for the lamp posts, Decal Scatter for the road cracks, Road Tool for the road itself, etc... And a compound tool would help you assemble all the most useful properties of that setup in one place. If you've used Unreal's Material Editor before, think of this like an instance parameter where all your exposed parameters can be easily edited.\ Compounds are explored in practice in our [**quick guide**](/getting-started/quickstart#compounds). * **Reference Tool**: In a given scene, you can have one reference tool, which allows you to create properties that can be used in multiple tools. To continue on our "Road in Forest" example, it's likely you're going to have a width for the road, and you'll want to have all those tools knowing about this width. References are how you do it. We discuss them in a practical case in the [**quick guide**](/getting-started/quickstart#references).\ Think of this tool as more like a storage facility for all your properties that are shared between multiple regular tools.
I can't find the material tool First, make sure that you select one or multiple objects that have a Dash material. Megascans & PolyHaven assets have those when you import them from the Dash Content Browser. Same for fog cards and Blend Materials.\ With your object selected, open the Tools Panel, then in the top left click on the menu icon to view all active tools in your scene.\ You should see under the "Transient Tools" category an Edit Material option.\ Click on it, and you'll be able to adjust the material.\ PS: Dash materials are just regular UE materials; you can also adjust them from the usual Unreal Engine material instance panel.
How to create a Reference Property? You can make one from scratch or create one from an existing property. * Right-Click on any given property, then select the **Convert to Reference** option.\ This will create a reference property that has the name, value and range of the property you Right-Clicked on. From there, you can double-click on the property's name to change it, and Right-Click on another property to assign this new one to it. * To make one from scratch, open the tools menu from the Dash Tools Panel, then you'll see all the way down either "Reference Tool" or "Create Reference Tool". Click on either one, then the Tools Panel should switch to the reference tool view. There, you'll notice a + plus icon that you can click on to create any property type you want.\ \ You can double click on a property's name to change it, and right-click on it to adjust its range in case it's a float/integer. Right-click is also where you can delete it.\ To assign it, go to your regular tool, like Surface Scatter, and right-click on a property of the same type. For example, if the reference property you created is of type float, you could use it to adjust the Max Scale property in Surface Scatter. Right-Click on Max Scale, then select "Assign Float" or whatever the name of your property.\ Right-click on the property again to find the option to remove it.
What can I do with compound tools? Compound tools can be thought of like a hub for properties that are coming from multiple tools. Soon, we'll give you the ability to export them and their dependencies, making them interactive content generators, basically.
Next to the tools list, you have the name of the current tool. This one's fairly straightforward: Double-click on it to rename it, and that's about it. The name always shows up in blue, to indicate that it's the active tool. Similarly, hovering over icons will switch their color to blue, to indicate that you're above them/their option. {% embed url="" %} Next to the name, we've got the Active Tool menu. This one contains options that are specific to the tool you're currently editing, whilst the tools menu we discussed before is global; as it has options to hide all tools, or freeze all tools, etc... * **Create Preset**: This option allows you to create a preset from all the current property values you've set up. When you click on it, the preset panel will open up, and you can give your preset a name and description, and also decide if you want it to ignore objects used in the tool, in case you'll be using it in other scenes for example. * **Select Results**: Selects the result of the tool. If the active tool generates cable meshes, this will select them in your scene. If it generates instances, this will also select them. * **Reset Properties**: Resets all property values of the active tool. * **Execute Tool**: Runs the tool. This will force an execution of the tool, unless it is frozen. * **Hide Output**: Hides the result of the tool. If you click on it, then open the menu again, it'll have an option "Show Output". * **Freeze Tool**: Freezes the tool from any future updates. If you open the menu again, it'll show "Unfreeze Tool" instead. * **View in Explorer**: Open the folder in which the source code of this tool resides. Dash tools use a lot of C++ and other binary libraries, but their core logic is laid out in Python, which makes them easy to tinker with. * **Delete Tool**: Permanently deletes the current tool. This won't delete its output, just the tool itself, meaning it won't be parametric anymore. This action is not undoable. Another feature in the Tools Panel is the **Favorites** icon . In short, this allows you to set any property in the current tool as favorite, and clicking on that icon makes all your favorite properties appear.\ Some Dash tools have dozens of properties, and this is a quick and easy way of making the most commonly used ones available just a click away, without having to expand and collapse multiple groups.\ To set a property to favorites, click on its menu icon , then **Add to Favorites**. Once you set one property to favorites, a star icon will show up in where the tool name is, and you can use that icon as a toggle to show all properties or just favorites.
Next, there's a few dynamic options that may show up depending on the current context.\ First, if you're using tools like Road Tool, those will generate geometry, which uses a custom mesh type in UE5. You can bake those tools by clicking on the bake icon, which will permanently delete the tool, and convert their geometry to static meshes, which is the standard UE5 format.\ This icon will of course only show up on tools that generate geometry. A tool like Surface Scatter, which creates instances, won't have it. But Road Tool? Cable Tool? They will. Two more to go: The **Pin** icon allows you to pin the current panel. If you for example generate cables, then scatter plants, then rocks, etc.. anytime you select any of those objects in your scene, the Tools Panel will refresh to show you the properties of the currently selected object.\ Pinning allows you to pin whatever's the current view, and ignore all selection-based changes. ### Tool Features A Dash tool typically has a set of properties, all residing in various groups. By default, you'll have a bunch of properties in a group called **Base Properties**. You can expand or collapse this group, and scroll down to view and expand/collapse other groups. {% embed url="" %} Dash tools have various properties, each serving a different purpose. * **Scene Container**: This is a property that stores objects in the scene. It typically has a + icon, which adds to the property whatever object you've got selected. You can also just double-click on the property to add an object to it. The property has a dropdown icon , which lists all the objects contained it it, and a regular menu icon , from which you can select the contained objects, clear the property, set it to favorites, convert it to a reference, etc... * **Float / Integer**: These are two classic numerical properties that. Floats are the most common type, while Integers can often be used for object count and other fixed values. * **Dropdown**: This type contains various options to pick from. For instance, some tools have a dropdown to override your object's pivot to top, bottom or center. * **Boolean**: This is a checkbox, and allows you to toggle a value on or off. An example might be switching off "Receive Decals" on a tool like Road Tool; which would make the road geometry not receive decals even if they're above it. * **Button**: Some tools have a button that's used to start the tool, instead of the usual runtime execution workflow where adjusting any property updates the tool.\ The Channel Packer tool is one example, where you can set up all your channels, and once you're happy with the result, hit "Create Texture" to start the conversion process. * **String**: Some tools have a textual field where you can write some text. In the tool Surface Scatter, you can mask your objects by giving it the name of your terrain material layer. This is where this property type comes in handy. * **Asset Container**: This is a less common but still very useful type: It helps you to connect any asset from the UE content browser to this tool. For example, when using the channel packer you need to select a texture in the UE content browser, then in the tool, hit the + icon on one of the corresponding texture slots to query and add your current selection. It works exactly like the Scene Container property, except this one exclusively interacts with assets, not actors. # Content Browser
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 currently working with! * Later in the year (2025), 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. ## Basics 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:
FAB Starting from Dash 1.8.5, when you download assets from the FAB plugin, these assets will now be added to the new FAB view in the Dash Content Browser. This new feature supports Megascans assets and the FBX and GLT format for other free and paid assets inside the FAB plugin. Important to note though, that it is also dependent on how the creator has shipped their assets, so some FBX/GLT assets may not show up in the new FAB view anyhow. For the Megascans assets from FAB, you will have access to our Material Edit and Blend Material tools. These tools do not support the other FAB assets right now, though.
Dekogon Dekogon is the first asset seller to join the Dash marketplace. So starting from Dash 1.9.3, you will be able to browse, buy, and instantly use thousands of Dekogon assets directly from the Dash Content Browser.
Sierra Division Sierra Division is the 2nd seller we are onboarding to the Dash Marketplace. But as of Dash 1.9.3 they are only available in a limited capacity. This means only one asset pack from Sierra Division is available, but as a kind gesture from the team at Sierra Division, this asset pack is available for free.
Quixel (old) - Bridge [**Quixel (Old)**](https://quixel.com/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**](#megascans) 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. As of 2025, you can no longer download new assets from the Bridge Plugin or the standalone Bridge. But if you have downloaded Megascans assets from before, you can easily access them in Dash still.
Amazon (ABO) We’ve integrated the **Amazon Berkeley Objects Library** directly into Dash’s Content Browser. You now have access to a huge collection of high-quality, real-world 3D models, completely free, right inside Dash.
Poly Haven [**PolyHaven**](https://polyhaven.com/) is an open source PBR asset library, comprising of high-quality 3D assets, HDRIs, and tileable textures.\ The HDRIs alone make this library a must-have for anyone creating environments with Dash. There are some assets that are built specifically for Blender, which means they won't work nicely in Dash. Trees are such assets, as they seem to use geometry nodes for their leaves.
AmbientCG We’ve integrated the [**AmbientCG Library**](https://ambientcg.com/) directly into Dash’s Content Browser. You now have access to a huge collection of high-quality textures, atlases, and HDRIs, completely free, right inside Dash.
The Base Mesh Library This library provides a wide range of clean, low-poly models that are ideal for blocking out scenes, testing ideas, or using as a foundation for more detailed work, all available for free.
Project Library Dash gives you the ability to browse all your 3D assets and materials in its content browser.\ Not only that, you can also use its AI tagging capabilities to make your content easier to search through. Unlike Megascans or PolyHaven, when you drag & drop one of your assets from Dash onto the viewport, its material will remain the one you originally assigned to the asset, instead of one we automatically assign to it. We go into detail about how your custom content works with Dash in [**here**](#current-project-organizing-your-custom-assets).
Other Projects In addition to browsing the content of your current project, you also have the ability to browse the assets of other Unreal Engine projects that reside on your computer! This feature is easy to set up, just follow the quick guide [**right here**](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser#external-projects-centralised-asset-browser-between-projects).
The IES Library [**IES Library**](https://ieslibrary.com/) gives you access to high-quality lighting information presets. Think of it like the shape of the light that's emitted by light fixtures. The linked website is a repository of such shapes, all provided by manufacturers, and ready to use to make your scene shine.
Unified View This library will display all the assets in all the views in one place. You could for example have some great assets in PolyHaven, some in Megascans and some in another UE project, and this view would allow you to see them all in one place.
Next, you have (from left to right): * The folder icon to expand the current content folder hierarchy. * 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. * You can also use semantic search, for example "food", and get assets that are named apple, pear, can. * You can also use boolean operators as + and -. For example, searching for "Forest -Rocks" will give you all the forest-related assets but exclude all your rocks. Another example could be "Flowers +Bushes". Right now it is important to use a keyword and then a space before the operator and the next keyword. * 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... 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. {% hint style="success" %} The Content Browser is only one of many tools and features available in Dash that can help you build 3D worlds faster and easier. And to give back to the community, we have actually made the full content browser available for free with a Dash limited license. For more information about this limited license, please see this page: [Free Content Browser](/advanced/free-content-browser) {% endhint %} ## Collections As of Dash 1.9.0, we have introduced a collection system into the Dash Content Browser. This lets you organize your assets in any way you like, regardless of asset library. Once you open up the current folder hierarchy on the left side with the folder icon in the top left corner, you will now see below your folders this new collections area. Simply press the + icon to create a new collection and then you can rename it by double-clicking or right-clicking on it. Then it is just a matter of drag and dropping your assets into your collections. Starting from Dash 1.9.2 you should hold CTRL to select multiple individual assets, or hold SHIFT to select all assets between your first and second selection. You can also press CTRL+A to select all the visible assets, or use the keyboard arrows to move the selection. In Dash 1.9.1 or earlier, you need to hold SHIFT to select several 3D assets and drop them all at one time. \ \ To remove one or several assets from a collection, simply drag and drop the assets onto the empty space in the collections area. {% embed url="" %} As the Dash Content Browser is designed to work great for teams working together on a UE5 project, this new collections feature does that as well. All you have to do is right-click on a collection and click "Make Shared". This will create a shared copy of said collection and this data is stored within the UE project, so no need to share any additional data with your teammates. If a teammate has made changes to a shared collection, you will see a notification and get the option to either load or overwrite those changes. ## FAB Starting from Dash 1.8.5, when you download assets from the FAB plugin, these assets will now be added to the new FAB view in the Dash Content Browser. This means you can use the FAB assets as easily as you have previously used Megascans assets from the Bridge plugin. Fab doesn't actually copy the assets in your project and instead seems to store some cached version. If you drag & drop the assets from Dash's content browser, this isn't an issue: We load the assets in your project, and everything runs smoothly from there. This new feature supports Megascans assets and the FBX and GLT format for other free and paid assets inside the FAB plugin. Important to note, though, that it is also dependent on how the creator has shipped their assets, so some FBX/GLT assets may not show up in the new FAB view anyhow. For the Megascans assets, you will have access to our Material Edit and Blend Material tools as you are used to when using Megascans assets from the Bridge Plugin. These tools do not support the other FAB assets right now though. {% embed url="" %} If you don't see any FAB assets in the new FAB view, it is best to double-check in the FAB plugin settings what the Cache Directory Path is, and then make sure to set this path in the Dash-Preferences Fab settings. You can find these settings by clicking the right-side menu in the FAB tab and choosing Set Folders. Then you only have to click on the paper clip icon on the row "Fab UE Cache Path" and save the path you copied from the Fab Plugin. After you have done that, there exists a reload button in the right-side menu in the Fab tab, Check New Assets. {% hint style="warning" %} To summarize: 1. We only support the FAB plugin right now, not FAB on the web, or in the Epic Launcher. 2. We can only show the FAB assets you have downloaded after installing Dash and setting the paths correctly. 3. Your "FAB Library Path" should not be the same as "FAB UE Cache Path". And "FAB UE Cache Path" is the one that should match the path in the FAB plugin settings. 1. And these paths should not be inside of each other either. Best to have them in separate places. 4. We only support individual assets from FAB, not asset packs. And especially Megascans assets. Some other assets work, some don't. 5. If all of this is fixed and you still don't see assets appearing, worth trying to restart Unreal. Otherwise, reach out to us! :) {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="info" %} Worth pointing out that in order to get Displacement/Tesselation working properly with the Megascans assets from FAB, you need to download the materials in High Quality as they don't ship normal Displacement maps as they did through the Bridge Plugin {% endhint %} ## Megascans / Quixel Bridge 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**](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser/megascans), 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` * 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**.
* 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](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser/megascans#using-atlases-in-dash). * 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.
Why use Dash for Megascans instead of the native Bridge plugin? Navigating content from Megascans, Polyhaven, your own, some marketplace's, etc... can be quite the time sink. In an ideal world, if you were looking for a chair or a rock, you'd just type "chair" or "rock", and find the content you need, regardless of its origin or even naming quality. That ideal world exists, and it's called Dash.
Can I download Megascans assets inside Dash? Unfortunately you can't. Quixel Bridge doesn't have a public API that makes it easy for us to distribute their content, which means you'll have to download the assets in the Bridge plugin for them to be available in Dash.
Can I import content for the Bridge standalone software? Dash only supports the Atlas asset type from the Bridge software.\ We're planning to add support for regular FBX/OBJ import to remedy this problem, but that isn't available yet.
Does this still work in 2025? As of 2025, you can no longer download new assets from the Bridge Plugin or the standalone Bridge. But if you have downloaded Megascans assets from before, you can easily access them in Dash still.
## Asset Marketplace As of Dash 1.9.3, Dash has its own asset marketplace. You can now find and get the asset you need for your project from our high-quality vendors! Starting with the full Dekogon library and a selection of free assets from Sierra Division. When searching for the right asset, if something is available from our vendors, you can get it and use it within seconds. {% hint style="success" %} To learn more about the Dash Asset Marketplace, please check our dedicated page: [Asset Marketplace](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser/asset-marketplace) {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ## Polyhaven 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 voilĂ . {% embed url="" %} 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**](https://polyhaven.com/)!
Some Polyhaven assets don't seem to work. Why? There are some assets like trees which are built for Blender primarily, making them hard to automatatically set up in Unreal Engine. Most of the content should work, but if something's off, chances are the content is just not easy to import in UE.
My thumbnails aren't showing / I can't seem to download assets in Polyhaven If the thumbnails are not loading or you're unable to download the assets, try this: 1. Close UE5 2. Delete this folder `..documents\PolygonFlow\ContentLibrary\PolyHaven` 3. Open UE 5and start Dash, then open the Content Browser. 4. Go to Polyhaven library menu and click **Redownload library data**. 5. Once the library is populated, try to download the assets again. 6. If this fails, please reach out to us on Discord or at ****
## Amazon Berkeley Objects (ABO) - Free 3D Models We’ve integrated the **Amazon Berkeley Objects Library** directly into Dash’s Content Browser. You now have access to a huge collection of high-quality, real-world 3D models, completely free, right inside Dash. You can easily search or scroll through these assets in any Unreal project, and when you drag and drop them into your environment, Dash automatically handles the download and importing for you. The ABO library includes a wide variety of everyday objects, from kitchenware like mugs, plates, and bowls, to furniture such as chairs, to electronics, office supplies, and even accessories like shoes and backpacks. Since the library is natively integrated in Dash, all assets come with search tags to make them incredibly easy to find. You can also adjust their materials with the Material Edit tool, and of course scatter them or drop them with physics directly from the Content Browser, just as you are used to. {% embed url="" %} ## AmbientCG - Free Textures, Atlases, and HDRIs We are adding the **ambientCG** library directly into Dash’s Content Browser. This gives you access to a large collection of high-quality, CC0 licensed PBR materials, textures, atlases and decals that you can use freely in any Unreal Engine 5 project. Everything is available inside Dash without any extra downloads or manual setup. The ambientCG collection covers a wide variety of surfaces, such as concrete, wood, stone, metal, fabric, and many more. It also contains useful detail atlases and decals that can add variation and realism to your environments. All assets are fully searchable inside the Content Browser, making it easy to find and test different surface types while working on your scene. Once you have used a texture, you can edit it like any other asset in Dash. Use **Material Edit** to refine the look or mix materials with **Blend Material**. The atlases and decals can be used across any Dash workflow and combine well with scattering, blending, and other procedural tools. {% embed url="" %} ## The Base Mesh Library - Free 3D Base Meshes The **Base Mesh Library** is available directly inside Dash’s Content Browser. This library provides a wide range of clean, low-poly models that are ideal for blocking out scenes, testing ideas, or using as a foundation for more detailed work, all available for free. Once inside your Unreal project, you can drag and drop any of these meshes straight into the scene, with Dash taking care of the download and import process automatically. Each model is tagged for easy searching, and, as with any other asset in Dash, you can quickly place them with scattering and physics-based placement. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Current Project - Organizing Your Custom Assets 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 or materials 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. {% embed url="" %} Why would you disable tagging? Tagging is a financially costly process for us, which means we have to limit it to 4000 assets (2*0K 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. {% hint style="success" %} **If you have AI tagging enabled, this means that once your assets have been computed, they are now searchable by properties and colors. Making it easier than ever before to find your assets!** {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} Starting from Dash 1.9.0, besides meshes and blueprints, we also compute materials by default. But in case you want to disable that, you can right-click on any folder and choose exclude Materials. {% embed url="" %} 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. The compute is a RAM-intensive process, so it can be a good idea to not compute all of your assets at the same time. 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. ## Managing and Sharing Project Asset Data As of Dash 1.9.0, the Dash metadata that is created when you compute your assets in the Dash Content Browser is now saved directly in your Unreal Engine project, making it as easy as sharing your project to see all the Dash content browser data for any member of your team. For those Unreal projects where you have computed assets before Dash 1.9.0, we have added an option in the Dash preferences to move the metadata from the old path directly into your Unreal project.
I've computed some assets, but it's taking too long The computation process takes a lot of time right now, as we have to load up *all* your assets into a headless UE5 instance, render a thumbnail, then go to the next. The amount of assets you have could be well above the amount your RAM's limit, for example.\ We've made a couple of contingencies like gracefully stopping the process and allowing you to restart it, but most importantly, we recommend computing assets in batches, like computing 100-250 assets in a specific folder, then moving to then next, etc...\ A restart of UE would also help, as that clears it from your RAM.
Can I tag more than the monthly limit? We don't have any clean way of increasing your tagging limit for now.\ We're looking to introduce some top-up plan in the near future, but for now, reaching out to us on Discord/email to request an increase in your limit is the only available option.
What asset types can I compute? Static meshes, blueprints (with meshes inside) and materials are currently supported.
Can I clear my computed assets? Yes. Make sure you're in the "Project Library" tab in the Content Browser, then go to the menu, and click **Delete Cache**.
How do I compute materials? If you want to see your materials in the Dash Content Browser, locate the specific folder that contains your materials in the 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.
## External Projects - Centralised Asset Browser Between Projects Dash also lets you browse, search and use content from any other project on your computer!\ Go to the **Project Library tab**, then in the menu, you can either add another project where you have computed some assets manually, or you can click **Manage Project Libraries,** which will bring you to the Dash preferences where you can use an automatic search for other external projects. Then you can unselect the projects you don't want shown in the Dash Content Browser. {% embed url="" %} 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. {% hint style="success" %} For more information on using the Centralized Asset Browser, you can check this dedicated page: [Centralized Asset Browser](/how-it-works/centralized-asset-browser) {% endhint %} ## FAQ
How do I show the asset names? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset names.
Can I view the asset's details before importing it? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset details. Once it's enabled, selecting on any given asset will show the you following properties about it: * Texture resolution. * Triangle count. * Asset scale. This is represented by a square with a character for reference, and hovering over that scale will display the width x height x depth scale.
Can I make the thumbnails bigger? Yes, hold CTRL with your mouse over the Content Browser's view, then use the scroll wheel to scale the thumbnails up or down.
Can I view the triangle count of an asset before importing it? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset details, which will ensure that the triangle count of that asset is visible when you click on it.
How to use the Favorites feature? On hover, every asset will show you a star icon to set or unset an asset as favorite. Once you have some assets that are set as favorite, a star icon will show up on the right corner of the Content Browser's search bar. Click on it, and all your favorite assets will show up at the top.
Can I edit an asset's tags? Yes, right-click on the asset, then select **Asset Details**, and a panel will open up, showing all the asset's details, including a list of tags it has. From Dash 1.9.0 you can also double-click on an asset to open the Asset Details. You can then start typing in tags, then hitting enter to register them, or hover over them, and double-click on the X icon to the right of each tag to delete it.\ Once you're happy with your changes, hit the Save button at the bottom left.
Can I add or remove tags to multiple assets at once? Yes. Use SHIFT+Click to select multiple assets, right-click on any of them, then select **Batch Tag Edit**. This will open up a panel in which all the tags of all the assets are visible, and any new tag you add will get added to all of them. Any tag you remove will also get removed from all of them.\ Once you're happy with your changes, hit the Save button at the bottom left.
There's a specific asset I like; how do I view more assets similar to it? Right-click on it, then select **View Similar**, and that should display all the assets that are similar to yours.
I can't seem to get the CTRL + Drop right to scatter from the Content Browser Click (or SHIFT+Click for multiple objects) on an asset, then start dragging it onto the viewport. You'll notice the Content Browser will shrink in size to give your viewport more space.\ Before releasing the left-mouse button, hold CTRL, then release. And you should see a menu pop up with a couple of options, including one to scatter.
Do I need the Content Browser to scatter assets? No. Dash's Content Browser is a highly convenient way of managing your content, but all our scatter tools work without it, too. We briefly cover the scatter workflow [right here](/getting-started/quickstart#surface-scatter).
How to scatter along a curve when drag & dropping from the Content Browser? Select the curve in the viewport, and with your asset selected, [follow this step](#i-cant-seem-to-get-the-ctrl--drop-right-to-scatter-from-the-content-browser) to show the CTRL+Drop menu, and this time pick **Scatter on Selection**.
# Asset Marketplace You can now find and get the asset you need for your project from our high-quality vendors! Starting with the full Dekogon library and a selection of free assets from Sierra Division. When searching for the right asset, if something is available from our vendors, you can get it and use it within seconds. The assets in the Dash Marketplace are, of course, already pre-tagged with search tags, so they are super easy to search among before or after your purchases. {% hint style="success" %} You can even use this new marketplace for free with the free Dash license option available in the Dash License Manager. More info --> [Free Dash License Info](/advanced/free-content-browser) {% endhint %} ### Purchase Workflow 1. Browse among the thousands of available assets from Dekogon (and Sierra Division). 2. Once you find assets you like, add them to your cart. 3. When you feel happy with your selection, proceed to your cart. 4. In the cart, you can see your selected assets and also remove ones you are no longer interested in 5. Then, once you hit the Purchase button, you will see a license selection window. Here you can choose between Educational, Personal, Indie Studio, and AA+ Studio. 1. *If you want more information about the licenses, you can double-click an asset to open the details window and in the bottom right corner, you can open the full marketplace EULA.* 6. Once you confirm your license selection, your payment terminal will open in your web browser. Here you will be able to see your total (including potential tax), choose a payment method, and enter your information. 1. *This payment terminal is live for a few minutes, so if you need to share it with a procurement department or someone else, simply send them the link to this page.* 2. *Before you proceed with the payment, consider checking the box to save your payment details. This will make your next purchase even faster!* 7. Once your payment has been completed, head back to Dash, and you will see that an automatic download has started at the top of the Content Browser. You will also automatically be in the downloaded/owned filter. You can go out of this filter with the little download icon in the top right corner of the Content Browser. 8. When your assets have been downloaded, you can start using them! Either just drag and drop them in your scene, or hold CTRL while dropping to see the tool menu. {% embed url="" %} \ Found something perfect for your project, but not ready to buy it yet? Just add it to a collection so you can find it easily whenever you need it in the future. {% embed url="" %} The third-party assets available in the Dash marketplace can, of course, be used with all of the Dash tools. This also includes Material Edit, so it is super easy to customize the asset materials, including adding snow, dirt, and rain layers. {% embed url="" %} # Megascans / Quixel ## 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**](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser/megascans).\ 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: {% tabs %} {% tab title="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.
{% endtab %} {% tab title="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.
{% endtab %} {% tab title="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.
{% endtab %} {% endtabs %} ## 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: {% embed url="" %} 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: {% embed url="" %} 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**](https://quixel.com/blog/2019/10/30/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: {% embed url="" %} 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**](https://quixel.com/bridge) 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. {% embed url="" %} 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.
# Dash Image Board

Dashboard is an ideation space where you can organize your reference images, and much more!

