Pinning this, comment from wauthethird. The ID situation is MUCH worse than I highlighted in the video. "It seems that each and every asset that has made its way over to Fab has a completely different asset ID. The only way to see what the old ID was is to ask Fab (in an API request) what files it has available to download for a specific asset, and then extract the ID from the .zip name." In that case, EVERY single project made prior to Fab is now essentially broken, as without Bridge there is a zero percent chance to re-online or up-rez via Fab. You won’t be able to find it.
This is some good to know info in the video. And the Epic Games team, need to know this. I am sure they are indeed aware, but they are also only human, and might not know.
Aussie aussie aussie! Thanks for commenting Hugo, I'm freelancing now but was at Channel 7 prior. Kept my head pretty low other than in this 3D environment niche :) You freelancing also?
These are fantastic points and I felt the same frustrations trying to navigate FAB for the first time. Trying to find JUST Quixel assets without all the other noise felt impossible and it was not intuitive to get their page. Definitely need a way to filter pro/premium assets, the functionality of Bridge was huge… and your final point really hit home for me. In the face of AI, artists don’t want an unusable platform that is demotivating and prevents the ability to iterate and move quickly. Really hope this video and your points gets the attention it deserves!
Absolutely, there is 0% chance this went through any QA. There absolutely needs to be portals to separate Pro Tools from the rest. I really appreciate your comment about my AI point, tells me you watched it to the end so that means a lot. I've sent this video in the forum as well as via 2 support contacts so fingers crossed!!
Very good info, now I'm scared to open some old UE projects. Unrelated, but I am very interested in environment creation and your work is insanely good, so I figured I'd ask. I have done some vfx work, can find my way around Blender or C4d and am most familiar with compositing. I was wondering if you can recommend any courses or recources. Also for film/vfx would you recommend starting with GAEA , World creator or even houdini?
I'm sorry to hear that, you and me both. Hopefully they amend this sooner rather than later to keep you inspired and engaged in the space :) It really is a fun place to be in (other than when companies who control our tools do things like this!)
I've been working on a script that will download every Quixel asset from Fab, and I wanted to offer a note about the asset ID situation. So, I've already made a script that downloads everything from Quixel - that works fine, but it seems that each and every asset that has made its way over to Fab has a completely different asset ID. The only way to see what the old ID was is to ask Fab (in an API request) what files it has available to download for a specific asset, and then extract the ID from the .zip name. There is also no public API, so I've been reduced to reverse engineering browser requests to get all of this information. I'll persevere, but this is definitely not ideal whatsoever.
I take it this is true, which is even worse than I illustrated in the video. (just checked, you are 10000% correct. Holy moly) In that case, EVERY single project made prior to Fab is now essentially broken, as without Bridge there is a zero percent chance to re-online via Fab.
The hard lesson I learned about Epic, after moving from Unity to Unreal is that they have a tendency to change or remove something before coming up with viable replacements for it. And when the community outcry is MASSIVE, they all just completely ignore the people who are complaining.
Totally agree. It’s a complete disaster at the moment. Hope they upgrade/fix/resolve these issues. Let’s give them some time…but releasing this so early in this state is unprofessional:(
Agreed. I was so disappointed when I saw FAB for the first time.. this is a downgrade in so many ways... garbage... i feel like i'm searching through garbage...
Its either intentional on Epic's side... or just somehow complete lack of understanding of their own products and how people use them in the pipeline - which blows my mind .... not sure which is worse though.... either way - using their assets now became pretty much 10x harder which sucks balls... Either way - You're right on the money with every point You made Aaron
I had that thought too. In a weird way I'm hoping this is all down to incompetence and not something that's is intentional. As one can be 'fixed', while the other is a philosophy shift that is anti artists and all about $$$.
@@aaronwestwood yeah, I would love to believe it is just incompetence...... but You know.... but I am a little bit too long in this industry to be naive and think they care about artist and not about money
@@marowak87 absolutely it’s just so strange to me how obvious moves like this are with tech companies. You want people to buy into your vision to make the big bucks, so why make something that no one wants to get behind?
