Substance Plugin 4.17.0.25 Released - Substance Source

[Dan Stover]

Overview:
Today we are happy to release Substance Source within the Substance plugin for UE4. Substance Source adds the ability to download Substances from the Source library directly into your UE4 projects. The entire Substance Source library is now available from within the UE4 editor. Substance Source downloads are only accessible through a Substance subscription.

Whats New:
-A new Substance Source button has been added to the main UE4 editor toolbar. This button will open the Source library which works exactly as the Substance Source website.

-When a Source download is completed, the downloaded Substance will be automatically imported into the current project.

-General bug fixes for core plugin.

Download Link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jdnvak227ozj2qh/SubstanceUE4_Plugin_4.17.0.25.zip?dl=0

Notes:
This update is now live on the Epic Marketplace. Alternatively, the most recent version of the plugin can be downloaded from the link above.

Shout Out:
A special thanks to integrations quality assurance analyst, Keston and to the entire Substance Source team! Without them, this would not have been possible.

[bobcober]

Very Cool!  Thank you - downloading now!

[bobcober]

Works great - installed it, logged in, downloaded some of my substances.

One Feature Request that would be really really helpful...  can you add an additional Packed Output channel with Metal,Rough, AO Packed together?

Now I can get the material created so fast... but then need to jump outside to try and create a packed texture.

I am using vertex paint blended materials with several layers....  and can only have 16 textures bound.  Sounds like alot, but every layer has Metal, Rough, and AO burning 3 binds.

Thank you if it is possible to add

[Rodrigo Villani]

One Feature Request that would be really really helpful...  can you add an additional Packed Output channel with Metal,Rough, AO Packed together?
(...)
can only have 16 textures bound

Hi, Bob!
Packing depends on the material creator, not Substance. The creator decides the outputs.
About the Unreal texture limit, if your project is for PC or console, you can select your texture nodes and set the Sampler Source to Shared: Wrap. Here's why.

[bimbachi]

now I see that after downloading material from Source ne wfolder "Substance" is created in the Project and .sbsar files are stored there.

Can I move them out (to my on disk library), or they need to stay there (there are linked some how to project)?

[toto tea]

Hi, please excuse my English over ... I first used the substance to unreal plugins ... I use unreal 4.17.1 and Substance use 4.17.0.25 Plugin ... when I turn on the plugins on the unreal editor and restart the editor.. and it always crashes when I open the unreal ... I install the plugin by copying the folder into \Unreal Engine 4.17.1\Engine\Plugins\ ... maybe there is something wrong with the way I am. Please send me the instructions. Thank you very much...

[-kg-]

Hi, please excuse my English over ... I first used the substance to unreal plugins ... I use unreal 4.17.1 and Substance use 4.17.0.25 Plugin ... when I turn on the plugins on the unreal editor and restart the editor.. and it always crashes when I open the unreal ... I install the plugin by copying the folder into \Unreal Engine 4.17.1\Engine\Plugins\ ... maybe there is something wrong with the way I am. Please send me the instructions. Thank you very much...

Hey toto tea,

The plugin is available on the Epic Marketplace. That is the easiest way to get it, as it will install it in the correct place for your projects.

However you also can install it manually. Before this, I recommend deleting all mentions of the substance plugin to avoid version conflicts. You can install it by placing the Substance folder in ..\Epic Games\UE_4.17\Engine\Plugins\Runtime. If the Runtime folder does not exist in the Plugins folder, it must be manually created.

[Deejay Thul 0]

Hello, this is not working for me. It still says i have the old version even after i went into the marketplace and installed the new one. The source button does not show up.....

[Jane Doe 0]

Hello, this is not working for me. It still says i have the old version even after i went into the marketplace and installed the new one. The source button does not show up.....

I'm having the same issue!!!! Did you solve it by chance?

[Dan Stover]

Hello @Jane Doe 0 and @Deejay Thul 0,
This is likely caused by either an out of date plugin or having multiple Substance plugins installed.

One thing to note is that Substance Source is currently only supported/available using the Substance plugin in Unreal Engine version 4.17 and above.

