Nodestrand exists so UE5 artists can share Material node graphs that other artists can actually open and use. These guidelines describe what we welcome, what gets removed, and what happens when something is reported. They sit alongside the Terms; if the two disagree, the Terms win.
What we welcome
- Materials you authored in UE5, in any state from rough study to polished hero shader.
- Educational breakdowns, comments on technique, honest credit to references.
- Materials marked with a clear licence (CC0, CC BY, or All Rights Reserved). Pick the one that matches how you actually want others to use the work.
- Constructive feedback on other artists' materials.
What's not allowed
The list below maps to the reasons you can choose when reporting a material or a profile. Anything that fits one of these categories gets removed.
Spam
- Bulk-uploading the same material with different titles, or near-duplicates that add no new content.
- Materials posted purely to drive traffic somewhere else. A link in your profile bio is fine; a material that exists only as an advertisement is not.
- Comments or descriptions full of unrelated links, referral codes, or keyword stuffing.
Copyright infringement
- Re-uploading a paid Marketplace material, an asset-pack shader, or someone else's published work and presenting it as your own.
- Materials built primarily on Epic's bundled content (Starter Content, Lyra, MetaHumans, Substrate samples) that you don't have the right to redistribute outside your own UE5 projects.
- Materials that bake in third-party textures, HLSL snippets, or function libraries without the licence allowing redistribution.
If you're the rights-holder, the fastest path is the formal takedown process at /dmca.
Malicious content
- Materials designed to crash the UE5 editor on paste, exfiltrate data, or execute harmful HLSL.
- Phishing attempts, malware links, or fake login prompts in descriptions or comments.
- Harassment, threats, doxxing, hate speech, or targeted abuse of another user.
- Sexually explicit or graphically violent imagery in thumbnails or descriptions.
Low quality
Nodestrand is a sharing platform, not a portfolio gate. Rough materials are welcome. "Low quality" is reserved for content that doesn't belong on a shared library at all:
- Empty graphs with one node, posted as filler.
- Materials that don't parse or render, posted without acknowledgement that they're broken.
- Test uploads left public instead of kept private or deleted.
Studies, exercises, and works-in-progress are not low quality. Mark them as such in the description and they're welcome.
Other
Anything illegal under Polish or EU law, anything that puts other users at risk, and attempts to evade a ban or break into accounts that aren't yours.
How we moderate
We're two people. Materials publish immediately, they appear in /browse and the public feed as soon as you post them. We moderate after the fact: every account is sign-in-gated and rate-limited, and we review what gets reported. We act on reports as fast as we can, usually within a few business days.
We may remove material, hide a profile, or ban an account. We try to explain why, but we may act first and explain after. Repeat offences lead to a permanent ban. Ban evasion (new account, same person) is itself a ban-worthy offence.
How to report
Every published material has a Report button. Profiles have one too. Sign in, pick a reason, add a note if you want. We see every report. You can file up to ten reports a day per account; that limit exists to prevent a single upset user from flooding the queue.
If a report doesn't fit the in-app flow (a legal request, a safety issue, an account hijack), email [email protected].
Appeals
If we removed your material or banned your account and you think we got it wrong, reply to the notification email or write to the address above. Tell us what was removed, the URL it lived at, and why you think the call was wrong. We read everything. We don't always change our minds, but we always reply.
Changes
These guidelines evolve as the platform does. The current version is always at /guidelines. Material change gets a visible notice on the site.