I'm baffled at this new move to be honest. I completely agree with your points, everything was already perfect with Bridge and if they just wanted money they could've implemented a simple paid subscription system of some kind starting in 2025 without jumping to Fab which feels so clunky and unnecessary. As a Blender user myself I'm sad to see Bridge going away. Hopefully they've thought of something.
I think the devs have been forced to rush this out. I think they got the majority of the features all working together from each one of the platforms they were trying to combine. And like releasing a modern game, they were like, "we'll patch in the fixes later"
@@DylonDylonDylon 100%. It absolutely feels like they are treating this like a game release. Insane, as it is MEANT to be a professional tool. I’ve seen a lot of dev stuff ups in our space, but never something like this (that we can’t even rollback…which is the standard)
As simple as a Bridge button beside add to cart / download. With the bridge app functionality as a starting point. Add quixel and sketchfab to the platforms section. Add another large section that shows softwares such as C4D, Blender, etc that only filters their respective usable file types. Which would then allow them to remove some of the global filters and declutter it while increasing functionality and ease of use and workflow
one easy thing they could do is to add a "Quixel" section & a dedicated toggle -> Then you could just have a big section for "Platforms" like how they have it for Unity, UE and UEFN rn + Easily toggle Quixel and have only quixel tools that are supported in your specific software
For me, my biggest complain is that everything is shown as being published in October 2024. Gives the illusion that the product is new or being updated, until you scroll down and see it's not compatible with you engine version since 4.27. I'm sure it'll get better, but they have a long way there.
Not a UE user, but saw that point also from another user. Fab looks at migration date and not the creation date so everything looks brand new, but assets go back as far as 2014 from what I read.
man, I held off from adding everything to bridge because I got the email from Epic saying they were going to make everything available for free... Little did I realize I wouldn't be able to add them to my bridge library.......... man this is annoying.
My thoughts exactly, it'd be fine If they did that parallel, but they disabled Quixel except for the already purchaed assets. why? when Fab seems like in ALPHA maybe Beta at most.
100%! The Quixel team are all environment artists themselves, having a library designed by artists is invaluable. i feel like they have just taken the assets and put them in a new library designed by the team behind the worst asset library in history the old Unreal marketplace.
I can't export any twinmotion 2024 projects to unreal 5.4. For me, only the datasmith twinmotion plugin appears and the twinmotion content plugin does not appear for me. What do I do?
This feels like developers from the year 1990, were asked to build an asset site. FAB looks like it was built by soneone who should be on the show, 'American Hoarders." There is no real organization. Everything is just dumped into huge unsorted piles. An the a positive note, I'm being forced to learn howbto fix problems with assets, myself.
It is barely usable for us C4D or other DCC users because they mostly (if not only) focus on Unreal Engine. But the ones I blame the most are Maxon, they are the one that are supposed to bring us a usable and convenient asset bridge app. And I am not talking about the atrocious 'asset browser' obviously.
Bridge setup sits on the responsibility on Epic, as it has always been standalone and has nothing to do with Maxon (outside of allowing port's for DCC export). But I agree fully, not only is it barely usable...it straight up isn't usable.
@@aaronwestwood I may have not been clear, I don’t blame Maxon for not developing Quixel bridge, I know it is owned by Epic. I am blaming Maxon for not developing a similar asset library dedicated to their community, so we would not be dependent of an app that is mostly oriented towards Unreal Engine users.
If only they’d had the saving grace of making it usable for unreal, just to say they focus on their own products (although still not acceptable). It is as broken for UE5 as described in this video. And that is using their fab plugin. My workflow in the past couple of days is to search things in quixel bridge and “add to library” so I can find things I need in fab. Completely broken everywhere!
@@laeternamloh I got you! Yeh I’m with you there. Our current asset library is also just as busted with all the Redshift integration…I don’t even touch it. Do you know if there is a way to “clean slate it” or do we have to navigate around all the built in clutter? Was thinking about this today.
