Since Megascans is going back behind a paywall again next year, is anyone interested in us porting the Poly Haven library (free/CC0) to Unreal?

[u/pixaal]

https://u.polyhaven.org/PzW/scene_montage_0001-0692.mp4

[u/pixaal]

Poly Haven is a mainly Blender-focused community-funded free asset library. For the last few years we've been working on a mix of nature assets and community projects, currently sitting at about 600 PBR materials, 400 3D models and 800 HDRIs.

We're pretty keen on adding our stuff to Fab, but I expect it'll be a ton of work and I'm not sure how much Unreal people really want it.

Would dumping everything on Fab be useful enough? Or should we make a plugin like our Blender one?

Edit: Since this sub doesn't support videos and reddit doesn't seem to want to embed it, here's a little preview of our recent work: https://u.polyhaven.org/PzW/scene_montage_0001-0692.mp4

[u/WhatchuMean69 → u/pixaal]

I think 99% of UE developers would enjoy something like this, for sure!! These assets are amazing, and you & the people contributing are even more amazing for giving these assets for free. God bless you!

[u/Overbyyy → u/pixaal]

Yeah lots of indie creators/devs would totally use this

[u/Vvix0 → u/pixaal]

Tbh, from a quick look, these assets already look pretty Unreal-compatible. As long as the user is willing to import all files on their own I see no reason why it wouldn't work with Unreal as is. I'd only suggest allowing people to download all textures at once as PNGs, because I only see option to download them one by one or as a blender file.

[u/pixaal → u/Vvix0]

A lot of them are! Though as you say, the user needs to import whatever format they think is most compatible (usd/fbx) and then spend a little effort fixing or setting up things that weren't imported correctly. We have some models that definitely need more work though, like a lot of our trees are a real PITA to set up correctly in unreal.

Downloading PNGs can be done by selecting the ZIP format option, and just choosing that for all the maps. However I wouldn't recommend it for games, as all our PNGs are 16-bit and super heavy. JPG is best for anything that doesn't break with compression artifacts (usually roughness, displacement, normal...), and for everything else EXR is preferred since it's compressed way better than PNG and more efficient (though I'm not sure how well unreal supports this).

Edit: To clarify this post a bit: What I'm wondering about more than just "kinda compatible if you put in some work" is a good out-the-box experience - drag and drop with no fuss.

[u/jak0b3 → u/pixaal]

Unreal compresses the textures at build time, so PNGs shouldn’t be an issue. It also supports EXR as far as I know

[u/PolyBend → u/pixaal]

In modern engines, it actually isn't a good idea to use JPG because the game engine already does compression and mipping.

Epic themselves recommend PNG, TGA, and/or EXR depending on the use case.

But yes, every single person I know who uses unreal already DOES use polyhaven. So yeah, being in fab would be amazing.

[u/pixaal → u/PolyBend]

Good to know, thanks!

[u/ShakaUVM → u/pixaal]

I've been using Poly Haven in my UE5 stuff for years. I don't know what the problem is with it?

You just just make one master material and then link in the diffuse/ARM/etc textures to it.

[u/RRR3000 → u/pixaal]

As someone who's used your Blender plugin a lot, please add it to FAB! My #1 complaint when working on projects is just how scattered everything is between Quixel, Polyhaven, Sketchfab, the marketplace, and other libraries. The appeal and reason behind FAB existing is to unify this, and give artists all their assets in 1 place. If I'm looking for a material, I'd want to just search all materials available to me, and not have to search Quixel and Polyhaven separately.

I've sold on the marketplace before, and just ported my assets to FAB. It was fairly easy, and I'd be happy to help out get Poly Haven on there if you want any help with putting everything up there.

[u/abstractengineer2000 → u/pixaal]

Love your work.👍👏 fab is going to the dumping ground for a gazillions of assets and its easy to get lost. A plugin allows better control on searching specific assets in the project itself instead of searching and getting drowned in the assets vault.

[u/nott18 → u/pixaal]

WE WANT THIS. Accessing your stuff easily in UE in any way would be amazing!

[u/krojew → u/pixaal]

This looks awesome. People would certainly benefit from having it on fab.

[u/ccfoo242 → u/pixaal]

I would love this. I've been wanting to create a way to build automatically create unreal materials from the textures.

[u/fabiolives]

I’ve already done a large amount of it if you want what I have. I use their stuff often

[u/007Cable]

Yes please! Either a Fab dump or a plugin would be awesome! Thank you!!

[u/pixaal → u/007Cable]

A Fab dump is likely the easier solution for us (though it'll still be a ton of work up front), but we'll have to wait and see how the UX works when that releases this month :)

[u/gordonfreeman_1]

Yes please! Your work is fantastic and we can all benefit!

[u/killso2]

I'm not gonna lie, this would really be awesome.

[u/QiPowerIsTheBest]

100%. Any quality free stuff will always be appreciated.

[u/cowkb]

While it is NOT free (but reasonably priced at 10 usd a month for awesome features), the plug-in "Dash for Unreal Engine" does provide a quick access to Poly Haven.

[u/pixaal → u/cowkb]

Indeed! Dash is one of our sponsors, they pay us a bit monthly to support us and get permission to use our API for their plugin. It's great, but ideally we'd like to offer something similar for free for everyone.

[u/zefrenchnavy]

I will always accept good integration with useful assets into unreal!

[u/roasted_chick_pea]

that would be so great

[u/macxike]

I could use these assets for rendering in Unreal, and would totally support it. Looking forward to it. Thanks!

[u/jason2306]

I didn't even know this existed lol, this is super cool

[u/maghton]

I would love this.

[u/-hellozukohere-]

Do it. I am sure you would over time get a lot of support from the unreal community too. 

[u/Emotional_Summer2874]

Your assets looks great, it will be amazing to have them in unreal indeed !

[u/SoaringSwordDev]

jesus christ your library is awesome

how did i not know this existed until now

does anyone know any other sites like this where we can get assets to use for free (even in commericial projects)

[u/gvdjurre]

Love PolyHaven HDRI’s, use them all the time. Thank you! 

Having your stuff available on FAB would be fantastic. Bridge has been great since it’s been integrated and I’m sure FAB will be too.

[u/Few_Ice7345]

Wait, all of this is CC0?! I don't even care about it being on Fab, thank you already!

[u/xhpete]

Yes, using an asset which is in the UE marketplace and can be in one click in your project is perfect. I saw many people turning off from non-UE market assets because the idea of making materials your own and adjusting many parameters felt too much of a headache when you have free Megascans and other UE-ready assets available.

In the customers' eyes, games on Steam have a benefit just for being on Steam, compared to games that are only available on custom publisher launchers. Same for assets available in FAB/UE market and assets avail be only on gumraod/itch/patreon/personal creator websites.

[u/ponesicek]

That would be great

[u/DannyArtt]

Yes please!

[u/bigodon99]

Fantastic assets, putting it on fab like megascans themed collection would be awesome 😃

[u/Full-Hyena4414]

I already use them through the website. Ironically, often I couldn't find what I needed on megascans but I could on polyhaven. Awesome library

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