As an artist, having a quick and easy way of sorting out all your ideas in one image board is a fairly common practice, with tools like Pureref, Miro ando thers being the best at this.\ Dash features a similar tool, but with a few key differences: It's fully integrated into Unreal Engine, has all the usual features you'd expect from a reference tool, allows you to take a snapshot of your UE viewport and put it in the Dashboard, lets you extract color grading from any image to apply it on your Dash camera, and much more! In short, the Dashboard is a convenient ideation space where all your ideas, be it visual or textual, can be grouped. You can drag & drop images or even image URLs onto the panel to import them, you can group them, label them, etc... {% embed url="" %} When you open it for the first time, you'll be greeted with an empty view. From there, just drag & drop images onto the board, and start adjusting them as you see fit. {% embed url="" %} Besides that, all the regular features like making the window frameless, focusing on the selection, lowering the opacity, etc... are also available. {% embed url="" %} We'll be making a dedicated page to this tool soon, and it's still in its early development phase, but the idea is to give you a space where most of you can organize images, content tools, ideas, etc...\ Picture putting an image, then asking the tool "how do I make this", and getting recommendations for the best tools in Dash that can help you get the job done. Not only tools extraction, but also content, and atmospherics, etc.. All the way to grading extraction and even feedback suggestion.\ These upcoming AI features of the Dashboard won't be using your data for any training purpose, ever. ### Hotkeys | Action | Hotkey | | ----------------------- | ---------------------- | | **Edit Menu** | | | Opacity + | Ctrl + Shift + Up | | Opacity - | Ctrl + Shift + Down | | Reset transparency | Ctrl + Alt + Shift + R | | Toggle always on top | Ctrl + Shift + T | | Toggle frameless | Ctrl + Shift + F | | Toggle main bar | Ctrl + Space | | Fit to selection | Ctrl + Alt + S | | **Selection Menu** | | | Select all | Ctrl + A | | Clear selection | Esc | | Select visible items | Ctrl + Shift + G | | Select containing items | Ctrl + Shift + G | | Open item source | Ctrl + Shift + O | | Optimize text items | Ctrl + I | | Opacity + | Ctrl + ] | | Opacity - | Ctrl + \[ | | Reset items opacity | Ctrl + Backspace | | **Create Menu** | | | Box | B | | Group | G | | Text | T | | Note | N | | **Window Menu** | | | Undo | Ctrl + Z | | Redo | Ctrl + Y | | Copy to Clipboard | Ctrl + C | | Paste from Clipboard | Ctrl + V | | Duplicate | Ctrl + D | | Move to Back | \[ | | Bring to Front | ] | | Frame Selected | F | | Reset items | R | | Flip X | Alt + X | | Flip Y | Alt + Y | | Delete Selected | Del | | Align Left | Shift + A | | Align Top | Shift + W | | Align Right | Shift + D | | Align Bottom | Shift + S | | Align vertically | Alt + Shift + A | | Align horizontally | Alt + Shift + W | | Arrange | Ctrl + Alt + Shift + A | | Move Left | Left | | Move Right | Right | | Move Up | Up | | Move Down | Down | # FAQ This FAQ contains all your most common questions, and our documentation will further expand on the rest as we improve it. As always, if you're not able to troubleshoot something, please drop a message on our [**Discord**](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord) and we'll assist you in no time! ## Basics
How to get started? 1\. Download Dash with the Download button. 2\. Install it and choose your UE versions. 3\. Start UE and click the Dash icon located next to the Mode dropdown, and you will see a pop-up where you can request a trial or enter your paid license key. 4\. If you want to get a paid license after your trial, you need to go to [polygonflow.io](http://polygonflow.io/) again and purchase a license. 5\. After purchase, you will see your license key on screen and in an email. Then enter that key into the License Manager inside of Dash. It is located inside the Preferences panel in the main Dash menu.
What type of projects can Dash be used for? Dash can be used for game development, archviz, environment art, and any other projects you may be doing in Unreal Engine that involve building an environment. Right now, it works best for sections of a larger environment or smaller environments in general, the detailing capabilities, ease of use, and control you get with Dash are unlike anything else out there. And we are, of course, improving it continuously to make sure it works equally well for larger environments.
Manage Your license If you want to adjust the number of seats, adjust the payment method, or cancel your paid license, you can do that from here:
Where to download the latest version? The latest version of Dash is always available to download from here:
Does Dash have an API? We don't have a public-facing API for Dash, though its codebase for creating, querying and editing tools and their data is fairly simple. If you are interested in learning more, send us a message.
Can I edit the tools later in another Unreal session? Yes, you can, of course, edit your created tools at any time. As long as you haven't baked them or broken the tool connection, you will be able to always reopen the tools from the Tools Panel and continue tweaking the settings. \ \ If you have problems with this, read this section: [#how-can-i-edit-an-existing-tool](#how-can-i-edit-an-existing-tool "mention")
## Workflow
Can I scatter without using Dash's Content Browser? Yes. Click on **Scatter** on the Dash bar to view the scatter tools, then open the tool Surface Scatter. With your terrain/ground actor selected, click on the "+" icon of the **Surface** property to set your selection as your surface, then do the same for a different actor to set it as your **Scatter**, and that's about it!
How do I convert Dash's custom mesh type to Static Mesh? Tools like Road & Terrain create a custom Dash geometry called DashPreviewMeshComponent. While editing in the Dash Tools Panel, you'll notice that such tools have a **Bake** icon that shows up. Click on it, and you'll be prompted to convert your geometry, which would remove the tool & the custom geometry, and leave you with a static mesh.\ You can also just type "to static mesh" in the Dash bar with your custom mesh types selected, and the suggested operation will do roughly the same thing.
How do I convert Dash's Instances and break the tool connection? Our Scatter tools and Physics Paint tool create HISM instances (same as UE foliage or UE PCG) and this means that usually there is no need to convert them to anything else. But if you do want or need to convert them or break the tool connection, there exist a few options: 1. From within the Scatter Tool in question, open the menu and click Delete, which will delete the tool and thus break the connection so you can't edit the result anymore with our tool. But the result will of course exist in the environment. The result is still an HISM. This connection would also be broken if you delete the original mesh you are scattering, or, for example, the spline you have used in a Path Scatter. 2. If you search for **Merge Actors** in Dash, you can find an action that lets you merge several actors into one actor. Perfect for cases where you have several static meshes and want to combine them into one mesh, for example, if you have used the Dash Physics Drop Tool. To use Merge Actors, simply select the result in the scene and then run the action. \ \ This action is also useful for converting an HISM instance (scatter result or physics paint result) into a single static mesh. This also breaks the tool connection so you can't edit it anymore. 3. If you search for **Convert to Foliage** in Dash, you can find an action that lets you convert your Scatter or Physics paint result (HISM) into UE foliage. This breaks the tool connection and gives you the ability to use the normal foliage tool in UE to paint/delete/add on the result to further customize it. The result is still a HISM but it will respect World partitioning, which could be very good in certain scenarios. And another bonus is that you can replace the scattered objects with blueprints if you want. So if you know you are 100% certain you don't need to adjust the settings in Surface Scatter anymore, doing this conversion is recommended. To use Convert to Foliage, simply select the result in the scene and then run the action. 4. If you search for **Bake Instances** in Dash, you can find an action that lets you bake your scatter result or your Physics Paint results into individual static meshes. It is a heavy operation but can be useful if you really need to move each object individually as a last step in your scatter process. \ To use Bake Instances, simply select the result in the scene and then run the action. 5. If you are using the procedural meshes in Dash, Terrain, Vines, Cables etc, it is good to know that you can you can convert these from our custom mesh type to ordinary static meshes by using the action **To Static Meshes.**
Can I mask my scatter by landscape material layer? Yes you can! In the tool **Surface Scatter**, if you scroll down a bit in the properties, you'll notice a group called Landscape Layer Masking. You can give its properties the name of a landscape layer, like let's say "grass", and it'll ensure that your scattered grass is only kept in that layer.
Can I change my pivot with Dash? That's possible yes! Dash has a few options to set the pivot on the currently selected actors.\ Go to the **Place** menu in the Dash bar, then expand the **Pivot Tools** group, and there you'll be able to set the pivot to the center, top or bottom.\ Keep in mind, this changes the pivot of the actor, not the asset it's bound to.
Does Dash have a blend material and how does it work? Yes Dash lets you create a blend material with 3 or 4 materials. Right now, this only works with Megascans materials or Poly Haven from our Content Browser, and it only works on Static Meshes or the Dash Custom Meshes, like our terrain, but of course, we hope to expand this soon!\ \ To use it, simply hold SHIFT to select 3 or 4 materials from the Dash Content Browser, hold CTRL and drag them onto your scene, and then release the mouse over your surface and choose Blend Material. This will open the tool and let you fully customize it! P.S. The order you select the materials matters.
How do I sink scattered assets below the ground? In Surface Scatter and other scatter tools, we have a sink property that lets you move the scatters up and down easily!
Can I use Dash to create animated scenes? Dash tools work only in editor mode right now. We are looking into making it possible to animate them, but no clear timeline on this. But of course, you can still use Dash to build the environment for your animated scene, but you can't change any Dash tool parameters within your animation.
For what projects can I use Dash? As Dash is built to help you build environments in UE5 faster and easier, it can be used for any project where you need to build a world or just assemble some assets together. As we have many different tools and features in Dash these days, some are certainly more useful for certain projects. \ \ Right now, we have users from several industries such as architectural visualization, gaming, product visualization, environment art, and automotive.
Can I use Dash for large scale environments? Usually, when creating large worlds, this means scattering lots of assets, and that, of course, can be very heavy on the performance. One thing you can do to decrease the amount of assets needed is to merge them together in batches and then scatter the batches of trees, for example, instead of scattering the trees individually. \ \ This being said, we are constantly trying to optimize our tools to work well for larger environments, in Dash 1.8 we shipped a fix so that it should work decently even if you scatter on an 8K landscape. But the performance of this, of course, heavily depends on your PC specs.
How do I fix issues with overlapping objects in Dash scatter? For Path Scatter we have added a Density Mode called Fix, which will choose a density that makes the assets fit just right for your given curve and assets. You can customize the result with different options. \ \ For Surface Scatter, the best way of dealing with this is adjusting the density to find the perfect value.
Can I pause or freeze tools? Yes you can! Inside most of the tools in Dash, we have a freeze function inside the tool menu!
Level Streaming / Sub-Levels / Level Instances Workflow Support? The Sub Levels / Level Streaming / Level Instances workflow is something we don't properly support just yet. It is in the development plans, though. \ \ The problem comes from the way we save our tool connections. That data is saved in the outlier in an actor called DashSceneData, and this actor is created upon saving. And if one is using sub-levels, etc, there is most likely such an actor in several levels, and then Dash doesn't know which one to read from, so then the connection logic falls apart, and thus a tool can disappear from the Tools Panel and can't be edited anymore.\ \ That said, some people have gotten it working decently if they only use Dash in one sub-level, or only in the persistent level. And make sure there are no DashSceneData actors in the other levels to avoid this conflict. With this workaround, it is important to only open Dash within one level and make sure no additional DashSceneData actors are created in other sub-levels.
World Partition Workflow Support? Dash does not yet fully support the World Partition workflow, but it is in the development plans. For context, what happens is that if you, for example, scatter using Surface Scatter on several world partitions, the scatter result will always be fully visible, even if you are only streaming in one partition. So basically, Dash does not yet respect the "logic" of World Partition, but other than that, it **should** work just fine.
How performant is Dash compared to PCG? Dash utilizes HISM components, which are as fast as what UE5 can provide currently. PCG & Dash seem to have varying performance depending on the operation (like what type of masking you do, etc), so it's hard to put a definitive number on the comparison between Dash and PCG. And the Dash tools are not built using PCG; it is built with C++ and Python by our internal developers.
Can I scatter Blueprints with Dash? As Dash utilizes HISM components, we don't generally support Blueprint scattering, but with Path Scatter, we have managed to fix an exception.\ \ If you switch the Scatter Type from Instances to Actors, the results will be individual actors instead of an HISM, and this means you can then input a Blueprint as Scatter Object.\ \ But be aware that this is an experimental feature, so all the features and settings of Path Scatter may not work if you try to scatter Blueprints. And the performance will be much worse if you scatter a lot of Blueprints compared to instanced static meshes.
## Licensing & Pricing
Where do I find my license key? We send it to the email you've used to buy Dash.\ Make sure to check the spam, and if you still can't find it, please reach out to or through our Discord.
How many Enterprise Seats do I need? You only need seats for those artists who want access to the tools and the ability to adjust parameters. You do not need licenses for Build Machines, but you do need to install the Unreal Plugin of Dash. From a PC where you have Dash installed with a license, copy the "GraphNUnrealPlugin" file from the `[UNREAL_ENGINE_INSTALLATION]/Engine/Plugins/Marketplace/` folder to the same place on other PCs. This is needed from Dash 1.7 and upwards.
Are there any volume discounts or site licenses available? Yes, there are! Just send an email to , and we can discuss the different options.
Can I use my license on 2 computers? Our freelance and student licenses come with the ability to be activated on 2 PCs. If you have an enterprise license and want to switch PC or need to switch to a third computer, you need to open the License Manager and deactivate your license first. It is located inside the Preferences panel in the main Dash menu. Then you are able to activate it on the other computer. If you are unable to deactivate it on one PC, maybe if you don't have access to it anymore, please send an email to , and we can deactivate it remotely so that you can move the license to a new PC.
Can I pay with Alipay and Apple Pay? Yes, and in order to do that, you need to purchase a Dash license through this website: , and when doing thi,s you also need to make sure the automated subscription renewal is unchecked.
Can I buy another maintenance period / 12 months of updates for the Perpetual License? Yes, you will be able to do this! Once your 12 months of included updates are expiring, you will get an email with instructions on how to proceed to buy another 12 months of Dash updates.
## Technical Issues
How to set up and install Dash in a studio environment If you want to install a trial or a paid license of Dash into a studio environment or a custom version of Unreal Engine, that is, of course, possible. All the needed information is available here: , and in case you need any help, just send an email over to , and we will help you out!
Transferring a UE scene with Dash to another Computer Note: If you are using Dash 1.7 or later, the steps below will not be needed as we have improved the saving mechanism. Now you don't have to worry about it at all, the data is included in the level itself.\ \ If you are gonna transfer your UE scene to another PC and want to be able to continue adjusting the Dash tools, you need to make sure to also move the associated JSON file that we create when you are using Dash. This JSON file is named after your level name and is located next to your level. If you are using P4, Perforce, or a similar solution, make sure that this file is moved alongside the rest of the files. This could for example be done with perforce triggers to unlock/lock the JSON data .
What type of projects can Dash be used for? Dash can be used for game development, archviz, environment art, and any other projects you may be doing in Unreal Engine that involve building an environment. Right now it works best for sections of a larger environment or smaller environments in general, the detailing capabilities, ease of use and control you get with Dash are unlike anything else out there. And we are, of course, improving it continuously to make sure it works equally well for larger environments.
Is Dash only available on Windows? Yes. We're investigating Linux and MAC support, though it's hard to give any release estimates at this stage, since Unreal Engine also doesn't have great Linux/MAC support either, making it harder to port Dash there.
What are the system requirements? The requirements for Dash are the same as Unreal Engine 5, but you also must have internet access and Windows 10 or 11.
Sharing the level with someone without Dash? The level will work just fine and can be continued to be worked on, only those who want to adjust parameters in Dash or use other Dash tools need to have a Dash license. **Note**, if the user of Dash has created geometry such as cables, terrains, etc, that user either needs to convert the meshes to static meshes before sharing the level or this user could add the "GraphNUnrealPlugin" file to their UE marketplace folder. This means, from the PC where you have Dash installed with a license, copy the "GraphNUnrealPlugin" file from the `[UNREAL_ENGINE_INSTALLATION]/Engine/Plugins/Marketplace/` folder to the same place on the other PC or build machine.\ \ One of these actions is needed as we are using a custom mesh data structure for our geometry generation as of Dash 1.7 and upwards.
What 3D software does Dash work with? Right now, we are focusing on Unreal Engine and currently support 5.1 to 5.7. Older Unreal Engine versions can be made available for enterprise users on demand. The same applies to custom Unreal Engine builds; feel free to reach out to us on our [**Discord**](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord) or at ****
How do I uninstall Dash from UE5? As of Dash 1.7, we are shipping an "Uninstall Dash" app within the Dash installation, so if you need to uninstall Dash, just search for "Uninstall Dash" in the Windows start bar, and you should find the app.
How do I check if there exist an Dash update and install it? Within the main Dash menu, a button on the left of Dash, there exist an option "Check for Updates". You can always use this to check if there exists an update, but once we push updates you normally get a pop-up notification within Dash that tells you about a new update. And it is always this link that is used for the latest Dash version: \ \ And of course, the best way to stay up to date with our latest updates, news, and even beta versions of Dash is by hanging out in our [Discord](https://bit.ly/DashDiscord)! :)
Dash is affecting my performance If you have used Dash in some way and the performance of your scene is getting bad, the most likely reason is that you have scattered too many assets for your PC to be able to handle. \ \ The easiest solution is to try to decrease scatter density and/or delete the scattering to see if that makes any difference. But if you need the results you have created, you can also try scattering batches of grass instead of scattering individual grass pieces, for example. \ \ You can always use the Merge Actors action in Dash to merge a few trees, for example, and then scatter that newly created Static Mesh instead.
How do I adjust the UI scale in Dash? If Dash is too small or too big, you can open Preferences from the main Dash menu, located on the left of the Dash bar. In there, you will find a setting for UI Scale Profile. \ \ You have to restart UE for the effects to take place.
Can I download previous versions of Dash? Yes, you can, but previous versions may have bugs that have been solved in the latest version.\ \ Here you will find a few of the earlier builds:
## Features & Tools
Will the tools affect performance? As most of the tools in Dash are procedural, the performance in editor mode can be affected if you, for example, scatter a ton of assets. But otherwise, for example, when building the game, the performance won't be affected by Dash, as the results of Dash are normal UE actors. \ \ If you get bad performance in editor mode, you can, of course, lower the density of the scatter tools, but you can also freeze some of the tools from the tool menu to temporarily pause their procedural aspect.
What assets libraries are supported? Dash has a content browser which supports Poly Haven, FAB, Megascans (download assets in the Bridge Plugin, and they'll show up. Download atlases in the Bridge standalone, and they'll show up), an IES Library, support for browsing & AI tagging your own content, and even browsing content from other projects in the one you're currently in.\ \ More libraries are in the works!
Can I use my own OpenAI API key for AI tagging? Yes you can! Open the Dash Content Browser, then switch the dropdown at the top to **Current Project** to ensure that we see the content of your current project. Click on the three dots icons on the right, then select **Insert Custom OpenAI Key**. A popup will show up asking you to insert the key. Do it, then you're all set! Tagging limits will no longer apply, and the cost of tagging will from then on be on your end.
For some perspective, our napkin math shows us that tagging 2000 assets costs between $1.0 and $1.5 USD. We're actively adjusting our internal logic to improve quality and reduce costs, but that's where it stands right now.
Can I change the OpenAI Proxy URL? Yes, you can! In the main Dash menu, you will find the Preferences panel, where, under Base Settings, you can set your custom OpenAI Proxy URL.
Can I add my texture to the Dash Content Browser? Yes, by following these steps, open the Dash Content Browser and go the the project library tab, then expand the folder hierarchy on the left with the folder icon. Then you can right-click on the top folder or any of the sub-folders and choose if the materials from said folder should be included or not.
How do I use Dash’s color grading feature with an image? First, make sure to create a Dash camera by searching for Camera in Dash, and then make sure you are looking through it. Then you can drag any image and drop it on the Dash bar, and we will extract the grading from that image to your Dash Camera.
Can I add and adjust Displacement through Dash? Yes you can! Currently, this goes for the Megascans and Poly Haven materials f you use from the Dash Content Browser. It is possible both through the Dash Material Edit tool and the Dash Blend Material Tool. \ \ For it to work, there are a couple of things you need to do: 1. The mesh you are applying the material on, has to be a static mesh, so if you have a Dash terrain or any other mesh from Dash that uses our custom mesh, you need to convert it to static. You can do this by searching for "static mesh" in Dash of course! 2. If you are using UE 5.1-5.3, the mesh also needs to have enough resolution/triangles. You can create a dense plane through the Dash menu: Create - Mesh Primitives - Create Plane. 3. The mesh you are applying the material to has to have nanite enabled. You can search for "Actor Enable Nanite" in Dash to enable it on your selected mesh. 4. Also make sure that nanite tessellation is enabled in UE5. You can do that by running "enable nanite tessellation" command in the Dash prompt bar, if you haven't enabled it already. 5. You might also need to delete the material from the UE Content Browser so that Dash can re-import it when you drag it onto your surface. If you can't get it working, please reach out in [Discord](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord) with a video, and we will help you out!
What is the difference between Object Mask and Proximity Mask? In some scenarios, you might not get good enough results with proximity mask, then you could try the Object Masking feature instead. Object Masking uses raycasting, and allows you to even remove stuff that's inside the barrel, for example. This results in much better proximity accuracy. Proximity Masking is point-based and will rely on all the vertices of your barrel to keep the closest plants to them. It has no "interior" awareness or anything of the sort. It's much, much faster, ofc.
What material adjustments can I make with Dash? With Dash, we give you the ability to adjust the materials if you are using materials from Megascans or Poly Haven. You can either do this by assigning one material and then opening Material Edit, or by assigning 2-3 materials and using our Blend Material. Besides the blending capabilities, you get more or less the same settings on both the Material Edit tool and the Blend Material Tool. \ \ You can adjust the color of the material with the normal sliders, hue, saturation etc, you can adjust tiling, Normals, Displacement etc, but there is more! You can also add atmospheric effects to the materials; this includes Rain, Snow, Dirt, and Wind. FYI, the Material Edit tool does not work on landscapes just yet. We hope to add this support in the future.
How to add variation to the material color of my scattered meshes? If you want to have some variation in the colors of your scattered foliage, you can easily achieve this with Dash in two steps. 1. Search for Instance Variation in Dash, assign your scatter instance, enable it, and choose a value for the Noise Scale. 2. Open the Material Edit for the scattered foliage, scroll all the way down, enable color variation, and play with the values, Hue, Saturation, and Brightness. If this does not work for you, it could be the case that we don't support Color Variation on that specific asset. In general, we support it on most Foliage meshes from Megascans.
How to scatter dense grass on a big surface? To scatter dense grass on a large surface, follow these steps: * Start by creating a plane to serve as your ground. You can do this by going to Dash Bar > Create > Mesh Primitives > Create Plane. * Open the Dash Content Browser, find your grass, CTRL drag and drop it onto your plane, and select Scatter Here. * Adjust the Density, Min Scale, and Max Scale parameters to achieve the desired density and size of the scattered grass. If you are scattering on a really big surface, you might need to experiment with these settings as well * Density: You can and probably need to increase the density by writing in a high value rather than sliding. * Max Count: If you have increased the density but don’t get any more grass, you need to increase the Max Count parameter under the Misc Settings in Surface Scatter. Feel free to experiment with the settings to get the exact look you want! Enjoy your creative process! 🎉
## Common Issues
My problem is not listed / Dash does not work If you don't find an answer to whatever issue you may be experiencing with Dash, the quickest way to get help is by reaching out to us on our [Discord](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord), and if you don't prefer that, you can also send an email to .\ \ **IMPORTANT**: When you reach out, please include as detailed information as possible on the issues + a video or some pictures. Also, please make sure the **UE output log** is visible in the video/picture; we usually find the reason for the problem in there.
How can I edit an existing tool? You can always re-open an existing tool in Dash and keep editing it as long as you haven't baked it or broken the tool connection. To open an existing tool in the Tools Panel and keep editing it you can follow one of two ways:\ \ 1\. Open the tools panel by clicking the Edit icon in the Dash bar and then select your existing tool in the viewport or in the outlier, this will open the selected tool in the Tool Panel. Remember to make sure another tool is not pinned in the tools panel already. \ \ 2\. Open the tools panel by clicking the Edit icon in the Dash bar, and then in the top left corner of the Tools Panel, you will see a menu icon with 3 lines. This opens the list of active tools, which you can navigate between.
**COMMON ISSUES:** * If you edit an existing tool in the tools panel but don't see any changes happening in the viewport, maybe you are not adjusting the settings within the right tool (you can have several Surface Scatters, for example), or maybe the tool connection has been broken. For example, in Surface Scatter, make sure both the surface and the objects are still assigned at the top of the tool. In the Road Tool, make sure that the curve is still assigned at the top of the tool. Similar logic goes for other tools; they must have their basic assignments for the tools to work. * If your tool is no longer present in the Tools Panel but the output/result is still in the viewport and outlier, these are the two most common issues: * You are working with Sub Levels / Level Streaming / Level Instances, and this is a workflow we don't properly support just yet. It is in the development plans, though. For some more context and possible workarounds, check this post: --> * The other common reason is that you have baked the tool using our bake actions or simply accidently deleted it from the outlier or from the Tools Panel.
There are no Megascans assets visible in the Quixel tab If the Quixel tab in the Content Browser is empty for you even though you have assets downloaded from UE-Bridge, the most probable reason for this is that the Content Browser couldn't locate where you downloaded your Bridge assets. To solve this, you need to find the UAsset folder, you can do this by going to Bridge, right-clicking on one downloaded asset, and choosing “Go to files”, there you can copy the path to the UAsset folder. Then you need to open the Dash Preferences through the main Dash menu and go to the path section and click the paper clip icon and then paste in the path you copied from Bridge. If you have the same problem with Atlases from the standalone Bridge, you can follow the same procedure, but copy the path from the standalone Bridge. \ \ Similar logic goes for FAB, full information available here:
Poly Haven Issues If the thumbnails of Poly Haven are not loading and/or you are not able to download the assets, please try this: 1. Close unreal 2. Delete this folder c:\Users \ "USERNAME"\Documents\PolygonFlow\ContentLibrary\PolyHaven 3. Open Unreal Engine and start Dash + Content Browser 4. Go to Polyhaven library menu (3 vertical dots) and click Redownload library data, once the view is populated, try to download again.
I've downloaded assets in Bridge, but they're not visible in Dash If you've downloaded assets in the Bridge UE plugin, and Dash's Content Browser still doesn't show them, try to switch libraries through the dropdown at the top-right corner of the Content Browser, then back to Megascans, and see if it fixes it. If it doesn't restart UE, and that should fix it. If you've downloaded assets in the Bridge standalone software, then only atlases will show up, as we only support those assets through the standalone. Like with the plugin, a restart might be needed in case you still can't see the atlases. \ Also make sure your paths are set up correctly, full information available here:
Clicking the Dash icon does not work There could be many reasons but one thing you could try is to add Unreal Engine and Dash as allowed apps in the Windows Defender, Controlled Folder Access. Another thing you could try is uninstalling Dash and installing it with Admin Rights.\ \ \-----------------------------\ \ If you get an error in the UE output log when trying to open Dash that mentions PySide6, it is most likely cause the Dash dependencies were not installed properly during your Dash installation. To fix this, close UE, and then open the Dash installation folder by searching for "Dash installation" in Windows search. Then inside that folder, you will find two .bat files. Please run the dependencies\_39.bat (if using UE 5.1-5.3) or dependencies\_311.bat (if you are on UE 5.4 - UE 5.7). This bat file will open up and run a process in a console window. Let this process finish and keep an eye on it in case it shows any errors at the end before finishing and auto-closes. If you are in China, it may help to use 311\_tsinghua.bat or 39\_tsinghua.bat instead.\ \ \ \----------------------------------\ \ If you see an error similar to this in the UE output log when clicking Dash: PermissionError: \[WinError 5] Access is denied: 'C:/Users/USERNAME' Most likely your Documents folder is backed up by OneDrive/GoogleDrive/Dropbox, and the easiest solution is to follow these steps: 1. Close unreal 2. Delete the DOCUMENTS/PolygonFlow folder if you have it 3. Create an environment variable GN\_DATA\_PATH = D:/Dash\_data (or another path of your choice that ain't backed up by OneDrive etc) 4. Start unreal See this video for info about step 3: \ \ \--------------------------------------- And a final idea is closing all instances of Unreal (through task manager) and then going to: **c:\Users\\\[USERNAME]\Polygonflow\Dash\Plugins\UnrealEngineContext\resources\plugin\\** and opening your UE folder and copy this folder “GraphNUnrealPlugin”. Then you need to find your UE installation folder and go into this path: **\[UNREAL\_ENGINE\_INSTALLATION\_FOLDER]/Engine/Plugins/Marketplace** and paste the copied folder into the Marketplace folder, overwriting the existing one if one already exists. If none of these ideas work, please copy any message in the UE output log and send it to us, and we will help you out, . (The UE output log is located in the bottom left corner of Unreal )
There is no Dash icon in Unreal Engine or the installer got stuck on Installing… 1. Continue and finish the installation by clicking **Next** 2. Go to the Dash installation folder, the default is `C`**`:\Users\USER\Appdata\Local\Programs\Polygonflow\Dash\`** Inside of that continue to **`Plugins\UnrealEngineContext\resources\plugin`** 3. Inside here you should see a folder corresponding to your Unreal Engine version, e.g. UE\_5.2 4. Copy the **GraphNUnrealPlugin** folder from inside the version you want Dash installed into. Paste this folder into your engine plugins folder. e.g. **C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE\_5.2\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace** 5. The resulting path to **GraphNUnrealPlugin** folder should be **C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE\_5.2\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\GraphNUnrealPlugin\GraphNUnrealPlugin** 6. Restart your UE and you should then be able to find the Dash icon as expected.
There were no UE versions found during my installation If this happens, you need to check the checkbox for your UE version and then click the browse button, and then navigate to where you have UE installed, i.e., a folder called UE\_5.1 or UE\_5.3, etc. Then just select the folder and continue the installation. Hopefully, you will then see a success message for the UE version you choose to install Dash in.
My trial or paid license can't be activated in the License Manager If you can't request a trial license or activate a paid license in the Dash license manager, there could be several reasons, and usually, you will see an error code. 1. If you get an error similar to "Date header is not valid" the reason is most likely due to your Windows Time being out of sync. By following the steps in this article, you should be able to sync it, and then once you try to open Dash again, it should work just fine.
2. If you get "unknown authorization method'" or the activation simply does not work, you could try the following: 1. The time fix above! 2. Close Unreal, run cmd.exe as admin and then run 'winmgmt /resetrepository' command 3. Try to disable VPN or Proxy, or give access to the following URL: 3. If you see "Network Operation Timed out. Error Code: 15" or a similar error message, you can try this after you have tried the suggestions above here: 1. Close Unreal, run cmd.exe as admin and then run this in the cmd: `curl -fsSL https://api.licensespring.com` 2. Open inside the browser and let us know what happens in Discord. 3. If this still does not help, please make sure your PC is updated with the latest Windows version. 4. If you get an error in the license manager saying Failed getting HardwareID Could not get device ID. Error Code: 3 or something similar, please try: Step 1 and 2 in this link, under the Recovering WMI section: 5. If you see an error in the UE output log regarding corrupt preferences: [#preferences-file-is-corrupted-license-activation-issue](#preferences-file-is-corrupted-license-activation-issue "mention")
If none of these help, please reach out in our [Discord](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord) and let us know what error you see.
Some Dash panels are not visible or I can't see the assets in the Content Library If any of these issues are happening, the issue might be that you are using multiple displays on your PC. If you are, please try and check that the display that UE is on is the main Display in Windows settings. And of course, an Unreal Engine restart is always a good idea. \ \ If this doesn't help, please reach out in our [Discord](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord) with a video of what is happening!
I have LOD/Culling Problems If you have LOD or Culling problems or simply the scatters not showing correctly there are a few things you could try:
* If you have **nanite objects with masked materials** and they are culled then you can lower Opacity Mask Clip Value for each material. * UE Console Commands for **non-nanite meshes**: 1. foliage.MaxTrianglesToRender 200000000 (This is a heavy one and the default value is 100 million, so increase gradually) 2. r.ForceLOD 0 3. foliage.forceLOD 0 4. r.RayTracing.Geometry.InstancedStaticMeshes.Culling 0 (Maybe only useful in Path Tracer) 5. foliage.LODDistanceScale 5 (or another number, maybe only useful in Path Tracer) Keep in mind that commands like this could affect performance. * If you experience culling in huge **World Partitioning Scenes** you have to use the converter in Dash, “Convert Instances to Foliage”. This will break the tool connection so you can’t adjust the scatter anymore with Dash, but you will be able to use the UE Foliage Painter tools to further adjust it.
Curve Tool draws in the sky / floating splines If you try to draw a curve/spline using our Draw Curve tool and the curve ends up floating or in the sky. The most likely reason is that the tool detects something above your surface. It could be some actors with colliders that are intercepted by our curve tool. (Assets, World Volumes, etc)\ \ You can try hiding things in the UE outlier to figure out what is causing the problem.
Nothing is happening when I use CTRL drag and drop from the Content Browser If you try to use Scatter Here, Create Blend Material, etc through the CTRL drag and drop menu from the Dash Content Browser and nothing is happening. The most likely reason is that the tool detects something above your surface. It could be some actors with colliders that are intercepting the surface. (Assets, World Volumes, Procedural Foliage Spawner Volumes etc)\ \ You can try hiding things in the UE outlier to figure out what is causing the problem.
My objects from Physics Drop or Physics Paint is floating You probably need to set the surface/object to Complex in the Dash physics settings. Double-click the asset/surface to select it and then adjust its collision to Complex through the Dash physics settings.
Resource Error - Unable to Copy files in your project If you, upon opening Dash, see our resource update popup and it fails by showing you a Resource Error, here is what you need to do (if you are using Perforce, skip to the bottom of this FAQ): 1. Close UE 2. Open the Project again, but into an empty level. I.e,. Don't open a level where you have created anything with Dash. 3. Now in this empty level, try the Resource Update again. If you have changed the default loading level on your project to a level where you have used Dash, this will not work, and then you can try these steps instead. 1. Close UE 2. Open the project folder, navigate here: Content -> Polygonflow -> Materials 3. Delete this Materials folder 4. Open UE again **If you are using Perforce or another Version Control Software, and the Dash resources are used through Perforce, the steps above won't work, and you need to do this instead:** 1. If you are on Dash 1.9.2 or higher, move to step 5 2. Close UE, 3. Open this path in your PC folder explorer: DASH\_INSTALL\_ROOT\Plugins\UnrealEngineContext\Imports\GN, 4. And then replace this ContentUtils.py file with the one available here: 5. Then open UE and ignore the update popup, i.e, close it instead of clicking update 6. Then open the Dash preferences through the main Dash menu and check the new "Skip Resource Acquisition" setting that is available in the Content Settings section 7. Then you should not get the update pop-up next time you open Dash 8. Later, when there is a Dash update, one person (the person who set up the project and plugins, perhaps) needs to do these steps to get the new resource data and share it with everyone through Perforce: 1. Install the new version of Dash 2. Unlock the Polygonflow folder under the Content folder in the project through Perforce so it is writable. 3. Turn on the resource acquisition again in Dash preferences 4. Open the Project and Dash, and run the update through the pop-up 5. Now, the new update files have been added to Perforce and are ready to be used by everyone on the team.
Preferences file is corrupted - License Activation Issue If you get an error message in the UE output log about prefs\_corrupt or a corrupt preference file when trying to open Dash, activating a license etc, there are 2 solutions to try: 1. Close Unreal and open the location of the Dash preferences, most likely at C:\Users\USER\_NAME\Documents\PolygonFlow\Dash And then delete the prefs.json and prefs\_corrupt\_backup.json files. Start Unreal and Dash again and see if it is solved. 2. If the solution above did not help, close Unreal again and try downloading this standalone license activation app: a) Extract the zip \ b) run the pf\_license\_manager\_gui.exe \ c) activate your license key here \ d) Start Unreal and Dash again to see if it now works.
# Tool Presets Build it once. Use it everywhere. Dash includes many powerful tools, and the Preset system makes them even easier to reuse. When you create a Dash tool setup you like, you can save it as a preset, including the input meshes. You can then reuse that preset later and instantly recreate the same setup in any scene. Presets make it easy to build reusable workflows and avoid rebuilding the same setups over and over. {% embed url="" %} ## Presets Basics ### Single Tool Presets When you have created a tool you are happy with, it's incredibly easy to save it in a preset that you can re-use later. If it's your first preset of tool X, you will find it in the tool menu, and if you already have some presets of tool X, the preset button is right next to the tool name. In the preset creation window, you can add some basic info such as name, category, description, search tags, and thumbnail. And then there are two important settings: 1. **Preset Scope**: Here, you decide if the preset shall be local or global. Local presets are saved and accessible only in this project, while the global presets are saved in the AppData folder and are thus accessible from any UE project. 2. **Include Interconnected Tools**: This means that if your tool is connected to another tool, for example, through Proximity Mask or scattering on another Scatter, all interconnected tools will be included in your preset. {% hint style="success" %} The Preset System not only makes it easier to create things with Dash, but it also lets you combine tools through our Compound System and basically create new complex tools where the existing Dash tools become building blocks. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ### Compound Presets The compound system of Dash can, of course, also be used with the Preset System. So let's say you have created a forest with 3 Surface Scatters and 2 Path Scatters, then you can add the key settings from each into a Compound by right-clicking on the properties, name the compound Forest, and then create a preset of this forest directly from the Compound tool. Then, if you use the Forest compound from the preset list of compounds, all your 3 Surface Scatters and 2 Path Scatters will be re-created exactly how you saved them. When creating presets and especially compounds, one should not forget about the Reference System. With this, you can right-click on any property in any Dash tool and convert it to a reference, and then you can right-click on another property, in the same or different tool, and connect this to the same reference. And this basically means that you can control several Dash settings through one property. For example, if you have three Surface Scatters, you can link them together through References for their scales, input surfaces, or densities, etc. And if you then add the references to a compound, they appear as Shared Properties, giving you maximal control and structure in your Compounds. {% hint style="info" %} If you are unsure which tools are connected before you create your preset, you can open the Tool Graph from the tool menu to check what is connected to your tool. {% endhint %} {% hint style="success" %} More info on Compounds and References is available in the [Getting Started Guide](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/quickstart#references). {% endhint %} Here we have 1 Surface Scatter (Foliage), 1 Path Scatter (Lamps), and 1 Road tool. And then we firstly create a reference of the Road Width, and then connect the Parallel Width Distance of the Path Scatter to the same reference. This makes sure we can control both together. We then add this reference and also the density value of my Surface Scatter to a Compound, which we then create a preset out of. {% embed url="" %} ### Using Presets You can see all your presets for any given tool by clicking the Preset Icon next to the tool name in the Tools Panel. For compounds, simply create a Compound from the Tools Panel and then click the Preset icon. \ \ To use a preset, simply select it in the pop-up list. This will re-create the preset at the same exact location where it was created. So if you aren't seeing it directly, select the tool that was created in the outlier and press F to focus on it in the viewport. If you need to move a Preset result with all its dependencies, you can find an option, Select Movable Objects, in the tool menu. This will select all relevant parts of your tool and let you move them all at once without breaking the results. This option is also available in the Compound Tools. {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="warning" %} In order for the presets to spawn the input meshes like scatter objects and surfaces, they have to exist in the exact same location in your project as they did when you created the preset. If they don't, the tools will still spawn but empty, so then you have to assign some input objects to the tools to see some actual results in the viewport. {% endhint %} Once you have spawned a preset, you can, of course, continue to adjust it however you like, including **replacing any or all of the input meshes**. And then, after some changes, you can save it as another preset. And as we expect most users to create a fair amount of presets to improve their UE5 workflows even further, we have also added all your presets to the Dash Content Browser.
### Preset Library To make it easy to browse, search, and use all your presets, we have now included a preset library in the Dash Content Browser. Once you find a preset you want to use, simply drag and drop it into your viewport. When your preset has appeared in the viewport, all the relevant dependencies are automatically selected so you can easily move it to the perfect spot. You can right-click on any of your presets to delete them or change their details, such as the name, category, description, search tags, and thumbnail. And to make sure there is some structure in your Preset Library, you can expand the right side folder tree and see that your presets are separated by Local vs Global and by your own Categories you have added in your presets. And at the top of the folder tree, you will also see a folder called Built-In. {% embed url="" %} ## Drawable Presets **Draw presets directly in the viewport, with full control over shape and scale.** All presets that have the draw icon in the top right corner can be drawn in your environments by holding CTRL when dragging your presets into your scene. Then select Draw Preset, draw the curve, hit the STOP button, and see your preset appear in your scene. {% embed url="" %} ### Creating Drawable Presets #### Single Tool Presets All single tool presets from Surface Scatter, Path Scatter, Road Tool, Cable Tool, and Quick Pipe are by default drawable. So just save such a preset, and you will see it appear in the Preset Library with the draw icon in its corner. When you draw a Surface Scatter preset, the area you draw will be used in the Object Mask to confine your scatter to this specific area. And all the surfaces/meshes under your curve will be used as Surfaces in the scatter. {% embed url="" %} \ When you draw a Path-based preset, such as Path Scatter, Road Tool, Cable Tool, or Quick Pipe, the results will use your drawn curve as the input Curve. {% embed url="" %} #### Compound Presets Compound presets can seem more complex, as here you are in control of which containers/settings are used in the drawing process. But it is fairly simple! \ \ If you're saving a compound preset and want to be able to draw it, you need to first fill in the basic preset information and then switch to the tab "Make it drawable".\ \ Here you will see **three containers**, the first being the **Curve Container,** which is mandatory for a drawable preset. If you are using a Path-based preset, here you should drag and drop your Curve container. If you are using a Surface Scatter-based preset, you should drag and drop your Object Mask container from the main Surface Scatter. The second is the optional **Surface Container.** For Path-based presets (Road Tool or Path Scatter), you can drop the Projection Mask container if you want the results to conform to the surface when you later draw the preset. For Surface Scatter-based presets, you **must** drop the Surface Container if you want to draw your preset. \ \ And the third and last, **Containers to Discard**, is also optional and only needed for very specific presets. For example, if you have created a preset of any type and used a proximity mask, you should then drag and drop the Proximity Mask Objects container here. By doing this, you make sure that you can still drag and drop your preset and keep the original look with the proximity mask, and also draw the preset in any other shape/form without having the proximity mask object affect the results.
#### Examples Here is a Surface Scatter compound preset example; It has 4 Surface Scatters that all have their surfaces, and object masks linked through the reference system. And then it also uses the middle curve as a proximity mask for the trees and the big rocks, but this will be added as a "Containers to Discard". {% embed url="" %} Here is a Path Scatter-based compound preset; It uses two Path Scatters, one for the pillars and one for the wooden floor, and one Surface Scatter for the foliage on the pillars. Both Path Scatters are linked together using references for their curves and their projection masks. {% embed url="" %} ## Built-in Presets In order to make it even easier for Dash users to get started creatively, we have also included 50+ built-in presets in the new Preset Library. You can filter these by expanding the right folder view in the preset library. This collection is a mix of one-tool presets and compound presets that are all free to use however you like. So once you have dropped a Dash preset, you can adjust any of the settings and replace the placeholder meshes with any of your own meshes. {% embed url="" %} Huge thanks to Quaternius for creating and sharing some awesome CC0 assets that became perfect preset placeholder meshes. Check out all other Quaternius assets right here: Below you can find all the currently included Dash presets that are available in Dash 1.10.0 and later.
### Single Tool Presets Presets using one tool instance.
Surface Scatter
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Rocks_NoiseSurface ScatterRocks scattered with a noise mask using Surface Scatter.Single Tool/files/I3LjOTC4hINMAT7PW8ot
Bushes_ProximitySurface ScatterBushes around a rock using a Surface Scatter with proximity mask.Single Tool/files/EwF8gtcnPhWBmyNcz21y
Basic_ForestSurface ScatterA tree Surface Scatter confined with curves through Object and Proximity Mask.Single Tool/files/ysfC9XoqwkMW5wqVQD3W
Moss_RockSurface ScatterMoss scattered on a rock using Surface Scater with a noise mask.Single Tool/files/Xgx7WwgH7rmrGg3TpR6m
Radial Scatter
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Rock_TowerRadial ScatterA Radial sScatter that stacks rocks in a tower-like shape. And it uses a proximity mask with a sphere./files/VZK0HhorX5tBeRpgW2Zd
Stone_StairsRadial ScatterA Radial Scatter that uses the Height setting to create a staircase out of a stone asset./files/3qbUjMkrXPXMgppXCUtx
Circular_GardenRadial ScatterA Radial Scatter that scatters flowers in concentric circles. An Proximity Mask curve creates the path./files/LQDFVyNOPY8d8eKipIJq
Path Scatter
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Tree_AvenuePath ScatterA Path Scatter that scatters trees along a curve to create an avenue. It uses Parallel Width and Proximity Mask./files/03RkLUolqZspXMa5wVS8
Cliff_CanyonPath ScatterA Path Scatter that scatters rocks along two curves to create a canyon. It also uses some Jitter and Random Spin./files/PhaBldRPdS9OvtNUfGd8
Hanging_VinesPath ScatterVines scattered on a wall along a curve. Using Path Scatter./files/16qbIx2862PvxyuXK6KU
Farm_FencePath ScatterA single Path Scatter that places an fence asset along a curve. /files/4Xd5iT438JvFHQZoPWp0
FencePath ScatterA single Path Scatter that places an standing plank asset along a curve./files/1ZRW4HEVKWAGw7spXjUq
Pillar_FencePath ScatterA single Path Scatter that places a pillar and a plank assets in a fixed pattern along a curve. /files/9JbpGKORHgFx4f9JdgKl
Wooden_PathwayPath ScatterA single Path Scatter that places an laying plank asset along a curve./files/WxCRZiNh3JMrsqa450gf
Grid Scatter
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Rock_WallGrid ScatterA Grid Scatter that stacks rocks in a wall-like shape. The breakups comes from a Proximity Mask and Remove Mask./files/Cqz8aBk5ma4GWuUxIn65
Rock_FloorGrid ScatterA Grid Scatter that scatters rocks in a 2D pattern on the floor. And it uses the Noise Mask./files/6Y0SYxrXr2jfnBUQvCDw
Road Tool
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Projected_RoadRoad ToolA Road Tool projected on its underlying curvy surface./files/ysnQ53GzFfMj5B7qggYN
Bumpy_RoadRoad ToolA Road Tool with some Noise added to make it bumpy./files/xFrADnF44n0C2QKbjjB7
Cable Tool
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Cable_RobotCable ToolA Cable Tool that uses Self-Scatter on top of a single robot asset. It also uses Gravity, Radius and Duplicates settings./files/ikUU4I2eOg6nCvGalIXF
Vine Tool
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Overgrown_CarVine ToolA Vine Tool that covers a full car. The car is the surface and an actor is used as origin./files/7uXq5srb3ijYk3ocePv7
Tree_RootsVine ToolA Vine Tool that create roots when using the plane as surface and the tree as origin./files/SB3ya0RFFODGTavsfFCw
### Compound Presets Presets combining multiple tool instances.
Same-Tool Presets
Multiple instances of one tool
PresetToolsDescriptionTypeCover image
Double_CliffsPath Scatter x2This is a compound of 2 Path Scatters, using 1 curve. The 1st forms the outer layer of rocks. The 2nd forms the inner layers./files/lEFaZirP8lUiFIbZpwkE
Light_PathwayPath Scatter x2This is a compound of 2 Path Scatters, using 1 curve. The 1st scatters the pathway of rocks. The 2nd scatters lights outside of the pathway./files/i5HDwIelCQxFWkC3TDoi
Real_RoadRoad Rool x3This is a compound of 3 Road Tools and one curve. One for the main road, one for the side markings, and for the the center markings./files/gt6D1bmP3y4XqWkN6JAF
Mossy_RocksSurface Scatter x2This is a compound of 2 Surface Scatters. The 1st scatters rocks on the plane. The 2nd scatters moss on top of the rocks./files/M8xClUz2XNVvgbrKr5zc
Dense_ForestSurface Scatter x3Compound of 3 Surface Scatters. Tight trees, heavy bushes, almost no empty ground./files/ZmJODJvPCxCINhz6erQp
Open_ForestSurface Scatter x3Compound of 3 Surface Scatters. Wide Spacing, lots of grass, few bushes./files/Ha0hbkmYVhsfugcett9C
Young_ForestSurface Scatter x3Compound of 3 Surface Scatters. Small trees and bushes, few large ones. Lots of bushes and grass/files/eqnN2i4OW88Z9uAAU3fG
Rocky_ForestSurface Scatter x3Compound of 3 Surface Scatters. Trees mixed with lots of rocks./files/XbX2iRp0hbHXT8M2iepV
Rock_PathPath Scatter x2Rocks scattered with a Path Scatter and then foliage on the sides using another Path Scatter./files/iRWzpfWuASIDIeDG843E
Farm_LandGrid Scatter x33 Grid Scatters, using different assets and proximity masks to control their placement./files/ak69krbJSOqF1yUgfPlV
Mixed-Tool Presets
Combinations of different tools
PresetToolsDescriptionCover image
Rock_BridgeCable Tool, Quick Pipe, Surface Scatter x3, Path Scatter x3This compound consisting of various tools creates a non-hanging rope bridge, controlled by a single curve./files/6i0UJo7vlGEOEVNJampu
Rope_BridgeCable Tool, Quick Pipe, Path Scatter x2, Surface ScatterThis compound consisting of various tools creates a hanging rope bridge, controlled by a single bent curve.