Isn't the whole point of Bridge to be able of BRIDGING the assets? it was a perfect smooth process exporting from there to c4d or maya. Like, what would they force a switch if it's buggy laggy and not useful at all.
Even for unreal engine users is this f*cked up. If there will be no Bridge - they changed texture format for FAB quixel (master material as well - lot of plugins were using that) and yet there is no other way to import metahumans
These people at Epic literally hate their customers on all the possible level as well as asset creators. Instead of getting some high grade specialists to make a proper unified platform they literally messed it all up and it is full of shitty unusable models and 3d scans right now. But you know what is even bigger joke of the company they became to with that release of the FAB. On their web site footer there is such a thing in their company as Epic UX Research and these people in fact know nothing about UX after all these decades in business. Crazy. Multimillion or even billion company full of unprofessional and incompetent people that are not able to make a high end asset store to meet all creator needs in 2025.
"I see the positivity in the idea, it's just the implementation is so incredibly poor" Well said. That's basically how Epic works since Unreal 5 came out. do the bare minimum > hype it up to casual users without telling them how exactly it is going to work > casual user thinks it's cool without understanding it's flaws (they don't have to) > investors likes that possitive feedback > move on to the next "big" thing > repeat That kind of positivity puts the company in a positive feedback loop where the problems are either overlooked or even worse completely ignored. They did this with Lumen and Nanite but still haven't fixed their optimization problems. Well FAB is still new so maybe they will fix these issues (and I hope they do) but I don't have too much trust in Epic. Sorry I got sidetracked, I just wanted to comment to support the video and end up rumbling.
There's no investors tho, Epic is private. They're acting like they're publicly traded, but they aren't. It's the dei infiltrating the company cuz tencent could be doing the same strat they did with Ubisoft to lower the value of the company to buy it completely for cheaper.
I can't export any twinmotion 2024 projects to unreal 5.4. For me, only the datasmith twinmotion plugin appears and the twinmotion content plugin does not appear for me. What do I do?
Pinning this, comment from wauthethird. The ID situation is MUCH worse than I highlighted in the video.
"It seems that each and every asset that has made its way over to Fab has a completely different asset ID. The only way to see what the old ID was is to ask Fab (in an API request) what files it has available to download for a specific asset, and then extract the ID from the .zip name."
In that case, EVERY single project made prior to Fab is now essentially broken, as without Bridge there is a zero percent chance to re-online or up-rez via Fab. You won’t be able to find it.
This is some good to know info in the video. And the Epic Games team, need to know this.
I am sure they are indeed aware, but they are also only human, and might not know.
Sharing this with my viewers
Legend, thanks man! Fingers crossed.
Well said...agree with your points...give us at least a bridge ffs
ffs to say the least! Thanks Steffen
I’ve said it for years, bridge as an asset database was nearly as valuable as the assets themselves. Now it back to windows explorer and local search?
Exactly what I‘m thinking.
The possibility to directly export to C4D / 3ds Max was such a timesaver.
Integration was perfect and well thought out.
Exactly. We aren't asking them to match or copy a competitors tool, we are asking them to copy themselves and the foundation they created.
Right on the money. This fully breaks any professional workflow.
Completely, further no new workflow can be developed under this primitive approach.
Whoever came up with this fab idea should get fired.
Oh wow when I read the news about Quixel moving to Fab, I had no idea that this would be so bad. 😂 They removed everything that was great about it
Totally agree, it’s like having your toolbox replaced with someone else’s from another trade.
Hey Aaron. Incredible portfolio! Sydney based 3d artist here as well, surprised I've never heard of you before!
Aussie aussie aussie! Thanks for commenting Hugo, I'm freelancing now but was at Channel 7 prior. Kept my head pretty low other than in this 3D environment niche :)
You freelancing also?
These are fantastic points and I felt the same frustrations trying to navigate FAB for the first time. Trying to find JUST Quixel assets without all the other noise felt impossible and it was not intuitive to get their page. Definitely need a way to filter pro/premium assets, the functionality of Bridge was huge… and your final point really hit home for me. In the face of AI, artists don’t want an unusable platform that is demotivating and prevents the ability to iterate and move quickly. Really hope this video and your points gets the attention it deserves!
