10 Best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024

Discover 10 Best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024.

Unreal Engine is a cutting-edge real-time 3D creation engine that produces photorealistic images and immersive experiences. It is a popular graphics platform for anything from video games to the metaverse. Unreal Engine 5 is already an extremely capable tool, but its capability can be expanded much further by a variety of plugins.

Indeed, UE enables developers to create and install plugins to add additional features and functionality. In this post, Chip Render discovers the 10 best Unreal Engine plugins for your next projects in 2024.

A plugin is an additional software component that extends Unreal Engine’s functionality. Plugins can introduce completely new features and adjust built-in functionality without directly modifying the Unreal Engine code. A plugin, for example, may add new menu items and toolbar commands to the Unreal editor, or it may provide totally new features and editor sub-modes.

Depending on what you need, you can enable or disable plugins independently for each project.

In Unreal Engine, there are two types of plugins:

• Unreal Engine plugins.
• Third-party plugins.

While Unreal Engine has plugins that provide a wide range of functionality, you may also download additional plugins via the Unreal Engine Marketplace. There are free and paid plugins available that you can purchase and install.

Now, let’s take a look at 10 Unreal Engine plugins that will not only improve the quality of your creations but also make the whole thing easier.

1. KitBash3D Cargo

Cargo is a free software download that gives you access to the full KitBash3D library – with over 10,000 individual 3D models and materials. Its powerful search and filter features enable you to easily find what you looking for. Cargo connects to Unreal Engine, so you can load any asset with a single click. It also offers a free Basic plan that includes a selection of free assets.

Thanks to a large library of 3D assets from various genres, powerful search and filtering, and 1-click import to Unreal Engine, KitBash3D Cargo is one of the best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024.

• Price: $119/month or $780/year (Pro). Pay per seat (Teams).

2. Datasmith

Datasmith is one of the most popular Unreal Engine plugins. It is a collection of tools and plugins that get your design data into Unreal quickly and easily. In particular, Datasmith brings entire pre-constructed scenes and complex assets created in 3D software into Unreal Engine, no matter how large, dense, or heavy those scenes may be.

The plugin works with a variety of industry-standard design applications and file formats, including 3ds Max, ArchiCAD, Cinema 4D, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp, Solidworks, and others.

Moreover, Datasmith gives real-time updates, so you can see your changes immediately. Therefore, it is an excellent option for anyone who wishes to accelerate their workflow while avoiding the hassle of manually importing assets.

• Price: Free

3. Speedtree

SpeedTree is a strong 3D vegetation modeling and rendering application. It helps you to create stunning and realistic environments for your games or films.

The SpeedTree plugin for Unreal Engine 5 brings all of the features of SpeedTree directly into the game engine, offering a highly versatile modeling app, lightmap-ready UVs, scalable wind effects, seamless LOD, and more. By using the plugin, you can easily create and modify trees, plants, and other foliage in real-time. That is why SpeedTree is a must-have tool for anyone looking to create beautiful and immersive game environments.

• Price: $19/month (Indie). Nodelock: $299/6 months or $499/year; Floating: $499/6 months or $899/year (Pro).

4. Substance 3D

Substance 3D is a collection of tools for generating and texturing 3D assets. The Substance 3D for Unreal Engine plugin allows you to directly use Substance materials in Unreal Engine 5 and 4.

It gives you access to over 1000 high-quality tweakable and export-ready 4K materials with presets from the Substance 3D Asset library. These customizable materials can easily be adapted to a wide range of projects.

This plugin also offers real-time material changes and texture updates. As a result, you may make modifications to your materials and immediately see the results.

In conclusion, Substance 3D is an excellent Unreal Engine plugin for those who want to create high-quality textures for their game assets.

• Price: Free

5. Procedural Nature Pack

The Procedural Nature Pack is a collection of assets that can help you create beautiful and realistic natural environments for your games. This plugin includes a variety of assets, including rivers, moss, trees, foliage, terrain, and rocks. With these assets, you can procedurally generate almost any nature scene you can think of and modify them in real-time.

The Procedural Nature Pack plugin for Unreal Engine is a great choice for those who want to create stunning natural environments without spending hours on asset creation.

• Price: Free

6. VR Expansion Plugin

The VR Expansion Plugin is a great tool for creating immersive VR experiences in your games. It was designed to help in the facilitation of advanced Virtual Reality interactions and gameplay elements in Unreal Engine 5 and Unreal Engine 4.

The plugin offers a number of features that can help you create realistic and captivating VR experiences, including locomotion systems, haptic feedback, and input remapping. As a result, VR Expansion Plugin is a must-have for anyone looking to create VR games or add VR support to their existing games.

• Price: Free

7. BlueprintUE

BlueprintUE is a tool for sharing blueprints for Unreal Engine – a game engine that uses visual scripting called blueprint. It provides a web-based interface where you can easily share your scripts with others and get feedback. In other words, it allows you to share and collaborate on Blueprint scripts for Unreal Engine 5.

Therefore, BlueprintUE is a great choice for those who want to collaborate with other game developers or get feedback on their scripts.

• Price: Free

8. Oceanology

Oceanology is a plugin for creating an accurate and efficient description of the sea surface, based on both cutting-edge results in oceanography and advanced 3D computing techniques. With Oceanology, you can easily create stunning oceans in real time. It is not limited to the ocean surface but also the underwater.

In short, Oceanology is a perfect Unreal Engine plugin for creating immersive and realistic surface and underwater scenes for your video games.

• Price: $159.99

9. WorldScape

WorldScape is one of the best Unreal Engine plugins for world creation. It enables you to make real planets and endless worlds for your single-player or multiplayer game, using the 64-bit precision ClipMap’s geometry technology.

The plugin’s instanced and multithreaded procedural foliage generation will bring life to your terrain with ease. You can also tailor your terrain by importing 8-bit or 16-bit height maps and applying them as decals. Moreover, the customizable noise-based biome system in C++, realistic lighting for planets, procedural surface materials, and custom gravity for planets provide an even more immersive gaming experience.

Therefore, WorldScape is perfect for those who want to achieve realistic takeoff and landing experiences in your game without the need for loading or transition screens.

• Price: $349.99.

10. Atoms Unreal

Atoms Unreal is one of the best Unreal Engine plugins for crowd simulation. It is a crowd simulation system capable of instancing skeletal meshes on the GPU while keeping high performances.

The Atoms Unreal plugin also enables you to build crowds in your projects without compromising on the number of agents being displayed. Whether you are working in games, VFX, Archviz, VR, AR, or broadcasting, Atoms Unreal delivers a unique experience for crowd simulation.

To sum up, Atoms Unreal is a great real-time option for creating both simple and complex crowds in Unreal Engine.

• Price: £75/year (Indie). £190/month, £490/quarter, or £1590/year (Studio).