/files/xEkzwh5Y4Nt8F0o0Gdhn
Mossy_WallGrid Scatter, Surface ScatterThis compound combines a Grid Scatter and a Surface Scatter to create a rock wall with foliage scattered on it. /files/HcwwFHAen8Q1J2UkCR6p
Mossy_TowerRadial Scatter, Surface ScatterThis compound combines a Radial Scatter and a Surface Scatter to create a rock tower with foliage scattered on it. /files/0IfZChbHMDBkMjt5SI7z
Abandoned_ParkingGrid Scatter, Surface Scatter x3This compound combines a Grid Scatter and a Surface Scatter to scatter cars, foliage and rocks with several proximity masks./files/YZ4jJHgoXXGr66Kznzyb
Park_PathSurface Scatter, Path Scatter, Road ToolThis compound creates an road with lights and foliage on its side using the Road Tool, Path Scatter and Surface Scatter. /files/VJHofiYWzhQSGspfJV05
Overgrown_CliffsPath Scatter x2, Surface Scatter x2This is a compound that creates 2 layers if cliffs with Path Scatters and then scatters foliage on the cliffs and on the ground using Surface Scatter./files/QoIbf1B7sWyaehiaMrPh
Overgrown_PathwayPath Scatter x2, Surface Scatter x2This is a compound that creates an overgrown rock path with lights on each side. It uses Path Scatters and Surface Scatters./files/wM29wGSryEFejj5CrSmt
SuburbGrid Scatter x2, Surface ScatterThis compound scatters a street mesh and houses with two different Grid Scatters and then scatters some bushes with Surface Scatter. (You need to use 2x divisions on the houses compared to the streets)/files/rLmPjuDEDT4y1uX89jSZ
Power_LinesPath Scatter, Cable ToolLight Poles scattered with Path Scatter and cables from the cable tool./files/BxkfjTUZo1F5N4JKA8l9
Overgrown_FencePath Scatter, Surface ScatterA single Path Scatter that places an standing plank asset along a curve. And foliage is added using Surface Scatter. /files/gZmUV6BAispTaoklNa9v
Overgrown_Pillar_FenceSurface Scatter, Path ScatterA single Path Scatter that places two wood assets along a curve. And foliage is added using Surface Scatter. /files/abbB00hDgIoj00D7Iyk9
Board_WalkPath Scatter x2, Surface ScatterOne Path Scatter for the standing planks, one the for flat planks. And a Surface Scatter for the foliage. /files/FCii3EescVWPOFu48zxr
Border_FencePath Scatter x2, Surface ScatterOne Path Scatter for the standing planks, one the for flat planks. And a Surface Scatter for the foliage. /files/PCVhaqIRm8Os4AXWVnGM
Overgrown_PierPath Scatter x2, Surface ScatterOne Path Scatter for the pillars, one for the flat planks. And a Surface Scatter for the foliage. /files/jJPaW3K1YHx1qZuCLYPx
Custom_Fence1Quick Pipe, Cable ToolA Quick Pipe is used for the poles and a Cable Tool is used for the strings. /files/ZoUDsZ9QAcFZPDrW8jgY
Custom_Fence2Quick Pipe, Cable Tool x2A Quick Pipe is used for the poles and two Cable Tools is used for the strings. /files/pvNsgHgAHOAxciGldMvx
Wire_FenceQuick Pipe x2, Cable ToolA procedural fence using 2 Quick Pipes and 1 Cable Tool./files/EedarfJ9IGY70pUhU3jL
Road_RailsRoad Tool, Cable Tool, Quick PipeA road tool with rails on the side using a Quick Pipe and a Cable Tool./files/qJsG6NzJLhMg7AiRDSjY
RailwayRoad Tool, Path Scatter x2The planks and the rocks comes from 2 Path Scatters, and the track comes from the Road Tool using Parallel Width./files/UOlCAjxITuMfAKCmakAq
# Procedural Scattering Dash contains various scatter tools, each tailored towards specific purposes. And in this page we will explain why these scattering tools are the most used ones in Dash. {% tabs %} {% tab title="Surface Scatter" %} Surface Scatter is a world-class scattering solution that operates on your mesh surfaces.\ The idea is to give it some geometry (*static mesh, landscape, procedural mesh, etc...*) as your surface/ground to scatter on, and some actors you want to scatter, and it'll do its magic. This is the most extensive tool in Dash, and contains features requested from various major AAA studios, talented individual artists, and our team's relentless pursuit of state of the art world building. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Path Scatter" %} Unlike Surface Scatter, Path Scatter only scatters along curves. But you can give it a mesh, and if it has borders, it'll scatter along them by internally processing the borders as curves.\ \ And another important difference with Path Scatter is that it also supports scattering of actors, which means you can scatter Decals, Blueprints, and other actors. Simply switch the Scatter Type from Instances to Actors and assign your actors as Scatter Objects. But for Decals, we also got a dedicated tool, Decal Scatter --> {% endtab %} {% tab title="Decal Scatter" %} Decal Scatter does exactly what it says: Give it some surface to scatter on, and some decals to scatter, and your surface will be covered with decals. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Grid Scatter" %} Grid Scatter is a practical tool for more uniform patterns. You have full control over the XYZ dimensions & divisions, and basic proximity masking features. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Volume Scatter" %} Volume Scatter helps you fill any mesh with the instances of another mesh. Unlike Surface Scatter, this tool doesn't scatter *on* meshes, but inside them. A common use case is creating unique shapes like asteroid belts, or really any floating meshes you want in your scene. {% endtab %} {% tab title="Radial Scatter" %} Radial Scatter allows you to create rings of instanced meshes along an origin. You can then create rows of them, adjust its concentric properties to ensure that they add up nicely on each ring, use proximity/object masking, etc... {% endtab %} {% endtabs %} {% hint style="info" %} Make sure to read the [**Getting Started**](/getting-started/quickstart) page in order to easily digest the information on this page. The section about [**environment creation**](/getting-started/quickstart#creating-a-simple-environment-with-dash) covers the basics of using Dash tools, which we'll assume you know how to in this page. {% endhint %} Besides having easy-to-use dedicated scattering tools for specific use-cases, the main reason people love our scattering tools is due to their masking capabilities. Most tools share some basic masking settings, but Surface Scatter is the one with pretty much all features, so let's go through them one by one! {% embed url="" %} ## Masking Features Dash's scattering tools contain various masking features, and while most of them reside in Surface Scatter only, the other tools still have a few, and we're actively expanding masking features to them.\ Let's look into all the major masking features, how they work, and what you can do with them. Before we dig in, "masking" here means removing scattered instances. Additionally, most masking groups give you the ability to invert the mask result. You'll notice that some properties have a small dark circle on their bottom right corner, which means you can right-click on the property and select **Invert Mask**.
### Proximity Masking This feature allows you to mask by curve, meshes, and instances. It has a **Distance** property which controls the proximity distance, and relies on the native UE units.\ The other property is **Sampling**. This value controls the quality of the masking. A higher value means higher quality, and lower value means lower. {% embed url="" %} In the example above, we're using meshes and curves for masking, but relying on instances is just as easy: Select them in the viewport, and add them to the proximity objects.\ In the example below, we've scattered some spheres, then scattered some discs, and only kept the disks near the spheres.
You can leverage proximity masking to build realistic forests. First, you'd scatter trees, then keep some ferns & leaves below them, then use a curve as a proximity mask in case you need a path, then scatter some rocks on the edges of that path, etc... From Dash 1.8.5, Surface Scatter has the ability to add an infinite number of proximity masks, which is done through the Proximity Table. This replaced the previous 3 Proximity Masks. In the Proximity Table, you can create groups, each having its own object, distance, and width values. You could, for example, use the first group to mask out some objects with a specific distance, and do the same with the other two groups.
Lastly, Proximity Masking lends itself quite well to mask inversion. {% embed url="" %} ### Angle Masking Angle masking is fairly straightforward: It relies on the underlying surface to determine the angle, and remove any scattered objects in that area. This is ideal for keeping slopes clear of trees and other objects when scattering on mountains. {% embed url="" %} ### Height Masking Tools like Surface Scatter have **Min Height Mask** and **Max Height Mask** properties, which allow you to clip the scattered objects from above or below. {% embed url="" %} ### Object Masking Unlike proximity masking, which simply relies on distances, Object Masking uses raytracing to determine when your instances are inside, outside or near an object. If you want to draw a curve, and keep all your instances inside that curve, this feature is perfect. You can also use it to keep instances that are inside/outside a mesh or volume. {% embed url="" %} This masking method also has a **Keep Inside** boolean property, which you can toggle to ensure that the masking either keeps instances inside, or outside of your input objects. You can also use the **Distance** property to keep instances nearby. {% embed url="" %} ### Noise Masking Noise Masking allows you to quickly break up the uniformity of your scattered objects.\ You're provided a wide range of parameters, from scaling to frequency, axis-specific stretching, noise smoothing, warping, etc... If you're scattering grass, trees or even trash, we highly recommend using this feature to make your results look more natural. {% embed url="" %} ### Clump Masking Clump Masking works by picking random instances, and using them as the center point of a clump.\ You're provided with a value to adjust the density of instances to sample, and another to control the radius of your clumps.\ Combined with noise & other masks, this can be a very powerful tool for realistic scatter setups. {% embed url="" %} ### Border Masking Border Masking detects the border edges of your surface geometry, and masks out all objects near those borders. This feature really useful for man-made scatter setups like gardens, where you could make some underlying geometry shape, scatter some plants on it, then hide that geometry.\ Each edge loop border on your geometry is treated separately, and the **Border Min/Max** properties allow you to add some randomization to the masking for each border loop.\ Noise is a simple noise effect to break up the border's uniformity. {% embed url="" %} ### Projection Masking Projection masking works by having the point of each instance shoot a ray upwards, and any mesh it hits that you've added to it will ensure that ray hit instances are kept. You can also invert the effect.\ Use cases range from keeping instances that are under objects, like plants or trash under a car, to removing all instances that are below any set of objects in your scene. {% embed url="" %} ### Landscape Layer Masking This masking feature allows you to feed the name of a paint layer to Surface Scatter, and the tool then uses the layer as mask. You can feed up to three layers. {% embed url="" %} ### Texture Masking Texture Masking is fairly straightforward: Select a texture in UE's content browser, feed it to the **Texture Path** property in the Texture Masking group, and voilĂ .\ You can pick which channel to use as a mask, adjust the color threshold to help with gradient pixels, and tile the texture mask.\ All you have to do is make sure that your texture contains white on black pixels, and the white pixels will be used as mask.\ If you're trying to create structure like small, decorated garden with very specific shapes, we recommend this approach where you could scatter on a plane, hide the plane, then give it the texture which represents the shape of your flowers garden. {% embed url="" %} ### Vertex Color Masking Vertex colors can be applied on static meshes, and then all RGB channels are available in this masking group. Additionally, you have some pixel threshold control to adjust how the masking behaves on gradient pixels, and also a **Blend Modes** dropdown from which you can pick how the vertex color affects your masking logic. {% embed url="" %} ### Directional Masking Unlike Angle Masking, Directional Masking allows you to use your sunlight (or any object) actor to mask out objects based on the sun's rotation. This can be used to remove objects that are sensitive to sunlight, with moss being the most common use case. {% embed url="" %} ### Add / Remove Masking This is a simple masking trick that allows us to add or remove instances randomly.\ You could for example use proximity masking to clear a path from plants, but then use add mask at a low value to keep a few plants popping here and there. {% embed url="" %} ## Property References When creating a complex setup, like say a forest with a Surface Scatter for the trees, another for the shrubs, another for the grass, etc... then a Path Scatter for some wooden posts along the forest, and a road, etc... That complexity can quickly become overwhelming, and we use references to make sense of this.\ Your road will have a width, and you'll want the wooden posts to respect that width, even if they have a slight offset. Same with the forest vegetation, you'll want it not to spawn on the road, and so on.
The way to do this is by creating reference properties. We cover them in the [**Getting Started**](/getting-started/quickstart#references) page, but the workflow is fairly simple: You'd create some property Distance or Width that dictates the width of the road, and all those tools would use it. When a property uses a reference, we give it a weight, which allows you to extend the value of your property beyond what the reference provides. For example, if your Width is 320, the wooden posts could have a weight of 0.1, which would make them slightly larger than the width, as the weight acts like a percentage multiplier on it. {% embed url="" %} ## Scatter Table In the later versions (since Dash 1.8.5), we have started adding data tables to certain tools. The main one is the scatter table in Surface Scatter. Instead of simply assigning several scatter objects with the + icon on the scatter property, you can open the scatter table by hitting the Edit Table button. Here, you can create several property rows, assign one or several scatter objects to each, and then you will have the ability to control a **density offset** and a **scale offset** per property row. So this means you can have one Surface Scatter with very specific control of the scattered objects instead of having to create several Surface Scatters. This Data Table logic is slowly being expanded to other tools and settings to give you the granular control you sometimes need. {% embed url="" %} {% embed url="" %} # Centralized Asset Browser With Dash's Content Browser, you can tag all your assets, making them easy to find and also create a Centralized Asset Browser. Meaning that you can access all your UE5 assets from any Unreal project. {% hint style="success" %} Tip: If you want general information about the Dash Content Browser, you can check this page for full details: [Content Browser Basics](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser) {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ## Part 1: Tagging Your Assets - Making Them Searchable **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. Tagging your assets is super easy, and below you will learn how: 1. Open the Content Browser from the Content icon in the Dash bar. Then use the Library dropdown in the top right of the Content Browser to switch to the Project Library tab. This will bring you here where you will see a folder hierarchy on the left which corresponds to the one you have in the UE content browser, and the count on each is the number of static meshes available in the folders. To be clear, the assets you can see here are the assets in your Content folder, i.e. the assets you have added to this current project.
2. 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. Running a computing process means you will get access to these assets directly through the Dash Content Browser. You can select any of the folders, including the main Content folder, but if you have a lot of assets, it is better to compute one sub-folder at a time. {% embed url="" %} 3. We only compute static meshes and blueprints 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 computed. From Dash 1.9.0 and onwards we do compute materials by default as well. But you can right click on an folder and exclude them {% embed url="" %} 4. You can enable or disable AI tagging by using the checkmark on the compute button. This is relevant since the tagging process is financially costly for us which means there is a monthly limit on the Dash licenses, controlling how many assets one can AI tag per month. \ \ **The good thing is though, that even if you compute your asset folders with AI Tags or not, you are on your way to setting up your Centralized Asset Browser experience in Unreal Engine.** ## Part 2: Centralized Asset Browser **Once you have computed some assets in Project 1 (we call it Project 1 as an example), you will automatically be able to browse, search, and use these assets in all your other Unreal Projects without first importing them to these projects.** In Project 2 (or any other project), open the Content Browser and in the Library Dropdown in the top right, you will now see Project 1. Opening this tab will show you all the assets you computed in Project 1. And now you can browse, search, and use these assets however you like! Once you use an asset in Project 2, we handle the import process from Project 1 to Project 2 in the backend for you. {% hint style="info" %} If you don't see the view for Project 1 or any other UE project where you have computed assets, you need to link the paths. --> In the Project Library tab within the Content Browser, open the menu on the right and select Manage Project Libraries. You'll be shown the preferences window, and in there you can add the path of Project 1, or any other UE projects where you have computed assets. Manually or automatically with a search button. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} 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. ### Pro Tips: 1. If you add all your assets to one single UE project, perhaps named Asset\_Library\_Project and then compute all the assets in this project. You have just created a Centralized Asset Experience for yourself. As now in any other UE projects, you no longer need to import a bunch of asset folders and bloat your projects. You only have to search among all your assets through the Dash Content Browser and use your preferred ones while we handle the import process in the backend for just these actually used assets.
2. If you want even more structure, another way of going about this is creating separate UE projects based on asset themes. For example *forest\_assets\_project*, *city\_assets\_project* and *indoor\_assets\_project*. Then you can add the relevant assets to each project, and compute the assets in each. \ \ Now in your other Unreal projects, you will instead have separate tabs in Dash's Content Browser, perhaps making it feel more organized as you can choose to only search or browse through the forest assets without seeing the city assets. If the amount of tabs becomes too many, you can open the Dash preferences and uncheck certain projects, to not have these assets visible in the Content Browser.
3. If you are a studio that wants a Shared Centralized Asset Browser/Experience, you only need to make sure the **UE** **asset projects** where you have computed the assets are shared among your team and also that the **caches** where we store the compute/tagging information are shared among your team. In the Dash preferences you can choose your custom cache path, just change the "Metadata Path" to any local or cloud location. From Dash 1.9.0, the default metadata path is directly within your Unreal project, so then you don't have to worry about sharing the metadata cache, it is always included when you share the Unreal projects. ## FAQ
How do I show the asset names? If you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset names.
Can I view the asset's details before importing it? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset details. Once it's enabled, selecting any given asset will show the you following properties about it: * Texture resolution. * Triangle count. * Asset scale. This is represented by a square with a character for reference, and hovering over that scale will display the width x height x depth scale.
Can I make the thumbnails bigger? Yes, hold CTRL with your mouse over the Content Browser's view, then use the scroll wheel to scale the thumbnails up or down.
Can I view the triangle count of an asset before importing it? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset details, which will ensure that the triangle count of that asset is visible when you click on it.
How to use the Favorites feature? On hover, every asset will show you a star icon to set or unset an asset as favorite. Once you have some assets that are set as favorite, a star icon will show up on the right corner of the Content Browser's search bar. Click on it, and all your favorite assets will show up at the top.
Can I edit an asset's tags? Yes, right-click on the asset, then select **Asset Details**, or double click on an asset and a panel will open up, showing all the asset's details, including a list of tags it has. You can then start typing in tags, then hitting enter to register them, or hover over them, and double-click on the X icon to the right of each tag to delete it.\ Once you're happy with your changes, hit the Save button at the bottom left.
Can I add or remove tags to multiple assets at once? Yes. Use SHIFT+Click to select multiple assets, right-click on any of them, then select **Batch Tag Edit**. This will open up a panel in which all the tags of all the assets are visible, and any new tag you add will get added to all of them. Any tag you remove will also get removed from all of them.\ Once you're happy with your changes, hit the Save button at the bottom left.
I can't seem to get the CTRL + Drop right to scatter from the Content Browser Click (or SHIFT+Click for multiple objects) on an asset, then start dragging it onto the viewport. You'll notice the Content Browser will shrink in size to give your viewport more space.\ Before releasing the left-mouse button, hold CTRL, then release. And you should see a menu pop up with a couple of options, including one to scatter.
Do I need the Content Browser to scatter assets? No. Dash's Content Browser is a highly convenient way of managing your content, but all our scatter tools work without it, too. We briefly cover the scatter workflow [right here](/getting-started/quickstart#surface-scatter).
How to scatter along a curve when drag & dropping from the Content Browser? Select the curve in the viewport, and with your asset selected, hold CTRL and drag and drop the asset onto the viewport. In the popup menu, pick **Scatter on Selection**.
# Material / Atmospheric Tools {% hint style="info" %} When working in UE5.4+, make sure that Nanite is enabled on the editor, otherwise displacement workflows won't work. You can type "actor enable nanite" in the Dash bar, and run the suggested command. {% endhint %} Dash features a wide range of custom materials, from simple PBR setups to complex blend material systems. These materials are built to work around specific content libraries, like Fab, Polyhaven and Megascans. We plan to make them work with any custom object in the future, too. ## Base Materials / Edit Material We provide rich materials for decals, tilable surfaces, 3D meshes, and 3D plants. To get started, you can click on the Content Icon in the Dash bar and open the Content Browser. In the top right corner of the Dash Content Browser, you can switch between the available libraries. The ones that we support Material Edit and Blend Material for right now, are Megascans from FAB or Quixel Bridge and Poly Haven. \ \ To apply a texture on a surface. We made sure to make it as simple and straightforward as possible. \ You drag your texture from the content library and drop it on the target surface. After applying your material to the surface. You can click on the Edit button in the Dash bar to bring up our Tools Panel and in the Tools panel by opening the Active Tools list (top left corner of the Tools Panel) while having your plane selected you can open Material Edit; Where you can control various aspects of your Material, such as:\ Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Roughness, Normal and so on. In the same Panel we also included some cool advanced effects such as Snow and Rain. As illustrated in the video below.
{% embed url="" %} Base Material {% endembed %} ## Blend Materials This is a powerful material as it provides advanced features such as the ability to blend between 3 textures. The possibility of blending them through vertex painting. And similar to the Edit Material this tools comes with Rain, Snow, and Puddle effects as well. To start using this shader, open the Content Browser and select up to 3 supported materials. Drag and drop them on the surface while holding the Control (ctrl) key on your keyboard. This will bring a menu as shown below.
\ Select the option Apply Blend Material. \ Now you are all set. Next thing, you might want to do is tweak the parameters to make them to your liking. To do so, click on the Edit button in the Dash bar. Our Tools panel will open. \ While selecting the surface/Asset you applied the Blend Materal on. Click on the 3 lines shown on the top left, then choose the option Edit Blend Material.

