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.
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.
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
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!
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
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 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 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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
PCG is insane, keep it up!
Awesome make a deeper diver into all this please
Awesome stuff as usual guys ! :)
When Houdini meets UE, and they have a baby haha
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...
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!
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
This is the kind of material I stop to watch! Love PCG
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.
Take it easy gentlemen, I know this topic is kind of advance and diffcult, it is a sure thing that not all can get that
More pcg please.
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 !
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 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 :)
"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!
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.
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.
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.
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.