More outdated tutorials and dead ends!!!! - SD5 for Unreal 4.7.2 - WHAT DO I DO?

[reidbaker]

Freaking A, trying to now get substance into UE4... tutorials go to links that aren't there and this forum is littered with unorganized and out of date information. WHY DON'T THEY HAVE A COMPILED WAY TO FIND THE ACTUAL LATEST?! Their 4 pinned topics have almost no useful information. Sorry, now I'm really frustrated since Allegorithmic's documentation is inaccurate and it's costing time to sort through this mess across a bunch of different areas. They should have had everything together but rushed the SD5 release and completely dismantled key navigation and functionality on their website with what little documentation exists. I feel like a sucker giving money!

Now - How do I get my SD5 substances into Unreal 4.7.2 - the pinned posts are from April 2014! Tutorials (also pinned) don't support accurate information, nor does the changelog to to an real download link. What is the actual latest plugin and why the hell isn't it pinned at the freaking top with clear information on what versions what supports and a basic how-to?!

Thank you to anyone with clear information.

[Fabian F.]

Hey reidbaker,

keep calm and be patient, please. It won't get better if you are complaining this harsh.

At the moment, the Plugin is not compatible with the new SD5 nodes. Here in the forums you'll find most of the info, just read
https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=4147.0


Best reagrds

[reidbaker]

Thank you for the information. It's true lashing out at the forum is not great - but you have to understand that Allegorithmic products have BAD usability right now. They've ripped apart their links and information and with a new release things are a mess, this is maybe like the 6th time today this has happened and when I bought this for it's HIGHLY PUBLICIZED connection to UE4, just to discover it's actually behind... It's a problem when you only come to understand it AFTER giving them money. I love the company and what they're trying to do - but it's costing me time I didn't have after spending for a product clearly rushed out the door and not prepared. The forums, tutorials, main website are bad enough, let alone discovering critical functionality isn't ready. Sorry, but by this point I'm pissed and disappointed.

[michael_11]

The forums, tutorials, main website are bad enough, let alone discovering critical functionality isn't ready. Sorry, but by this point I'm pissed and disappointed.

I agree, that it is not very handy, how Unreal Substance integration is set up at the moment. Would be great if Substance integration would just be a part of Unreal, without this annoying approach. Also, Substance is so important today, that a solid integration is a must. Let´s hope that this next step is in sight.

What you are writing about the forum and tutorials makes me think, that you are a new Substance user, who is used to bad support, documentation and company policy from previous experiences with other software packages.

My tip is to start with the latest beginner tutorials (4.x), and as soon as you have an overview, you will be able to choose whatever tutorials might be of interest to you.
During the process of learning Substance, you will also find out (hopefully) that there is no company with better support, better communication, better pricing, better company policy, and last but not least better forum  .

just my 5 cents

[reidbaker]

When you launch a new product, particularly a new iteration there are a few basic things that need to be covered:

- How to onboard NEW people. Allegorithmic gets a bit strike there because A) they don't have tutorials ready for their new product except in a few areas that aren't for new users. B) They don't guide people to the existing tutorials that still apply (IE: How on earth would I know the SD4 tutorials are worth sitting through the 4ish hours of; as it is I did go through them and in a few occasions I ran into issues that I didn't know if were bugs or feature changes, which brings me to...

- Changelogs and documentation. Their documentation is for SD4 and I bought SD5 this week ... so when running into the issues I was facing while going through the only tutorials for newcomers (SD4), I had no idea still if it was a bug OR a change. This is another gigantic strike since I can't easily just check references on what's up with what I'm seeing. This is also where I give a huge nod to Autodesk, which with each numbered iteration gives a breakdown of their new features. This helps people frame what aspects may be different in the iteration and which might still be fairly similar (which also plays into helping people know which tutorials to look at when there's not a beginners guide from the most recent version).

- Making sure the product's advertised features are CURRENTLY working. This came up multiple times this week with the influx of software releasing with GDC (Unity 5 not launching with Oculus support? WTF? Granted, I didn't give them money like I have Allegorithmic). Not having your product fully functioning with the latest iterations of the tools you specify they work with (Unreal 4) is not alright. You should make it clear what the status is for people buying it - but all you give is a forum link with a myriad of bad information. This sucked not having Unreal 4 working properly and having to dig for any information because the link you provide leads to a forum with 4 bad pinned posts.

In this case it all comes down to having the information ready before launch. They didn't and I paid for the software with failings on multiple fronts that I'm having to wait on them to update and support properly. People should look to the release of Unreal 4... they came out SWINGING. They had pretty much most things set up from documentation to forums and answer hubs right off the bat. And they've built forward fast. But Even with Unreal Engine, I only gave them $20 to start... Allegorithmic I've given quite a bit of my limited resources to and I'm utterly disappointed with this release because it's rushed.