Edit Blend Material in the Tools Panel

The Video below gives you a glimpse of the process of creating a surface, applying a Blend material and going through some of the blending properties. {% embed url="" %} Blend Material Basics {% endembed %} {% hint style="success" %} The layers in our Blend material follow the same letter of their respective Vertex paint channel, except for T Weight, which is not available through vertex painting. This means that you can also paint your selected textures instead of only controlling them through the sliders in the Blend Material Tool.\ \ To do this, use the Mesh Paint Mode and paint your Vertex Colors to see them appear on your surface. {% endhint %} In the Blend Material Tool, if you scroll down you will find a parameter called Displacement.\ This allows you to control the displacement of your Base Layer (the first material you selected in the Dash content browser). ### Displacement Displacement mapping helps you add more depth to your materials. This process typically relies on a texture called a displacement map, or height map. The functionality works differently between UE5 versions. In UE5.1, UE5.2 and UE5.3, displacement is available but doesn't work on meshes with Nanite enabled on them. If you want to use displacement on these older versions, always ensure that Nanite is not enabled on your static meshes. Internally, we use World Position Offset in the node graph to have displacement in those versions. This basically moves the vertices of your mesh, vs generating new, denser geometry on the fly. Important here to use a surface with enough triangles. By using the plane from Create -> Mesh Primitives -> Plane you get a good dense plane. For that, UE5.4, UE5.5, and above have support for Nanite-friendly displacement, and so do our regular materials, and blend material.\ For 5.4 and 5.5+, you should enable **Tessellation** in your project and also have **Nanite** enabled on your static mesh. Otherwise, displacement won't work. To enable Tessellation in your project, we've made a shortcut that you can access by typing **Tessellation**, and then selecting **Enable Project Tessellation**.
To enable Nanite on your selected static mesh in the level, we've made another shortcut called **Actor Enable Nanite**. You can always use the UE Content Browser and right-click on an asset, then enable Nanite on the asset itself. But this is slightly faster, and right within Dash, too.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when you create a road or a plane in Dash, those aren't static meshes, but their own custom format. This means they can't have Nanite enabled on them, and thus displacement in 5.4+ won't work either. You can "bake" Dash meshes (like the primitives you find in Creates -> Mesh Primitives) by going into the Dash bar -> Create -> Common -> Bake Meshes option. This will convert your selected mesh into a static mesh.
If your mesh isn't a simple plane or other Dash primitive, but instead an active tool like the Road Tool, Terrain Tool or Cable Tool, those also generate Dash meshes, and baking in that case is done from the tool panel, by clicking on the Bake icon, and confirming the dialog that shows up. This will delete your tool, and convert its result to a regular UE5 static mesh. It is not undoable, so we recommend doing it once you're done editing your road, terrain, or cables. {% embed url="" %} Here's a video showing what displacement looks like in UE5.1+. As you can see, the quality is quite subpar, because our plane doesn't have enough vertices. You could use the UE5 modeling tools to increase the density, but this won't be as good as Nanite-friendly displacement in 5.4+ {% embed url="" %} Displacement in UE 5.1 {% endembed %} Here's what displacement looks like in UE5.4+. The project has nanite enabled, and the mesh is a static mesh with nanite enabled. The quality is as good as it gets. {% embed url="" %} Enable Nanite Tessellation UE 5.4+ {% endembed %} ### Blend Material Advanced Features Snow, Rain and Puddles are some useful and interesting functionalities we added to our Blend materials. \ Snow is represented by S Weight, Rain by T Weight and Puddles by B Weight. The videos below show Snow and Rain effects in action. ### Snow Snow is controlled by a parameter called S Weight. Which allows you to increase or decrease the amount of Snow on your material. If you scroll down you will find a property called **Snow (S) Layer**. This drop-down menu gives you more control on how you would like your snow to behave. Let's go through some important options here: * **S Height Multiplier** Allows you to increase the global multiplier of the Snow displacement and the Blend Material displacement. * S Height controls the height of the Snow * S Height Contrast controls how sharp your Snow is. It can also be of negative value. This will invert the way it's applied on the surface {% embed url="" %} Snow Effect {% endembed %} ### Rain **T Weight** allows you to control the amount of rain and puddle you want on your surface. Scroll to the **Rain (T) Layer** to find additional properties to play with. The drop-down menu gives you more control over how you would like your Rain to behave. These are the most important properties to adjust to your liking: * **T Drip Tiling** to adjust the size of your drips * **T Drip Length** to adjust the length of your drips * **T Drip Strength** to adjust the intensity for the drip normal map * **T Droplets Tiling** to adjust the size of your droplets. * **T Ripple Motion** to adjust the speed of the ripples. * **T Ripple Size** to adjust the size of your ripples. {% embed url="" %} Rain Effect {% endembed %} ### FAQ
How do I edit a Blend Material To edit a Blend Material in Dash click on the Edit button up in the Dash bar. Our Tools panel will appear. While selecting the surface/Asset you applied the Blend Materal on. Click on the 3 lines shown on the top left, then choose the option Edit Blend Material.\ \ There you have a wide range of parameters you can edit. such as: \ Layer properties like hue, saturation, and tiling for complex texture creation To Edit the blend material on an asset you previously placed in your scene\ Follow these steps: * Select the object with the blend material you want to edit. * Open the Blend Material tool from the Dash Tools Panel. * Adjust the weights for R, G, B, S, and T layers to modify blending. * Change properties like hue, saturation, and brightness for each layer. * Modify tiling and displacement settings for texture details.
Megascan does not include a Displacement map Fab through Unreal Engine. You have to choose a quality of High or above in order to get a displacement map when downloading Megascans materials from FAB. âś… \ And if you still want to use Medium or Low quality: You can create a displacement effect in UE5 by converting the normal map to a height map and using tessellation. * Import your model and ensure you have a high-quality normal map available. * Use an external program like CrazyBump or a Photoshop plugin to convert your normal map into a height map. * In UE5, apply the height map in your material, and activate tessellation and world displacement in the material settings. * Adjust displacement parameters to fine-tune the effect on your model. Please note that you can still download the Displacement map from FAB. Go to the FAB website and select the surface you want. Click download and check the ZIP files you downloaded. You will see the displacement map in there. But right now we don't have a way of using that displacement map to control the displacement through Dash.
How do I add displacement to my mesh? First, Dash only knows of your displacement if you use its materials, be it the blend material or the other base materials. If your mesh has either of those, follow these steps: * Open the Dash Bar and navigate to Edit > Edit Material. * Select the object you want to apply the material displacement to. * In the Edit Material tool, locate the Displacement property. * Adjust the Displacement value to achieve the desired effect. * You may also need to ensure that your material is set up to support displacement mapping by using the appropriate textures and settings. * Save your changes, and the displacement should be visible on your mesh! Happy creating! 🎉
Can I use the Blend Material with custom content? No, right now our Blend Material tool only supports Megascans and Poly Haven materials through the Dash Content Browser.\ \ Support for custom materials will come later though!
How to use blend material To use the Blend Material tool in Dash, select 3 materials from the Content Library, hold CTRL, drag them onto your scene, and choose Blend Material. * Select 3 materials from the Dash Content Library. * Hold CTRL and drag the selected materials onto your scene. * Release the mouse and choose the Blend Material option. * Use the tool to adjust properties like color, contrast, and tiling. * Customize the blend by modifying individual layer settings. Check [Blend Material](#blend-materials)[s](#blend-materials) for more information
How can I edit a material? To edit a material using Dash, follow these steps: * Select the object you want to apply the material to. * Open the Dash Bar and navigate to the Tools Panel. * Click on the menu icon in the top left to view active tools and find the "Edit Material" tool. * Adjust the material properties as needed in the Tools Panel. * P.S. Material Edit only works on Megascans and Poly Haven assets/materials used from the Dash Content Browser.
## Tiling Breakup Regardless of whether you are using the Dash Base Materials (Edit Material) or Dash Blend Material, you will find the feature Tiling Control. This feature lets you easily turn on and adjust a tiling breakup effect. Perfect to avoid the repetitive patterns on your textures. {% embed url="" %} ## Runtime Virtual Textures(RVT) With our 1.9 update, we introduced our workflow with RVT. Thus allowing you to have some nice blending between a surface and an asset. \ For starters, you need to ensure RVT is enabled in your project settings. \ To do so, go to: \ Edit -> Project Settings, then type Virtual texture. and check the box **Enable Virtual Texture Support**
Depending of your engine version the workflow will be slightly different. For instance, if your are on UE 5.3 and below; Select the surface you want RVT enabled on, then type RVT in the Dash Toolbar the option RVT Setup will appear. Select it. You now have RVT on your surface. {% hint style="warning" %} Make sure to Bake the terrain before enabling RVT on it. {% endhint %} \ However, there is one more step for it to work properly; In your outliner, you will find 2 Runtime Virtual Texture Volumes. Select one and in your Details panel click on set **Bounds.** Repeat this for the other Volume.
Your RVT is now all set. You can drag and drop an asset on your surface and toggle RVT on and off for that asset from the Material Edit tool. For more details, please watch the video below. {% hint style="info" %} This only works on the integrated library assets in the Dash Content Browser right now, as we don't support Material Edit for other assets yet. For example, Megascans or Poly Haven.\ \ So you have to use a supported asset, and also a support texture on the underlying surface. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} RVT in UE 5.3 and below {% endembed %} For Unreal 5.4 and above, the bounds are automatically set for you. \ You can simply select your surface and activate RVT on it from the Dash search bar. Check the video below for more details. {% embed url="" %} RVT in UE 5.4 and above {% endembed %} For our Blend Material workflow with RVT, when changing the Weight and adding grass or another layer of texture. In order for the changes to take effect, select an asset in the scene, then select Edit Material in the Tools Panel, and your changes will appear as you change from the Blend Material. This creates a refresh event.\ Video demo below for more details. {% embed url="" %} Refresh RVT on BlendMaterials {% endembed %} {% hint style="warning" %} Our new RVT workflow works best on Dash terrains or UE Landscapes. If you want to use it on a flat surface, like a plane, you need to select the plane and an asset on the plane and then run the RVT command, instead of running the RVT command only on the surface. \ \ P.S. Don't forget to bake the Dash terrain to a static mesh using the bake button in the Terrain Tool before using it with RVT. {% endhint %} {% hint style="warning" %} RVT is not supported on surfaces with Nanite Enabled. \ However, your assets can have Nanite Enabled on them. {% endhint %} ### FAQ
My Assets appear to have a Black Noise testure when I enable RVT on them. This usually happens when the bounds were not set properly. \ If your surface is not flat, select the RVT Volume in the Outliner, in the Details panel under Volume Bounds click on the Eyedropper tool and select your surface. You will see its name appear under the Bounds Align Actor in the Details panel. And then click on Set Bounds.
RVT Is not working even though I tried everything in the documentation. In case RVT seem to not work at all after following the videos, then check if your surface has Nanite enabled on it. \ Please note that RVT doesn't work on nanite surfaces. \ Your assets can be Nanite enabled, but not the surface.\ You can try disabling nanite on the surface to see if RVT is now working for you. Otherwise you can always reach out to us in our [Discord](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord) or by emailing us at:
## 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. {% hint style="info" %} For the best reflection results, we recommend you to enable Hardware Ray Tracing on your project {% endhint %}
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. {% embed url="" %} Creating an advanced water Shader {% endembed %} 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. {% embed url="" %} Wave settings {% endembed %} Based on your requirements you can set the Calmness and Water Depth to behave as you want.\ Check the example in the video below: {% embed url="" %} Additional Water properties {% endembed %} We have some additional Properties that allow you to have more control over how the normal map of the water behaves.

Advanced Properties

**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.

Underwater properties

**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: {% embed url="" %} Underwater effect {% endembed %} 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
How do I edit my Water Properties? In the case of the Tools Panel not appearing automatically when you create the water,, make sure the water actor is selected, then click on the Edit button up in the Dash bar. Our Tools panel will appear. Then click the menu button in the top left of the Tool Panel to open the list of active tools, in which you will see the Falling Leaves tool.
How can I make nice waves with the new water shader? For good looking waves and water effect, we recommend you value like these:\ 1\. Wave Undulation: 0.7\ 2\. Wave Height: 6\ 3\. Wave Length: 2.5\ 4\. Wave Sharpness: 0.3 If your goal is to have large waves, make sure to adjust the Wave Length value for that. \ If you want higher waves, crank up the value to 10!
I want my underwater to look more under water. How can I achieve that? To achieve a more realistic underwater feel, you will need to slightly tweak the following values:\ **Underlying Color**: pull the black and white(value) slider more towards the gray side. or use these values **07150D** **UnderWater warping:** Change the value to 1.3\ **Underlying Saturation**: Increase the saturation to suit your needs.\ **Bloom Intensity**: Increase the value to around 1.4.\ And under Caustic Properties, lower the value of **Caustic Intensity** to suit your needs.\ \ And the most important property to change is **Fog Distance,** decrease the value from 500 to 0.008 or 0.002 and adjust the **Under Water Fog Color** as per your requirements.
## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% hint style="success" %} If you want similar rain and water effects on the surface and assets as in the video below we recommend to use the Rain Fall tool together with the rain and water effects in the Material Edit tool. More information on that is available in the [Material Authoring page](/how-it-works/material-authoring). {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} 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. {% hint style="success" %} If you want similar snow effects on the surface and assets as in the video below we recommend to use the Rain Fall tool together with the snow effects in the Material Edit tool. More information on that is available in the [Material Authoring page](/how-it-works/material-authoring). {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} 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.

Leaf Properties

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:
{% embed url="" %} Falling leaves demo {% endembed %} ## 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. {% embed url="" fullWidth="false" %} # Procedural Mesh Tools Dash contains various tools which generate geometry: Road Tool, Terrain Tool, Cable Tool, etc... ## Baking These tools all generate an actor of type `DashPreviewMeshComponent`. This custom type allows us to have full control over the mesh generation performance & algorithms. The first thing to know about mesh-based tools is that a baking icon on the Tools Panel is always just a click away, and will delete tool attached to your mesh, then convert the dash mesh to a regular UE5 static mesh. There are many reasons why you may want to bake your Dash generated meshes: * Making them usable/visible on other computers that don't have Dash installed. * Using Nanite, vertex painting and other UE features. * Cleaning up your scene of tools you may not need anymore once you're done editing them.
Besides the baking feature in the Tools panel, you can also select the component of this mesh, and it'll have a button **Create Static Mesh** to convert it to a static mesh.
## Terrain Tool Creates a procedural mesh to be used as a ground - This terrain can be adjusted as you see fit with the easy-to-use controls within the Terrain Tool. For example, you can control the Height, Turbulence, and UV Scale, but you can also deform it with a height map or with splines. You can find the terrain tool by searching for it in Dash or by finding it in the Create menu. {% embed url="" %} ## Cable Tool Create procedural cables between splines, objects, or scattered on top of meshes - It comes with a bunch of different settings making sure you can create cables fully procedurally easier than ever before. Perfect for city environments or jungle environments in Unreal Engine 5. Of course, you get full control of the amount of cables, their size, their gravity, and much more! You can find the cable tool by searching in Dash or in the Create menu. {% embed url="" %} ## Vine Tool Create vines on the specified surfaces - This is perfect for any forest or overgrown environment as it lets you create procedural vines within 2 seconds on any surface or asset. As vines tend to have leaves on them, we have made it super easy to just CTRL drag and drop a leaf atlas from Dash's Content Library onto a surface and in 1 second you have vines with leaves attached spread throughout the asset/surface. You can then control the amount of growth, the sizes of the branches and the leaves, and much more. As easy as it can get! You can of course also open the Vine tool by searching in Dash. Then you can assign an origin (it can be an empty actor or a curve) and a surface you want the vines to grow on. The third way of opening it is by searching for Draw Vines in Dash, this opens our Draw Mode and once you draw a curve you will see we automatically create vines along this curve for you! You can exit this Draw Mode by clicking ESC or the STOP button. {% embed url="" %} ## Road Tool Creates a road/path mesh along the input curve/spline - If you ever have felt the need to have a procedural road in UE5, you will be happy to use this! Just draw a spline with Dash, assign it to the road tool, and voila, you have a road perfectly matching the shape of your spline. If you need it to align even more to your surface, you can find a Projection Mask under the Geometry section. Then, if you change the spline or the underlying surface, the road auto-adjusts. You can find the Road Tool by searching in Dash. And as always you can customize the road with the normal sliders and toggles, getting the perfect result for your environment. Pro-tip, after you have created a road, you can assign it as a proximity mask in Surface Scatter, making sure there are no grass etc on the road. {% embed url="" %} ## Quick Pipe Create mesh pipes along the input curves - If you think it is easy to draw splines just the way you would like to have pipes/cables, Quick Pipe is for you. Just assign one or several splines to the tool and you instantly get meshes created along the splines. These meshes are of course customizable with our normal sliders and toggles! You can find Quick Pipe by searching in Dash. {% embed url="" %} ## Draw Mesh If you need a mesh in a custom shape, our Draw Mesh tool lets you draw any shape and we create a basic mesh in this shape. You can open it through the Create Menu or by searching for it. Once started you will be in our Draw Mode and once you draw any shape, we will create a matching mesh for you. You can continue and create how many you like and then just exit the Draw Mode with ESC or the STOP button and delete the ones you don't like. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} Mesh Pattern Basic Setup {% endembed %} #### 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. {% embed url="" %} Mesh Pattern Presets Drop-Down {% endembed %} #### 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. {% hint style="info" %} When using a spline as a surface object, an implicit mesh is created, extruding the spline with the height determined from the Z scale of the asset objects used to create the pattern. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} Using Curves & Splines with Mesh Pattern {% endembed %} #### 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. {% embed url="" %} Mesh Pattern Settings Showcase {% endembed %} 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. {% embed url="" %} Mesh Pattern Slice Feature {% endembed %} {% hint style="warning" %} When you use the Slice feature of Mesh Pattern, we create new deformed meshes for this in the outlier. These meshes are special Dash meshes and thus need to be baked before shipping the game. Simply select the slice meshes and search for Bake Meshes in Dash to convert them to normal static meshes. \ \ Using the slice feature is a heavy process, so when it ain't needed, make sure to uncheck the Enable option to get the best possible performance of Mesh Pattern. {% endhint %} 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. {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="warning" %} When using the Projection feature of Mesh Pattern, you might need to use the flip toggle depending on whether your projection mesh is below or above the surface mesh. {% endhint %} #### 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. {% hint style="warning" %} Try and create the custom presets in the lowest Unreal version possible, as you can't use them in a lower Unreal version. {% endhint %} 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. {% hint style="warning" %} You need to place your custom assets at the 0.0 Z-location, otherwise they will float above your surface. You can try moving them up/down to control how far above your surface they will appear. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} Mesh Pattern Custom Preset Setup {% endembed %} {% hint style="warning" %} You will get the best results by only rotating the Pattern Objects by full 90-degree increments. {% endhint %} 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.

Red will be the scatter points, relative to the green area defined from the area actor

