Parametric 3D Array

Description: Here you can explore a full presentation of the Parametric 3D Array Plug-in for Unreal Engine 5.7, developed by Naiuma, along with a step-by-step tutorial demonstrating its workflow and capabilities.

This plug-in empowers you to create highly complex, richly varied parametric arrays, significantly enhancing your level design pipeline. You can seamlessly incorporate Blueprint Actors, light sources, and even Skeletal Meshes into your arrays, distributing them with true randomness for natural, organic results.

One of its most powerful features is intelligent optimization. The plug-in automatically detects identical Static Meshes that share the same materials and merges them into HISM Components (Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes) when enabled. This dramatically improves rendering performance while preserving visual diversity.

Instances can also be distributed along splines, making it ideal for roads, fences, corridors, railings, pipelines, and other spline-based structures.

Beyond placement, the plug-in offers advanced material control. You can assign different materials to the same instance and organize various assets into collections. These collections can then be duplicated and distributed procedurally, giving you maximum creative flexibility with minimal manual effort.

The Parametric Array Plug-in is particularly effective for building large-scale environments — from architectural structures filled with interior elements like furniture and lighting, to complex urban scenes populated with benches, streetlights, and other city assets. It works exceptionally well in combination with Megalights, enabling visually rich yet performance-efficient scenes.

For further optimization, you can configure Cull Distance and Max Draw Distance for all generated objects, ensuring excellent runtime performance even in large environments.

Additionally, every generated item remains accessible at runtime. Through Blueprints, you can retrieve and modify individual instances dynamically, allowing for interactive and responsive gameplay systems.

Instruction: To use the plugin, you should download it from FAB.com, install it and just drag and drop the ParametricArrayBP into the scene — this will create the ParametricArrayBP actor. Then you can set up it in the details panel as was explained in the video tutorial above.

1. Add a Block in Settings (by default there 1 block already there)
2. In each Block create Instance Types - Types wich will be randomly selected to spawn instances for each array element.
3. Each Instance Type can be either a Collection of Sub Objects, or a single component.
4. If the type of the Instance/Object is HISM, Static Mesh or Skeletal Mesh - you can add multiple meshes and multiple materials to let the plugin choose between them randomly - what allows to make the array of objects/components versatile.
5. You can enable Mirror in Settings.
6. You can multiply components along a spline. For that enable this setting in each needful Block. If you don't see the spline immideately, Deselect/Select or just move the actor - it will become visible (UE restrictions I couldn't get rid of)
7. Each Block, each Collection and each Instance have their own transforms - so you can adjust them.
8. You can exclude/remove any instances with Trigger Boxes, just add them in No Object Area field.
9. In each Block set Distance between Components and Quantity of Components.
10. In the Blueprint you can get any instances, do right click and search for "Parametric Array" and find all available functions.