UEToolbox Source Access - The Short Version
Join the Gradientspace Patreon for 10 bucks (USD)
Download the current UE Toolbox Source zip-file by following the links in the Patreon Member posts
Try it out! Don’t give it to anyone else, though!
If it sucks, or you don’t have a lot of scratch, cancel your Patreon membership. You get to keep using what you downloaded.
If you want updates, pay 10 bucks again next month (or later)
UEToolbox Source Access - The Long Version
Access to the UE Toolbox Source is provided to anyone who joins the Gradientspace Patreon at the $10 USD/month level. Click here to open the Gradientspace Patreon in a new browser tab. The Source can be downloaded and used under a limited-use single-user License. For larger teams or organizations, other Patreon levels are available, or Contact Us for alternative licensing options.
Please continue reading this page before contributing, as it’s important that you understand what you get, and what you don’t get.
What you Get
Access to the UE Toolbox Source is provided as a benefit to supporters of the Gradientspace Patreon. URLs linking to zip files of the Source distributions will be posted to the Patreon, and on a private channel on the Gradientspace Discord. These zip files will contain the code and accompanying limited-use License in the LICENSE.txt file. To use the Plugin, you have to follow the terms of this included License.
You are not subscribing to a product! By joining the Patreon, you are effectively making a (fully taxable) no-strings-attached donation to Gradientspace Corp, to fund UE Toolbox development. To encourage your donations, in return we provide access to our Source Code, which we distribute under a limited-use license. If you don’t want to donate, the Binary version of the Plugin is available for free.
What you Don’t Get
Paying $10 USD/month gives you Access to these URLs and other benefits listed on the Patreon site. Via the URLs you can Access the Source Code distributions. I am emphasizing the word Access here because that is all that you get - the ability to Access and Use the UE Toolbox Plugin.
Specifically, you are not buying the Plugin. You do not “own” the code or the Plugin. You cannot redistribute the Source or compiled Plugin, or take portions of the Source and use them in other Plugins.
To use the Source, for example to compile it into an Unreal Engine Plugin, you must agree to the License, which can be found in the file named LICENSE.txt in the Source zip files. This License allows you to use the code for game development, which generally means using the Editor tools (the majority of the UE Toolbox) to create assets, edit levels, paint textures, and so on. You cannot redistribute the code or compiled plugin DLL files. So if you want to ship the Plugin with your built/packaged Unreal Engine product (game, app, and so on), an additional separate License is needed (described below).
What if you leave the Patreon?
As I mentioned above, contributing to the Patreon gives you Access to the Source. As long as you continue to participate in the Patreon at the $10 USD/month level, you will continue to receive access to updated versions of the Source, as they are developed and released.
If you stop contributing, you lose access to the Patreon member posts, and so you will no longer have access to the URLs where updated Source distributions are posted.
You will continue to have access to the Source Distributions you already downloaded, which you can continue to use under the included License terms that you will have already agreed to. There is no provision in the License that would allow Gradientspace Corp to stop this continued use, or retroactively change the License.
This is an Honour System. Please Be Honourable.
There is not much Gradientspace Corp can do to prevent you from sharing the download URLs or zips of the UE Toolbox Source with your friends, enemies, or with your entire company.
But please, don’t do that. If you think the Plugin is good, and want to see it continue to be developed, I (Ryan Schmidt, your author) need you to support it. I don’t want to administer a complex licensing or subscription program, I just want to make good software. I’m hoping that this will be a relatively low-maintenance and sustainable way to fund that development.
What about Support?
Contributing to the Patreon at the $10 USD/month level does not provide any benefit other than Access to the UE Toolbox Source. No direct user support is included at this level. General user support is provided at no charge on the Gradientspace Discord, regardless of membership status, at the discretion of the Plugin developers. Paid Support is available, please see below for more details.
Technical Details of the Source Distribution
The UE Toolbox plugin is made up of multiple UE code modules. Some of these modules are dependent on Unreal Engine code, ie they depend on Unreal Engine header files and must be linked with Unreal Engine modules to function. The C++ Source Code for these modules is included in the Source Distribution.
Several other modules (the “Gradientspace Libraries”) are independent of Unreal Engine code. These modules are used by the UE Toolbox modules, but do not need to be compiled-with or linked-against Unreal Engine headers/binaries. The Source Code for the Gradientspace Libraries is not included - these modules are distributed as pre-compiled binary DLL files.
The image on the right illustrates this split, with the UE-dependent modules in blue and the Gradientspace Libraries in orange.