For example, you can see how my results are affected by adjustments to my area object or to my assets in relation to my area object. {% embed url="" %} 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. {% embed url="" %} Mesh Pattern Variation Example {% endembed %} 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. {% hint style="warning" %} If you don't see your pattern show up when selecting it, you may have gotten a LoadAsset error in the output log. To fix this, delete these newly added objects from the outlier and assign the custom preset again, and it will work as it should. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} Loading and Saving Custom Mesh Pattern Presets {% endembed %} #### Adjusting Pattern Materials 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. {% embed url="" %} ## FAQ
Can I edit the procedural mesh tools after closing them? Yes, you can of course continue editing the mesh tools in Dash as long as you haven't baked them or broken the tool connection. Open the Tools Panel with the Edit button in Dash and then just select your mesh. If this does not show your tool as expected, make sure that another tool is not pinned in the Tools Panel and also see if you can find the tool by opening the Active Tools List with the top left button in the Tools Panel.
Can I scatter or use other Dash tools on top of these mesh tools? If you for example have created a terrain with Dash, you can then scatter some grass on it with Surface Scatter and create and project a road with the road tool. If you then adjust the terrain again from the Tools Panel, both your scatter and your projected road will of course adjust accordingly.
# Physics Tools Dash features a set of physics tool that help you realistically place objects, from painting them with realtime collision to individually moving objects, and watching them push their way through. ## Physics Paint With the Physics Paint tool in Dash, you can easily paint one or several meshes and see them fall down naturally within a physics simulation. This is perfect for creating piles of debris and garbage or if you want rocks placed all around an environment in a realistic way. This tool creates an instance actor (HISM), which is optimal for performance. There's two ways to start it in Dash: 1. If you select assets in the Dash Content Browser, then hold CTRL and drag them onto the viewport, you'll be presented with a menu containing a "Physics Paint" option. Click on it, and your objects will now be used for the physics simulation. 2. Select one or multiples meshes in your scene, then in the Dash bar, go to Place -> Physics Paint. Once Physics Paint has been started, you only need to use your left mouse button to start painting assets wherever you like! {% embed url="" %} When you start the Physics Paint tool, the Dash bar shows a dedicated set of options to customize it: * **Collision** - This one is important, as it could be the case that your painted objects either float above the ground or fall right through your surface. If any of these cases happen, you need to select your surface in the UE outlier and then set its collision to Complex from within the Physics Paint Collision setting. Using the other option Simple is rarely needed. * **Clear** - This button deletes all the assets you have painted so far. * **Count** - This controls the amount of objects being painted. You can type in a value or slide it to the right and to the left. If you hold CTRL or SHIFT when sliding, you adjust it faster. * **Brush -** This controls the paintbrush size. You can type in a value or slide it to the right and to the left. If you hold CTRL or SHIFT when sliding, you adjust it faster. * Brush Mode * Paint - This is the default mode and the one that lets you paint new objects. * Erase - This mode lets you erase your painted objects. * Push - This mode makes the brush push away the objects as you move the brush * Pull - This mode makes the brush act as a magnet pulls the objects closer to the brush * Orientation Mode * **Realistic** - This is the default mode and here the objects fall down according to their own orientation. If they collide with other objects they can change rotation. * **Randomized** - In this mode the objects fall down with random rotations. * **Locked** - In this mode the objects fall down according to their own orientation. If they collide with other objects they remain in this orientation. ## Physics Drop With the Physics Drop tool in Dash, you can instead drop one or several meshes and see them fall down naturally within a physics simulation. This is perfect when you need to place one or a few objects very realistically. The result of a Physics Drop simulation is individual static meshes. But if you want to combine them together, select all of them in the Outlier and search for Merge in Dash. There exist two ways of starting the Physics Drop tool in Dash: 1. If you hold CTRL and drag and drop one or several assets from the Dash Content Browser you will see an option Physics Drop. This will start the Physics Drop simulation for these selected assets. 2. Select any meshes in your viewport and then in the Place menu in the Dash bar you can also find Physics Drop. Once Physics Drop starts you will see your meshes drop down to the surface realistically. {% embed url="" %} As with Physics Paint, this tool also has its own settings that show up on the Dash bar while it's running: * **Collision** - This one is important, as it could be the case that your dropped objects either float above the ground or fall right through your surface. If any of these cases happen, you need to select your surface in the UE outlier and then set its collision to Complex from within the Physics Drop Collision setting. Using the other option Simple is rarely needed. If some objects have already started falling beneath the surface, you can use the Select button and then press Reset to get them all back to their initial position. * **State** * Static - If you select any object in the Outlier and then set it to static in the Physics Drop settings you will make sure this object is not part of the physics simulation and will thus not drop down. * Dynamic - If you select any object in the Outlier and then set it to dynamic in the Physics Drop settings you will make sure this object is part of the physics simulation and will thus drop down. * **Duplicate -** Clicking the Duplicate button will duplicate all your selected assets. * **Select** - This button selects your originally dropped objects and your duplicates. * **Jitter** - This button will jitter around all your selected objects in the physics simulation. * **Reset** - This button resets the position of all selected objects in your Physics Simulation. # Workflow Enhancements
## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. {% embed url="" %} ## 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. If you want to animate any of the Dash-specific camera settings, you can find them in the UE details panel and add them to sequencer, just as you are used to. And if you want to control the focus settings, such as Focus Plane or Focus Tracking, you can toggle the "Control Camera from UE Details Panel" toggle at the top of the Dash camera tool. By doing this, you can now adjust the normal cine camera settings from the UE details panel, instead of the Dash Base properties. {% embed url="" %} ## 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) {% hint style="success" %} But if you prefer to use a standalone reference software, you should check out ours, FrameRef. \ \ FrameRef is a modern reference board for creative professionals, combining images, videos, and PDFs in one infinite canvas. \ \ Check it out here: {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %}
## Mesh Convex Hull Our Mesh Convex Hull tool has been improved extensively. Now it's incredibly easy to create a convex hull around your meshes or your instances to easily control the collision your players experience when they interact with your objects. Open the tool from the Dash search bar, assign one or several static meshes, or a scatter/physics instance, and then use the Compute Convex Hull button to generate your convex hulls. If the results are too small, have too few pieces or need any other adjustments, simply adjust the settings in the tool and hit the Compute button to re-generate the hulls. {% embed url="" %} ## Vertical Stacking This small but powerful tool lets you quickly generate stacks of objects on assigned root actors. You can define bottom meshes, middle meshes, and top meshes, then let Dash build varied stacks automatically. You also get controls for jitter, random removal, offsets, and more, making it great for creating believable piles and stacked assets in garages, storage rooms, warehouses, shelves, cluttered interiors, and similar environments. {% embed url="" %} ## Place in Grid / Circle Dash 1.12 adds two simple but handy placement actions: **Place in Grid** and **Place in Circle**. Select any number of meshes, run one of the actions, and Dash will organize them neatly in your level. It is a fast way to clean up selections, prepare assets, or create simple organized layouts directly in the viewport. {% embed url="" %} # Your First Environment Let's go through a comprehensive environment creation process using Dash. First, you can organize your references for the environment using the Dash Board. Open it by clicking on **Content** and then **Board** in the Dash bar, then just start dropping images in it, and move them around to neatly organize things.
Second, you can go to **Selection -> Export as PNG** to create an image out of your graph, then drag & drop that image onto the Dash assistant, and just ask it "How can I create this with Dash?".\ The assistant will help you figure out how to get the most out of Dash. Here's what we're suggested from the AI assistant: > Your image showcases various scenic paths through natural environments. To create a similar scene in Dash, you can follow these steps: > > * Use Create > Mesh Primitives > Create Plane to create the ground surface for your paths. > > * For the paths, utilize Create > Curve Tools > Draw Curve to outline where you want the paths to be. > > * Scatter vegetation or other assets along the paths using Scatter > Surface Scatter. Choose appropriate plants or grasses from the Content Browser. > > * To add details like trees or rocks, use Scatter > Path Scatter along your drawn curves. > > * Adjust the Density and Scale properties in the respective scatter tools to refine the look. > > * You can also add atmospheric effects like fog or clouds using Create > Common > Create Fog Card for added depth. > > Feel free to explore the Dash Content Browser for assets from Megascans or Polyhaven to enhance your scene! 🎉 To quick things off, let's create the terrain, and adjust its settings until it looks decent enough. Next, we'll open the Content Browser, ## Creating the Fauna ## Creating the Path ## Post Process & Polishing ## Some Notes # Free Content Browser Since version 1.9.0, the Dash Content Browser is available for free, for everyone, forever. {% hint style="success" %} To get a Free Dash license, download the normal Dash installer , then open the License Manager from the main Dash menu, and then you will find the option to start a free Dash license. {% endhint %} This free, limited Dash license gives you easy access to all the **Supported Libraries**, the **Tagging System**, and the **Centralized Asset Experience**. This means that for free, you can easily browse, search, and drag and drop all your assets in all your UE5 projects. \ \ *Currently, the supported asset libraries are:* * FAB * Quixel Bridge * Poly Haven * Amazon Berkley Objects * AmbientCG * The Base Mesh Library * The IES Library * Your own Project Assets * Dash Asset Marketplace * Dekogon Library * Sierra Library (One Free Pack) If you want more detailed info on the Content Browser, you can find it here: [Content Browser Basics](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser), if you want more info on the Centralized Asset Experience, you can find it here: [Centralized Asset Browser](/how-it-works/centralized-asset-browser), and if you want more info on the Dash Asset Marketplace, you can find it here: [Asset Marketplace](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser/asset-marketplace) .
Some important notes: * With a free Dash license, you won't be able to use any of the other tools in Dash, for example, [Easy Scattering](/how-it-works/scatter-masking-features), [Procedural Meshes](/how-it-works/mesh-based-tools), [Physics Tools](/how-it-works/physics-tools), or [Material / Atmospheric Tools](/how-it-works/material-authoring). * **✅ You can start a free license from the License Manager in Dash 1.9.0 or later. ✅** \ ( If you enjoy the paid tools in Dash, we really appreciate the support from a paid license as that is what helps us continuously improve Dash 🙏) * The AI Assistant Sophon is also included in the free version, so make sure to use that to get quick help on how the Content Browser works. In the video below, you will see a highlight of the Free Dash Content Browser, but as it is a few months old, it does not contain some of our newly added libraries. {% embed url="" %} # Dash Content Browser on FAB This page outlines everything that's included in the Dash - Advanced Asset Manager plugin that is available on the FAB marketplace. ## Getting Started To start using the Dash Content Browser FAB plugin, you need to follow these steps:
1. Add the plugin to your FAB library, install it to your engine, and enable it in your plugins settings. It's available right here: 2. Open it with the Dash icon in the middle of your Unreal toolbar. \ (A free license will be automatically generated in the backend) 3. Browse the supported libraries or add your own assets in the Project Library tab. 4. Drag & Drop any assets into your viewport! {% hint style="warning" %} If the Content Browser doesn't open when you press the Dash logo, you might see an error in the UE output log relating to this LogPython: Error: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PySide6'\ \ If this is the case, here are the steps to solve it: 1. Close UE 2. Open your Unreal Engine 5.7 installation path 3. Navigate to --> UE\_5.7/Engine/Plugins/Marketplace 4. Find the DashAdvaa... plugin folder 5. Delete the PolygonflowContentBrowserPlugin.uplugin 6. Download and place the fixed uplugin file from below into the DashAdvaa... folder 7. Open Unreal again, and now the Dash Content Browser will work {% endhint %} {% file src="/files/UjCvOXl6MpYl3vp1LPHk" %} Fixed uplugin file {% endfile %} ## Information [**Dash's asset manager**](https://www.fab.com/listings/865301e9-2d26-425d-8f3c-e0aadf35da61) **allows you to search and drag & drop all your local assets in any UE5 project. The plugin also comes with thousands of high-end PBR assets available completely for free.**
**The Content Browser integrates with the following asset libraries:** * *Megascans*: Assets you have downloaded via the FAB or Quixel Bridge Plugins * *Amazon Berkeley Objects*: 6,900 free real-world 3D models * *AmbientCG*: 2,300 free textures, HDRIs, and decals * *Poly Haven*: 1,900 free 3D assets, textures, and HDRIs * *The Base Mesh*: 1,400 free, clean, low-poly models * *The IES Library*: 1300 free, high-quality lighting information presets.\
**Key benefits of the Dash Asset Manager:** 1. Your own assets and integrated libraries are always ready to use in every Unreal Engine project. 2. Add search tags to your own assets to make them easier to find. Up to 1000 assets can be tagged per month. 3. Use the Smart Collection System to organize assets for individual workflows or team environments. If you want more detailed info on the Content Browser, you can find it here: [Content Browser Basics](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser). If you want more info on the Centralized Asset Experience, you can find it here: [Centralized Asset Browser](/how-it-works/centralized-asset-browser).
**Some important notes about using the Dash - Advanced Asset Manager Plugin from FAB:** * You won't be able to use any of the other tools in Dash, for example, [Easy Scattering](/how-it-works/scatter-masking-features), [Procedural Meshes](/how-it-works/mesh-based-tools), [Physics Tools](/how-it-works/physics-tools), or [Material / Atmospheric Tools](/how-it-works/material-authoring). * To use those and the rest of the Dash features, you need to download the full Dash plugin; more info available in our [Dash Getting Started Guide](/getting-started/quickstart). * You will not be able to use any atlases from the Content Browser or use the Sophon AI Assistant. * If you want access to these, you have the option to download the full Dash plugin and use a [free, limited license.](https://docs.polygonflow.io/advanced/free-content-browser) * You can't have the FAB version of Dash installed at the same time as the full Dash version from our website. In the video below, you will see a highlight of the Free Dash Content Browser, but as it is a few months old, it does not contain some of our newly added libraries. {% embed url="" %} ## ## FAQ
Which UE versions are supported? Right now, it is only available to Unreal Engine 5.7, but if we get requests for earlier versions of Unreal, we will try to add support for those!\ \ Let us know in our [Discord](http://polygonflow.io/discord)!
I don't see any assets in the FAB or Quixel (Old) libraries? If you don't see any assets in the FAB or Quixel (Old) libraries, you might need to look into the path settings in the preferences. (The gear icon in the top right corner of the Dash Content Browser) For more information, check this page: [Content Browser](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser#fab)
How do I show the asset names? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset names.
Can I view the asset's details before importing it? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset details. Once it's enabled, selecting on any given asset will show the you following properties about it: * Texture resolution. * Triangle count. * Asset scale. This is represented by a square with a character for reference, and hovering over that scale will display the width x height x depth scale.
Can I make the thumbnails bigger? Yes, hold CTRL with your mouse over the Content Browser's view, then use the scroll wheel to scale the thumbnails up or down.
Can I view the triangle count of an asset before importing it? Yes, if you click on the Content Browser's menu (dots icon, top right corner of the content browser), there's an option to view asset details, which will ensure that the triangle count of that asset is visible when you click on it.
How to use the Collections? The collection system is made to let you organize your assets in any way you like, regardless of asset library. You can simply drag and drop assets from any library into a collection and then use the collection as a filter.\ \ Full information is available here: [Content Browser](/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser#collections)
Can I edit an asset's tags? Yes, right-click on the asset, then select **Asset Details, or double click the asset**, and a panel will open up, showing all the asset's details, including a list of tags it has. You can then start typing in tags, then hitting enter to register them, or hover over them, and double-click on the X icon to the right of each tag to delete it.\ Once you're happy with your changes, hit the Save button at the bottom left.
Can I add or remove tags to multiple assets at once? Yes. Use SHIFT+Click or CTRL+Click to select multiple assets, right-click on any of them, then select **Batch Tag Edit**. This will open up a panel in which all the tags of all the assets are visible, and any new tag you add will get added to all of them. Any tag you remove will also get removed from all of them.\ Once you're happy with your changes, hit the Save button at the bottom left.
There's a specific asset I like; how do I view more assets similar to it? Right-click on it, then select **Find Similar**, and that should display all the assets that are similar to yours.
# Release Notes # Dash 1.12.0 Dash 1.12 focuses on lots of smaller, but important fixes across our existing tools. And, of course, this release also includes UE 5.8 support. ## [Download Dash 1.12.0](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) ## Cable Tool on Scatters + improved UI The Cable Tool now supports Dash Scatters as inputs. Use **Object Mode** to spawn cables between scattered objects, or switch to **Scatter Mode** to generate large amounts of cables across your scatters. All existing Cable Tool settings still apply, giving you plenty of control over the final result. We have also cleaned up the Cable Tool UI. Settings that are not relevant to the current mode are now hidden automatically, making the tool much easier to read, understand, and use. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Projection in Grid Scatter Grid Scatter now supports projection for 2D scatters. This means your grid-based scatters can conform to a surface, making it easy to place objects across uneven terrain, bumpy ground, or other non-flat surfaces while keeping the structure of a grid layout. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Vertical Stacking Dash 1.12 introduces a new tool, **Vertical Stacking**. This small but powerful tool lets you quickly generate stacks of objects on assigned root actors. You can define bottom meshes, middle meshes, and top meshes, then let Dash build varied stacks automatically. You also get controls for jitter, random removal, offsets, and more, making it great for creating believable piles and stacked assets in garages, storage rooms, warehouses, shelves, cluttered interiors, and similar environments. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Vine Tool on Scatters The Vine Tool can now grow across scattered objects. Simply assign your scatter as an additional surface in the Vine Tool, and vines can spread onto the scattered meshes. This makes it much easier to blend vegetation, clutter, and procedural scattering into one more natural result. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Scatter table - Dropdown list This is a small quality-of-life improvement, but a very useful one. When multiple meshes are assigned to a single slot in the Scatter Table, you can now open a dropdown list to see exactly which meshes are included. From there, you can select or delete individual meshes without having to rebuild the slot from scratch. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Place in Grid / Circle Dash 1.12 adds two simple but handy placement actions: **Place in Grid** and **Place in Circle**. Select any number of meshes, run one of the actions, and Dash will organize them neatly in your level. It is a fast way to clean up selections, prepare assets, or create simple organized layouts directly in the viewport. {% embed url="" %} ## Camera Tool V2 The Dash Camera Tool has been updated with two important improvements. You can now animate all custom Dash camera settings in Sequencer, making it much easier to build cinematic shots with Dash-specific controls. You can also unlock and use the standard Unreal Engine camera settings, including focus settings. This means you can create and adjust your Dash camera as usual, then enable the top toggle and fine-tune specific focus settings directly in the Unreal Engine Details panel. If you want additional information about the Dash camera tool, you can go to this page --> [Camera Tool Description](https://docs.polygonflow.io/how-it-works/misc-tools#camera-tool) {% embed url="" %} ## ## Debounce Execution Mode Dash has always focused heavily on performance, and Dash 1.12 adds a new execution mode designed to make heavier workflows feel smoother in the editor. By default, Dash uses **Runtime Execution Mode**, which means tools execute immediately whenever changes are made. This gives great real-time feedback, but in larger environments or with heavier tools, it can affect editor performance. The new **Debounce Execution Mode** waits until you stop making changes before executing the tool. By default, the delay is set to 100 ms, but you can adjust it in the Dash preferences. To improve editor performance, open Dash preferences from the main menu and switch to **Debounce Execution Mode**.