Out of date:
This can be checked by opening the Epic Games Launcher -> Library -> Below the Engine Version -> Installed Plugins -> Here the Substance plugin should be listed/installed. If the version is not the latest, there will be an update button to the right of the plugin title. This will allow you to update to most recent version containing the new Source integration.

Multiple Plugins:
In the case the Substance plugin was installed previously from the forums release, there could be multiple installations of the plugin which can cause issues. First, uninstall the plugin using the Epic Games Launcher. This can be done following the above steps but the update button will be replaced with a remove button in the case the plugin is already up to date. Once the marketplace version of the plugins is uninstalled, make sure there are no other versions of the plugin that were manually installed within either of the following locations:
<Engine Directory>/Plugins/Runtime/Substance
<Project Directory>/Plugins/Runtime/Substance

Once all of the plugins have been uninstalled, reinstall the plugin through the Epic Games Launcher and try once more. In the case neither of these solutions work, please let us know.

Cheers! 

[jblalock]

Hi,

I apologize in advance...I'm sure I'm going to sound dumb here.
I'm using a custom github fork of UE4 that includes most of the nvidia gameworks library for 4.17.
By itself it works fine, though I have used plenty of substance materials up to this point, which obviously doesn't come in the fork & I can't 'inject' it via the Epic Games Launcher (shame that we can't!)

I grabbed the dropbox link for 4.17 and have tried following the README to put it in the engine directory and the correct folder structure within the .uproject, but to no success thus far. It doesn't seem to find it at all if I put it in the project folder, and gives me a different error if I put it in the Engine's folder about 'Substance Core' not being able to be found.

In the engine's folder I put everything under:
C:\ue4_git\ue417_nvidia\Engine\Plugins\Runtime\Substance
And in a project folder I'd put it in a Plugins\Runtime\Substance next to the .uproject.

Hopefully I'm not looking too silly here, and can get a working solution; would love to have everything integrated together!

Thank you for the help!

John

[Dan Stover]

Hi,

I apologize in advance...I'm sure I'm going to sound dumb here.
I'm using a custom github fork of UE4 that includes most of the nvidia gameworks library for 4.17.
By itself it works fine, though I have used plenty of substance materials up to this point, which obviously doesn't come in the fork & I can't 'inject' it via the Epic Games Launcher (shame that we can't!)

I grabbed the dropbox link for 4.17 and have tried following the README to put it in the engine directory and the correct folder structure within the .uproject, but to no success thus far. It doesn't seem to find it at all if I put it in the project folder, and gives me a different error if I put it in the Engine's folder about 'Substance Core' not being able to be found.

In the engine's folder I put everything under:
C:\ue4_git\ue417_nvidia\Engine\Plugins\Runtime\Substance
And in a project folder I'd put it in a Plugins\Runtime\Substance next to the .uproject.

Hopefully I'm not looking too silly here, and can get a working solution; would love to have everything integrated together!

Thank you for the help!

John

Hi John, (@jblalock)

I believe I can help and no need for an apology!
Looking at the paths you are trying, everything seems to line up which is odd. Can you navigate to the Substance.uplugin file and check this path? I am wondering if an extra directory was added on the forum build which is causing the problem.

The path should end up being either:
<Engine Directory>/Plugins/Runtime/Substance/Substance.uplugin
<Project Directory>/Plugins/Runtime/Substance/Substance.uplugin

If these are the paths you currently have and you are still getting the error message, let me know and we can look further into why the plugin cannot be found. 

Cheers!

[John Blalock 0]

Hi John, (@jblalock)

I believe I can help and no need for an apology!
Looking at the paths you are trying, everything seems to line up which is odd. Can you navigate to the Substance.uplugin file and check this path? I am wondering if an extra directory was added on the forum build which is causing the problem.

The path should end up being either:
<Engine Directory>/Plugins/Runtime/Substance/Substance.uplugin
<Project Directory>/Plugins/Runtime/Substance/Substance.uplugin

If these are the paths you currently have and you are still getting the error message, let me know and we can look further into why the plugin cannot be found. 

Cheers!