Currently the precompiled Gradientspace Libraries are only provided for 64-bit Windows platforms. So, even with the Source Code distribution, you cannot (at this time) compile the UE Toolbox for other platforms. Support for other platforms is under consideration, if you think this should be a priority, please contact us.
Epic Games distributes many third-party dependencies of Unreal Engine plugins in the same way - OpenVDB, Embree, boost, Oodle, Python, USD, to name a few. Although most of these are open-source, precompiled binaries are used in Unreal Engine. The Gradientspace Libraries in the UE Toolbox work exactly the same way.
If you feel that you need access to the full source of the Gradientspace Libraries, this is available under custom licensing - please Contact Us.
A Note about API / ABI Stability
The UE Toolbox is under active development, and no C++ APIs should be assumed to be stable unless they are exposed to Unreal Engine Blueprints, or as public UProperties on Actors or Components (ie, data that would be serialized in a saved Level or Asset).
Please do not assume that because an class, method, or variable is public, it will be maintained or carefully deprecated (ie the general assumption one can make about Unreal Engine code). We cannot afford this overhead while making rapid progress on the Plugin.
We will guarantee forwards-compatibility for serialized data - ie, we will not break Assets. In addition, we are following a BP naming convention that allows versioning of functions, so that we can evolve the library without breaking existing BPs. But we cannot guarantee that the behavior of BP functions will be stable, except where otherwise noted.
You should treat the UE Toolbox Source as a way to include the UE Toolbox Plugin in your Source build, so that you can use the Tools in the Editor, and the pre-built Assets, Actors, Components, and BP Libraries provided. You should not try to build on the C++ libraries directly, at this time.
(…and if you want to try doing that anyway, please Contact Us first, as more detailed/specific guidance might be available)
Paid Support
We strongly suggest you use the Gradientspace Discord as your first point-of-contact, as many basic issues can be resolved very quickly. However if you require more focused assistance, Priority Support is available at a starting rate of $200 USD/hour.
Alternately, the Patreon Membership level “One Hour Of Ryan’s Time” is available at the same price and can be utilized for direct Support.
UEToolbox Redistribution Licensing
As noted above, the UE Toolbox Source version that you will be able to Access via links posted on the Patreon comes with a License that does not permit redistribution. Most features of the UE Toolbox are “Editor-Only” and are not possible to be included in a built game anyway. However if you are using ModelGrid Assets/Actors/Components in your built game (ie not as an Editor-only, baked-to-Static Meshes kinda thing) then your built game will have dependencies on the Gradientspace Libraries, ie the precompiled DLL files. To include these DLLs with your packaged UE project (ie Game, App, etc - anything built in a Shipping configuration), a separate License is required.
First of all, that Redistribution Licenses will be provided at no cost if your game ships in 2025. If you are in that timeframe, you will effectively be a beta tester, and we aren’t going to ask you to pay to help us work out the inevitable bugs that are encountered by the first few users (as we are not building & shipping a game ourselves).
In 2026, the price for non-funded Indie Developers and Small Teams will be $120, minus however much you have contributed to the Gradientspace Patreon, plus 1 dollar. So if you have been a Patreon Member at the $10 level for 12 months, the Redistribution License will cost you $1.
We will make the determination of whether you qualify as an “Indie Developer” on a case-by-case basis.
For non-Indie developers, you will have to contact us for specific terms, which will vary based on company size, project budget, and the scope of usage of the Toolbox in your title.
….but, we know everyone hates to hear that! So as a rough guideline, we think 0.25 percent of a development budget will produce numbers in a relatively fair ballpark (remember, that’s in 2026, when this Plugin is a full year further along). That would mean if your budget is $100k, the Redistribution License costs $250, or $2500 on a million-dollar title. Of course this will be negotiable - we want developers to ship with our product, not be worried about whether they can afford to!
Engineering Bounties and Consulting
Gradientspace Corp frequently receives requests for Consulting Services, which we generally decline in favor of spending our time developing the UE Toolbox! However, sometimes the stars align, and what you (the consulting-seeker) desperately needs are some UE Toolbox features that we would like to add anyway. In this situation, you can either (1) wait for us to get around to those features or (2) offer some financial incentive to get those features prioritized.
Similarly, if you are looking for help in using the UE Toolbox in your Project, this is a type of Consulting that we are able to allocate some time towards.
If either of these are something you might be interested in, please Contact Us and we will be happy to discuss it.