Any Unreal Engine Experts Here?

[Renzatic]

I wonder how easy it is to import into UE? Should I assume it has all the meshes, textures, and material that would be needed? I’ll assume yes but research is warranted. I signed in at Speed Tree and asked there too.

It's fairly simple.

 

[Huntn]

This looks like it has potential:

Coastal Live Oak: Forest – SpeedTree

store.speedtree.com

I wonder how easy it is to import into UE? Should I assume it has all the meshes, textures, and material that would be needed? I’ll assume yes but research is warranted. I signed in at Speed Tree and asked there too.

Actually no, I did not understand what VFX means, which is unsuitable for games, according to Speed Tree 3m pixels vs 30k for a game. Not only that but their customer support said, it sounded like to use this tree you’d not only have to buy it, but subscribe to Speedtree for games, if I understood them correctly.

 

[Renzatic]

Actually no, I did not understand what VFX means, which is unsuitable for games, according to Speed Tree 3m pixels vs 30k for a game. Not only that but their customer support ade it sould like to use this tree you’d not only have to buy it, but subscribe to Speedtree for gsnes, if I understood them correctly.

I think that any speedtree you buy is formatted in such a way that it plugs directly into UE. It's just a drag and drop affair, though they can't be edited at all without a subscription.

That's the impression I get. Also, any tree you make while under subscription can still be used even if you let your sub lapse.

 

[Renzatic]

Also...

 

[Huntn]

I think that any speedtree you buy is formatted in such a way that it plugs directly into UE. It's just a drag and drop affair, though they can't be edited at all without a subscription.

That's the impression I get. Also, any tree you make while under subscription can still be used even if you let your sub lapse.

According to emails received, VFX trees are not set up for Unreal game environments, but for video presentations. I also wonder what they have setup in the way of material and wind…

 

[Renzatic]

According to emails received, VFX trees are not set up for Unreal game environments, but for video presentations. I also wonder what they have setup in the way of material and wind…

You might still be able to use it, though it'll probably heap you with a heavy hit on performance.

Wind and materials should be the same as any gameready tree, since they're all basically designed the same way, and use all the same features. You might want to decrease the resolution of the image textures they provide you, though.

Alternately, you could buy the tree you're interested in alongside a month subscription, and pare down the detail on the tree yourself.

 

[Huntn]

You might still be able to use it, though it'll probably heap you with a heavy hit on performance.

Wind and materials should be the same as any gameready tree, since they're all basically designed the same way, and use all the same features. You might want to decrease the resolution of the image textures they provide you, though.

Alternately, you could buy the tree you're interested in alongside a month subscription, and pare down the detail on the tree yourself.

Unfortunately not getting anything done on my project until after 10Jan,but having fun seeing sights.

 

[Renzatic]

@lizkat THE SOUPCANS RIDE AGAIN!

 

[Renzatic]

Not only that but their customer support said, it sounded like to use this tree you’d not only have to buy it, but subscribe to Speedtree for games, if I understood them correctly.

Hey, Huntn! Check this out!

 

[Renzatic]

Saw this, thought of you.

 

[Huntn]

Saw this, thought of you.

Wow, looks great! I’m messing around with UE5 procedural landscapes. I got a free asset pack from the Epic market, but I’ve not quite figured it out And the author is not being helpful.

 

[Huntn]

I'm frustrated, still dicking around with my project. Back in December a company who produces UE Asset Packs, basically gave away 2 of their Procedural Forest Biome Asset Packs. "Great" I thought, I can just plug this into my project and I'm good to go.

Not quite, the MAWI product which produces a procedural landscape, has foliage that is tied to specific landscape layers. In a recently Landscape Tutorial, the MAWI author says, “if you use a third party program to generate the terrain such as World Machine, to make sure you import both the landscape and the layer info, and to set those up.” This would be the height layer height maps, labeled things like sand.png, dirt.png, that define where the sand goes, the dirt goes, plus where associated vegetation goes based on assigned layers.

Here is my problem, MAWI has a policy that if you don’t “buy” their product versus getting it in a promotion for free, it’s like pulling hens teeth to get any info from them. Basically "we only support those who have spent money on our products, no support for those who we have given our products to for free, which is my case.

