Marketplace Assets: Who, what, when, where, WHY?
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- čas přidán 31. 01. 2024
- Hello! I get asked a tonne of questions whilst I'm streaming, so I've started filming some FAQ videos and general opinion-giving to supplement my usual info videos. Most of these will be talking-head style videos so feel free to treat it as a podcast.
Let me know your opinions in the comments!
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Computer Specs:
Ryzen 3900x 12-core CPU
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One of those fancy nvme m.2 SSD's
Programs of choice:
Unreal Engine - (Game Dev)
Blender - (Animation and Modelling)
OBS - (Video/screen capture)
Davinci Resolve - (Video editing)
Adobe Photoshop - (Graphics and Texturing)
ProTools 11 - (Compositions and mixing)
OldSchool Runescape - (The best game)
Filmed using:
Sony A7s2 body
Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM lens
Yonguo YN360 LED's for colour
Yongnuo YN760 chip LED w/ Godox softbox for key
My lovely cats names are Boycat, Girlcat and Ladycat :) - Hry
![D-Buffer Decals changed my life! [UE5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gHQtV4JCsfU/mqdefault.jpg)
![D-Buffer Decals changed my life! [UE5]](/img/tr.png)
![Essential Environment Art Trick - "WPO Stickers" [UE5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ywthAKvtmOs/mqdefault.jpg)
This basically more or less explains my motivation when I was building my own marketplace plugin for hit detection. I wanted to keep it core functionality only, meaning that it shouldn't define how your combat system is going to work but only provide you with low-level building blocks with which you can build your own combat system on top of.
Yep, exactly!
I'm glad you mentioned the systems and code plugins from the marketplace! Definitely agree that it's usually not much of a time saver for "complete" systems. I used an inventory system asset for a couple of weeks before giving up on it for the exact integration problem you mentioned. Then I followed a 3.5 hour inventory tutorial from CZcams, and spent probably twice as long extending it's functionality. And now that I've built it and I know how it all fits together, it's so much easier to integrate it into the rest of my game. I highly recommend building systems, especially complex ones yourself vs using premade ones.
Yeah, you got to be very selective when you use a marketplace plugin.
I ended up getting SurvivalGameKit. I was traditionally a c++ dev and have made my own engine. But I had no yet learnt BP and decided that just doing the usual 'do it all myself' was the pitfall I always fall in to. So I bought SGK to use and learn from as I modified it in to what I wanted. I was pleasantly surprised that not only is the dev far more engaged in support than I think is economically viable but the dev also did a good job is extrapolating the systems in a way that was sensible to me as a c++ dev. The only part I would have done differently would have been to have a cleaner line of demarcation between inner code and widget code. However given the fact that I replaced the whole GUI layer I still consider the widget layer to be fairly well modularized.
The biggest downside is I have to check in with him before building something new to make sure that something I don't know about isn't going to be affected. thats a problem with ANY code you don't do yourself, and having done things the wrong way too many time before it's pleasant to focus more on the game than how to say for example merge an octree with a scene graph or how to compress a voxel world formed up from an octree... and just... 'make a game'. That sparse octree streaming problem ended my game, 55,000 lines of code in.
I would absolutely agree however that often it takes much longer to unpack someone else's code than to built it from scratch.
Totally agree, you can definitely find useful ones if you’re selective though. After building the combat, UI, etc etc in my game from scratch, couldn’t be f*cked to spend 2 months making an inventory fit for an RPG. Ended up pouring through ones on the marketplace for something that was not only well made but WELL DOCUMENTED, by someone that speaks and writes fluid English and is available to answer questions when needed. That was actually the most difficult part.
Ended up using Dynomega’s inventory, works for what I need, easy to extend for my own uses, and the creator is not only very knowledgeable and helpful, but available within a reasonable amount of time for questions. But as for stuff like those “complete FPS or Full RPG starter kits” toss those in the trash, always takes twice as long to learn as it would have taken to just do it yourself
Love your videos, man.
When I saw how you got the Valheim style and others with some simple flips, I thought there are so many cool art styles for games out there.
Would love to see a video or series explaining how some of the more unique ones are made or how you can achieve them.
As far as systems go, I like to create them on my own as it is much easier for me to modify if I need to, and I know exactly everything that is going on, plus I create only what I need and don't bloat the project with unnecessary stuff. Models on the other hand, I get those from the marketplace because I have no idea how to model. I've tried blender but I can never get the hang of it. But I do like to modify the models in similar ways as you mentioned. Good video.