[Nicolas LIATTI]

Thank you for the information. It's true lashing out at the forum is not great - but you have to understand that Allegorithmic products have BAD usability right now. They've ripped apart their links and information and with a new release things are a mess, this is maybe like the 6th time today this has happened and when I bought this for it's HIGHLY PUBLICIZED connection to UE4, just to discover it's actually behind... It's a problem when you only come to understand it AFTER giving them money. I love the company and what they're trying to do - but it's costing me time I didn't have after spending for a product clearly rushed out the door and not prepared. The forums, tutorials, main website are bad enough, let alone discovering critical functionality isn't ready. Sorry, but by this point I'm pissed and disappointed.

Hi,

As the other users posted, being unpolluted in the forum will not bring you anything. Telling lies neither.
The links for the UE4.6 and 4.7 plugin will be back on the UE4 within the coming hours (it's already available for UE 4.6)

They've ripped apart their links and information and with a new release things are a mess, this is maybe like the 6th time today this has happened and when I bought this for it's HIGHLY PUBLICIZED connection to UE4, just to discover it's actually behind...

I would like to understand how it's the 6th time, as we haven't changed our website for more than 2 years now... The only thing we removed from the actual website was the plugin for the UE4 because we didn't have enough time to make a proper page.
I admit the links for the plugin may be hidden in the forum, but if you look for them just 5 min you would find them (we had thousands on downloads on them since last Wednesday when we removed them from the main website, so even if they are harder to fine, it seems it's highly possible...).

let alone discovering critical functionality isn't ready

Substance Designer 5 is totally compatible with the UE4, as long as you don't use the newly introduced nodes. You just need to set your project to "Substance Engine V4", and everything will work smoothly.
Have a look on the Substance Designer forum, in the Product Support sticky topic if you want to know more about it.
We will release new versions of the plugin with the last version of the engine (= compatible with the new nodes) in the coming days.


Now, regarding the plugin itself: we would love as well for it to be integrated as a normal plugin on the UE4 marketplace, or directly within the UE4. It's not our call however, it just depends on Epic who is not ready for this yet.

And if you have question on where to find the links, or how to import a substance, you can as well send us a nice message to our contact form and you would receive a nice answer from us

Cheers,
Nicolas

[Nicolas LIATTI]

The plugin for UE 4.7 are now back on the main website (I admit the page is not pretty, but the links are there and we will polish it in the coming days).

So in order to use your Substance with the plugin, here is what you should do:
- install the UE4.7 plugin in your Project folder (you can find more information in the sticky topic of the forum)
- set the compatibility engine in SD5 to "Substance Engine V4"

And that's pretty much everything. Once you publish a substance (.sbsar), it will simply work in UE4

Nico

[Denny]

The compatibility part should be advertised loudly for third party users until the plugins catch up to full functionality. I just converted my material to SD4 compatibility and it works perfectly in UE4 now.

Even if I like your tools, despite the rough start, I agree with some of the posts in here that the release could have been handled better. I had the impression that the SD5 engine was supported on release and there was no information anywhere that states otherwise.

All you need to do is put a notice on the UE4 page that SD5 compatibility is in the progress and that the steps you mentioned to be included. It's better to give users a heads-up warning than making them pissed off post-purchase when they find obscure threads with "Oh so you know, it's not working yet.".

SD5 is a great tool and your Live collection is awesome. Don't let it get a bad reputation from small things like this.

[reidbaker]

Thank you for the information. It's true lashing out at the forum is not great - but you have to understand that Allegorithmic products have BAD usability right now. They've ripped apart their links and information and with a new release things are a mess, this is maybe like the 6th time today this has happened and when I bought this for it's HIGHLY PUBLICIZED connection to UE4, just to discover it's actually behind... It's a problem when you only come to understand it AFTER giving them money. I love the company and what they're trying to do - but it's costing me time I didn't have after spending for a product clearly rushed out the door and not prepared. The forums, tutorials, main website are bad enough, let alone discovering critical functionality isn't ready. Sorry, but by this point I'm pissed and disappointed.

Hi,

As the other users posted, being unpolluted in the forum will not bring you anything. Telling lies neither.
The links for the UE4.6 and 4.7 plugin will be back on the UE4 within the coming hours (it's already available for UE 4.6)

They've ripped apart their links and information and with a new release things are a mess, this is maybe like the 6th time today this has happened and when I bought this for it's HIGHLY PUBLICIZED connection to UE4, just to discover it's actually behind...

I would like to understand how it's the 6th time, as we haven't changed our website for more than 2 years now... The only thing we removed from the actual website was the plugin for the UE4 because we didn't have enough time to make a proper page.
I admit the links for the plugin may be hidden in the forum, but if you look for them just 5 min you would find them (we had thousands on downloads on them since last Wednesday when we removed them from the main website, so even if they are harder to fine, it seems it's highly possible...).

let alone discovering critical functionality isn't ready

Substance Designer 5 is totally compatible with the UE4, as long as you don't use the newly introduced nodes. You just need to set your project to "Substance Engine V4", and everything will work smoothly.
Have a look on the Substance Designer forum, in the Product Support sticky topic if you want to know more about it.
We will release new versions of the plugin with the last version of the engine (= compatible with the new nodes) in the coming days.


