I was product manager of 3D Studio 30+ years ago and we’d live demo to thousands at trade shows. We learnt then, which is just as applicable now to YT, that you need to script these demos, including adding extensive notes so that people can follow along and reproduce what you are showing. It’s great that you’re doing this, but you could be so much more effective by understanding that what’s in your head is not in our heads and needs to be explained, and repeated, until it sinks in. It’s nothing to do with the audience not being familiar with the topic, because many like I, have being using PCG since its introduction, it’s just that you need to communicate a set of objectives to those watching, and only move on from each objective, once it’s successfully communicated. But anyway, thank you :) love PCG.
@@trignite what good is a presentation and demo if you're unable to follow along to understand it's workings? You've never been in a position in tech before have you?
@@NotThatOliviaas anybody in business will tell you. It’s the human cost that mounts up and having a poorly trained, expensive team is part of that. And of course, if you know anything of what you speak, you’ll know that Autodesk with AutoCAD, 3DS and Animator invested heavily in documentation and training with which many of today’s 3D artists learnt their trade.
A lot of you guys are complaining about this demonstration not being a tutorial. That’s because ITS NOT! This is a live demo from an event that most likely had a time constraint and possibly an interactive booth setup where interested individuals could get hands on with the graph. Try to absorb from it and stop whining
steel the demo is too complicated because of the lack of UX and UI experience. These people need a director that clarifies this tool, For example, the geometry node in Blender is way more user-friendly
How can you analyze the external environment from a script for constructing objects using a template? For example, when constructing a corridor, it is necessary that doors are built only in those places where there is contact with the room. Or any other calculations related to checking "is it possible to place this object in this place" and if this check shows that the object cannot be placed, then the check function is called for the next object in the list [Object1, Object2, Object3, ObjectDefault] ?
In the sample project whenever you enter the space station corridor, there is no lighting when in lit mode, but in your video it gradually gets lit how is this accomplished?
Thanks for the great video. Regarding the warehouse space, how do you handle the corners after breaking the spline into segments? just to avoid repetition and overlapping corners? Also, how would you go about creating a table of different grammars and selecting them inside the graph, or at least creating a stochastic grammar? Thanks!
I agree this was quite confusing. It leaves me with impression that PCG is a tool that can achieve similar things for example Geometry Nodes in Blender can, except with 10x more complexity and 10x more effort. Main problem of PCG is that it's too opiniated. It seems like it was developed in absolute isolation from similar existing tools in the industry, so it reinvents way too many existing concepts in new, more clunky way, and shuffles the terminology users are familiar with around. With PCG, I always have to do expert level mental gymnastics to map/translate the PCG concepts to 3D procedural content creation process from other 3D software, just to realize that it does the same thing, just in much more convoluted way.
I am very curious to know how he was able to have a planet that big in a map when maps (I think) are 20x20km maximum. And also if it's possible to seamlessly load a bigger map (no loading time). Kinda like a tutorial on how we can do a Star Citizen type of solar system.
I finally found it. If anybody is interested look for World Partition in the UE5 documentation and especially Level Streaming. There you go the start of SC auto loader! I am still not sure how it plays to have a planet that big however If anybody has more info or can confirm please share!
It's expected for more complex setup that the grammar comes from somewhere else, and is fed to the node as an attribute. It could be coming from a Data Table, or loaded from a JSON file.
Great video thanks! Let say I want to use the GPU nodes to create points and use PCG to add grass/details everywhere. Is there a way to also use the GPU to get the landscape and place the details on the landscape without using the CPU?
Yes :D you can add a pin Landscape on the Custom HLSL node (or Point Generator) and query it in HLSL code. You have the list of the available functions in the Declaration field.
I remember Epic talking about their Wave Function Collapse plugin for the Matrix: Awakens demo. Does anyone know how it differs from using Shape grammar nodes in PCG?
It's two different things for subdividing a space. WFC is not integrated with PCG yet, it's part of our V2 plan for Grammar and should makes its way in 5.6. But there is a plugin in Unreal to so WFC in Blueprint, and you can extend PCG with Blueprint nodes so in theory it's feasible :)
The thing I want the most from PCG is for it to work well with landmass, affecting the landscape underneath. And if you use an erosion brush, it might be useful to have access to how the landscape looked before the erosion, so if you could target some layer to get data, that would be great.