So watching the MAWI tutorial on how to setup a landscape material, they have multiple layers such as sand, rock, grass, etc and besides the main landscape height map that is imported as a .png, there are additional layer height maps such as sand.png, rock.png, etc that define each layer as to what part of the landscape they encompass and auto generate. Also the material has vegetation that is tied to each layer and auto generates across the landscape, if you have set it up.

So I posted over at the World Machine forums:
Well at this point, I’m thinking I need to know in World Machine, how to setup and generate layer height maps for layers and since I really can’t get any support from MAWI, I’d like to know if there are tutorials here on how to accomplish this?

Waiting over there for an answer. I'd be willing to purchase World Machine for $100 to accomplish what I need to to use this asset pack.

Plugging the layer height maps into the Unreal Engine Material should not be terribly difficult, yet I’m not sure how to do that because I think they used UE4 when the video was made, and the interface is arranged different for UE5. But first I need to create layer related height maps, and a tutorial here would go along way to get me going.

 

[Huntn]

Saw this, thought of you.

I think I’ve walked though that village! This is completely amazing and what I learned is to build a village, you place the props first and make subtle alteration to the landscape second. It also makes me think about the role of procedural landscapes, which have value for a huge landscape from an efficiency standpoint, but not necessarily best for the more intimate setting that I have been focused on.

Although I am happy with my choice to focus on terrain, I’m not happy with the progress I have made over the last year. It’s true hat I am approaching this in a casual manner, and I frequently run into what amounts to distractions, where I don’t want to feel like I’m in the dark, about the best way to construct a scene or a landscape.

Spending the last month playing with procedural landscapes is the perfect example of being distracted, although I can say I understand that process better and it’s really pretty cool what can be achieved procedurally. Before that I spent a month playing with a spline tree that I decided to reject.

The bottom line, I’ve got an adequate landscape material, and for now, I need to forget about procedural, and move forward with that and start painting in vegetation, trees, rocks and water. I know how to do that, I just need to do it.

 

[Renzatic]

Spending the last month playing with procedural landscapes is the perfect example of being distracted, although I can say I understand that process better and it’s really pretty cool what can be achieved procedurally. Before that I spent a month playing with a spline tree that I decided to reject.

Honestly, I wouldn't consider that wasted time. I think I've learned more by goofing around than I have working on actual projects. Even if you think that you spent all your time on something you don't believe you'll use, you'll find out later that the knowledge you picked up there can be applied elsewhere in neat, unexpected ways.

 

[Huntn]

Honestly, I wouldn't consider that wasted time. I think I've learned more by goofing around than I have working on actual projects. Even if you think that you spent all your time on something you don't believe you'll use, you'll find out later that the knowledge you picked up there can be applied elsewhere in neat, unexpected ways.

I have come across at least one material that has a module that allows you to cut a hole in landscape for the purpose of creating a cave. There is a cave in my near future, so I anticpate I‘ll be using that for now...

 

[Renzatic]

There is a cave in my near future...

Sounds ominous. :O

Also, I finished my latest project. Got to write up an article about it too, which'll appear on BlenderNation any day now!

 

[Renzatic]

I can now consider myself published!

Behind the Scenes: Workshop in the Woods

Hey! My name is Matt Robertson, or Renzatic if you prefer. If you absolutely have to attach a title, I guess you could say I am a 3D generalist, although I don't do it professionally yet nor do I have…

www.blendernation.com

 

[Huntn]

What a journey, I’ve finally settled on an auto material because it does a great job of blending textures on the sides of mountains, and I finally figured out how this is accomplished in the material. And even when using the auto material, you have the ability to manually edit the textures so this is a win win for me.

And for awhile I was convinced I was going to go with procedural foliage, but after playing with and thinking about it, I’ve decided that my scene is small enough, I’d be better served by manual painting foliage with the Foliage Tool. Wether it’s procedural or painted, when turned into instances, it makes less computational work for the engine.

After a year messing with landscape materials, I’ve actually started placing assets in my project. Keep in mind regarding the length of time, this has been my casual project, not treating it like a job.

 

[Renzatic]

All things considered, you're actually progressing along at a fairly quick pace.

 

[Huntn]

This is what excites me regarding UE5 landscapes. These are the Megascan Trees that are in beta. Here is a tutorial that does not need to be watched, unless you want to see how the controls work.

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I don't want my landscapes to look cartoony but like this:

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