Now, regarding the plugin itself: we would love as well for it to be integrated as a normal plugin on the UE4 marketplace, or directly within the UE4. It's not our call however, it just depends on Epic who is not ready for this yet.

And if you have question on where to find the links, or how to import a substance, you can as well send us a nice message to our contact form and you would receive a nice answer from us

Cheers,
Nicolas

Harder to find yet available is not an good attitude to take when developers are paying and it's eating more of their time; particularly when compatibility is poorly described. Further, the tutorial video out there on UE4 directed me to a resource that doesn't exist (seems to be back). And in it's place has been a forum link whose 4 pinned topics are outdated (if not anything else - I trust these since I feel they're backed by Allegorihmic, it's hard to tell what's official in downloading from a random forum post). Thank you for correcting link. I wasn't suggesting the website changed 6 times, but that I've run into at least 6 issues that are inconsistent when it comes to the information found online (aside from forums, I have run into various 404s, and a PBR doc link that were also broken until yesterday).

Telling me I'm lying is completely disrespectful since I've backed up everything I've described, whether on a usability term or an explicit functionality. Surprisingly, I actually love Allegorithmic, and it's been REALLY disappointing this time around to keep running into this since I'm trying to better understand your tools and having the on boarding for new users be quite poor (it requires way too much assumption). The small things actually make the biggest different in this case too because you can end up spending hours trying to figure out if some random part of your tutorials are a feature change or a bug. I've run into this multiple times with your existing documentation and tutorials on more occasions than I wish were the case.

I am clearly trying to understand your products... but a little more time putting things together information wise for this release could go a long way.

[Vincent Gault]

Hey @reidbaker, while I (and many other people) agree that the documentation can be improved, I really think your tone is innapropriate (UPPERCASE IS A BIT AGRESSIVE FOR THE READER DON'T YOU THINK SO ?).

As mentioned above, Allegorithmic has a really reactive customer support and make everything possible to fix any issue/bug/questions. I don't even know if we can call this a "customer support", as you are speaking directly with the developers most of the time. I have been working in the industry for a while right now, and they are number one for me on this domain.

So once again, "yes" they can improve the documentation (even if all the SD4 documentation remains true), but I wouldn't exchange the actual awesome relationship they build with their user base, against the best documentation in the world.

I am sure we will soon have both :-)

[reidbaker]

Hey @reidbaker, while I (and many other people) agree that the documentation can be improved, I really think your tone is innapropriate (UPPERCASE IS A BIT AGRESSIVE FOR THE READER DON'T YOU THINK SO ?).

As mentioned above, Allegorithmic has a really reactive customer support and make everything possible to fix any issue/bug/questions. I don't even know if we can call this a "customer support", as you are speaking directly with the developers most of the time. I have been working in the industry for a while right now, and they are number one for me on this domain.

So once again, "yes" they can improve the documentation (even if all the SD4 documentation remains true), but I wouldn't exchange the actual awesome relationship they build with their user base, against the best documentation in the world.

I am sure we will soon have both :-)

I don't disagree with the tone being aggressive and perhaps misplaced. The UE4 stuff was pretty much the tipping point in my frustration with documentation and information being out of sync since it costs a bunch of time as a user trying to find how to be properly on boarded and not having confidence in the time being spent usefully. I don't think the product itself is the issue; sure there are bugs, but it's hard to tell what's going on when things are out of sync with the information available and there's very little branded with the latest versions. It's inaccurate to suggest tutorials and existing documentation haven't changed for the existing toolsets, because it's not 100% - and it's the few things that are inconsistent that can devour time trying to resolve.

Fact remains, they should have already had the information more organized before releasing. I love what Allegorithmic is doing, but with trying to introduce such a beastly and powerful new workflow, on boarding is one of the single most critical components to releasing the software. More hand-holding is better than less in this case - and that applies to new releases.

[Fabian F.]

Hey guys,

all the feedback helps to improve the quality and stability of the products, new launches and services throughout the whole pipeline.
A polite and well formulated critic is always a good thing and it's often better than good feedback.

Thank you for taking time to write inside the forums as other users also can take profit out of it, like I do.
I think everything's has been said and future updates will be better prepared. Lesson learned, I would say


Best regards

[Nicolas LIATTI]

Hi guyz,

We know that the documentation should have been more clear, and we are truly sorry it was not the case. This is being fixed as we currently speak, the SD5 doc will be online ASAP.
We are as well doing our best to have the new engine shipped with existing integrations (UE4 and Unity 5). Josh (our lead dev on the integrations) can keep you up to date about the progress on this forum, feel free to ping him if you need.

Let's now move on and have fun with texturing

Nico

[josh.coyne]

Hi all,

We are working on supporting SD5 substances in all of our integrations, including UE4. We wanted to get SD5 out asap so users can use and get accustomed to the new workflow nodes and features

We will also release SD5 support in the UE4 plugin as soon as possible.