## Road Tool Better UI + Height Offset with Projection The Road Tool UI has been reorganized to make it easier to understand and faster to use. The most important settings are now shown at the top, so you can start building procedural roads more quickly without digging through every option first.
Dash 1.12 also adds **Height Offset** support when projecting roads onto a surface. You can find this in the **Shape Refining** settings, making it easier to fine-tune the final road placement and get the exact result you want. {% embed url="" %} ## Custom Location & Size of Dash Windows Dash now remembers the size and position of its windows. Before Dash 1.12, Dash windows would reset to their default size and location after restarting. Now, window sizes and locations are restored when you reopen your project, making your workspace feel more consistent between sessions.
## UE 5.8 Support Dash 1.12 adds support for **Unreal Engine 5.8**. Since UE 5.8 is still new, some issues may appear. If you run into any bugs, please let us know so we can investigate and fix them as quickly as possible.
## Fixes & Improvements * An empty tool can now be deleted * The projection mask and path smooth now work together in Path Scatter * The Ignore default mesh option in the vine tool now works * Update checker: it should work going from Dash 1.11 to 1.12 * Scaller Jitter fixed in Path Scatter * Fog card now uses the correct collision preset # Dash 1.11.0 Dash 1.11 introduces drawable presets, new presets and a faster, more flexible Content Browser. ## [Download Dash 1.11.0](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) ## Drawable Presets **Draw presets directly in the viewport, with full control over shape and scale.** Applicable presets can now be used by holding CTRL, dragging, and selecting Draw Preset. This lets you draw them anywhere, at any size or length. * **Surface Scatter presets**\ Draw an area, and Dash will automatically use any underlying surfaces as input for your Scatter. * **Curve-based presets** (Path Scatter, Cable Tool, Quick Pipe, Road Tool)\ Results follow your drawn curve and project onto the surface below your curve. * **Compound presets**\ You have full control over how the preset behaves when drawn. You can decide which parts follow the curve, which use the underlying surfaces, and which are ignored.
For example, a compound preset with Path Scatter cliffs and Surface Scatter grass can be set up so the cliffs follow the curve, while the grass fills the surfaces below. {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="success" %} You can quickly see which presets are drawable with a little icon in the top right corner of the preset thumbnail.\ \ For more information on how to create and use drawable presets, check our [Tool Presets](/getting-started/tool-presets) page. {% endhint %} ## New Built-in Presets We’ve added 18 new presets and updated many existing ones to support drawing at any size or length. Includes fences, forests, pathways, and more. Now there are in total 50+ included presets that you can use as is, or explore as inspiration for what is possible with Dash. {% embed url="" %} ## Instant Asset Access in the Project Library **Add your own assets to the Dash Content Browser instantly.**
As of Dash 1.11, we have added a compute option to the Project Library in the Dash Content Browser. You can now choose between: 1. Adding your own project assets with the default UE thumbnails **(super fast)** 2. Or use the previous method with custom thumbnails (slower, but better-looking thumbnails). This means you can access your assets immediately, without waiting for thumbnail rendering. \ AI search tagging is still optional, just like before. {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="info" %} Pro tip: Hide the folder tree (left panel) to significantly speed up thumbnail loading across all libraries. {% endhint %} ## Content Browser Filters Quick filters are now built into the search bar. Filter by asset type with a single click, for example: * Materials only * Meshes and Blueprints * Materials + Sand {% embed url="" %} ## Override Rotation in Surface & Grid Scatter In the previous version of Dash, we had a bug where the controls for Rotation Override were not visible; this is now fixed. So now you can check the Override Rotation setting and control the X, Y, and Z rotations independently. {% embed url="" %} ## Fixes & Improvements * Fixed crashes when entering fullscreen (F11) in Play Mode with the tools panel open * Fixed issue with certain Quixel and Poly Haven material resolutions not applying correctly * Fixed broken preference shortcuts in the Content Browser * Fixed occasional truncation of custom tool names * Fixed blurry FAB textures when looking at an angle * Various additional fixes and improvements # Dash 1.10.0 Build it once. Use it everywhere. **Dash 1.10 introduces reusable workflows.** With the new Preset System and Preset Library, you can turn any Dash setup into a reusable preset and instantly recreate it in any project. This update also re-worked the **Compounds**, letting you connect multiple Dash tools and control complex setups from a single interface. To help you get started faster, Dash 1.10 now includes **30+ built in presets** ready to use in your scenes, along with several improvements and fixes across Dash. ## [Download Dash 1.10.0](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) ## Compounds - Connected Tools **The Compound system has been redesigned to make complex Dash setups easier to control.** Compounds allow you to connect multiple Dash tools and control them from a single interface. Instead of adjusting several tools individually, you can expose only the key parameters that matter. For example, you might build a forest using several Surface Scatters and Path Scatters. With a Compound, you can combine them into a single **Forest tool,** turning a complex setup into one easy-to-control system. This makes large setups much easier to tweak, reuse, and manage. If you want to read more about the Compound System, you can check the [Getting Started Guide.](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/quickstart#compounds) {% embed url="" %} ## New Preset System **Dash now lets you turn any setup into a reusable preset.** When you create a Dash tool or a complex setup that looks good, you can save it as a preset and reuse it in any project later. Presets include tool settings, input meshes, and even entire Compound setups. This means you can build something once and recreate it instantly whenever you need it. For example, you might create a forest setup using several Surface Scatters and Path Scatters. By combining them into a Compound and saving it as a preset, Dash can recreate the entire forest setup instantly. {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="warning" %} In order for the presets to spawn the input meshes like scatter objects and surfaces, they have to exist in the exact same location in your project as they did when you created the preset. If they don't, the tools will still spawn but empty, so then you have to assign some input objects to the tools to see some actual results in the viewport. {% endhint %} ### Preset Library **Dash now includes a Preset Library directly inside the Dash Content Browser.** This makes it easy to browse, search, and organize all your presets in one place. When you find a preset you want to use, simply drag and drop it into your viewport and Dash will recreate the entire setup automatically. All presets you create will automatically appear in the library, making it easy to build your own reusable collection. {% embed url="" %} ### Built-in Presets **Dash now includes 30+ built-in presets to help you get started quickly.** These presets include both single tool setups and more advanced Compound setups that you can drop directly into your scene. Once placed, you can modify these presets, replace the meshes with your own assets, and save your own variations for future use. They are designed to be both useful starting points and examples of how Dash tools can be combined. {% embed url="" %} Huge thanks to Quaternius for creating and sharing some awesome CC0 assets that became perfect preset placeholder meshes. Check out all other Quaternius assets right here:\ [https://quaternius.com](https://quaternius.com/index.html)
If you want to read more about the Preset System, you can check the [Tool Preset page](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/tool-presets).
## Min/Max Scale in Physics Paint Our Physics Paint tool can now control the Min and Max Scale of the outputs. So now you can use Physics Paint on a rock, for example, and paint it with varied sizes, perfect for natural asset placement. {% embed url="" %} ## Actor Support in Path Scatter (Decals and Blueprints) Path Scatter now supports scattering normal Actors, for example, Decals and Blueprints. Assign your actors normally as scatter objects, and then just switch the Scatter Type to Actor instead of Instances. This will make sure the output/result of Path Scatter is individual actors instead of an instance (HISMs only support static meshes). You can, of course, also scatter actors directly from the Content Browser just as you are used to. While doing so from the Content Browser Path Scatter automatically switches to the new Actor mode. And as this is perfect for decals, for example tiretracks or **footprints**, we have also added a property called **Every Other Offset**, which you can use to offset the footprints decals and get a natural result. {% hint style="warning" %} Be aware that this is an experimental feature, so all the features and settings of Path Scatter may not work if you try to scatter actors. And the performance will be much worse if you scatter a lot of actors compared to instanced static meshes. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ## Use Rotation and Scale from Source - Path Scatter In Path Scatter, we also made the scatter result dependent on the scale and rotation of the input mesh. So this means that if you have a Path Scatter with three different input meshes, you can scale and rotate those three input meshes individually to control how they appear in the scatter result. This setting is enabled by default, but it can be disabled from the rotation properties. {% embed url="" %} ## Smaller New Features and Bug Fixes: * More Dash tools and menus now have icons to make it easier when using Dash. * Moved the origin container in Radial Scatter to the top to make it easier to use the tool. * The Tiling Y property that didn't work in 5.4 and above is now fixed. * Renaming of Quick Pipe tools now works. * The bug where an invert of the proximity mask in Surface Scatter was removed after a UE restart has now been fixed. * The issue with billboard/corrupt meshes being used when scattering FAB assets from the Content Browser has also been fixed. * And lots more! # Dash 1.9.3 This new update introduces the ability to buy single assets from high-quality creators directly in Dash, and we are happy to announce that Dekogon is the first seller. As a bonus, Sierra Division has also graciously added one of their asset packs for free ahead of them coming in as sellers in a future Dash version. This is yet another piece of our long-term vision that Dash should assist you all the way from reference photos, content discovery, and acquisition to building amazing worlds with this content. \ \ Of course, it would not be a Dash update without some new tools and a lot of fixes. Let's explore everything below!
## [Download Dash 1.9.3](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) ## Dash Asset Marketplace You can now find and get the asset you need for your project from our high-quality vendors! Starting with the full Dekogon library and a selection of free assets from Sierra Division. When searching for the right asset, if something is available from our vendors, you can get it and use it within seconds. The assets in the Dash Marketplace are, of course, already pre-tagged with search tags, so they are super easy to search among before or after your purchases. You can even use this new marketplace for free with the free Dash license option available in the Dash License Manager. More info --> [Free Dash License Info](/advanced/free-content-browser) {% embed url="" %} \ Found something perfect for your project, but not ready to buy it yet? Just add it to a collection so you can find it easily whenever you need it in the future. {% embed url="" %} The third-party assets available in the Dash marketplace can, of course, be used with all of the Dash tools. This also includes Material Edit, so it is super easy to customize the asset materials, including adding snow, dirt, and rain layers. {% embed url="" %} ## AmbientCG - Free Textures, Atlases, and HDRIs We are adding the **ambientCG** library directly into Dash’s Content Browser. This gives you access to a large collection of high-quality, CC0-licensed PBR materials, textures, atlases, and decals that you can use freely in any Unreal Engine 5 project. Everything is available inside Dash without any extra downloads or manual setup. The ambientCG collection covers a wide variety of surfaces, such as concrete, wood, stone, metal, fabric, and many more. It also contains useful detail atlases and decals that can add variation and realism to your environments. All assets are fully searchable inside the Content Browser, making it easy to find and test different surface types while working on your scene. Once you have used a texture, you can edit it like any other asset in Dash. Use **Material Edit** to refine the look or mix materials with **Blend Material**. The atlases and decals can be used across any Dash workflow and combine well with scattering, blending, and other procedural tools. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Individual Size Control - Surface Scatter We have now made it possible to vary the sizes of individual objects inside one Surface Scatter. So let's say you scatter three rocks in a Surface Scatter. Now, from the Scatter table, you can control the Density Offset and also the Scale Offset for all three of your rocks. Removing the need for using several Surface Scatters. {% embed url="" %}
## Mesh Convex Hull Our Mesh Convex Hull tool has been improved extensively. Now it's incredibly easy to create a convex hull around your meshes or your instances to easily control the collision your players experience when they interact with your objects. Open the tool from the Dash search bar, assign one or several static meshes, or a scatter/physics instance, and then use the Compute Convex Hull button to generate your convex hulls. If the results are too small, have too few pieces, or need any other adjustments, adjust the settings in the tool and hit the Compute button to re-generate the hulls. {% embed url="" %} ## Smaller new features and bug fixes: * Dash now also supports Unreal Engine 5.7.1. * A previous bug with saving when working in world partition levels has now been solved. * FAB decals now work again in UE 5.4 and upwards. * A general FAB import error has also been fixed. * A bug where you could not use the Create Alpha Cards from the Dash menu has been fixed. * When assigning several meshes in Grid Scatter, Radial Scatter, etc, one mesh was previously not used. Now all assigned meshes are used as intended. * And lots more! # Dash 1.9.2 Dash 1.9.2 is here, and it’s packed with exciting new features! This update introduces three powerful new tools, with the highlight being **Mesh Pattern,** a tool that lets you create tileable patterns from any assets, perfect for man-made surfaces. We’re also expanding the atmospheric toolset with brand-new **Rain** and **Snow** tools. In the Content Browser, we’re finally adding two awesome (and free!) new libraries containing thousands of high-end, completely free PBR assets. And of course, there are plenty of smaller new features and important bug fixes. Keep reading to discover everything new in **Dash 1.9.2**!
## [Download Dash 1.9.2](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) ## Mesh Pattern We are excited to introduce **Mesh Pattern**, a completely new tool for creating procedural, tileable patterns. You can use the included presets or design your own with custom assets, making it perfect for roofs, walls, floors, or any other man-made surface that needs more depth and detail than a simple material. Mesh Pattern comes with a variety of presets, such as Brick, Basket Weave, Chevrons, Herringbone, Worn Down Floor, and Hollow Bricks. If none of these fit your project, you can easily design your own pattern, save it, and reuse it as a custom preset in the future. As with other Dash tools, Mesh Pattern is fully procedural, giving you full control to adjust presets to your environment with settings for scale, angle, padding, and proximity mask. {% hint style="success" %} For full information on the Mesh Pattern tool, check this dedicated page: [#mesh-pattern](#mesh-pattern "mention") {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ## Amazon Berkeley Objects (ABO) - Free 3D Models We’ve integrated the **Amazon Berkeley Objects Library** directly into Dash’s Content Browser. You now have access to a huge collection of high-quality, real-world 3D models, completely free, right inside Dash. You can easily search or scroll through these assets in any Unreal project, and when you drag and drop them into your environment, Dash automatically handles the download and importing for you. The ABO library includes a wide variety of everyday objects, from kitchenware like mugs, plates, and bowls, to furniture such as chairs, to electronics, office supplies, and even accessories like shoes and backpacks. Since the library is natively integrated in Dash, all assets come with search tags to make them incredibly easy to find. You can also adjust their materials with the Material Edit tool, and of course scatter them or drop them with physics directly from the Content Browser, just as you are used to. {% embed url="" %} ## The Base Mesh Library - Free 3D Base Meshes Alongside ABO, we are also bringing in the **Base Mesh Library**, now available directly inside Dash’s Content Browser. This library provides a wide range of clean, low-poly models that are ideal for blocking out scenes, testing ideas, or using as a foundation for more detailed work, all available for free. Once inside your Unreal project, you can drag and drop any of these meshes straight into the scene, with Dash taking care of the download and import process automatically. Each model is tagged for easy searching, and, as with any other asset in Dash, you can quickly place them with scattering and physics-based placement. {% embed url="" %} ## Rain Fall Tool The 1.9.2 update introduces a brand-new **Rain Fall** tool. 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 this tool either by search or in the Create menu on the Dash bar. The video below highlights some of its features in action. {% hint style="success" %} For full information on the Rain Fall tool, check this dedicated page: /l [Workflow Enhancements](/how-it-works/misc-tools#rain-fall) {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} Rain fall {% endembed %} ## Snow Fall Tool The 1.9.2 update also brings **Snowfall**, 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, Snowfall adapts to your scene with just a few tweaks. The video below gives a preview of it in action. {% hint style="success" %} For full information on the Snow Fall tool, check this dedicated page: [Workflow Enhancements](/how-it-works/misc-tools#snow-fall) {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} ## Draw Spline Tool (With Tangents) We added a new Draw Spline tool to allow you to interactively draw and edit splines with tangents. Very useful for those cases where you want detailed control of your splines. \ When you draw, you can "project" the tangent just by pressing Shift, and edit any previous point by just clicking on it. {% embed url="" %} ## ## Slider Intensity Controls We have now also added a uniform intensity control for all the sliders in Dash. This means when adjusting the density, for example, you can hold CTRL, SHIFT, or ALT to decrease the slider intensity. Making it much easier to get precise control of the settings without having to type in values. The logic is the following: \ CTRL = 0.5 speed, SHIFT = 0.25 speed, and ALT = 0.1 speed. When holding any of these keys while sliding, you will also see the intensity adjustment visible on the slider.
## ## Multi-Asset Selection in Content Browser We now support normal multi-select behavior in the Dash Content Browser. This means that from Dash 1.9.2, you should hold CTRL to select multiple individual assets, or hold SHIFT to select all assets between your first and second selection. You can also press CTRL+A to select all the visible assets, or use the keyboard arrows to move the selection. Batch editing tags, or adding assets to a collection in bulk, is now as intuitive as you wanted it to be. ## Smaller new features and bug fixes: * You can now adjust the tiling of each individual layer within our Blend Material tool. * Our Advanced Water now supports Path Tracer. * If you have your project under version control, you can tell Dash that the content initialized under Your Project / Polygonflow doesn't need to be checked automatically. Toggle off "Skip Resources Acquisition" if you have the polygonflow content managed from an external tool. * Fixed bug with IES library sometimes not loading * Fixed an issue on Fab library, caused by recent online changes, that prevented Dash from detecting the asset type * Fixed visual artifacts in the Content Browser that left some item borders partially drawn when moving the mouse over * When using the "Move Tool", you can now exit from it directly from the Dash bar, other than with the usual Enter or Esc keys * A bug related to changing the UI scale of Dash through the preferences has now been solved * Our [Select Asset feature](https://docs.polygonflow.io/advanced/release-notes/dash-1.9.0#multi-asset-picker) is now included in the Free Dash version * Two bugs in Decal Scatter have been fixed. One major one and one related to scaling. * Our tri-planar material now works with Megascans surfaces from FAB as well. * The curves from the Draw Curve tool are now named dash\_curve in the outlier, and the default name can be adjusted from the Dash preferences. * Our tiling breakup feature has been improved to avoid visible artefacts, making the results much better looking. # Dash 1.9.0 This new update is focused on the Content Browser in Dash but also comes with a new water and falling leaves system, along with an RVT workflow! The Content Browser gets a few new features like a Collection System, Fuzzy Search, and Multi-Asset Picker, but of course, also important improvements, especially to the Compute/AI Tagging process. All in all, Dash 1.9.0 will make your asset management experience a lot better!
## [Download Dash 1.9.1](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) (Please Uninstall First) {% hint style="warning" %} ## Uninstall Previous Dash Version (You will not lose any work you have created with Dash) 1. Search for "Uninstall Dash" in Windows Search 2. Run the Uninstall Dash exe 3. Install new Dash version {% endhint %} {% hint style="success" %} As of June 5th, 2025, we have also shipped a small hotfix, Dash 1.9.1, that includes Unreal Engine 5.6 support along with some small bug fixes. {% endhint %} ## THE CONTENT BROWSER IN DASH IS NOW FREE We know many users have enjoyed using the Content Browser in Dash, and we've long wanted to offer a free version of Dash. With version 1.9.0, we’re making it happen, the Dash Content Browser is now free for everyone!\ \ This means that you will have easy access to Megascans, FAB, Poly Haven, and IES assets, but of course, the Tagging System and the Centralized Asset Experience are also included. This means that for free, you can easily browse, search, and drag and drop in all your assets, in all your UE5 projects. {% hint style="success" %} If you want more info on this new Free Dash License, check this page: [Free Content Browser](/advanced/free-content-browser) {% endhint %} ## Collection System and Tags **Organize Your Library** Organize your assets in any way you like with Collections, a new way to find and store the asset data inside the Dash Content Browser.\ Keep the collections for yourself or share them with your team, to let everyone know the best assets for the next project you will be working on. {% hint style="info" %} Full information on this new collection system can be found here: [Collections in Dash Content Browser](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser#collections) {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} **Improved Asset Details** Display the details of the asset with a simple double click, see the most relevant asset information, and edit the tags all in one window. {% embed url="" %} ## Improved Search * #### Semantic/AI Search Find objects that have semantically similar names. If you have one asset named apple and another one named pear, you will see both of them if you search for fruit.
* **Fuzzy Search** Your spelling now does not matter as much, you can now find assets even with misspelled search words.
* **Score-Based Search Results**\ The more an asset matches your search, the higher it will be displayed in the search result.\ Best matches at the top, and less likely matches at the bottom, so you can see first what
* **Boolean Search** You can now add or remove terms from the search with + and - operators. For example, searching for "Forest -Rocks" will give you all the forest-related assets but exclude all your rocks. Another example could be "Flowers +Bushes" {% embed url="" %} Finding the assets you need is now even more flexible and powerful {% endembed %} ## Shader Updates With version 1.9 we are bringing some nice new shaders to Dash. \ Some of these are highly requested by you guys. Here's what's new:
#### **Advanced Water Shader** This is a revamped water shader. For quite some time our users requested a water shader that comes with some waves and underwater effects. Now it's all there! \ 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. {% embed url="" %} Water creation with Dash {% endembed %} Playing with some properties to get some nice waves: In the Tools Panel, you can tweak the values of the properties to get the best result for your project. {% embed url="" %} Water properties showcase {% endembed %} Another cool thing we added to our new water system is the ability to go underwater and have the feeling of being actually under a body of water. Likewise, these settings can be tweaked as required from the Tools Panel. {% hint style="info" %} For a better underwater fog effect, a small value like 0.008 and below would be ideal. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} #### **Falling Leaves** When creating a forest/park or an urban street, we usually want to add some leaves falling in a certain direction. 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. {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="info" %} Full information on the new water system and falling leaves can be found here: [Water and Leaves info](/how-it-works/misc-tools) {% endhint %} #### **Runtime Virtual Texture** With Dash 1.9, we are introducing our first Runtime Virtual Texture (RVT) workflow.\ Here's how you can enable it; Select your mesh or terrain. Make sure it's Baked into a Static Mesh, then go to the Dash search bar and run the RVT action. Now all you need to do is open Material Edit for your assets that are placed on the RVT-enabled surface and enable "Virtual Texture". {% hint style="info" %} Make Sure **Enable virtual texture support** is checked in your project settings {% endhint %} {% hint style="info" %} It works best on Dash terrains or UE Landscapes. If you want to use it on a flat surface, like a plane, you need to select the plane and an asset on the plane and then run the RVT command, instead of running the RVT command on only the surface. {% endhint %} {% embed url="" %} RVT workflow {% endembed %} For our Blend Material workflow with RVT, when changing the Weight and adding grass or another layer of texture. In order for the changes to take effect, select an asset in the scene, then select Edit Material in the Tools Panel, and your changes will appear as you change from the Blend Material.\ Video demo below for more details. {% embed url="" %} Updating RVT for BlendMaterial {% endembed %} {% hint style="info" %} More information about using RVT in Dash can be found here: [RVT Documentation](https://docs.polygonflow.io/how-it-works/material-authoring#runtime-virtual-textures-rvt) {% endhint %} ## Improved Project Library We have listened to your feedback, and the Project Library is now more efficient, easier to use and to share with your team. This is just the first stage of a long-term plan that will make the Dash content browser the only browser you need to manage your assets. * **Tagging Performance**\ The Tagging and Compute process has been optimized and improved so now, especially for big Unreal Projects, it should work much better and faster! ⚡️ Please try it out and let us know how it goes!
* #### Blueprint Support Now if you have *blueprints with meshes inside*, you can have them browsable, searchable, and useable from the Current Project Tab in the Dash Content Browser!
* **Easier Managing and Sharing of Projects** * New storage of Dash metadata is now directly within the Unreal project, making it as easy as sharing your project to see all the Dash content library data for any member of your team. * Streamline the experience with external projects by adding or removing them directly from the Content Browser menu on the right side.
* **Materials Enabled by Default** As requested by many of you, materials tagging is now an opt-out feature.
* **Quality of life requests** * You can toggle a different color for folders without computed assets inside the project library. * You can right-click and re-compute a folder of assets, or recompute any invalid asset inside the folder * You can opt-out from the popup asking you if you want to proceed to compute tags {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="info" %} More information can be found here: [Organizing and using your custom assets in Dash](https://docs.polygonflow.io/getting-started/user-interface/content-browser#current-project-organizing-your-custom-assets) {% endhint %} ## Multi-Asset Picker You can now pick interactively the variation on assets with multiple meshes. \ Hold CTRL when dropping your asset in the scene, and choose Select Asset. \ A floating UI will appear that makes it very easy to iterate on the available asset variations and pick the one you are looking for! {% embed url="" %} ## Quick Asset Search You can now search for assets directly from the Dash bar to have one or more small views of the search result. Just type "Find rocks" or "Find grass", and a new mini-version of the Content Browser will open where you can see all your rocks or all your grass assets. {% embed url="" %} Keep multiple floating searches open will help your iterations while looking for the right asset for your scene {% endembed %} ## New Metadata Location (My previous computed/tagged assets are gone) While making the project library more efficient and easier to share, some previously computed data might not be found automatically for everyone. **But don't worry, it is not gone!** \ If your previous data can't be automatically detected, you can set the right folder manually in the Dash preferences with the Metadata Path. If you don't know your old path, you can find it by: 1. Scroll to the bottom of the Dash preferences and find the Advanced section. 2. Click Open Data Location 3. In the folder that opens, search for your project name, and the search result should give you back a folder named after your project. 1. If you don't find the right folder here, you must have used another location before, and then you need to search for your project name throughout your PC. 4. Right click on the folder once you have found it and click "Open folder location" 5. Then open that folder and copy the full path, including the project name. 6. Paste that path into the Metadata Path in the Dash preferences. {% embed url="" %} Now that you have your metadata data back, you can decide to keep it where it is, or use the "Move Metadata To Unreal Project" button to place the Dash library metadata within the root of your Unreal project. This is the new preferred location that makes it easier to associate the library data with the unreal project, and every new project where you create tags with Dash, it will have this location. ## Smaller new features and bug fixes: * You can now zoom in and out in the folder/tree view on the left side of the Content Browser. Simply hold CTRL and use the mouse scroll wheel. * You can zoom in and out in the asset view in the Content Browser by holding CTRL and using the scroll wheel, or by holding the middle mouse button and moving the mouse left and right. * Python environment installs much faster: We have dramatically improved the dependencies installation at the end of the installer. * You can now use CTRL-Z on some Dash changes. If you have adjusted a value or a slider in a Dash tool you can now undo that change. Important to note, it only works if you haven't clicked anywhere outside of said Dash tool. * From the Dash preferences you can enable local compute which basically means that when you compute/tag your assets it happens in the current Unreal Instance, instead of happening in a background instance of Unreal. This makes the process go faster, but it more or less freezes your current Unreal instance until it is done. # Dash 1.8.5 (Official) This new update focuses on Fab support in Dash and brings along the way a couple of small and major features that improve your world-building process. From simple incremental rotations that make structures like parked cars easier to create, to more advanced systems like the new data table properties, we've squeezed in a bunch of things ahead of 1.9, and hope you enjoy! {% hint style="info" %} As of the 10th of February we have shipped a small hotfix, Dash 1.8.6. It contains 4 small bug fixes, the biggest being related to baking several scatters. {% endhint %} ## [Download Dash 1.8.6](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) ## FAB Support: Easy Access to Your New Assets Starting from Dash 1.8.5, when you download assets from the FAB plugin, these assets will now be added to the new FAB view in the Dash Content Browser. This means you can use the FAB assets as easily as you have previously used Megascans assets from the Bridge plugin. Fab doesn't actually copy the assets in your project and instead seems to store some cached version. If you drag & drop the assets from Dash's content browser, this isn't an issue: We load the assets in your project, and everything runs smoothly from there. This new feature supports Megascans assets and the FBX and GLT format for other free and paid assets inside the FAB plugin. Important to note though, that it is also dependent on how the creator has shipped their assets, so some FBX/GLT assets may not show up in the new FAB view anyhow. For the Megascans assets, you will have access to our Material Edit and Blend Material tools as you are used to when using Megascans assets from the Bridge Plugin. These tools do not support the other FAB assets right now though. This integration is in its infancy and will be further refined in 1.9. Long term, our goal is to ensure that world-building remains a fun, fast, and efficient process, regardless of your assets' origins.
{% embed url="" %} Worth pointing out that in order to get Displacement/Tesselation working properly with the Megascans assets from FAB, you need to download the materials in High Quality as they don't ship normal Displacement maps as they did through the Bridge Plugin. Also, if you want to easily use the Megascans Atlases, you still need to grab them from the standalone Bridge Software as they right now aren't available in the FAB plugin. ## Data Tables: Complex Environments, the Easy Way Dash features an extensive feature set that could greatly benefit from layering as many effects as you want, from stacking as many proximity masks as you want to deforming your terrain with multiple curves and much, much more. This is now possible with Data Tables. {% embed url="" %} The idea is fairly simple: You click on **Edit Table** in the tool you're using, then hit the + icon, and start adjusting the properties as you see fit. You can hit that + icon again to create another layer, and continue doing that as many times as you want. This is an experimental feature, and right now we've made it work for the following features: * Proximity Masking: You can have an unlimited amount of objects used as masks, each having their own distance and other logic. * Landscape Layer Masking: Specify the name of a landscape layer, like "grass" or "cliff", and scale that to 1 or 100 layers if needed. * Noise Mask: Layer multiple noises as your scatter masks, with each entry having its own frequency, scale, etc... * Terrain Curves: Deform your terrain with curves, and use data tables to have different curves with different deformation behavior for each. In the next release, we'll make this feature available to a lot more systems in Dash. We're also going to further tweak the design of this new data tables panel. With the right ease of use and workflows, this will usher novel workflows in Dash unlike anything we've had before.
## Materials Workflow Documentation Dash comes with a set of intuitive base materials and an extensive blend material that's ideal for world building. We've added an extensive documentation that helps you get the most out of it, from basic setup to UE5-specific configurations like Nanite tessellation, and much more. [**Visit Material Authoring Documentation**](/how-it-works/material-authoring) ## Mesh-Based Tools Documentation As you may know already, Dash has a few procedural mesh creation tools, such as the Terrain Tool, the Road Tool, The Vine Tool, etc. Now we have created a small page here in the documentation that shows off the basics of them! [**Visit Mesh-Based Tools Documentation**](/how-it-works/mesh-based-tools) ## Physics Tools Documentation Our Physics tools are now also finally included in our documentation! So check that new page to learn the basics of them! [**Visit Physics Tools Documentation**](/how-it-works/physics-tools) ## Sophon: Revamped AI Assistant In 1.8 we shipped a neat little AI assistant, and the reception around it has been amazing.\ In this update we've given it the name Sophon, and made it drastically more accurate. It can also suggest actions to directly call tools/features of Dash and is much, much better at linking you to the right documentation sections in case you want to read more. Long-form conversations are also possible, which means you can have one session that discusses a workflow in multiple back-and-forth messages.
## Proximity Width Proximity masking in our scatter tools is perhaps the most appreciated feature of our ecosystem, and this new feature makes it easier than ever to create strips of scattered objects, without having to juggle between multiple proximity masks or references.\ This feature is available in Surface Scatter, Path Scatter, Decal Scatter and Grid Scatter. {% embed url="" %} ## Terrain Deformation: Curves & Height Maps Dash has a terrain creation workflow that gives you a mesh, and so far it has been limited to basic noise patterns. With this update, you can now deform your terrain with as many curves as you want, with falloff and tapering features that make it easy to sculpt landscapes with ease.\ We've also added an experimental height map support, and will expand on it further in 1.9. {% embed url="" %} {% embed url="" %} ## Texture Repetition Breakup As texture repetition is something that many people struggle with we wanted to include an easy way to fix this in Dash and from Dash 1.8.5 it is added to our Material Edit and Blend Material tools.\ Simply turn on the "Enable BreakUp Tiling" option and see the repetition disappear. If needed you can control the breakup with a few parameters. This is the very first iteration of this feature so bare with us if it has some bugs or limitations. {% embed url="" %} ## Incremental Spin Being able to create ordered rotations is a crucial part of world building, whether it's constraining cars in a parking lot to specific rotation increments, or simply having a broader scatter setup obey more consistent orientation rules. We introduce in Dash 1.8.5 exactly that: The ability to orient objects towards specific values, and keeping those values in order or randomized.\ As an example, you could write "0 90" in the property, and we'll pick one of those values and assign it to each scatter object. If sorting is checked, we'll assigning them in an ordered fashion, which is particularly useful when relying on tools like Grid Scatter. This feature is available in Surface Scatter, Decal Scatter and Grid Scatter. Path Scatter already has an extensive orientation workflow, hence why this feature isn't there. {% embed url="" %} ## Simplified Baking Workflow "Baking" is the term we use for converting instances into individual static meshes, or custom Dash meshes into native UE5 static meshes. In this update, we've simplified the workflow to make it easy to bake the instances or geometry of any tool, all just a click away.
## Smaller new features and bug fixes: * IMPORTANT CHANGE: When installing Dash 1.8.5 and above, as a last step in the installation process, after you have closed the installer, you **may** see one or more command/console windows, please let them finish their process and let them close by themselves. This is an important step to installing Dash properly. * Surface Scatter Density: The previous Density Mode selection has now been removed and the Density is now always in Global Mode. This means you can and probably need to increase the value above 1. The default max slider value is 5, but if you need a higher value you can just type in your preferred density value. * You can now adjust the Dash Physics collision settings from within the Physics Painter tool, no need to switch to the Physics Drop tool anymore. Just select an object in the Outlier and then set the Collision setting to complex from the Physics Paint menu bar. * Physics Drop, Physics Paint, and Draw Curve is no longer is affected by UE volumes and regions. So now you should not get weird physics or curve results in scenes that have PCG volumes or World Partition regions etc etc. * The bug where Physics Paint controls only worked one time after UE restart is now solved. You can now adjust all the settings in Physics Paint as intended. * The names of the tools in the Dash Tools Panel are now aligned with the name of the tool in the UE outlier to make sure it is easier to keep track of the tools. * In our Blend Material and Edit Material tools you can now control the X Tiling and Y Tiling. # Dash 1.8.0 We have worked hard to make sure Dash 1.8 improves the world-building process even more than previous versions but what is even more important is that now, Dash is easier to use and get started with! ## [Download Dash 1.8.0](https://www.polygonflow.io/download-latest-dash) {% embed url="" %} The main new features are our new UI, a proper documentation page, and an integrated AI assistant in Dash that will help you with all the common questions. But, let's dig into each change of Dash 1.8:
## NEW USER INTERFACE This update features a revamped UI that splits all your favorite features into distinct menus, and organizes everything in a clean and accessible way. As soon as you use a feature from the menus, a recent icon will show up, from which you can access your recent menu action calls. You can also set to favorite any action. {% embed url="" %} ## TOOLS PANEL Dash has had a longstanding problem of too many floating panels for all your tools. No more! This new unified panel contains all your tools and switches anytime you select their results. You can pin tools, detach them, scroll among the active ones, rename them, etc... {% embed url="" %} ## REVAMPED PATH-BASED TOOLS Road Tool, Quick Pipe, Decal Scatter, and Path Scatter have been revamped from the ground up to make it easier than ever to realistic roads, caves, beaten paths, and any other curve-based shape you can think of. {% embed url="" %} One really cool new feature in the road tool is its Noise Features which can help you to easily create more than just flat roads. Combining it with our Path Width feature you can create realistic paths like the one below.
## BLEND MATERIAL We've extended this material to add rain & snow support, and also did an overhaul on its blending behavior, making it one of (*if not*) the best blend material you've ever tried. {% embed url="" %} ## SURFACE SCATTER * Pivot Mode is a new dropdown that allows you to use the object's top, center or bottom as the pivot. * Directional Masking: Got a sunlight in your scene? Want to use its direction and cast shadows as a mask? We got you. * Scale Influence: You can now use any object in your scene to drive the scale of your scatter based on a distance value. {% embed url="" %} ## WORLD-CLASS DOCUMENTATION Dash now has an extensive documentation that goes above and beyond to teach you its capabilities. It's still WIP, and will be one of the best you've ever read by the time it's complete. {% embed url="" %} ## AI ASSISTANT This little friend sits right on the Dash bar. You can ask it any question, from how do I scatter, to drag & dropping an image and asking it how you can use Dash to help you create it, or even giving it a WIP and asking for feedback. Like most things AI, it can occasionally make mistakes, and unlike most things AI, your questions/images are NEVER used for training! {% embed url="" %} ## DASH BOARD TOOL This update features a beta of our new Dash board, which is a reference image organization tool similar to Miro and PureRef. It sits right inside UE5, allows you to organize your thoughts cleanly, and will soon also make it easy to browse assets based on what an image contains, give you a list of all the tools needed to make an image, draw, etc... {% embed url="" %} ## REVAMPED AI TAGGING We've doubled all tagging quotas, made it possible to compute assets without AI tagging them, exposed the ability to use your own OpenAI API key and your own URL Proxy, and improved the quality of the tagging. {% embed url="" %} ## BONUS STUFF * **Compound Tool:** With this new tool, you will be able to add properties from several tools, meaning it will be easier to control complex setups that consist of several Dash tools. For example a fully procedural forest road. * **Unreal Engine 5.5 Preview**: Dash 1.8 supports UE 5.5 preview and as soon as UE 5.5 goes out of preview we will ship a hotfix for Dash 1.8 that gives support for official UE 5.5 as well. * **Windows Insider Preview:** We **might** have fixed this issue, but it hasn't been tested yet, so if you are on Windows Insider Preview build, please give it a try, and let us know how it goes! :) * **Bug Fixes:** We have of course also fixed a lot of bugs so Dash 1.8 should be even more stable than previous versions. If you find bugs or have any other feedback/questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us in our [Discord](https://www.polygonflow.io/discord)! # Dash 1.7.0 [**Download Dash 1.7.0**](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T4Wq4uyYU3thecL65Mlip1eRDz2imaze/view?usp=drive_link) **-** [**Visit Home Page**](https://www.polygonflow.io/) **-** [**Release Video**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T_VQQK6OU) {% embed url="" %} > **TL;DR:** Dash 1.7.0 is a significant update designed to enhance productivity with new tools and features. This release includes a new vines creation tool, improved property references, and a faster, more accurate AI tagging solution. Additionally, it introduces simplified workflows such as atlas texture conversion from megascans.se. > > * New vines creation tool for generating vines on surfaces with ease. > * Enhanced property references for better asset management. > * Upgraded AI tagging solution for quicker and more accurate tagging. > * Drag & drop atlas texture conversion from megascans.se. > * Improved workflow and productivity tools. This is a fairly major release and introduces new tools such as the vines tool, and features like property references and many other to increase your productivity tenfold. Additionally, we’ve revamped our AI tagging solution to give you more accurate tags, at a much faster rate. Let’s dig into all that! ## Vines Creation Tool You’ve been asking for it, and here it is! The workflow is simple: select a surface you want the vines to grow on, and an actor to serve as your origin, and watch the magic happen. Want something even simpler? Download Atlases from the [megascans.se](http://megascans.se) website, and drag & drop them from the Dash Content Browser onto an object, which will automatically convert the atlas texture to mesh cards, then scatter them nice and dandy like leaves on branches. Pure. Magic. {% embed url="" %} ## AI Tagging with GPT4 Our current tagging solution has been used to tag over 500,000 assets, which is a great feat! We’ve been looking for ways to improve it, but like most open source models, found that it’s fairly limited in quality and speed, especially when you don’t want to download tens of GBs on the user’s computer. And so we bit the bullet and started using GPT4o as our main asset tagging solution. It’s fast, incredibly fast. And the quality is state of the art. We’re on an enterprise plan, which guarantees you that none of your data ever gets trained on by OpenAI, and we of course don’t use any of your data for training either. We’re introducing a cap on how many assets you can tag per month, and it’s currently sitting at 800/month for students, 2000 for professionals, and 10000/month for studios. We’ll be adjusting the cap organically in the coming weeks until we feel that it hits the right spot. {% embed url="" %} ## Reference Properties Sometimes, you’ll have an environment full of Dash tools: some grass scattered with the tool Surface Scatter, a road made with Road Tool, wooden posts along the road with Path Scatter, decals to blend the road and the ground with Decal Scatter, etc… The new Reference system will help you control properties from all your tools in a unified way. Got a specific width for your path? Just create a reference property for that, and use it to drive the entire environment. References replaces our old variables system, which was useful but too limited. {% embed url="" %} ## IES Profiles Library IES are small files that describe how light is distributed from a lamp. Luckily for us, there are websites like [ieslibrary.com](http://ieslibrary.com/) that share almost every IES profile you can think of, and lucky for you, all of this is now accessible right inside Dash! {% embed url="" %} ## Image to Grading Got an image? Like its grading? Just drag & drop it onto the Dash bar, and we’ll give you its grading. As simple as it gets. Works with local images and online URLs! {% embed url="" %} ## Fog Cards 2.0 We’ve revamped our fog cards from the ground up, and they now feature much better lighting interaction, animation, density control, and everything else you need to give your scene some character. These are truly the best fog cards you’ve ever tried. We’ll be shipping rain, snow, dust, wind and many other atmospheric effects in the near future, stay tuned! {% embed url="" %} ## Blend Material You’re gonna love this new blend material: Select 3 surfaces in the Dash Content Browser, drag and drop them onto a surface, and with CTRL held, click “Create Blend Material”. This will create a new blend material that uses height map, vertex color (for non-Nanite meshes) and noise as its blending options. Your selected surfaces will be used in their order to drive the blend layers order, so keep that in mind! You also have full control over every single layer, from basic color controls to excluding certain texture maps (like say roughness) from affecting the layer stack, etc… You can think of this as a lite version of Quixel Mixer: A simple but effective way of creating surfaces for your grounds with ease. We’re planning to make them available for landscapes, give you the ability to bake down the whole material into regular PBR textures, and (high prio!) support for non-Megascans surface blending. Keep in mind, vertex painting is not available when your mesh uses Nanite, but you can still blend based on height, as we do almost exclusively in the video below. {% embed url="" %} ## Landscape Layer Masking This has been one of your most requested feature, and it’s here: You can now specify the name of a landscape paint layer in Surface Scatter, and it’ll be used as a mask. {% embed url="" %} ## Instance Color Variation We’ve shipped this feature in Dash 1.6, and cleaned up the workflow in this update to make it easier to work with. Instance color variation is crucial in breaking up repetition when scattering large quantities of objects. Give it a try! {% embed url="" %} ## Volume Scatter This new tool allows you to fill any object with other objects. You can leverage it with the physics tool, or to create floating elements like birds in the sky, or asteroids around a planet, floating objects, etc… In the video below, we created a blobby mesh as our bird flock volume, then used the tool to fill it with birds! :D {% embed url="" %} ## Multi Asset Tagging You can already manually add/remove tags from an asset, and with Dash 1.7, that same operation can be used on multiple assets at once. Just hit SHIFT+Click to multi select assets, right click on them, and select Batch Tag Edit. Add/remove words as you see fit, hit save, and voilà. This is especially useful as a way of marking assets with keywords depending on the project/level. That makes them easy to find, and combined with AI tagging, even easier to sift through. For example, a global tag on a project might be PROJ1. And so when you’re looking for mossy rocks, you might type “proj1 rocks mossy”. {% embed url="" %} ## Curve Masking Improvements When scattering on large areas, you can use curves to ensure that scattered objects are kept inside the curve. With this update, we have 10x’ed the performance of that operation. {% embed url="" %} ## Border Masking We’ve had a few tricks to do border masking so far, and this release refactored the whole workflow into a cohesive, fast and reliable solution. If you scatter on a mesh that has borders, it will just work. No bugs, no slowdowns. Have fun! {% embed url="" %} ## Mesh Border to Curves The name says it all: Select a mesh, run this action, and you’ll get a spline/curve for every border on the input meshes. This is really useful for archviz, but has uses in all industries. Give it a try! {% embed url="" %} ## Tool Presets Improvements Every tool can have its properties saved as a preset, making it easy to reuse your favorite presets, or share them with others! With this update we’ve made their saving structure clearer, and you can now rename & delete presets without breaking a sweat. Presets will continue to grow in the next version, as they’re slated to become a central part of Dash. Stay tuned on that! {% embed url="" %} ## Asset Export as ZIP Sharing specific content from a UE project, whether it’s a material, a texture or a whole scene, is an annoying process. We’ve made this action to make it as simple as it can be: select your assets in the UE content browser, type “asset export” in the Dash prompt bar, hit Enter, and you’ll be able to save your asset and all its dependencies in a ZIP file. No need to create an empty project in which to migrate it to. Just zip it, and send it wherever you want. {% embed url="" %} ## Save File Improvements Those of you working in studio settings have been requesting this for a while, and we’ve delivered: Dash doesn’t save its data in a separate JSON file anymore. Instead, everything you do on one level, gets saved inside that level. This removes any need for syncing the JSON file between computers. Not only that, everything is still backward compatible, so you don’t have to worry about this change breaking previous work. Lastly, the data is just a simple JSON structure that’s easy to read. {% embed url="" %} ## Towards Dash 2.0 Dash is slowly becoming an ecosystem of tools for all world building tasks: From asset placement to material authoring, camera setup, physics-based placement, vines, channel packing, atmospherics and everything else. The overarching philosophy behind everything we do is clearer by the day: We don’t want a world of instant gratification through AI prompting, nor are we content with the status quo of traditional tools and workflows that can’t keep up with the times. Dash ought to sit right in the middle, and help you create art you can feel proud of. We’ll share more on Dash 2.0 in the near future, so stay tuned for more, and feel free to join our [Discord](https://bit.ly/DashDiscord), where an initial beta will kick off this summer!
## ...and more! * Path Scatter: There’s now a **Sampling** setting that helps with curve sampling accuracy. * Path Scatter: **Position Overrides** are now available, making it easy to break up your paths! * UI Scaling bugs: We’ve fixed a couple of issues here, with some more left! * Dash Search: We’ve made the search in the Dash bar faster & more intuitive. * Content Browser: All available libraries (Custom, Megascans, Polyhaven, etc…) are now much more intuitive to navigate, through a clear dropdown. * Surface Scatter: **Rotation Overrides** are a new set of XYZ properties that help you quickly transform your scatter objects. * Curve Draw: You can now edit existing curve actors! Just select them, and type “draw curve” in the Dash bar, then hit Enter, and the curve is now editable. * Curve Draw: When in draw mode, press the M hotkey to switch between curve draw modes. * Curve Draw: Resampling now retains your settings between drawing passes. * All tools that generate geometry will now have the pivot centered at the bottom of the geometry. * Content Library: We improved the speed of loading and searching inside the Dash library and searching on thousands of assets will be an instant result * …and a lot more! # Custom Build In this page, we'll go through the process of installing Dash on a custom UE5 build. Few things to keep in mind: * Dash is only compatible with UE5.1 and above. * In most cases, the process should be fairly straightforward, but if your custom UE5 build has been drastically changed from the base engine source, there might be some hiccups, and we recommend that you reach out to * We usually invite companies to a shared Slack channel in which we can provide them live guidance and speak directly with their artists for feedback requests. Please reach out! * In order to turn off crash reporting, analytics, AI features, etc, you can set certain Environment Variables. More info on this topic further down. \
With that out of the way, let's dig in. There are two build methods, the first being Plugin Build and the other being Source Build. The files for both are located in this Google Drive: [polygonflow.io/latest-source-build](https://www.polygonflow.io/latest-source-build), and you can choose your preferred build method by checking the different instructions below. ## Build Methods:
Option 1: Plugin Build Instructions This is the most straightforward deployment mode, as it’s a normal Unreal Engine plugin structure. [Epic games plugins guide](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/plugins-in-unreal-engine) can be applied normally. Start by opening the Plugin Build folder in the [Google Drive](https://www.polygonflow.io/latest-source-build) and then opening the folder corresponding to the Dash version you want to install. Here you will find one zip for each UE version we support, so you only have to download the zip for your specific UE version. Once the zip has been downloaded and extracted, the Dash folder can be placed under `PROJECT_ROOT/Plugins` or `ENGINE_ROOT/Engine/Plugins` as described in the [plugins guide](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/plugins-in-unreal-engine#pluginfolders). ### Python Dependencies Installation Dash Python code lives under `PLUGIN_ROOT/Content/Python` Which is automatically available for Unreal’s Python. `init_unreal.py` does not need any modifications and is always valid for all users. When Unreal Engine started for the first time after Dash plugin installation, Dash will install Python dependencies under `PLUGIN_ROOT/Content/Python/Plugins/UnrealEngineContext/Imports/311/` for Unreal Engine 5.4+, and under `PLUGIN_ROOT/Content/Python/Plugins/UnrealEngineContext/Imports/39/` for Unreal Engine 5.1-5.3 This happens once per project (in case Dash is installed per project). OR once per engine version (in case Dash is installed to the engine). To save disk space, it’s recommended to install Dash under `Engine/Plugins`. Example engine paths: `ENGINE_ROOT/Engine/Plugins/GraphNUnrealPlugin`, `ENGINE_ROOT/Engine/Plugins/Polygonflow/GraphNUnrealPlugin`, `ENGINE_ROOT/Engine/Plugins/Whatever/GraphNUnrealPlugin`. ### Disk space consumption Dash plugin size is `~1GB` right after it is installed. Once Python dependencies are installed, the total size is `~3GB`. On top of that, Dash downloads asset metadata like thumbnail images for assets, which may add up a bit more. ### Compilation Dash plugin complies with the normal Unreal Engine code plugin structure, and can be compiled within a C++ project, or [using unreal automation scripts](https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/tutorials/qz93/unreal-engine-building-plugins), or using the “Package” button from `Tools→Plugins` menu. This allows users to build Dash for custom engines ### Uninstallation Just remove GraphNUnrealPlugin folder from `Engine/Plugins` or `PROJECT_ROOT/Plugins` Also remove `Documents/Polygonflow` folder
Option 2: Source Build Instructions For this build option, start by opening the Source Build folder in the [Google Drive](https://www.polygonflow.io/latest-source-build) and then downloading the zip for the Dash version you wish to install.
This ZIP file, which contains: * **Dash**: This folder holds the files copied from the installer. It allows you to distribute the plugin without installation, through version control or a shared folder. * **GraphNUnrealPlugin**: This directory contains the C++ code necessary for integrating Dash into your custom engine build. * **init\_unreal.py**: Should you opt not to install Dash on every artist's machine, this developer file serves as the entry point to initiate the Python portion of the plugin.
Then it is time to build! 1. Create a new Unreal C++ project 2. Place the plugin into the `Plugins` folder of the project (create Plugin folder if it doesn’t exist yet). Result must be `Plugins\\GraphNUnrealPlugin` 3. Copy the `init_unreal.py` shipped in the ZIP inside your project `Plugins/GraphNUnrealPlugin/Content/Python` to allow the plugin to see `Dash` and its libraries, or you will get errors like `ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'GN'` 4. Edit the path at the end of`init_unreal.py` file, with the location where you placed your Dash folder if you want to distribute the plugin, or with the installation directory, if you are using the installer. 5. Generate the visual studio project by right clicking in explorer on the .uproject file and selecting “Generate Visual Studio project files”