Absolutely, there is 0% chance this went through any QA. There absolutely needs to be portals to separate Pro Tools from the rest.
I really appreciate your comment about my AI point, tells me you watched it to the end so that means a lot. I've sent this video in the forum as well as via 2 support contacts so fingers crossed!!
Thanks for making this video. I was excited to discover how Fab would be better than Bridge and was baffled to see the abomination they created
Very good info, now I'm scared to open some old UE projects.
Unrelated, but I am very interested in environment creation and your work is insanely good, so I figured I'd ask. I have done some vfx work, can find my way around Blender or C4d and am most familiar with compositing.
I was wondering if you can recommend any courses or recources. Also for film/vfx would you recommend starting with GAEA , World creator or even houdini?
it's completely destroyed my workflow. i was just starting to learn and figure it out and i was gaining confidence and now... fab.
I'm sorry to hear that, you and me both.
Hopefully they amend this sooner rather than later to keep you inspired and engaged in the space :) It really is a fun place to be in (other than when companies who control our tools do things like this!)
I've been working on a script that will download every Quixel asset from Fab, and I wanted to offer a note about the asset ID situation.
So, I've already made a script that downloads everything from Quixel - that works fine, but it seems that each and every asset that has made its way over to Fab has a completely different asset ID. The only way to see what the old ID was is to ask Fab (in an API request) what files it has available to download for a specific asset, and then extract the ID from the .zip name.
There is also no public API, so I've been reduced to reverse engineering browser requests to get all of this information. I'll persevere, but this is definitely not ideal whatsoever.
I take it this is true, which is even worse than I illustrated in the video. (just checked, you are 10000% correct. Holy moly)
In that case, EVERY single project made prior to Fab is now essentially broken, as without Bridge there is a zero percent chance to re-online via Fab.
The hard lesson I learned about Epic, after moving from Unity to Unreal is that they have a tendency to change or remove something before coming up with viable replacements for it. And when the community outcry is MASSIVE, they all just completely ignore the people who are complaining.
A replacement or continuation of Bridge really is needed as this video points out, we've gone backwards!
@@neil1375 totally! Backwards to 2005. This couldn’t have fallen shorter.
Totally agree. This was so disappointing. Hopefully they realize and go back to bridge.
Agree 100%. It's still the best tool they have by a longshot.
I agree with everything you said. I hope the bridge returns to its old days.
Totally agree. It’s a complete disaster at the moment. Hope they upgrade/fix/resolve these issues.
Let’s give them some time…but releasing this so early in this state is unprofessional:(
Well said, mate.
Thankyou! Hopefully it wasn't a slog to listen to me catch my thoughts as I went along.
Agreed. I was so disappointed when I saw FAB for the first time.. this is a downgrade in so many ways... garbage... i feel like i'm searching through garbage...
It really does feel that way. Everything being lumped into 1 big pool is incompressible.
Its either intentional on Epic's side... or just somehow complete lack of understanding of their own products and how people use them in the pipeline - which blows my mind .... not sure which is worse though.... either way - using their assets now became pretty much 10x harder which sucks balls...
Either way - You're right on the money with every point You made Aaron
I had that thought too. In a weird way I'm hoping this is all down to incompetence and not something that's is intentional. As one can be 'fixed', while the other is a philosophy shift that is anti artists and all about $$$.
@@aaronwestwood yeah, I would love to believe it is just incompetence...... but You know.... but I am a little bit too long in this industry to be naive and think they care about artist and not about money
@@marowak87 absolutely it’s just so strange to me how obvious moves like this are with tech companies. You want people to buy into your vision to make the big bucks, so why make something that no one wants to get behind?
I'm baffled at this new move to be honest. I completely agree with your points, everything was already perfect with Bridge and if they just wanted money they could've implemented a simple paid subscription system of some kind starting in 2025 without jumping to Fab which feels so clunky and unnecessary. As a Blender user myself I'm sad to see Bridge going away. Hopefully they've thought of something.
