Installing Plugins Before Aximmetry 2024.1

IMPORTANT: If you are using an Aximmetry version 2024.1.0 or newer, please refer to the How to Install Third-Party Code Plugins for Unreal Editor for Aximmetry documentation instead of the one provided below.

Requirements

• Install the Epic Games Launcher and the Unreal Engine by following the instructions here.
  
  • Make sure to install the version of Unreal Engine that matches the version of Unreal Editor for Aximmetry. To find out which version you need, launch Unreal Editor for Aximmetry and click Help / About Unreal Editor. Only the first two components of the version number are relevant which looks like x.x.
  • Optional: in Step 3 of Installing Unreal Engine click Options and disable all components except Engine Source. This saves several GBs of disk space.
• Install Visual Studio by following the instructions here.
  • In Step 2 - Download Visual Studio: choose Visual Studio 2022 Community edition.
  • In Step 4 - Choose workloads: select Game Development with C++.
  • In Step 5 - Select the Unreal Engine installer from the Games and Graphics section and Windows 10 SDK (10.0.19041.0) from the SDKs, libraries, and frameworks section.
  • Ignore Steps 6-8.

Installing Plugins

Download and install the plugin:

• For marketplace plugins: 
  Open the Epic Games Launcher and install the desired plugins from the Marketplace.
  
  
• For manually downloaded plugins, for example from GitHub:
  Copy your plugin into the Marketplace plugin directory of the Unreal Engine installed by the Epic Games Launcher. By default, the install location is C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace. Create a Marketplace folder, if there is no such folder under the Plugins folder.
  The path to the uplugin file should look like ...\Plugins\Marketplace\PluginName\PluginName.uplugin (make sure there are no extra directories in the path).

Open Unreal Editor for Aximmetry. In the Aximmetry menu, click Install Plugins. The first installation will take quite a long time, however, subsequent installations should be significantly faster.

Enable the plugins you want in Edit / Plugins and restart the editor if needed.

NOTE: Some plugins are designed to only work in Unreal Editor, in these cases use Live Sync mode.
NOTE: Certain plugins require some additional steps. See the instructions listed below.

Additional instructions for installing plugins

Most plugins can be installed by following the simple steps above, however, certain plugins require some additional steps. If you want to use the plugins listed below, please complete these instructions before clicking Install Plugins in Unreal Editor for Aximmetry.

V-Ray For Unreal

• In the Current Installation Parameters step click Customize.
• Change Unreal Engine plugins location to [installation path]\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace. ([installation path] should point to the original Unreal Engine installation - do not change it to Unreal Editor for Aximmetry.)
• Make sure the Install Chaos Cloud Client option is checked.
• Finish the rest of the installation as usual.

Substance

Note: This plugin is known to crash the Unreal Editor in certain cases. This is a bug in the plugin so it happens with the vanilla Unreal Editor as well. The crash happens when certain meshes are sent to the Substance Painter. It seems to be caused by a material name collision. This can be worked around by moving the mesh asset to a different directory before clicking Send to Substance Painter.

Character Creator & iClone 8 Auto Setup

• Download the plugin using the Reallusion HUB.
• Go to the plugin's location (by default for iClone 8: C:\Program Files\Reallusion\Shared Plugins\iClone 8 Live Link for Unreal\iClone Live Link Plug-in for Unreal x.x\Plugins\).
  And copy the plugin's folder to the original Unreal's marketplace folder (by default: C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace).
• Launch Unreal Editor for Aximmetry and install the plugins as described above.

MVN Live Link

• Before cooking the project, go to Edit / Project Settings / Maps & Modes / Game Instance and set Game Instance Class to LiveLinkGameInstance.
• Close the Unreal Editor before loading the project in Aximmetry because the MVN Live Link can only handle a single active connection.

NVIDIA DLSS

Currently, only Aximmetry's recompiled version of the DLSS plugins works. Please ask for the working plugins at sales@aximmetry.com.
A long-term solution that will work with the original plugins is being developed.

On how to enable the plugin, please refer to the official quick start guide (DLSS_Frame_Generation_Quick_Start_Guide.pdf).