Hi Dan, and thank you so much for your prompt & continued help! I've had the pleasure of meeting some of you Allegorithmic folks at Siggraph the last couple years and you've all always been extremely accommodating and kind. Which makes me even more pleased that the college I work at (Chapman Univ.) has recently adopted your suite. The students and myself couldn't be any happier.

I think the plugin is indeed in the correct spot placement-wise:
C:\ue4_git\ue417_nvidia\Engine\Plugins\Runtime\Substance\Substance.uplugin

Notably, with a fresh launch of ue4editor.exe everything loads fine. UE4 then asks if I want to enable the plugin & requires a restart. Upon restart I get the error:
"This project requires the 'Substance' plugin, which is not compatible with the current engine version.
Would you like to disable it? You will no longer be able to open any assets created using it."

Perhaps worth mentioning, it seems the dropbox link at the top of this thread is for version 4.17.0.25 , whereas the custom gameworks fork build I have have cloned is 4.17.2 ...
...does that offset in increment create an incompatibility issue, or is something else amiss here?

Just to check everything, I get the same error if I put the plugin in the project folder structure but also get a second error message:
"Plugin 'Substance' failed to load because module 'SubstanceCore' could not be found....."

Hope some of the above can be of help in diagnosing!

John

EDIT:
Since it might potentially help in troubleshooting, here is the custom branch I have been using:
https://github.com/MaximeDup/UnrealEngine/tree/4.17.X-GameWorks

[Dan Stover]

Hi John, (@jbalock)

It is awesome that you were able to stop by our booth at Siggraph this year and we are so happy to hear that you and your students are enjoying the Substance Suite!

Regarding this issue, We have never had any issues with minor engine version compatibility in the past but this is something that we will look into. Knowing that it recognizes the plugin is a good start though!

As this is a problem that hasn't occurred before and the engine has been customized, I don't have a concrete solution but I do have a few ideas that may help.

Changing the version to be explicit with the engine version:
1. Open the Substance.uplugin in your favorite text editor.
2. On the third line, there is a variable titled "VersionName". Change the first three numbers to be the explicit version of the engine you are using. It should currently read "4.17.0.25" which should be changed to "4.17.2.25".
3. Repeat the steps to reload the plugin within the plugins window within the editor.

In the case this does not solve the issue, this may be a result of the plugin already being built against an engine that is not compatible with the engine you are using.
To build the plugin using the custom engine:
1. Open the plugins folder and delete the following folders:
 - Binaries
 - Intermediate
2. Run Generate Project Files (Batch file if added to the engine or through the right-click context menu of a .uproject if added to a project)
3. Build the engine/project in the Development Editor configuration

On next launch, the plugins should be loaded and enabled.

I will also grab the custom engine this evening, follow the steps listed above to see if I can reproduce this issue, and confirm that this is a working solution.

I hope this helps!
Cheers! 

[John Blalock 0]

In the case this does not solve the issue, this may be a result of the plugin already being built against an engine that is not compatible with the engine you are using.
To build the plugin using the custom engine:
1. Open the plugins folder and delete the following folders:
 - Binaries
 - Intermediate
2. Run Generate Project Files (Batch file if added to the engine or through the right-click context menu of a .uproject if added to a project)
3. Build the engine/project in the Development Editor configuration

On next launch, the plugins should be loaded and enabled.

I will also grab the custom engine this evening, follow the steps listed above to see if I can reproduce this issue, and confirm that this is a working solution.

I hope this helps!
Cheers! 

Hi Dan!

Wanted to chime in and let you know that the second set of steps (quoted above) did indeed end up fixing the issue! Downside is I hardly know a thing on how builds and rebuilds work, etc...but I suppose in this case it's just something I'll tuck away for future reference.

As a side-note (and I apologize -- not at all having to do with Allegorithmic)...when you do a custom build from a fork, I find my directory bloats to ~60GB. Is there a way to 'clean' this afterwards or is this just a given when you build manually?

Thank you again for your help in getting the plugin working. Not only would I have never figured it out on my own, but I really am amazed at how kind and helpful you and your team are; kudos to you all, and thank you again!

John