This looks really great, but it probably requires a lot of knowledge of how to use the PCG system to do something like this. So I would really like to see a tutorial on how to set everything up, and it would be great but also very helpful if you guys would realize that.
Thanks for you time and the video. Just a consideration: the performance on a coocked build of a pcg always give us stutter Is there a way to improve it? Maybe we are doing something wrong on our side? Thanks again Edit: typos
PCG is already doing multi-threaded work, and their was a revamp of the Graph execution (GraphExecutor V2) that you can enable on top of multi-threading, so pcg tasks are not frame-bound anymore. Of course you are still limited by everything that is main thread only, such as Mesh and actor spawning.
@@MartinBerge-p7q It will be in the release notes, but graph V2 can be enabled with `pcg.Graph.ExecuteV2` and the multithreading with `pcg.GraphMultithreading`. It's still experimental, hence why it is not enabled by default, but IIRC this live demo has both enabled.
For PCG, the landscape is editor only. So no there is no plan for that for now. You could perhaps design something in PCg that creates a heightmap then import it into the landscape tool.
As a computational designer, I would never teach this topic that way. And honestly, what's the point of having two people? It only doubles the confusion. Unreal Team, you have great artists, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to achieve clear and effective teaching.
Very impressive demo. The only thing I would request, if possible, is a tutorial or more detailed walkthrough of querying the points from the global PCG graph into the Hi-Gen grids for additional detail spawning. I got lost there and don’t quite understand how that works.
Honestly, I don’t understand why every single time they do a live demo of something, the Bueprints and graphs are already made: there's no point in trying to explain them afterward-that’s not how you learn! Is building the entire system from scratch too much for a live demo? Fine, then make other videos for that purpose! Unreal is an excellent program, but there’s always so little documentation.
While this is a cool demo, it's a very bad educational resource: - you're adding nodes and changing properties with little to no explanation what they do; most of the time I don't know why you changed some property and what were the effects - most of the graphs are already created thus we don't really know what's going on - the explanations that are present assume the audience already knows what you're talking about, thus defeating the purpose of the explanation (e.g. what is a stochastic grammar? how does it work exactly? when should we use it?) - there's a lot of chaotic jumping all around It would be great to do a proper video/series explaining everything in detail and from start to finish.
Very different beasts. Both have their strengths. But also, following release of the City demo, built in part on Houdini assets, I felt it was only time before Epic adopted much of what Houdini had to offer. But as you pointed out, not there yet.
PCG is only 2 years old, Houdini 28 years old, of course they have way more functionality. PCG is not meant to replace Houdini, but work alongside it. PCG can load data coming from Houdini, so you can do your complex simulation in Houdini and import the results in PCG for the final touches. Also Houdini can't do anything at play time in Unreal, while PCG can, since it's an integrated tool. So two complementary tools ;) And if you only want to use Houdini, you can too :D
@@adrien_logut yep. Nobody is criticizing. Looking forward to being able to absolutely describe assets using grammar and requesting those assets via grammar (and dictionary) from an external entity. Agree re Unreal. Real time lighting and rendering is where it’s at.
I was product manager of 3D Studio 30+ years ago and we’d live demo to thousands at trade shows. We learnt then, which is just as applicable now to YT, that you need to script these demos, including adding extensive notes so that people can follow along and reproduce what you are showing. It’s great that you’re doing this, but you could be so much more effective by understanding that what’s in your head is not in our heads and needs to be explained, and repeated, until it sinks in. It’s nothing to do with the audience not being familiar with the topic, because many like I, have being using PCG since its introduction, it’s just that you need to communicate a set of objectives to those watching, and only move on from each objective, once it’s successfully communicated. But anyway, thank you :) love PCG.
This isn't a tutorial, they're showing the new features off and what they've done. They're not trying to get people to follow along.
@@trignite Who mentioned tutorial? Besides, even demos need to effectively communicate benefits and features. Else why do them.
