Handling large groups of animated characters in Unreal Engine can quickly become a performance and workflow challenge, especially when each agent needs behaviors, collisions, and responsive movement.
EasyCrowds by Simple B. gives developers a simple and practical way to approach this by using Niagara and Blueprints to control large numbers of characters through a clean, drag-and-drop workflow.
A large-scale crowd system built entirely with Niagara and Blueprints, designed to create massive crowd effects in just a few steps. It is drag-and-drop ready, easy to modify, and fully customizable.
Main Features
- Blueprint and Niagara Based: EasyCrowds is built entirely with Blueprints and Niagara, making it easy to inspect, customize, and extend without touching engine source or C++.
- DataAsset Workflow: Animations, tags, and character settings are stored in a DataAsset. The system matches animations by keywords and supports quick refresh through SyncFromDataAsset after any modification.
- LOD Workflow Up to Five Levels: Supports up to five LOD stages using skeletal mesh reduction, with the final level able to be generated through the ImpostorBaker plugin for far-distance rendering.
- VAT Integration: Includes a VAT editor utility to convert animations into texture-based playback, improving performance when handling large groups of characters.
- CrowdsGenerator Control: A generator component defines where characters spawn, along with their states, positions, and movement targets.
- Guide Path Navigation: Characters follow predefined guide paths mapped to a 2D RenderTarget. Paths cannot overlap, and higher-position paths take priority in overlapping regions.
- Trigger System:
- PBD Trigger: Affects only its grid and neighboring grids, offering better performance efficiency.
- Global Trigger: Can apply effects anywhere within a defined range, but using many of them is not recommended for performance.
- PBD-Based Collision and Interaction: Self-collision and interaction rely on a PBD grid. The grid can be visualized in real time, turning red when particle limits are exceeded, helping developers tune grid capacity or grid count.
- Drag-and-Drop Workflow: The system is designed to be used quickly: place CrowdsManager in the scene, link the DataAsset, and set up your generators to begin populating the level with characters.
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Quick Start
EasyCrowds includes a demo scene you can check to understand how the system is structured. The setup process is simple once the required plugins are enabled.
- Modify the skeletal mesh material according to the sample material.
- Run the VAT editor utility to generate the DataAsset file.
- Duplicate the skeletal mesh and adjust its Reduction Settings to obtain different LOD levels.
- The current preset supports up to five LOD levels.
- You can use the ImpostorBaker plugin to generate the final LOD level.
4. Open the DataAsset file and check if animations and tags match correctly.
- By default, matching is done through keywords in animation names.
5. Place CrowdsManager in the scene and add the DataAsset to CharacterData.
- After modifying DataAsset content, you must recheck SyncFromDataAsset to refresh the data in the Manager.
6. Create the Generator.
Similar Tools
- OverCrowd: A crowd-simulation plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that uses modular animated characters, Vertex Animation Textures (VATs) and Niagara for high-scale real-time crowds (thousands of characters) in scenes like stadia, battlefields.
Differences: While EasyCrowds emphasises “drag-and-drop crowd effects via Niagara + Blueprints”, OverCrowd adds additional features like wardrobe editors, VAT conversions, module for modular bodies and more cinematic population tools. So OverCrowd is more “production-scale” and broad in scope.
- NPC Crowd System: A tool on Fab for Unreal Engine designed to create NPC crowds easily; includes simple component-based setup for crowd members (they can move, react, flee, etc).
Differences: NPC Crowd System is more focused on interactive NPC behaviours (fleeing, interaction) rather than purely visual mass-crowd effects. In contrast, EasyCrowds is more about visual large-scale crowd deployment rather than detailed AI behaviours.
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