I think the devs have been forced to rush this out. I think they got the majority of the features all working together from each one of the platforms they were trying to combine. And like releasing a modern game, they were like, "we'll patch in the fixes later"
@@DylonDylonDylon 100%. It absolutely feels like they are treating this like a game release. Insane, as it is MEANT to be a professional tool.
I’ve seen a lot of dev stuff ups in our space, but never something like this (that we can’t even rollback…which is the standard)
As simple as a Bridge button beside add to cart / download. With the bridge app functionality as a starting point. Add quixel and sketchfab to the platforms section. Add another large section that shows softwares such as C4D, Blender, etc that only filters their respective usable file types. Which would then allow them to remove some of the global filters and declutter it while increasing functionality and ease of use and workflow
one easy thing they could do is to add a "Quixel" section & a dedicated toggle
-> Then you could just have a big section for "Platforms" like how they have it for Unity, UE and UEFN rn + Easily toggle Quixel and have only quixel tools that are supported in your specific software
AMEN!!!
For me, my biggest complain is that everything is shown as being published in October 2024. Gives the illusion that the product is new or being updated, until you scroll down and see it's not compatible with you engine version since 4.27.
I'm sure it'll get better, but they have a long way there.
Not a UE user, but saw that point also from another user. Fab looks at migration date and not the creation date so everything looks brand new, but assets go back as far as 2014 from what I read.
The pace of development on Mixer really made me wonder about Quixel, so I avoided Bridge. Dodged a bullet, for once.
man, I held off from adding everything to bridge because I got the email from Epic saying they were going to make everything available for free... Little did I realize I wouldn't be able to add them to my bridge library.......... man this is annoying.
My thoughts exactly, it'd be fine If they did that parallel, but they disabled Quixel except for the already purchaed assets. why? when Fab seems like in ALPHA maybe Beta at most.
Whoever made the decision to replace the marketplace with this deserves to be fired, it is such a bad idea
100%! The Quixel team are all environment artists themselves, having a library designed by artists is invaluable. i feel like they have just taken the assets and put them in a new library designed by the team behind the worst asset library in history the old Unreal marketplace.
Everytime i see FAB i hear the Thunderbirds theme tune.
they emailed me today saying, 'if you didnt know, we encourage users to manually set up assets'
I can't export any twinmotion 2024 projects to unreal 5.4. For me, only the datasmith twinmotion plugin appears and the twinmotion content plugin does not appear for me. What do I do?
I think they plan to create a bridge like project for FAB in Unreal. Will be as useful as the Quixel bridge, probably not lol.
@@DylonDylonDylon unreal plugin is already out. This video was more targeted at all the other DCC’s that Bridge supported, but Fab does not :(
Yeah its bad, i hope it gets better
If they discontinue the bridge app, I hope someone finds a way to rebuild it with all the assets and the software linking and put it up as a torrent
worddddddd
there is a new FAB UE plugin that can be manually installed for now.
@@Native_Creation I'm a blender user
@@Native_Creation however the standalone is broken,
THIS!
100% Same opinion over here!! Why they don't support the Bridege anymore.. just a shame
🎯💯
The Enshitification cycle of platforms strikes again.
Lets hope for Fab Bridge 🥲
I had to disable the plugin otherwise I get compilation errors.
Absolutely disastrous launch, it's so bad.
This feels like developers from the year 1990, were asked to build an asset site.
FAB looks like it was built by soneone who should be on the show, 'American Hoarders."
There is no real organization. Everything is just dumped into huge unsorted piles.
An the a positive note, I'm being forced to learn howbto fix problems with assets, myself.
It is barely usable for us C4D or other DCC users because they mostly (if not only) focus on Unreal Engine. But the ones I blame the most are Maxon, they are the one that are supposed to bring us a usable and convenient asset bridge app. And I am not talking about the atrocious 'asset browser' obviously.