@@trignite what good is a presentation and demo if you're unable to follow along to understand it's workings? You've never been in a position in tech before have you?
lol, the tool is free, unlike 3DS back then, learn it, and be thankful for their (free for us) efforts
@@NotThatOliviaas anybody in business will tell you. It’s the human cost that mounts up and having a poorly trained, expensive team is part of that. And of course, if you know anything of what you speak, you’ll know that Autodesk with AutoCAD, 3DS and Animator invested heavily in documentation and training with which many of today’s 3D artists learnt their trade.
PCG is insane, keep it up!
A lot of you guys are complaining about this demonstration not being a tutorial. That’s because ITS NOT! This is a live demo from an event that most likely had a time constraint and possibly an interactive booth setup where interested individuals could get hands on with the graph. Try to absorb from it and stop whining
steel the demo is too complicated because of the lack of UX and UI experience. These people need a director that clarifies this tool, For example, the geometry node in Blender is way more user-friendly
Is it possible to get this example project?
It is available on FAB. Cassini Sample
Awesome stuff as usual guys ! :)
Could we please get access to the actual project files?
Awesome make a deeper diver into all this please
How can you analyze the external environment from a script for constructing objects using a template? For example, when constructing a corridor, it is necessary that doors are built only in those places where there is contact with the room. Or any other calculations related to checking "is it possible to place this object in this place" and if this check shows that the object cannot be placed, then the check function is called for the next object in the list [Object1, Object2, Object3, ObjectDefault] ?
In the sample project whenever you enter the space station corridor, there is no lighting when in lit mode, but in your video it gradually gets lit how is this accomplished?
Thanks for the great video. Regarding the warehouse space, how do you handle the corners after breaking the spline into segments? just to avoid repetition and overlapping corners? Also, how would you go about creating a table of different grammars and selecting them inside the graph, or at least creating a stochastic grammar? Thanks!
I agree this was quite confusing. It leaves me with impression that PCG is a tool that can achieve similar things for example Geometry Nodes in Blender can, except with 10x more complexity and 10x more effort. Main problem of PCG is that it's too opiniated. It seems like it was developed in absolute isolation from similar existing tools in the industry, so it reinvents way too many existing concepts in new, more clunky way, and shuffles the terminology users are familiar with around.
With PCG, I always have to do expert level mental gymnastics to map/translate the PCG concepts to 3D procedural content creation process from other 3D software, just to realize that it does the same thing, just in much more convoluted way.
I am very curious to know how he was able to have a planet that big in a map when maps (I think) are 20x20km maximum. And also if it's possible to seamlessly load a bigger map (no loading time). Kinda like a tutorial on how we can do a Star Citizen type of solar system.
I finally found it. If anybody is interested look for World Partition in the UE5 documentation and especially Level Streaming. There you go the start of SC auto loader!
I am still not sure how it plays to have a planet that big however
If anybody has more info or can confirm please share!
@@Shepherd1234 id be interested as well !
This is the kind of material I stop to watch! Love PCG
More pcg please.
Would be great to have a better editing experience for the grammar. All of that typing in a small textbox feels hard to read.
It's expected for more complex setup that the grammar comes from somewhere else, and is fed to the node as an attribute. It could be coming from a Data Table, or loaded from a JSON file.
pcg UI is really weird, please make something like geometry nodes, or grasshopper. You end up always lost in a submenu cant find it intuitive...
Has anyone seen any detailed information on how to get into grammars?
When Houdini meets UE, and they have a baby haha
Who can tell how they add BP(ModuleInfo) to the level instance? I tried to find it but useless.
Great video thanks!
Let say I want to use the GPU nodes to create points and use PCG to add grass/details everywhere. Is there a way to also use the GPU to get the landscape and place the details on the landscape without using the CPU?
Yes :D you can add a pin Landscape on the Custom HLSL node (or Point Generator) and query it in HLSL code. You have the list of the available functions in the Declaration field.
@@adrien_logut ooh this is amazing, thank you !
These people need a director that clarifies this tool, For example, the geometry node in Blender is way more user-friendly
I remember Epic talking about their Wave Function Collapse plugin for the Matrix: Awakens demo. Does anyone know how it differs from using Shape grammar nodes in PCG?