Sounds like we're on the same page :)
Need some ue5 physics related videos. I Always feel inspired after watching your content.
Yes! I'll be covering the Physics Control component in a future video once I've used it a bit more
+100 on physics. Especially for skeletal meshes
In my journey trying to learn game dev, I’ve made a point to try and create my assets on my own, but I respect and understand why people would use assets from the marketplace. I want to know the intricacies and the “why” for the assets I make. Kinda just the hobbyist in me, but I do appreciate your argument for using purchased assets! I think the more egregious “asset flip” games out there have put a bad rap on what’s out there!
I'm much the same when it comes to core assets (characters, weapons, effects) and always alter generic props and whatnot. I also make all my gameplay systems from scratch for the same reason. It's the classic "teach a man to fish" wisdom haha
Your videos are a breath of fresh air and are so honest and helpful. Thank you!
I think, as with many things that people go overboard when they see something that looks like a marketplace asset. The readily is that game development is a hard and very long process in which a lot of technical work meets a lot of art. As a small team or solo dev there is just no way to do all that on your own, everyone is going to have blind spots and that's ok. and even if it's not a gap in your skill, but instead your time, that's still 100% fair. If you want to be a purest and think you have to do everything yourself, I have some bad news for anyone working with a game engine at all, sorry that's a premade thing you're working off of... you're making your own engine? neat! but you didn't invent c++, you're still taking up work based on what others have done before you.
The true task of the developer at that point is to put those assets together in a way that makes sense and makes something creative, not the 10 millionth zombie shooter or something like that, you simply don't have to make everything from scratch if the thing you want to make already exists and it available to use.
100%. Being efficient in spending your time (and money) can make or break the development of a project. Knowing when and where to take shortcuts without affecting the end result is a skill everyone should make use of.
Sup, didn't expect to see you here lol 😂
@@dobrx6199 I am everywhere and anywhere 😈
Awesome vid, thanks for all the work that went into this! Would love for you to do some vids showing more in detail the end to end steps of changing up things in materials or post process shaders(like the MF_unpack in the normal map and 1-x split to Spec & Roughness in your examples) to explore and develop various styles/looks!
Love your videos...sad that they are highly underrated...like really man you deserve so much more .... I've learned more from your videos that 4 years of college combined
Keep up the good work
long time not seen :* i love that u made a video on this i cant see missmatching assets anymore and preach the easyness of customizing premade assets since my dark moebius comicshader which uses the demo nanite assets btw ,dunno if u remember,rly great video greetings from germany :)
I do remember! Haha good to see you again :)
Thanks and I agree!
In my opinion being an asset flip is not about using asset but about the intention.
I can attest that buying template assets can be very useful for learning. I bought a melee combat asset pack on sale that made good use of Data Tables, Interfaces, Components, Anim Notifies/montages, soft references, etc. I have been learning a lot by just deep diving into the system to see how it all works in practice but I think it helps that it's just focused on one thing (combat) and not trying to be a complete game solution which is what I think you're talking about when it comes to long term caveats of templates.
What makes this a double edge sword is if you're learning from a asset that does bad practices then you end up following those bad practices in turn.
Can you share the name of the asset pack? Out of curiosity, I have a similar one to learn from, wondering if it's the one you mentioned.
@@FawiorCombat Fury is what I was studying.
It's pretty good and has solid support on the creators discord. Pretty Pricey though, would recommend looking out for a sale when possible.
Market place is a lifesaver for part time hobbyist indie dev. I’m soft eng and know how to do logic and build lvls. I have no idea how to do modeling etc (well my goal is to learn eventually but mostly to modify models from market instead of building from scratch). So yeah. Hail marketplace
Bros revealing the most important secret ever ❤😂
Hahah I'm just giving my opinion. Glad you enjoyed :)
Hahaha shout out to all the Free Assets Fiends! Rejoice! BTW the foliage interaction system you created looks amazing, I think I'll be getting it and trying to make it work in my landscape design projects to add sense of immersion :) As a dude of architectural background I would never really have time to develop something like this alone and the fatc you share this asset allows a noob like myself to try and experiment with Unreal Engine more and makes learning a bit less overwhelming, so that alone says something good about the assets available online, they make UE more accessible to wider group of people :)
Asset fiends unite, I have been picking them up every month for like 2 years straight lol.