Bridge setup sits on the responsibility on Epic, as it has always been standalone and has nothing to do with Maxon (outside of allowing port's for DCC export).
But I agree fully, not only is it barely usable...it straight up isn't usable.
@@aaronwestwood I may have not been clear, I don’t blame Maxon for not developing Quixel bridge, I know it is owned by Epic. I am blaming Maxon for not developing a similar asset library dedicated to their community, so we would not be dependent of an app that is mostly oriented towards Unreal Engine users.
If only they’d had the saving grace of making it usable for unreal, just to say they focus on their own products (although still not acceptable). It is as broken for UE5 as described in this video. And that is using their fab plugin. My workflow in the past couple of days is to search things in quixel bridge and “add to library” so I can find things I need in fab. Completely broken everywhere!
@@laeternamloh I got you! Yeh I’m with you there. Our current asset library is also just as busted with all the Redshift integration…I don’t even touch it.
Do you know if there is a way to “clean slate it” or do we have to navigate around all the built in clutter? Was thinking about this today.
@@azawestie123 what do you mean by ‘clean slate it’?
Agree. FAB is trash for artist. We need bridge back.
Isn't the whole point of Bridge to be able of BRIDGING the assets? it was a perfect smooth process exporting from there to c4d or maya. Like, what would they force a switch if it's buggy laggy and not useful at all.
This will just bury all the quixel assets which was one of the main reasons as to why I wanted to learn unreal engine
Not to mention the fact that we cannot even remove assets we have added to our library or hide them or have a favorites list. Fab is so bad!
Even for unreal engine users is this f*cked up. If there will be no Bridge - they changed texture format for FAB quixel (master material as well - lot of plugins were using that) and yet there is no other way to import metahumans
You probably will get a fab plug in for your 3dtool of choice at some point...don't you think?
All official coms have said there are no plans for it.
These people at Epic literally hate their customers on all the possible level as well as asset creators. Instead of getting some high grade specialists to make a proper unified platform they literally messed it all up and it is full of shitty unusable models and 3d scans right now. But you know what is even bigger joke of the company they became to with that release of the FAB. On their web site footer there is such a thing in their company as Epic UX Research and these people in fact know nothing about UX after all these decades in business. Crazy. Multimillion or even billion company full of unprofessional and incompetent people that are not able to make a high end asset store to meet all creator needs in 2025.
As a previs artist and maya user this change has complexly F'd me over. Utterly useless now.
FAB is a SHIT HOLE NOW!!! :(
"I see the positivity in the idea, it's just the implementation is so incredibly poor" Well said. That's basically how Epic works since Unreal 5 came out.
do the bare minimum > hype it up to casual users without telling them how exactly it is going to work > casual user thinks it's cool without understanding it's flaws (they don't have to) > investors likes that possitive feedback > move on to the next "big" thing > repeat
That kind of positivity puts the company in a positive feedback loop where the problems are either overlooked or even worse completely ignored. They did this with Lumen and Nanite but still haven't fixed their optimization problems. Well FAB is still new so maybe they will fix these issues (and I hope they do) but I don't have too much trust in Epic.
Sorry I got sidetracked, I just wanted to comment to support the video and end up rumbling.
There's no investors tho, Epic is private.
They're acting like they're publicly traded, but they aren't.
It's the dei infiltrating the company cuz tencent could be doing the same strat they did with Ubisoft to lower the value of the company to buy it completely for cheaper.
Nobody asked for this. Not even the sellers from all marketplaces asked for this.
Yea, i don’t see how this even benefits us UE users
I hate fab
They really fucked up
bye to my 3 second exporting to blender, even the name fab sucks
Fab is absolute crap. I don't understand why they didn't wait until a full plugin/workflow was setup to release Fab. Because Fab is garbage.
It’s so freaking bad !!!
Fab e absolute trash rn, it's so bad
I can't export any twinmotion 2024 projects to unreal 5.4. For me, only the datasmith twinmotion plugin appears and the twinmotion content plugin does not appear for me. What do I do?