It's two different things for subdividing a space. WFC is not integrated with PCG yet, it's part of our V2 plan for Grammar and should makes its way in 5.6. But there is a plugin in Unreal to so WFC in Blueprint, and you can extend PCG with Blueprint nodes so in theory it's feasible :)
The thing I want the most from PCG is for it to work well with landmass, affecting the landscape underneath. And if you use an erosion brush, it might be useful to have access to how the landscape looked before the erosion, so if you could target some layer to get data, that would be great.
This looks really great, but it probably requires a lot of knowledge of how to use the PCG system to do something like this.
So I would really like to see a tutorial on how to set everything up, and it would be great but also very helpful if you guys would realize that.
Thanks for you time and the video.
Just a consideration: the performance on a coocked build of a pcg always give us stutter
Is there a way to improve it? Maybe we are doing something wrong on our side?
Thanks again
Edit: typos
Anything on async pcg generation?
PCG is already doing multi-threaded work, and their was a revamp of the Graph execution (GraphExecutor V2) that you can enable on top of multi-threading, so pcg tasks are not frame-bound anymore.
Of course you are still limited by everything that is main thread only, such as Mesh and actor spawning.
@@adrien_logut Amazing, thank you so much! I havent been able to find information on this... How do you enable the GraphExecutor V2?
@@MartinBerge-p7q It will be in the release notes, but graph V2 can be enabled with `pcg.Graph.ExecuteV2` and the multithreading with `pcg.GraphMultithreading`.
It's still experimental, hence why it is not enabled by default, but IIRC this live demo has both enabled.
@@adrien_logut Thanks again! This is gold
Is there any way to also create landscapes with pcg?
I would recommend you use gaea for that
What would you draw the points from? Landscape is just a height map though.
For PCG, the landscape is editor only. So no there is no plan for that for now. You could perhaps design something in PCg that creates a heightmap then import it into the landscape tool.
"What are your specs?"," Oh, I don't think it's out yet."
You'd be surprised ;)
oh look they dont like mars but they like saturn!
As a computational designer, I would never teach this topic that way. And honestly, what's the point of having two people? It only doubles the confusion. Unreal Team, you have great artists, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to achieve clear and effective teaching.
3:52 !!!!!!
Why Mars is so blurry and flat?
Very impressive demo. The only thing I would request, if possible, is a tutorial or more detailed walkthrough of querying the points from the global PCG graph into the Hi-Gen grids for additional detail spawning. I got lost there and don’t quite understand how that works.
pinshes vatos locos alv
Honestly, I don’t understand why every single time they do a live demo of something, the Bueprints and graphs are already made: there's no point in trying to explain them afterward-that’s not how you learn!
Is building the entire system from scratch too much for a live demo? Fine, then make other videos for that purpose! Unreal is an excellent program, but there’s always so little documentation.
While this is a cool demo, it's a very bad educational resource:
- you're adding nodes and changing properties with little to no explanation what they do; most of the time I don't know why you changed some property and what were the effects
- most of the graphs are already created thus we don't really know what's going on
- the explanations that are present assume the audience already knows what you're talking about, thus defeating the purpose of the explanation (e.g. what is a stochastic grammar? how does it work exactly? when should we use it?)
- there's a lot of chaotic jumping all around
It would be great to do a proper video/series explaining everything in detail and from start to finish.
learn from sidefx tutorials pls
How are you gonna lunch fab and have no sale? I’m talking 60-70% off not 50 because that’s the basic one so where’s the sale?
BORING.................
still feels inferior to houdini engine
Very different beasts. Both have their strengths. But also, following release of the City demo, built in part on Houdini assets, I felt it was only time before Epic adopted much of what Houdini had to offer. But as you pointed out, not there yet.
Vastly inferior
PCG is only 2 years old, Houdini 28 years old, of course they have way more functionality.
PCG is not meant to replace Houdini, but work alongside it. PCG can load data coming from Houdini, so you can do your complex simulation in Houdini and import the results in PCG for the final touches.
Also Houdini can't do anything at play time in Unreal, while PCG can, since it's an integrated tool. So two complementary tools ;)
And if you only want to use Houdini, you can too :D
@@adrien_logut yep. Nobody is criticizing. Looking forward to being able to absolutely describe assets using grammar and requesting those assets via grammar (and dictionary) from an external entity. Agree re Unreal. Real time lighting and rendering is where it’s at.