Limitations

Using DLSS significantly reduces the quality of Virtual billboards (i.e. billboards rendered by Unreal).
We suggest using non-Virtual billboards (i.e. billboards rendered by Aximmetry) if DLSS is enabled.

Note that DLSS handles focus (depth of field) differently than normal Unreal. When switching to DLSS this might cause the scene to be out of focus.

iTween

• Download the plugin from the link found here. Make sure to download the version that was compiled for the engine version that you are using.
• Extract the downloaded archive to Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\iTween.
• Launch Unreal Editor for Aximmetry and install the plugins as described above.

Rokoko Studio Live

Using the Rokoko Studio in Cooked mode

Streaming animations into the Unreal Editor (in Live Sync mode) should work without problems after installing the plugin. Using the plugin in Cooked mode, however, requires an additional step:

Open the Level blueprint in the Unreal Editor then add a Create Virtual Production Source node and connect it to the BeginPlay event. (If the node doesn't show up in the search results, try disabling the Context Sensitive option above the search box.)

After cooking the project, you should be able to stream animations into Aximmetry.

Make sure the Unreal Editor is not connected to Rokoko Studio when the project is loaded in Aximmetry (Rokoko Studio can't connect to multiple clients simultaneously). The safest option is to close the Unreal Editor after cooking the project.

Houdini Niagara

Download the binary version of the plugin and copy the HoudiniNiagara folder to c:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace.

Open the c:\Program Files\EpicGames\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\HoudiniNiagara\Source\HoudiniNiagara\Classes\NiagaraDataInterfaceHoudini.h in a text editor,
find the GetFunctionHLSL, GetParameterDefinitionHLSL and GetCommonHLSL function declarations and enclose them in a #if statement:

#if WITH_EDITORONLY_DATA
virtual bool GetFunctionHLSL( ... ) override;
virtual void GetParameterDefinitionHLSL( ... ) override;
virtual void GetCommonHLSL( ... ) override;
#endif

Open the c:\Program Files\EpicGames\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\HoudiniNiagara\ Source\HoudiniNiagara\Private\NiagaraDataInterfaceHoudini.cpp in a text editor,
find the GetFunctionHLSL, GetParameterDefinitionHLSL and GetCommonHLSL function declarations and enclose them in a #if statement:

#if WITH_EDITORONLY_DATA
void UNiagaraDataInterfaceHoudini::GetCommonHLSL( ... ) { ... }
bool UNiagaraDataInterfaceHoudini::GetFunctionHLSL( ... ) { ... }
void UNiagaraDataInterfaceHoudini::GetParameterDefinitionHLSL( ... ) { ... }
#endif

Launch Unreal Editor for Aximmetry and install the plugins as described above.

Octane

Download the plugin installer and install the plugin as described by the publisher. The plugin must be installed for the original Unreal Engine, not the Unreal Editor for Aximmetry.
After the plugin is installed, open the OctanePlugin.uplugin file. By default, it can be found at c:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\Octane\OctanePlugin.uplugin.
Change the "Type": "DeveloperTool" line to  "Type": "Editor" and save the file.
Launch Unreal Editor for Aximmetry and install the plugins as described above.

Cesium for Unreal

Install the plugin from the Marketplace.
Open the c:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\CesiumForUnreal\Source\CesiumRuntime\CesiumRuntime.Build.cs file.
Find the following line:

PrivateDependencyModuleNames.Add("Chaos");

In the next line, add:

PrivateDependencyModuleNames.Add("SlateCore");
PrivateDependencyModuleNames.Add("Slate");

Save the file.
Launch Unreal Editor for Aximmetry and install the plugins as described above.

SPCRJointDynamics

Copy the plugin to c:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_x.x\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace, then make the following changes:

Open SPCRJointDynamics\Source\SPCRJointDynamics\Public\SPCRJointDynamicsComponent.h in a text editor and change line 34 from

UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly)

to

UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, Category=SPCRJointDynamics)

Open SPCRJointDynamics\Source\SPCRJointDynamics\Public\SPCRJointDynamicsMngComponent.h in a text editor and change line 38 and line 41 from

UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable)

to

UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category=SPCRJointDynamics)