@@luckycogstudios Since day one with unreal :D just "purchasing" all of them, you never know when their day might come ;)
The best is being able to inspect code assets to learn from them to build your own systems !
On the same page as you to be quite honest. I've delved into 3D Asset creation and its no joke the amount of time it takes to produce something even to a good calibre. With smaller teams or even solo developers, I like to think of the asset usage is fine as long as it doesnt push deep into Hero Assets like Characters, Weapons, Big Environment assets. What a lot of these asset flips tend to do is mismatch a lot of Hero Assets, even codebases, creates a very confusing and disconnected game. The marketplace is a tool, not a one-stop solution.
Absolutely agree with everything said here!
Even as a 3d artist, pooping out artists as quickly as I can, I could never finish a large level without really cutting corners or using marketplace assets. Also it lets me decided what assets are worth replacing. Do I need handmade meshes for telephone poles? Probably not. Would I benefit seeing them in the level as quickly as possible to block out a scene? Yes.
Very true, using them as a placeholder and then altering them afterwards can be a very good use of time
Exactly what I teach my students great vid
Your hair physics is outstanding 😅
I agree with this. I give myself spending more time trying to work with since assets that I could have made myself.
My man said “minimum wage” and “25 dollars” 😂😂😂
Welcome to Australia!
@@PrismaticaDev Good ol America and our $7.25 minimum wage
RIP @@brothabuzz
@@brothabuzz That's federal minimum wage. Most states have double that to adjust for cost of living. For example, California's minimum wage is higher than Australia's. Also 1 Australian dollar = 0.66 US dollar.
@@MrBlueberry33 many states have 7.25 minimum. Look it up
I laughed way too hard and spit waterall over myself at 10:10
Love the vid! Minor bit of nuance to add though. As an environment artist working for a company that has set their game in a relatively uncommon place for games to be set in within the world (Southeast Africa), I have to disagree with the "a fern is a fern" sentiment. Even with generic ferns you'd find from around the world, there are at least three major categories of ferns that are visually distinct and from both a set dressing perspective and a concealment perspective. Where foliage is relatively the same and the marketplace is definitely useful for is anything European, American, or generic jungle. Otherwise you'll have a hard time finding anything at all let alone anything remotely game ready. As for most wooden props though, definitely agree, most smaller props should just be outsourced or bought form the marketplace. Don't waste your time or the time of a full salary employee. :)
Haha you’re very correct, although the sentiment is that if you’re modelling something from the real world then there is only “one correct way” for it to be done. So in your case, if there were asset packs that had African ferns then we’d be good to go. But you’re very right, sometimes specific things will have to be done by hand
@@PrismaticaDev I wish there were more foliage packs for non-European / North American places (other than generic jungle or tropical island that is). Would save me al of of time! 😆Especially since I'm more of a modular kit environment artist than a foliage artist so that always takes me a little extra time.
Great video, I agree with your take on the marketplace. I also grab the free stuff every month even if I don't have a current use for it.
I wish there was a way to apply random filters in PS (like a randomize button in character creators) to quickly find something fun and unique
Hi there, i hope this email finds you well, along with your family.
I wanted to express my gratitude to you.
For a long time, I've been searching for a way to connect with my players through visuals and artistic style, but I've never been skilled at drawing or defining styles. However, I really liked your style from the first time I saw it, and it sparked a desire in me to learn more about materials and so on. I've always been on the programming side, but now I'm venturing into material development, VFX, and more, thanks to your excellent content.
Also, I'm working on a project. I'm currently in a physically demanding job that takes a toll on my hands and body. My project has an estimated timeline of 100 years (laughs), due to a lack of investment. Still, I have plans to launch crowdfunding at some point. It's related to Zelda N64 and Brazilian/South American mythology in general. Thanks to your content, I find myself working more and more on this project every day.
Thank you.
Really glad to hear you have more time to follow your passion
You mentioned opening them up and optimizing the materials in Blender. Could you go into a little more detail about that?
Check out my "Reducing Draw Calls" video :)
How did we not get an update on when Prismatiscape hits the Marketplace in this video? We've been trolled
KEKW
Where would one find this very often used ruins asset pack.