Right click and to generate the project files

6. Open the solution in Visual Studio or Rider and build it from there Find more information at the [official documentation](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/setting-up-visual-studio-development-environment-for-cplusplus-projects-in-unreal-engine/). ### Use From Python The plugin exposes some functionalities to the python interpreter, and you can make unreal generate the python stubs for you, so you can load them in our IDE. 1. Open Unreal Engine and activate the plugin. It will activate **Python Script Plugin** and **Editor scripting utilities** plugins 2. Go to project settings and enable developer mode

Developer mode will generate python stubs for auto-completion

3. Restart the editor. 4. Check `PROJECT_ROOT/Intermediate/PythonStub/unreal.py` 5. Add this file to your IDE to have the auto complete with the exported functions
## Exclusions from Version Control
Possible files to exclude from version/source control for both build types: * `Plugins/UnrealEngineContext/Imports/thirdparty` (\~2 GB) - This folder will be created and populated per user machine and will contain Python packages * `Modules/GN/ContentLibrary/Backends/IESLibrary/IesLibraryContents` (\~28 MB) - This folder will be extracted from `IesLibraryContents.zip` located in the same folder * `ThirdPartyLicenses` - This does not affect functionality, optional * `__pycache__` - Generated by Python * `*.pyc` - Generated by Python * `*.pdf` - Legal documents like EULA, optional * `*.md` - Legal documents and internal docs, optional
## Dash Environment Variables
Dash Environment Variables Instructions By setting certain Environment Variables, you can control whether certain features and options are available in Dash. The use of "1", "yes", or"true" all respond to `true`.
### DASH\_CRASH\_REPORT\_ENABLED Enables or disables crash reporting that might include file paths. \ Default value = `enabled`. ### **DASH\_UPDATE\_CHECK\_ENABLED** Enable or disable startup update checks. Update checks happen once per Unreal editor session when Dash appears for the first time. Dash makes a request to our Cloudflare server to fetch the latest version info. \ Default value - `enabled` ### **DASH\_ANALYTICS\_ENABLED** Enable or disable Dash usage telemetry. Dash sends usage data periodically to our MongoDB cluster. Default value - `enabled` ### **DASH\_REGISTER\_PREFERENCES\_FOR\_ANALYTICS** If enabled, the toggle to control the analytics option will be added to the Dash preferences UI. \ Default value - `enabled` ### **DASH\_OPEN\_AI\_ENABLED** Enables or disables the AI assistant and AI Asset Tagging through our OpenAI Enterprise API account. Default value - `enable` ### **DASH\_REGISTER\_PREFERENCES\_FOR\_OPEN\_AI** If enabled, the toggle option to enable AI features using OpenAI Enterprise API will be added to the Dash preferences UI.\ Default value - `enabled`
## FAQ
Permission Denied / read-only / write proteced file - Revision Control Issue If you see an error regarding permission denied or read/write, for example, regarding the metadata.json file, you can try two things:
1. Turn off the automatic write protection on the Documents folder that Windows Defender adds in Windows 11. It is a "Protected folder" 2. You can mark the metadata.json or any other Dash files under revision control as always writable through Perforce, etc, and then do the installation process again from the beginning.
Do we need to compile the plugin on every machine? No. You can distribute the pre-built C++ plugin on every machine using the same engine version you built against.
Do we need to install the plugin on every artist machine? In order to run, Dash will need 2 components: * The Unreal C++ plugin * The Dash Python plugin You can install the plugin on every artist machine, or distribute it directly with your version control, alongside the custom built C++ plugin.
What are the dependencies of the C++ plugin? Following a list of the dependencies of the C++ layer: Memory lib from microsoft (unreal uses it too) * `mimalloc.lib` Dash Dependencies (Internal) * `IndexMeshSymbols.lib` * `_math.lib` * `_array.lib` * `meshoptimizer.lib` * `_gnmesh.lib`
What are the dependencies of Dash Python plugin? Dash relies on a series of internal and third party libraries.\ The following list might change, but at the moment of writing these are the third party libraries used: * `abseil` * `eigen` * `embree` * `OpenSubdiv` * `Physix` * `tbb` * `robin-hood-hasing` * `tinyspline` * `FastNoise2` * fast\_obj * `unordered_dense` * `blinker` * `boto3` * `botocore` * `certifi` * `dateutil` * `jmespath` * `orjson` * `pytz` * `semver` * `s3transfer` * `sentry_sdk` * `urllib3` * `numpy` * `PIL` * `PySide6` * `scipy` * `sklearn` * `shiboken6` * `torch_redstone` Some are pure python modules, some are C++ libraries that we use inside our python modules.
Will I need to recompile the plugin each new release? Yes. If you are using a custom Unreal version, you will be in charge of recompiling the C++ plugin and redistribute the matching Dash Python plugin alongside with it.\ \ Once you already have the structure in place, it should be as simple as regenerate the project and build.\ \ Make sure to update also the init\_unreal.py as it might change between releases. When a new version of Dash is available, you will get a notification directly in Dash, and once you get that you will find the latest ZIP to download here always:
When compiling the C++ plugin I get some warnings, how can I solve it? Dash is constantly evolving, and our top priority is to give artists and studios constant updates and new tools to improve their workflow.\ This rapid pace of development will sometimes leave behind some compile warnings which we are aware of, and are not critical. \ They might get fixed while moving forward, but if you have a zero warning policy unfortunately you might have to address the ones you get.
How many Enterprise Seats do I need? You only need seats for those artists who want access to the tools and the ability to adjust parameters. You do not need licenses for Build Machines either.
Resource Error - Unable to copy files in your project If you are using Perforce or another Version Control Software and, upon opening Dash, see our resource update popup and it fails by showing you a Resource Error, here is what you need to do: 1. If you are on Dash 1.9.2 or higher, move to step 5 2. Close UE, 3. Open this path in your PC folder explorer: DASH\_INSTALL\_ROOT\Plugins\UnrealEngineContext\Imports\GN, 4. And then replace this ContentUtils.py file with the one available here: 5. Then open UE and ignore the update popup, i.e, close it instead of clicking update 6. Then, open the Dash preferences through the main Dash menu and check the new "Skip Resource Acquisition" setting that is available in the Content Settings section 7. Then you should not get the update pop-up next time you open Dash 8. Later, when there is a Dash update, one person (the person who set up the project and plugins, perhaps) needs to do these steps to get the new resource data and share it with everyone through Perforce: 1. Install the new version of Dash 2. Unlock the Polygonflow folder under the Content folder in the project through Perforce so it is writable. 3. Turn on the resource acquisition again in Dash preferences 4. Open the Project and Dash, and run the update through the pop-up 5. Now, the new update files have been added to Perforce and are ready to be used by everyone on the team.
# Roadmap # Dash API Dash's codebase is a mix of native Python code, C++ libraries, UE Python API code, etc...\ To make it easier to navigate, we've built a simple interface class through which you can access most useful functionalities. Before we dig in, a few things to keep in mind: * Dash is an editor-only plugin, and doesn't operate at runtime. ## Using the API DashAPI is an interface class that groups all the most common and useful features you'll want to interact with. There's a wide range of classes, functions and libraries that Dash uses, and you can go through them as we often add simple docstrings a bit everywhere.\ However, the goal of DashAPI is to avoid that need for most basics. ```python from GN.DashAPI import DashAPI # Get a list of all tools in the scene. scene_tools = DashAPI.getActiveTools() # Iterate over each tool, and print the name of its container type properties. for tool in scene_tools: props = tool.getPropertiesByType(DashAPI.PropertyTypes.SceneContainer) for prop in props: print(f"{prop.getName()} - {prop.getValue()}") # Get the active tool that's visible in the Tools Panel. active_tool = DashAPI.getActiveTool() # Find its property "Surface", and set its value to the current scene selection. surface_prop = active_tool.getProperty("surface") selection = DashAPI.Scene.fromSelection() if surface_prop and selection: surface_prop.setValue(selection) # Rename the property surface_prop.setName("Selection") # Select the objects that the active tool generates tool_output = DashAPI.getToolOutput(active_tool) # Hide its result tool_output.setVisibility(False) # Delete the active tool DashAPI.deleteTool(active_tool) # Create a new tool by its name tool = DashAPI.createTool("surface scatter", show=True) # Adjust its properties tool.setValue("surface", DashAPI.Scene.fromObjectNames(["ground_plane"])) tool.setValue("scatter", DashAPI.Scene.fromSelection()) tool.setValue("density", 0.75) tool.setValue("min scale", 0.70) tool.setValue("seed", DashAPI.randomSeed()) # Save the settings as a preset. This won't save the container properties. new_preset = DashAPI.saveToolPreset(tool) # Create a new tool new_tool = DashAPI.createTool("Surface Scatter") # Assign the preset to it DashAPI.setToolPreset(new_tool, new_preset) ``` ## Creating a Tool ### Instancing Tool ```python from GN.GNL.ToolCreation import ToolDescriptor, ToolRunner class GraphNTool(ToolRunner): def __init__(self): super(GraphNTool, self).__init__() def run(self, *args, **kwargs): return @staticmethod def createDescriptor(): tool = ToolDescriptor(identifier=128930, name='Compound Tool', description='This is a simple test tool') tool.setCompoundTool(True) return tool ``` ### Mesh Generation Tool ```python from GN.GNL.ToolCreation import ToolDescriptor, ToolRunner class GraphNTool(ToolRunner): def __init__(self): super(GraphNTool, self).__init__() def run(self, *args, **kwargs): return @staticmethod def createDescriptor(): tool = ToolDescriptor(identifier=128930, name='Compound Tool', description='This is a simple test tool') tool.setCompoundTool(True) return tool ``` # Alpha Cut ## Short Description A tool for creating mesh cards from opacity textures. ## Description Alpha Cut is a tool designed to create mesh cards using an opacity texture. It allows users to generate complex geometries from images, offering control over various aspects of the mesh generation process. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Texture**: Provide an image (PNG, JPG) to create your alpha card/meshes from. This image should contain black and white pixels, where white pixels represent areas you want to convert into geometry. * **Material**: Material to assign to the generated meshes. * **Face To**: Your meshes can face up, making them laid flat in your scene, or front, making them look upfront. * **Pivot Position**: Sets the pivot position to the center or bottom. Centered pivots are useful if for example you want to scatter leaves on a ground, while bottom is used for placing leaves on stems/branches. * **Border Density**: Controls the vertex density around the borders of each mesh. * **Pivot Offset**: Offsets the pivot upwards or downwards. * **Scale**: Controls the overall size of your generated meshes. * **Position Override**: Moves the generated meshes to this position. * **Min Res**: Controls the minimum vertex density based on the scale of individual meshes. * **Max Res**: Controls the maximum vertex density based on the scale of individual meshes. * **Border Resample**: Preserves shape tries to keep the shape of each pixel island at the cost of more polygons, while reduce count gives you a better polygon count control method over your generated meshes, at the cost of cutting your pixel islands off in some areas. * **Border Padding**: Offsets the generated meshes along the edges of each pixel island in your opacity map. This can be useful to control mesh clipping when some pixel islands overlap with each other. * **Ignore Ratio**: Removes meshes with a size ratio below this value. For example, 0.1 will remove meshes that are 10% smaller than the average size of all meshes. * **DEV ONLY - Ignore Method**: An for development use only property to set methods for ignoring dimensions. * **Flip Normals**: A boolean option to flip the normals of the generated meshes. * **Pack To Center**: If checked, all generated meshes get packed to the center, otherwise they use their position in your input alpha. ### Noise * **Intensity**: Controls the intensity of the noise. * **Frequency**: Noise frequency that's applied on the meshes. * **Max**: Maximum noise value. * **Min**: Minimum noise value. ### Tag Settings * **Create Tag**: If set to true, a tag containing the generated meshes will be created, and accessible in the Scene Tags. * **Tag Name**: Stores the created meshes under this tag. # Blend Material ## Short Description A tool for creating and editing blended materials with customizable layers. ## Description The Blend Material tool allows users to open the blend material editor for creating complex materials by combining different layers such as base, red, green, blue, snow, and rain. Users can control various properties for each layer, allowing for detailed adjustments to textures, colors, and blending effects. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Objects**: Objects to work on * **R Weight**: Controls the weight of the R layer * **G Weight**: Controls the weight of the G layer * **B Weight**: Controls the weight of the B layer * **S Weight**: Controls the weight of the S layer * **T Weight**: Controls the weight of the T layer * **Global Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of all layers * **Height Contrast**: Enhances height contrast * **Height Intensity**: Enhances height intensity * **Height Noise**: Enhances height noise. This creates a nice breakup from the height map * **Height Noise Scale**: Adjusts the scale of noise * **Height Noise Intensity**: Adjusts the intensity of noise * **Wetness**: Controls the wetness of the material * **Displacement**: Sets the displacement level ### Base Layer * **Base Material Instance**: If you provide a material instance, we'll extract its Albedo/Normal/Roughness maps and use them in this layer. * **R Height Softness**: Softens the height blending layer * **R Height Invert**: Inverts the height blending layer * **Base Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the material * **Base Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **Base Brightness**: Controls brightness levels * **Base Contrast**: Sets the contrast ratio * **Base Roughness**: Modifies the surface roughness * **Base Roughness Contrast**: Modifies the surface roughness * **Base Normal**: Controls normal map intensity * **Base Tiling X**: Adjusts the tiling of textures * **Base Tiling Y**: Adjusts the tiling of textures ### R Layer * **R Material Instance**: If you provide a material instance, we'll extract its Albedo/Normal/Roughness maps and use them in this layer. * **R Height Softness**: Softens the height blending layer * **R Height Invert**: Inverts the height blending layer * **R Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the material * **R Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **R Brightness**: Controls brightness levels * **R Contrast**: Sets the contrast ratio * **R Roughness**: Modifies the surface roughness * **R Roughness Contrast**: Modifies the surface roughness contrast * **R Normal**: Controls normal map intensity * **R Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of textures * **R Albedo Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the albedo layer * **R Roughness Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the roughness layer * **R Normal Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the normal layer * **R Slope**: Adjusts the blending of the slope layer * **R Slope Softness**: Softens the slope blending layer ### G Layer * **G Material Instance**: If you provide a material instance, we'll extract its Albedo/Normal/Roughness maps and use them in this layer. * **G Height Softness**: Softens the height blending layer * **G Height Invert**: Inverts the height blending layer * **G Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the material * **G Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **G Brightness**: Controls brightness levels * **G Contrast**: Sets the contrast ratio * **G Roughness**: Modifies the surface roughness * **G Roughness Contrast**: Modifies the surface roughness contrast * **G Normal**: Controls normal map intensity * **G Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of textures * **G Albedo Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the albedo layer * **G Roughness Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the roughness layer * **G Normal Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the normal layer * **G Slope**: Adjusts the blending of the slope layer * **G Slope Softness**: Softens the slope blending layer ### Puddle (B) Layer * **B Height Softness**: Softens the height blending layer * **B Height Invert**: Inverts the height blending layer * **B Depth**: Controls the depth of the water layer * **B Movement**: Controls the movement of the water layer * **B Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the material * **B Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **B Brightness**: Controls brightness levels * **B Contrast**: Sets the contrast ratio * **B Roughness**: Modifies the surface roughness * **B Roughness Contrast**: Modifies the surface roughness contrast * **B Normal**: Controls normal map intensity * **B Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of textures * **B Albedo Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the albedo layer * **B Roughness Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the roughness layer * **B Normal Blend**: Adjusts the blending of the normal layer * **B Slope**: Adjusts the blending of the slope layer * **B Slope Softness**: Softens the slope blending layer ### Snow (S) Layer * **S Height Multiplier**: Adjusts the global displacement intensity * **S Height Contrast**: Modifies height of snow * **S Height**: Modifies sharpness of snow * **S Slope**: Controls snow accumulation based on slope * **S Position X**: Adjusts the position on the X axis * **S Position Y**: Adjusts the position on the Y axis * **S Rotation**: Rotate snow texture * **S Tiling**: Adjusts tiling of snow textures * **S Brightness**: Snow brightness * **S Color Contrast**: Snow contrast * **S Albedo Blend**: Blend snow albedo with surface * **S Subsurface Intensity**: Controls subsurface value * **S Roughness Contrast**: Controls roughness contrast of snow * **S Roughness Blend**: Blend snow roughness with surface * **S Normal Intensity**: Modifies normal intensity of snow * **S Normal Blend**: Blend snow normal with surface normal * **S Noise**: Amount of noise on Snow * **S Noise Sharpness**: sharpness of Snow noise ### Rain (T) Layer * **T Drip Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of the rain drip texture * **T Drips Length**: Adjusts the length of the rain drip texture * **T Drips Strength**: Adjusts the strength of the rain drip texture * **T Droplet Strength**: Adjusts the strength of the rain droplet texture * **T Droplets**: Adjusts the number of rain droplets * **T Droplets Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of the rain droplet texture * **T Ripple Motion**: Adjusts the motion of the rain ripple texture * **T Ripple Size**: Adjusts the size of the rain ripple texture # Cable Tool ## Short Description A tool for creating customizable cables with curves and meshes. ## Description The Cable Tool allows users to create cables with curves and meshes, providing various options for customization. It facilitates the generation of realistic cables by manipulating properties such as density, radius, and connection modes. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Objects**: Provide objects for generating cables from * **Mode**: The mode to use to connect the inputs with cables * **Divisions**: Number of points on each cable. Higher value results in more realistic results, at a higher cost * **Scatter Density**: Density of the scattered cables * **Density Mode**: Changes the density mode. * **Density**: Density represents a value relative to the objects you scatter, and give you plausible results. * **Distance**: Points will be scattered along the curve at this distance from each other * **Count**: Controls the number of scattered objects along the curve * **Radius**: The radius of the mesh pipe created * **Duplicates**: Amount of duplicates for each curve, that will be moved with the tilt multiplier to give variation * **Tilt**: Amount of tilting added to the curves other than pure gravity * **Height**: Changes the height of the cables * **Gravity Min**: The minimum amount of gravity applied to the cables * **Gravity Max**: The maximum amount of gravity applied to the cables * **Cut Rate**: How many extra hanging cut cables are added * **Connection Rate**: How much extra connections between cables are generated * **Noise Intensity**: The amount of noise added to the cables * **Noise Scale**: How big is the noise applied to the cables * **Path Smooth**: Smoothness of the path curve * **Seed**: Random seed used in random computations for this tool ### Detail * **Connection Mode**: Treat the inputs in different ways: Sequence, Closed Sequence, and Pairs * **Connection Max Distance**: Normalized value defining how far the connections can go. * **Cut Max Length**: Length multiplier for cut hanging cables ### Scatter * **Self Scatter**: When turned on, scatter points will be connected on each mesh on themselves * **Self Max Length**: Remove longer self scattered cables by reducing this 0-1 value * **Scatter Angle Mask Min**: Minimum angle allowed on which curves can be generated * **Scatter Angle Mask Max**: Maximum angle allowed on which curves can be generated ### Output * **Mesh Sides**: The number of sides of the pipe mesh created * **Normalize Uvs**: When turned off, the UVs will be tiled depending on the mesh size in the scene * **Mesh Caps**: When turned off, the caps will be removed * **Output Curves**: Toggle to create the output as curves * **Curves Resample**: Change it to resample the output curves # Edit Camera ## Short Description Adjusts camera properties and post-processing effects. ## Description The Edit Camera tool allows users to adjust various camera properties such as focal length, aperture, and exposure, enabling fine-tuning of the camera's settings for different visual effects. It also includes options for color correction and post-processing effects to enhance the final output. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Grading Presets**: Select a color grading preset * **Grading Intensity**: Adjust the intensity of color grading * **Aspect Ratio**: Adjust the aspect ratio of the camera * **Focal Length**: Adjust the focal length of the camera * **Aperture**: Adjust the aperture of the camera * **Focus Distance**: Adjust the focus distance of the camera * **Exposure**: Adjust the exposure of the camera * **Lens Distortion**: Adjust the lens distortion of the camera * **Invert Distortion**: Inverts the lens distortion effect * **Squeeze Factor**: Adjust the squeeze factor of the camera * **Sensor Width**: Adjust the sensor width of the camera * **Sensor Height**: Adjust the sensor height of the camera ### Post Processing * **Bloom**: Adjust the bloom of the camera * **Vignette**: Adjust the vignette of the camera * **Film Grain**: Adjust the film grain of the camera * **Film Grain Scale**: Adjust the scale of the film grain * **Detail Strength**: Adjust the detail strength of the camera * **Sharpen**: Adjust the sharpening of the camera * **Fringe**: Adjust the fringe of the camera ### Color Correction * **Hue**: Adjust the hue of the color correction * **Saturation**: Adjust the saturation of the color correction * **Brightness**: Adjust the brightness of the color correction * **Contrast**: Adjust the contrast of the color correction * **Temperature**: Adjust the temperature of the color correction ### Extras * **Outline Intensity**: Adjust the intensity of the outline effect * **Outline Thickness**: Adjust the thickness of the outline effect * **Outline Distance**: Adjust the distance fade of the outline effect # Channel Packer ## Short Description Combine multiple texture channels into a single texture. ## Description Packs multiple textures' channels into 1 texture. This tool allows users to select textures and their specific channels to combine them into a single output texture. It is useful for optimizing texture usage in graphic applications. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Size Mode**: Choose the output resolution based on the smallest or largest texture, or a custom size. * **Size**: Select the resolution of the packed texture from predefined options. * **Texture Name**: The name of the packed texture. * **Texture Path**: The path of the packed texture. * **Create Texture**: Run the channel packing process. ### Red Channel * **Red Texture**: A channel from this texture will be packed. * **Red Target**: The channel to pick from the red texture. ### Green Channel * **Green Texture**: A channel from this texture will be packed. * **Green Target**: The channel to pick from the green texture. ### Blue Channel * **Blue Texture**: A channel from this texture will be packed. * **Blue Target**: The channel to pick from the blue texture. ### Alpha Channel * **Alpha Texture**: A channel from this texture will be packed. * **Alpha Target**: The channel to pick from the alpha texture. # Curve Tool ## Short Description An interactive tool for drawing and editing curves and splines. ## Description The Curve Tool is the best interactive curve/spline drawer out there. It allows users to create and manipulate curves with various options and settings, optimizing the drawing experience for precision and creativity. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Draw Mode**: Choose the way you draw curves * **Filter Objects**: Provide scene objects to use as filter. Use the filter type below to define how to treat those objects. * **Filter Mode**: You can decide to 'draw only' on certain objects, or to 'draw everywhere except' some specific objects by changing the filter type. * **Curve Degree**: Select the curve degree for the next or the active curve * **Initial Smooth**: Default smooth value for the created freeform curves * **Min Spacing**: Minimum pixel distance used for creating the curve * **Hit Offset**: Set a default offset to move the curves from the hit meshes * **Create Mesh**: A boolean indicating whether to create a mesh from the curves * **Start Drawing**: Click here to enter the draw context ### Editing * **Edit Strength**: Multiplier used with MMB actions to influence the curves more significantly. * **Avoid Smooth Intersections**: When curves are drawn on mesh, smoothing might generate intersections. With this option on, the smoothed curves will avoid going inside meshes. ### Mesh Options * **Mesh Initial Radius**: Initial radius used for the pipe mesh * **Mesh Initial Max Radius**: Initial max radius used for the mesh, to create random variations if different from the other one. * **Radius Affects Offset**: A boolean indicating whether the radius affects the offset of the mesh. * **Mesh On Exit**: Pick the behavior for the created meshes after you exit the drawing context. # Project Curves ## Short Description A tool for projecting curves onto meshes. ## Description Project Curves is a tool designed to project curves onto underlying meshes with various configuration options. It provides users with control over the offset, resolution, and resampling of the curves being projected. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Offset**: Offsets the curve from the surface. * **Projection Curves**: Curves to project on the input projection meshes. * **Projection Meshes**: Meshes to project the curves to. * **Resample**: Enable/Disable resampling of the curve. * **Resolution**: The higher the value, the more accurately the curve gets reconstructed. * **Resample Distance**: Resamples the projected curve to give it more points. # Decal Scatter ## Short Description Scatters decals on meshes with customizable properties. ## Description The Decal Scatter tool allows users to efficiently scatter decal assets on specified meshes in a scene. It provides a range of customizable properties to control the density, scale, rotation, and masking of the decals, ensuring flexibility and precision in decoration workflows. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Surface**: Meshes to scatter on * **Decals**: Decal assets to scatter * **Density**: Scatter density * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale for random scale * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale for random scale * **Surface Align**: Adjusts the alignment of the decals to the surface. * **Depth**: Depth of decals. * **Scale**: Default extent of decals in cm * **Sink**: Pushes your instanced objects downwards, very practical for trees * **Max Count**: Maximum count of scattered decals * **Seed**: Random seed for scattering variations ### Feature Masking * **Slope Mask**: Masks objects by the angle of the underlying surface area under them * **Min Height Mask**: Minimum height at which objects should be clamped * **Max Height Mask**: Maximum height at which objects should be clamped ### Proximity Mask * **Proximity**: Proximity meshes ensure that only scattered objects nearby are kept * **Distance**: Controls the proximity distance * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost * **Width**: Width of the proximity mask, allowing for strokes/slices of your scatter setup. ### Rotation Properties * **Incremental Spin**: Write your incremental values as ints or floats, separated by spaces. * **Sort Increments**: If set to True, the incremental values will be applied in order, instead of randomly * **Uniform Angle**: Adjust the spin of the decals. * **Spin**: Give random spin to decals, ensuring great rotation variation * **Rotation Jitter**: Additional random spin ### Noise Mask * **Breakup**: Controls the intensity of the noise/breakup. * **Breakup Scale**: Frequency of the noise mask; controls the scale of the noise * **Smoothness Noise**: Controls how sharp/soft the noise mask is * **Warp Noise**: Deforms the noise mask, creating interesting mask shapes * **Noise Scale Multiplier**: Multiplier for noise scale * **Noise Scale X**: Scale of noise in the X direction * **Noise Scale Y**: Scale of noise in the Y direction * **Noise Scale Z**: Scale of noise in the Z direction ### Border Masking * **Border Offset**: Masks scattered objects along the surface's borders. * **Border Min**: Minimum distance offset from the border mask value * **Border Max**: Maximum distance offset from the border mask value * **Border Noise**: Applies noise on the border mask * **Border Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise border masking, but at a heavier cost ### Object Masking * **Objects**: Samples objects near the meshes using raytracing for mesh proximity masking. * **Distance**: Controls distance of the padding we add to the inside mask * **Keep Inside**: When set to true, only keeps what's inside of meshes. * **Invert**: Inverts the mask # Fog Card ## Short Description A tool for editing fog card properties in a scene. ## Description The Fog Card tool allows users to edit various properties related to fog and cloud effects. It provides controls for adjusting the appearance and behavior of clouds in a scene, including color, density, and movement. This customization enhances the visual fidelity of fog in the user's environment. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Objects**: Objects to work on. * **Base Color Tint**: Sets the base color tint of the fog card. * **Cloud Density**: Adjusts the density of the clouds. * **Cloud Brightness**: Adjusts the brightness of the clouds. * **Cloud Contrast**: Sets the contrast of the clouds. * **Edge Fading Distance**: Controls the distance for edge fading of the fog. * **Camera Fading Distance**: Controls the camera fading distance to fog. * **Wind Speed**: Adjusts the wind speed affecting clouds. * **Wind Direction**: Sets the wind direction affecting clouds. * **Cloud Wind Tilling**: Adjusts the tiling of cloud wind patterns. # Volumetric Fog ## Short Description Edit volumetric fog properties for atmospheric effects. ## Description This tool allows users to edit properties related to volumetric fog within a scene. It provides various settings for density, visibility, and light scattering effects, enhancing the atmospheric quality of the environment. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Density**: Controls the density of the fog. * **Distance**: Controls the distance visibility of the fog. * **Height**: Controls the height falloff of the fog. * **God Rays**: Controls light scattering in the fog, which can be used to simulate god rays. * **Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the particles. * **Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation. * **Brightness**: Controls brightness levels. # Grid Scatter ## Short Description Creates a customizable instance grid of input objects. ## Description The Grid Scatter tool allows users to create an instance grid of various input objects, enabling efficient placement and manipulation in 3D space. Users can customize the grid dimensions, distribution methods, and numerous other properties to achieve desired visual effects. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Origin**: Origin object used as the center of the grid * **Scatter**: Objects to instance on the grid * **Distribution**: Controls how objects are distributed - as a line, plane or 3D grid * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of your scattered meshes * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of your scattered meshes * **Seed**: Randomly changes each object in the grid ### Grid Properties * **Width**: Width of the grid * **Depth**: Depth of the grid * **Height**: Height of the grid * **Width Divisions**: Width Divisions of the grid * **Depth Divisions**: Depth Divisions of the grid * **Height Divisions**: Height Divisions of the grid ### Feature Masking * **Remove Mask**: Randomly removes objects, ignoring any previous masking * **Remove Bottom**: If checked, the bottom half of the grid that's below the origin will be removed ### Proximity Mask * **Objects**: You can pass meshes, curves and even instancers to use them as masks * **Distance**: Distance of the objects' proximity mask * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost * **Width**: Width of the proximity mask. This allows your masking to create strokes/slices of your scatter setup. ### Noise Mask * **Breakup**: Controls the intensity of the noise/breakup. * **Breakup Scale**: Frequency of the noise mask. This basically controls the scale of the noise * **Smoothness**: This value controls how sharp/soft the noise mask is * **Warp**: Deforms the noise mask, which can result in some really interesting swirly mask shapes * **Scale Multiplier**: Multiplier for the noise scale. * **Scale X**: Scale factor for the noise in the X direction. * **Scale Y**: Scale factor for the noise in the Y direction. * **Scale Z**: Scale factor for the noise in the Z direction. ### Position Properties * **X Jitter**: Randomizes the position along the X axis * **Y Jitter**: Randomizes the position along the Y axis * **Z Jitter**: Randomizes the position along the Z axis * **Jitter Multiplier**: Multiplies the jitter amount * **Uniform Jitter**: Applies uniform jitter to all axes ### Rotation Properties * **Incremental Spin**: Write your incremental values as ints or floats, separated by spaces. * **Sort Increments**: If set to True, the incremental values will be applied in order, instead of randomly * **Override Rotation**: If set to True, the rotation will be overridden by the values below * **X Override**: Overrides the rotation along the X axis * **Y Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Y axis * **Z Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Z axis * **Random Spin**: This ensures that all instances have a random angle/spin to them * **Uniform Angle**: Adjust the angle/spin of your instances. * **X Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the X axis * **Y Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Y axis * **Z Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Z axis ### Object-Based Scaling * **Objects**: Add meshes or curves to affect the scale of the scattered objects * **Distance**: Controls the strength of the scale influences * **Multiplier**: Controls the distance from the inputs for the influence to apply * **Falloff**: Controls how the influence tapers off with distance. ### Misc Settings * **End Cull Distance**: Distance from camera at which each instance completely fades out * **Receive decals**: If set to true, instances receive decals * **Enable collision**: If True - collision is set to 'Enabled (Query and Physics)', if False - 'NoCollision' # Vines ## Short Description Generates customizable ivy vines on surfaces. ## Description Create vines on the specified surfaces. This tool allows users to generate realistic ivy growth based on various parameters. It provides customization options for the appearance and behavior of the vines, making it suitable for enhancing natural environments in 3D scenes. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Surface**: Surfaces over which the ivy will grow. * **Origin**: Initial point from which the ivy begins to grow. * **Growth Iterations**: Number of growth iterations for the ivy. * **Growth Size**: Adjusts the overall size of the ivy; higher values result in larger ivy growth. * **Primary Weight**: Determines the upward growth tendency; higher values encourage more vertical growth. * **Random Weight**: Introduces directional randomness to the growth, adding variation and preventing uniform upward growth. * **Adhesion Weight**: Controls the stickiness of the ivy, affecting how closely it clings to surfaces. * **Gravity Weight**: Modifies the effect of gravity on the ivy, influencing how it hangs or droops. * **Max Float Length**: Defines the maximum length branches can extend while not adhering to a surface, length is relative to the surface mesh size. * **Max Adhesion Distance**: Specifies the furthest distance at which branches attempt to stick to nearby surfaces, distance is relative to the surface mesh size. * **Seed**: Random seed value for generating variations in ivy growth. ### Branches * **Branch Radius**: Radius of the ivy branches. * **Branch Sides**: Number of sides for the ivy branches. * **Branch Smoothing**: Applies a blur effect to branch output to reduce noise; may cause branches to intersect with meshes or hover above surfaces. * **Max Branch Length**: Max Length of a Branch. Length is relative to the surface size. * **Branch Min**: The minimum iteration count at which a new branch can spawn. Resets when a branch is spawned. * **Branch Max**: The maximum iteration count at which a new branch can spawn. Resets when a branch is spawned. * **Branch Step**: After every branch spawn, this value is added to Branch Min/Max to increase sparsity. ### Leaves * **Leaf Meshes**: Leaf meshes to be used in the ivy. * **Leaf Probability**: Sets the chance of leaves appearing on the ivy. * **Leaf Scale**: Size of ivy leaves. * **Leaf Density**: Leaf density. * **Leaf Sway**: Applies a slight random rotation to leaves, adding natural variation. * **Push**: Push along forward vector. * **Ignore Default Mesh**: If set to true, the vines will be created without the default leaf mesh. * **Forward Axis**: Forward Axis of the plane, most are +X, but AlphaCut results are +Y. # Edit Material ## Short Description A tool for editing material properties of 3D objects. ## Description This tool allows users to modify various material properties for 3D objects, enhancing their visual appearance in a scene. Users can adjust attributes such as color, texture, and special effects like dirt or snow, providing customizable options for material editing. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Objects**: Objects to work on * **Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the material * **Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **Brightness**: Controls brightness levels * **Contrast**: Sets the contrast ratio * **Tint**: Tint of the albedo * **Tint Intensity**: Controls the intensity of the tint * **Roughness**: Modifies the surface roughness * **Normal**: Controls normal map intensity * **Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of textures * **Opacity**: Controls the visibility of the material * **Displacement**: Sets the displacement level ### Triplanar * **Texture Scale**: Controls the scale of triplanar mapping * **Sharpness**: Adjusts the sharpness in triplanar mapping * **Dither Noise**: Applies noise to soften transitions ### UVs * **Rotation**: Adjusts texture rotation * **Tiling X**: Tiling along the X-axis * **Tiling Y**: Tiling along the Y-axis ### Dirt * **Enable Dirt**: Enables or disables dirt effects * **Dirt Intensity**: Controls the intensity of dirt * **Dirt Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the dirt * **Dirt Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **Dirt Brightness**: Controls brightness levels * **Dirt Roughness**: Modifies the surface roughness * **Dirt Tiling**: Adjusts the tiling of dirt textures * **Dirt Overlay**: Controls the intensity of dirt overlay ### Snow * **Enable Snow**: Toggles snow effect * **Snow**: Adjusts the accumulation of snow * **Snow Height Multiplier**: Adjusts the global displacement * **S Height Contrast**: Modifies height of snow * **S Height**: Modifies sharpness of snow * **S Slope**: Controls snow accumulation based on slope * **S Position X**: Adjusts the position on the X axis * **S Position Y**: Adjusts the position on the Y axis * **S Rotation**: Rotate snow texture * **S Tiling**: Adjusts tiling of snow textures * **S Brightness**: Snow brightness * **S Color Contrast**: Snow contrast * **S Albedo Blend**: Blend snow albedo with surface * **S Subsurface Intensity**: Controls subsurface value * **S Roughness Contrast**: Controls roughness contrast of snow * **S Roughness Blend**: Blend snow roughness with surface * **S Normal Intensity**: Modifies normal intensity of snow * **S Normal Blend**: Blend snow normal with surface normal * **S Noise**: Amount of noise on Snow * **S Noise Sharpness**: Sharpness of Snow noise ### Rain * **Rain**: Sets the strength of the rain * **Wetness**: Sets the strength of the rain * **T Drip Tiling**: Controls the size of Drips * **T Droplets Tiling**: Controls the size of Droplets * **T Ripple Size**: Controls the size of Ripples * **T Ripple Motion**: Adjusts the wave speed on water surfaces ### Wind * **Wind**: Enables or disables wind effects * **Wind Intensity**: Controls the intensity of wind * **Wind Speed**: Adjusts the speed of wind effects ### Water * **Depth**: Sets the depth of water * **Distortion**: Sets the distortion of water * **Underlying Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the underlying water surface * **Underlying Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation * **Speed**: Adjusts the wave speed on water surfaces ### Misc * **Translucency**: Adjusts the translucency level * **Roughness Contrast**: Enhances roughness contrast ### Variation * **Enable Color Variation**: Enables color variation * **Hue - Var 1**: Adjusts the hue variation of the material * **Saturation - Var 1**: Adjusts color saturation * **Brightness - Var 1**: Adjusts brightness # Mesh Scatter ## Short Description Scatters objects on the components of an input mesh. ## Description The Mesh Scatter tool allows users to scatter objects across the components of an input mesh. It provides options for selecting component types and configuring the scaling and spinning of the scattered instances. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Surface Meshes**: Meshes whose components will be used as the scatter coordinates. * **Scatter Meshes**: Meshes to scatter on the 'Surface Meshes' input. * **Component Type**: Select which component you want to scatter meshes on. * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of every instance. * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of every instance. * **Random Spin**: If checked, the 'Angle Spin' property is ignored, and all instances are randomly spun. * **Angle Spin**: Spins all instances towards the input angle. # Edit Particles ## Short Description Adjust particle settings and properties for enhanced effects. ## Description This tool allows users to adjust various settings related to particle effects, including physical properties and visual attributes. Users can control aspects such as density, speed, color, and more to refine the particle system in their application. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Density**: Controls the density of the particles. * **Bounds**: Controls the bounds of the particles. * **Scale**: Controls the scale of the particles. * **Lifetime**: Controls the lifetime of the particles. * **Speed**: Controls the speed of the particles. * **Gravity**: Controls the gravity of the particles. * **X Stretch**: Controls the stretching of the particles in the X axis. * **Y Stretch**: Controls the stretching of the particles in the Y axis. * **Hue**: Adjusts the hue of the particles. * **Saturation**: Adjusts color saturation. * **Brightness**: Controls brightness levels. * **Opacity**: Controls the visibility of the particles. # Path Scatter ## Short Description Scatters objects along curves and splines with customizable parameters. ## Description The Path Scatter tool scatters objects along curves or splines, allowing for flexible placement and configuration of scattered objects. It provides various parameters to control density, fitting, rotation, and scale of the scattered items, making it suitable for a range of use cases in 3D scene creation. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Curves**: Curves to scatter on * **Scatter**: Meshes to scatter * **Density Mode**: Changes the density mode. * **Density**: Density represents a value relative to the objects you scatter, and gives you plausible results. * **Distance**: Points will be scattered along the curve at this distance from each other * **Count**: Controls the number of scattered objects along the curve * **Fit Axis**: Set the axis of the object looking in the right direction, and the object will be fitted using that. * **Fit Mode**: Specify the fit mode for the objects; Pattern allows specific indexes, while Random generates objects randomly. * **Pattern**: Specify the object number as pattern, and it will be repeated, allowing for complex arrangements. * **Start Scatter**: Scatter objects at the start of the curve * **End Scatter**: Scatter objects at the end of the curve * **Flip Ends**: Flip the start or end scatter objects * **Fit Margin**: Add or remove a margin around the fitted objects to prevent them from touching each other * **Fill Stretch**: Stretch the objects along the curve to fill it completely * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of the scattered objects * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of the scattered objects * **Path Smooth**: Smoothness of the path curve * **Sink**: Pushes your instanced objects downwards, useful for trees and similar objects. * **Tangents Jitter**: Randomize position along the tangent of the curve, breaking up uniform placement. * **Binormals Jitter**: Randomize position along the binormal of the curve, further breaking up uniformity. * **Resolution**: Controls the sampling resolution of the curves * **Random Spin**: Randomly spins the scattered objects around their axis. * **Spin Axis**: Axis to spin the objects around. * **Seed**: Creates random variation of the current scatter setup. ### Feature Masking * **Projection Mask**: Projects the objects along this input mesh(es). * **Add Mask**: When masking is used, this can help you randomly restore masked objects. * **Remove Mask**: Randomly mask out objects. * **Slice Start**: Masks the scatter setup by slicing the internal curve at its start. * **Slice End**: Masks the scatter setup by slicing the internal curve at its ends. ### Rotation Properties * **Look at Mode**: Control the direction of each object. * **Look at Objects**: Objects to point the scattered objects at in LOOK AT mode. * **Align to Curve**: If turned on, orients aligned with the curve's normal. * **Rotation Jitter**: Randomly jitters the rotation of each scattered object. * **Rotation Space**: Rotate objects in world or object space. * **X Rotation**: Rotates the scattered objects along the X axis in the specified space. * **Y Rotation**: Rotates the scattered objects along the Y axis in the specified space. * **Z Rotation**: Rotates the scattered objects along the Z axis in the specified space. * **Twist Direction**: Twists around the specified axis. * **Twist Rotation**: Twists the scattered objects' rotations along the curve. ### Scale Properties * **Scale Jitter**: Randomly jitters the scale of each scattered object. * **Use Custom Scale**: If checked, the Min and Max scale values in the Base properties will be ignored. * **Xmin Scale**: Minimum scale on the X axis. * **Ymin Scale**: Minimum scale on the Y axis. * **Zmin Scale**: Minimum scale on the Z axis. * **Xmax Scale**: Maximum scale on the X axis. * **Ymax Scale**: Maximum scale on the Y axis. * **Zmax Scale**: Maximum scale on the Z axis. ### Position Override * **Randomize Override**: If set to true, the override value will be used to randomize the position of the scattered objects. * **X Override**: Overrides the position along the X axis. * **Y Override**: Overrides the position along the Y axis. * **Z Override**: Overrides the position along the Z axis. ### Proximity Mask * **Proximity**: Proximity meshes ensure that only scattered objects nearby are kept. * **Distance**: Controls the proximity distance. * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking but comes at a cost. ### Misc * **Receive decals**: If set to true, instances receive decals. * **Enable collision**: If True - collision is set to 'Enabled (Query and Physics)', if False - 'NoCollision'. # Instance Variation ## Short Description Create color variation on instances in a scene. ## Description The Instance Variation tool allows users to create diverse color variations on selected instances in a scene. It provides controls to adjust the scale of the noise, define minimum and maximum values for variation, and manage instancers. This tool enhances the visual diversity of instances by enabling the manipulation of color characteristics. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Instancers**: Instancers to operate on. Select them in your scene then click the + icon. * **Enabled**: Enable or disable instance variation. * **Seed**: Random seed for the variation. ### Color Variation * **Noise Scale**: Controls the scale of noise applied to the color variation. ### Color Variation 2 * **Minimum**: The minimum value for color variation. * **Maximum**: The maximum value for color variation. # Quick Pipe ## Short Description A tool for generating customizable mesh pipes around curves. ## Description Quick Pipe is a tool designed to create mesh pipes along specified input curves. It allows for customization of pipe properties such as radius, profile shape, and UV mapping to enhance the 3D modeling experience. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Curves**: Curves to create a pipe around. * **Radius**: Controls the radius of the pipe. ### Pipe Settings * **Sides**: Controls the side divisions of the profile. * **Custom Profile**: You can pass another curve to use as your pipe's profile. * **Custom Profile Scale**: When a custom profile is provided, this value controls its size. * **Open Profile**: If checked, the profile's sides will be opened. * **Close Caps**: If checked, the pipes will be closed with a cap. * **Normalized UVs**: When turned off, the UVs will be tiled depending on the mesh length in the scene. * **Normals Angle**: Normals angle of the generated pipe mesh. # Radial Scatter ## Short Description Scatters objects in a radial pattern around a center. ## Description The Radial Scatter tool scatters objects in a radial pattern around a center point. It provides various customizable properties to control the placement, attributes, and behavior of the scattered objects, including count, radius, and orientation. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Scatter**: Objects to instance on the grid * **Count**: Number of instances along the ring * **Radius**: Controls the radius of the scatter * **Start Angle**: Start angle of the ring * **End Angle**: End angle of the ring * **Keep Count**: Keep the initial count after slicing the radius * **Offset All**: Rotate all rings * **Height**: Applies height accumulatively on every point within a ring. * **Height every Nth**: Applies height every Nth object instead of every other ### Concentric * **Concentric Rings**: Number of concentric rings * **Concentric Distance Min**: Minimum distance between 2 concentric rings * **Concentric Distance Max**: Maximum distance between 2 concentric rings * **Ring Offset**: Rotates rings * **Offset every Nth**: Rotates every Nth ring instead of all. * **Accumulative Offset**: Accumulatively offsets instead of uniformly. * **Wrap Around**: If wrap around is set, ring offset won't confine objects within the Start and End angle * **Adaptive Count**: Set the number of objects in a ring such that spacing between objects is uniform in all rings. * **Count Increase**: Increase count every subsequent ring * **Count Every Nth**: Applies count increase every Nth ring * **Ring Height**: Applies a height accumulatively on every subsequent ring * **Ring Height every Nth**: Applies the Ring Height every Nth ring instead of every other ### Position * **Origin Meshes**: Origin to scatter objects around * **Orient To Origin**: If object is rotated, rotate also the scatter * **Equidistant**: Objects are placed in equal distances in a radius, otherwise randomly * **Randomize Position**: Randomizes position towards the center, giving it a bit of a variation. * **Sink**: Pushes your instanced objects downwards * **Randomize Sink**: Sink value will be randomized per object in the range of (0, Sink), instead of uniformly setting in the same for all. * **Seed**: Used for modifying randomization of Positional values ### Shaping * **X**: Extends along X axis * **Y**: Extends along Y axis * **Carve Start**: Carves out in a circular pattern, percentage wise * **Carve End**: Carves out in a circular pattern, percentage wise ### Scaling * **Scale Mode**: Scale Mode * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of the instances * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of the instances * **Noise Scale**: Controls the scale of the noise * **Scale Jitter**: Adds random scale value to existing scale. ### Rotation * **Twist Direction**: Twists around this axis * **Twist Rotation**: Twists the scattered objects' rotations along the curve * **Random Spin**: Rotates individual instances randomly around their axis * **Rotation Space**: Rotate objects in world or object space * **X Rotation**: Rotates the scattered objects along the X axis in the given space * **Y Rotation**: Rotates the scattered objects along the Y axis in the given space * **Z Rotation**: Rotates the scattered objects along the Z axis in the given space ### Projection * **Projection Meshes**: Meshes to projects the objects onto * **Align to Projection**: If set, reorients objects to the surface normals * **Remove Non Projected**: Anything that wasn't projected will be removed ### Proximity Mask * **Objects**: You can pass meshes, curves and even instancers to use them as masks * **Distance**: Distance of the objects' proximity mask * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost (especially if your proximity objects are scatter instances) ### Object Masking * **Objects**: Samples objects near the meshes. * **Distance**: Controls distance of the padding we add to the inside mask * **Keep Inside**: When set to true, ensures that we only keep what's inside of our meshes. ### Misc * **Random Remove**: Randomly removes percentage wise * **Seed**: Modifies the randomization process # Road Tool ## Short Description Generates customizable road/path meshes along curves. ## Description Creates a road/path mesh along the input curve/spline. This tool allows for detailed customization of the road characteristics including width, height, and alignment. It also provides options for splitting the road at specified intervals. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Curves**: Curve to create a path mesh around * **Width**: Width of the path mesh * **Inside Height**: Raises the inner vertices of the mesh * **Border Height**: Raises the border vertices of the mesh * **Profile Flatten**: Flattens the profile from the center to the edges ### Profile Settings * **Profile Divisions**: Number of divisions for the profile curve * **Profile Smooth**: Smoothness of the profile curve * **Profile Angle**: Angle of the profile curve * **Profile Alignment**: Aligns the profile curve to the path curve (Not compatible if Path Width - Width is used) * **Look at points**: Points to look at when using the 'Look At' profile alignment ### Geometry Settings * **Projection Mask**: Projects the road onto the input meshes * **Full Mesh**: When on, the full road mesh will be considered, making the road follow closely the underlying mesh * **UV Scale**: Scale the UVs * **Noise Scale**: Controls the scale of the noise * **Noise Intensity**: Controls the intensity of the noise * **Subdivision**: Subdivisions of the mesh * **Normals Angle**: Normals angle of the mesh * **Invert Normals**: Inverts the normals of the mesh * **Receive decals**: If set to true, the road mesh receives decals ### Path Width * **Width**: Creates two parallel meshes along the sides of the curves * **Width - Keep Center**: If set to true, the mesh objects at the center will be kept when using the width parameter for parallel curve scattering * **Width - Sides**: Number of parallel meshes to have on each side of the curves ### Splits * **Split Mode**: Split the road at the specified distance or number of splits * **Min Distance**: Minimum distance between the splits * **Max Distance**: Maximum distance between the splits * **Split Seed**: Seed for the splits * **Num Splits**: Number of splits to create the road * **Splits Offset**: Offset the splits * **Splits Threshold**: Ignores the splits if the section's length is smaller than the threshold * **Skip Nth**: Skip every Nth split * **Skip Nth Count**: Count of splits to skip * **Max Splits**: Limit the maximum amount of splits per curve # Surface Scatter ## Short Description A tool for scattering objects like vegetation and debris across surfaces. ## Description The Surface Scatter tool enables users to efficiently scatter various objects such as vegetation, debris, and other assets over selected surfaces. It allows for detailed customization of the scatter parameters to achieve realistic distributions and alignments of instances based on surface characteristics. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Surface**: Meshes (or splines/curves) to scatter objects on * **Scatter**: Meshes to scatter on the input surface(s) * **Density**: Density of your scatter. The higher the value, the more scattered meshes you'll have * **Uniform Scale**: If the value is bigger than 0.0, the min/max values will be ignored, and all scattered objects will be scaled uniformly to the value. * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of your scattered meshes * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of your scattered meshes * **Falloff**: Creates a falloff/gradient when scaling the objects. This relies on the min scale and max scale. * **Surface Align**: Adjust the degree of alignment towards the underlying surface. When scattering trees, you might for example not want any surface alignment * **Sink**: Pushes your instanced objects downwards, which is very practical for trees * **Randomize Sink**: Sink value will be randomized per object in the range of (0, Sink), instead of uniformly setting in the same for all. * **Seed**: Randomizes the result of the scatter ### Feature Masking * **Angle Mask**: Masks objects by the angle of the underlying surface area under them * **Min Height Mask**: Minimum height at which objects should be clamped * **Max Height Mask**: Maximum height at which objects should be clamped * **Add Mask**: Adds objects to the mask * **Remove Mask**: Randomly removes objects, ignoring any previous masking * **Clump Mask**: Creates smaller clump masks from the scattered objects * **Clump Radius**: Radius of the clumps * **Projection**: Only keep scattered objects that are above these input objects, and intersect with them * **Use Surface Normals**: During Raycast Meshes, uses the surface normals, otherwise uses the World Up direction ### Proximity Mask * **Objects**: You can pass meshes, curves and even instancers to use them as masks * **Distance**: Distance of the objects' proximity mask * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost (especially if your proximity objects are scatter instances) * **Width**: Width of the proximity mask. This allows your masking to create strokes/slices of your scatter setup. ### Noise Mask * **Breakup**: Controls the intensity of the noise/breakup. * **Breakup Scale**: Frequency of the noise mask. This basically controls the scale of the noise * **Smoothness Noise**: This value controls how sharp/soft the noise mask is * **Warp Noise**: Deforms the noise mask, which can result in some really interesting swirly mask shapes * **Noise Scale Multiplier**: * **Noise Scale X**: * **Noise Scale Y**: * **Noise Scale Z**: ### Proximity Mask 2 * **Objects**: You can pass meshes, curves and even instancers to use them as masks * **Distance**: Distance of the objects' proximity mask * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost (especially if your proximity objects are scatter instances) * **Width**: Width of the proximity mask. This allows your masking to create strokes/slices of your scatter setup. ### Proximity Mask 3 * **Objects**: You can pass meshes, curves and even instancers to use them as masks * **Distance**: Distance of the objects' proximity mask * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost (especially if your proximity objects are scatter instances) * **Width**: Width of the proximity mask. This allows your masking to create strokes/slices of your scatter setup. ### Object Masking * **Objects**: Samples objects near the meshes. Unlike proximity masking, this one uses raytracing to proper mesh proximity masking, and is more costly, and only works on meshes. * **Distance**: Controls distance of the padding we add to the inside mask * **Keep Inside**: When set to true, ensures that we only keep what's inside of our meshes. This can be useful for using meshes as instancer blockers * **Optimize for Curves**: If set to true, masking with curves will result in much faster scattering, but at the cost of texture and vertex color masking * **Projection Triangles**: When using curves as a mask, this controls the number of triangles to use for the projection geometry we generate from the curve ### Border Masking * **Border Offset**: Masks the scattered objects along the surface's borders. * **Border Min**: Minimum distance offset from the border mask value * **Border Max**: Maximum distance offset from the border mask value * **Border Noise**: Applies a noise on the border mask * **Border Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise border masking, but at a heavier cost ### Edge Breakup * **Border Distance**: Controls the edge breakup distance * **Border Spread**: Controls how spread of the edge breakups * **Border Scale**: Controls the tiling pattern scale of the edge breakup ### Directional Masking * **Lights**: Provide light/actors object to use for masking. The forward will be used as direction to mask the scatter. * **Light Angle Mask**: Based on the angle, consider more or less the parts of the objects that are facing the lights * **Floor Removal**: Gradually removes scatters that are facing upwards * **Use Shadows**: Uses the shadows projected from the lights as areas to scatter, like moss under trees * **Shadows Randomize**: Randomizes the shadow mask ### Rotation Properties * **Override Rotation**: If set to True, the rotation will be overridden by the values below * **X Override**: Overrides the rotation along the X axis * **Y Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Y axis * **Z Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Z axis * **Incremental Spin**: Write your incremental values as ints or floats, separated by spaces.Example: 0 90 180 * **Sort Increments**: If set to True, the incremental values will be applied in order, instead of randomly * **Randomize Angles**: This ensures that all instances have a random angle/spin to them, which ensures great rotation variation * **Uniform Angle**: Adjust the angle/spin of your instances. By default, they all have a random spin * **X Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the X axis * **Y Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Y axis * **Z Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Z axis ### Scale Properties * **Noise Scale**: If the value is bigger than 0.0 switches random scaling to simplex noise based scaling. * **Scale Multiplier**: Applies a scale multiplier to the scaling values. * **Use Custom Scale**: If checked, the Min and Max scale values in the Base properties will be ignored, in favor of the more granular scale options below * **Scale Sort**: If set to True, objects are arranged based on their scale, instead of randomly. This is particularly noticeable with falloffs * **Scale Sort Dither**: When using scale-based object sorting, this dithers the different object passes, giving us a more natural look * **Falloff Sharpness**: Controls the scale falloff's sharpness * **Xmin Scale**: Minimum scale on the X axis * **Ymin Scale**: Minimum scale on the Y axis * **Zmin Scale**: Minimum scale on the Z axis * **Xmax Scale**: Maximum scale on the X axis * **Ymax Scale**: Maximum scale on the Y axis * **Zmax Scale**: Maximum scale on the Z axis ### Object-Based Scaling * **Objects**: Add meshes or curves to affect the scale of the scattered objects * **Distance**: Controls the strength of the scale influences * **Multiplier**: Controls the disance from the inputs for the influence to apply * **Falloff**: ### Vertex Color Masking * **Blend Mode**: The blending mode to use for all vertex color masking * **Red Channel**: If checked, the blending mode dropdown below will take this vertex channel into account. * **Green Channel**: If checked, the blending mode dropdown below will take this vertex channel into account. * **Blue Channel**: If checked, the blending mode dropdown below will take this vertex channel into account. * **Threshold**: Controls the vertex color masking threshold. Higher values can make the mask go beyond the vertex colors, and include the scattered points closest to the area with vertex colors. ### Landscape Layer Masking * **Layer Name 1**: The name of the landscape layer to mask by * **Layer Strength 1**: The strength of the landscape layer mask * **Layer Name 2**: The name of the landscape layer to mask by * **Layer Strength 2**: The strength of the landscape layer mask * **Layer Name 3**: The name of the landscape layer to mask by * **Layer Strength 3**: The strength of the landscape layer mask ### Texture Masking * **Texture Path**: When a texture is provided, this allows you to mask objects by texture * **Texture Channel**: Selects the channel to be used from the texture * **Color Threshold**: Defines a threshold value ranging from 0.0 to 1.0. Colors in the texture below this threshold will be discarded during texture sampling. * **Texture Tile**: Control the tiling of the texture ### Misc Settings * **Max Count**: Maximum number of objects/instances you can scatter. Higher the value, the more instances you'll have. * **Random Scatter**: If set to true, the scatter algorithm will default on a white noise pattern, instead of the default blue noise. * **End Cull Distance**: Distance from camera at which each instance completely fades out * **Receive decals**: If set to true, instances receive decals * **Enable collision**: If True - collision is set to "Enabled (Query and Physics)", if False - "NoCollision" # Terrain Tool ## Short Description A tool for creating and shaping terrain meshes. ## Description Creates a terrain mesh. This tool can be used with height maps and curves to shape it. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Scale**: Controls the scaling of the terrain mesh. * **Material**: Defines the material used for the terrain. * **Curved**: Adjusts the curvature of the terrain mesh. * **Sink**: Determines the sinking effect within the terrain. * **Relax Weight**: Sets the weight for relaxation of terrain features. * **Subdivision**: Controls the subdivision level of the terrain mesh. * **Height**: Sets the height range for the terrain mesh. * **Uv Scale**: Controls the UV scaling of the terrain texture. * **Seed**: Sets the seed value for procedural generation. ### Noise Properties * **Turbulence**: Controls the turbulence effect on the terrain. * **Mid Turbulance**: Adjusts the middle turbulence level of the terrain. ### Curve Properties * **Curves**: Contains the falloff curves used to shape the terrain. * **Sampling**: Adjusts the distance between points on the curves. * **Falloff**: Sets the falloff range for the terrain shaping. * **Interpolate**: Defines the interpolation value for the falloff. * **Project Curves**: Determines if curves should be projected onto the terrain. ### Height Map * **Texture**: Defines the texture used for height mapping. * **Multiplier**: Controls the multiplier for height adjustment. # Transform Tool ## Short Description A tool for applying transformations to selected objects. ## Description Applies various transformations to the selected objects. This tool allows for adjustments in position, rotation, and scale of the selected objects, giving users the ability to easily manipulate them as needed. With options for randomization and overrides, it provides flexibility in how the transformations are applied. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Objects**: Objects to manipulate * **Seed**: Randomizes the result of the scatter ### Position Properties * **Sink**: Pushes the positions downwards * **X Override**: Overrides the positions along the X axis * **Y Override**: Overrides the positions along the Y axis * **Z Override**: Overrides the positions along the Z axis * **X Jitter**: Randomizes the positions along the X axis * **Y Jitter**: Randomizes the positions along the Y axis * **Z Jitter**: Randomizes the positions along the Z axis ### Rotation Properties * **Override Rotation**: If set to True, the rotation will be overridden by the values below * **X Override**: Overrides the rotation along the X axis * **Y Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Y axis * **Z Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Z axis * **Randomize Angles**: This ensures that all instances have a random angle/spin to them, which ensures great rotation variation * **Uniform Angle**: Adjust the angle/spin of your instances. By default, they all have a random spin * **X Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the X axis * **Y Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Y axis * **Z Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Z axis ### Scale Properties * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of your scattered meshes * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of your scattered meshes * **Scale Mode**: When scattering multiple meshes, you can choose how the scale should be handled # Volume Scatter ## Short Description Scatters objects inside a mesh. ## Description The Volume Scatter tool scatters objects inside a specified mesh or volume. It allows users to customize various parameters such as density, scale, and rotation to control the appearance of scattered objects. ## Properties ### Base Properties * **Meshes**: Meshes to use as a volume. * **Scatter**: Objects to scatter inside the volume meshes/curves. * **Density**: Density of your scatter. The higher the value, the more scattered meshes you'll have. * **Randomness**: Randomness of the scatter. The higher the value, the more random the scatter will be. * **Randomness Multiplier**: Multiplier for the randomness of the scatter. The higher the value, the more random the scatter will be. * **Min Scale**: Minimum scale of your scattered meshes. * **Max Scale**: Maximum scale of your scattered meshes. * **Seed**: Randomizes the result of the scatter. ### Rotation Properties * **Override Rotation**: If set to True, the rotation will be overridden by the values below. * **X Override**: Overrides the rotation along the X axis. * **Y Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Y axis. * **Z Override**: Overrides the rotation along the Z axis. * **Random Spin**: This ensures that all instances have a random angle/spin to them, which ensures great rotation variation. * **Uniform Angle**: Adjust the angle/spin of your instances. By default, they all have a random spin. * **X Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the X axis. * **Y Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Y axis. * **Z Jitter**: Randomizes the rotation along the Z axis. ### Proximity Mask * **Objects**: You can pass meshes, curves and even instancers to use them as masks. * **Distance**: Distance of the objects' proximity mask. * **Sampling**: A higher value results in more precise proximity masking, but at a heavier cost (especially if your proximity objects are scatter instances).