It's the Lordenfel Ruins pack, I got it for sale on the Unreal marketplace a couple of years ago haha. I think it's on Unity store as well
@@PrismaticaDev thanks! I buy a lot of assets so this video is awesome and gave me some great ideas. Thanks a bunch for the best UE content.
Mate, lately marketplace for me is a russian rulette. Assets that has 4.5 with more than 50 reviews has horrible performance and execution and some assets which doesnt have any attention made perfectly.
IMO this is the effect of watching to many of these newer youtubers who couple all there code and it looks like pasta dinner. But they somehow have close to 100k subs ... I honestly don't understand it and it makes finding videos with good coding practices way harder
@@ryanjdevlin87 fools are often the most popular… fact of society
on a second note getting into unreal engine has given me a sixth sense for asset usage I saw this dark and darker style game called dungeonborne and I swear I recognized like 90% of the NPCs as marketplace assets.
The original game dark and darker is using assets too..
Yeah I believe they used lordenfel on the and some characters.@@exa211
Hey, my previous comment should be lost among other. I just think that it would be great if you cover the Curve-Atlas (and Curves), and Texture Array in your next videos.
I just saw it was used in the last two videos on channel called "UNDINI". Looks like powerful things, but not many tuts about it.
Maybe there are some reasons, or people just don't know about it.
about that pixelation filter. that's not very efficient. the proper way would be to open it in the texture editor, scale it down and set the filter to point sampling (and maybe remove the compression or bump it to bc7). same applies for post processing pixelation. you just render with low screenscale and remove the texture filters. btw... vertex snapping works exactly like this pixelation piece of code. just gotta move it into the vertexshader and mess up the vertex position and offset it.
I know, but the example took 10 seconds to do haha. I've done a vertex-snapper with WPO before, although that's technically not very efficient ;) Would be better to convert the Unreal world coordinate system to 8 bit! hahaha
Instantly liked when you said: "They are full of shit!" 🤣
Asset packs are not a sin, but you do need to use them properly
Some of my favorite ways of using them is modifying them heavily
But its a massive time saver as an indie dev. Most people dont even realize I use them because I'm modifying them
Exactly. Even things as simple as colour-matching them can go a really long way.
@@PrismaticaDev I realize my comment was basically a summary of your video Lol
I do appreciate you making the video though, I think asset store use has a bad rap, but shouldnt!!
10:38 lmao love it
RIP Adobe
Could you go over an "Infinite Landscape" using volumes and level streaming, or maybe if you have a better approach please share!
me personally im going for something like "The Long Drive", as its very linear and simple in its generation
I don't have any experience with either, unfortunately. I'll be looking in to level streaming in the future, however my implementations will be for my own game (top-down perspective) which can circumvent a lot of the difficult parts of level streaming.
@@PrismaticaDev i do plan on making a point to walk top down, so this will still be very useful
dude why isn't mesh distance field not working on ue5.3 ? i tried everything from project settings to material. Let me know! And Keep your tutorials up.
What about modular scripting frameworks like omega? I want to use it because of GAS and flow graph :)
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What? You mean that the same old ALS4 + Metahuman + dark souls combat system plugin + retargeted Mixamo animations game made by one dev in a week isn't good?😮
Its one thing to use assets and change it for your game, its another to straight up copy an entire level. 😅
Are the new free for the month assets up yet??
Lol
That's right. But the best assets are those that don't take long to set up and are easy to use. perhaps you will like my work)
Asset fiends UNITE!
No I wouldn't. Use assets, just be smart, be consistent with your style. Make it your own and make it make sense.
Bet it was Dreamworld
Hahaha I'd completely forgotten about that one. A true classic
You dirty dog! I see that watermark in the bottom-right corner of your screen ;)
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@@lynnexlovely727 🗿
@@andy0x58 🗿
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Do you ever buy marketplace systems to reverse engineer and understand something?
modify the free assets and its now yours ( shh they dont know)
There is no reason whatsoever to model a wooden crate instead of buying one.
It's good practice
@@MAJ4K Nah, too basic. Pick some random greeble on your neighbor's house and try to replicate that for practice.
I think there are always exceptions, for example if your project is a very specific visual style. However, you could save a lot of time by editing an existing asset. But aside from that, if you're learning and practicing 3D modelling specifically, then modelling -everything- is a good way to get a broad range of experience (props, foliage, characters)
Perfectly legitimate copy of photoshop huh? 🤣