Any Unreal Engine Experts Here?

[Huntn]

The one big advantage Unreal has for non-coders (like me) is the Blueprint visual scripting setup. Rather than dealing with the seemingly arcane syntax and structuring of C++, you just have to wrap your head around a bunch of premade logic blocks strung together in a nodal system.

For what Huntn's planning, which is a single environment with some interactive bits and bobs strewn about, it won't take him long to come to terms with things.

Yeah, except I keep running into issues. There is so much I don’t know. In the project I’m in , turning on Nanite in the landscape, turns the landscape black. Ok that’s ok, because I last read that Nanite in Unreal landscape materials has some issues, so I turned it off and landscape comes back immediately. this is different than Nanite for Static Meshes…I think.

Then on my landscape with Static Mesh assets sitting on the landscape, I can’t get Virtual Textures (technically Runtime Virtual Textures) working although I just went though a tutorial on it, in fact several, where I build the components from scratch and they work there, but when I pull in the same landscape material that I was using in the tutorial, into my heightmap, it seems to work fine as an auto material, yet, here I can’t get the virtual texturing to work on static mesh assets brought into the landscape. Frustrating. Today when I sit down to work, I have a Trouble Shooting Runtime Virtual Texture video ready to watch.

Runtime virtual texturing: When you place a rock on the landscape, the landscape has its materials/ textures, and the rock has it’s own set of material/textures. RVT enables the landscape material to be projected and blended along the bottom of the rock’s static mesh so it looks like a more realistic part of the landscape.

Another aspect I’m facing is that as someone who is aging, my short term memory is challenged. I’m highly reliant on taking lots of notes and using them for reference later. The good thing is when I watch a video where a teacher is manipulating a material or a landscape,, it looks familiar.

 

[Huntn]

Unreal Engine needs a good kick in the butt. Yesterday I closed down my project when the Super Bowl came on (Yay Chiefs!) and RVT was not working. This morning when I started the project, the boulder that was sitting on the ground that I was cursing yesterday, today upon start has a Virtual Texture applied. I almost spit out some coffee! Bastardo!! So I don't know...but it's working until it decides to stop working I guess...

 

[Renzatic]

Ok that’s ok, because I last read that Nanite in Unreal landscape materials has some issues, so I turned it off and landscape comes back immediately. this is different than Nanite for Static Meshes…I think.

If I had to take a guess as to why, it'd be because you're using your vertices to paint your RGB textures on, and Nanite adds and subtracts vertices depending on their distance from the camera. Your material doesn't know what's what, and just gives up, defaulting to black.

 

[Huntn]

If I had to take a guess as to why, it'd be because you're using your vertices to paint your RGB textures on, and Nanite adds and subtracts vertices depending on their distance from the camera. Your material doesn't know what's what, and just gives up, defaulting to black.

I just don’t know. I am painting blended layers and the way that works when you apply a new landscape material to the landscape, it turns black until you assign layer data then when you paint the first color it will change to whatever you paint, sometimes the entire landscape will paint with that first color, This is pretty standard, so I don’t see why Nanite would object to that. I also searched online for an answer and really saw nothing that confirmed what I’m seeing. What I need is a good reference that tells me all the things that Nanite might object to.

 

[Huntn]

OK, I seem to have gotten though my Runtime Virtual Texture crisis, tomorrow I'll configure another rock and some trees, then I'll be convinced I'm beyond the issue . I found my big Oak trophy tree in a project at Epic that was inexpensive. Playing around with a practice run of applying some instanced Aspen Trees. In game, all the leaves are waving.

This is just one tree, rotated and scaled to different sizes. When I start applying them for real there will probably7-10 different trees, but you can see what rotation and scaling does to make it look a bit different.

 

[Huntn]

I'm getting to a point in my landscape project where I want to work on a stream going through my woods, so I found this UE4 tutorial, it starts basic and although it is somewhat of a repeat at the beginning, but he will move into water and it seems I'm always learning something new.
Ben Cloward- Building Worlds Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL78XDi0TS4lHwqv_PmXAdedT2SH1qeRqK

Now this was done in UE4 and UE5 handles LODs (how detail is removed from models as camera distance from an asset becomes greater, but I increased the density of the landscape close up and I'm seeing more smoother detail, and virtually no drop in FPS when looking at it in runtime.

 

[Renzatic]

Hey, Huntn! I finished my most recent project. This one only took a month, which is the fastest I've ever completed a render!

 

[Huntn]

Hey, Huntn! I finished my most recent project. This one only took a month, which is the fastest I've ever completed a render!

View attachment 22825

Outstanding! I’m still trudging along, trying to figure out an issue with my landscape. I need my own personal UE expert.

 

[Renzatic]

Outstanding! I’m still trudging along, trying to figure out an issue with my landscape. I need my own personal UE expert.

Well, I’m here for you for the more generalized stuff.

 

[Huntn]

Well, I’m here for you for the more generalized stuff.

My landscape part of it looks normal like I expect it to look and parts of it look over exposed, but this is just the terrain, not the static meshes placed on the landscape. They all look normal. I’m suspecting a lighting issue and will scrounge around for a environmental lighting tutorial. I also have a landscape from where I got this landscape material in a tutorial, where everything looks normal, and will try to duplicate it’s lighting settings.

 

[Huntn]

I pulled up the lighting settings in a downloaded project associated with a landscape tutorial and stated looking at the lighting settings, did notrealize how many there were, tons. Now I have to compare that to my project and see if I can spot a culprit.

 

[Huntn]

I’ve got a stream, it’s got everything but water, and this is a challenge. I found a 2 year old tutorial on water using UE4. The author uses 16 individual planes for each level of water connected with something that I have not gotten to yet in his tutorial. For relatively slow moving water this looks good, but I want more of a bubbling brook look.

I’ve got some products from the Epic Marketpalce, a sprite (I think) waterfall and spline based water to lay out a stream. The thing is they look dated to me. The waterfall looks ok but it is all spray, where I want to see a sheet of solid water falling with spray.

And UE5 is using new water system still in beta that is great for ocean, lake, or river, yet I need to take the time to try it and see how it looks in this stream. There is a River tutoral, but this is for a deep, smoothly moving body of water and I don’t know if waterfall works with it yet. I’ll have to play with it.

I’ve also noticed that if I go with 4k textures for static meshes, I get all sorts of graphic warning like my computer, graphics card is struggling to render, so I’ve switched to 2k textures. Nanite seems to make a difference, however I noticed over at Megascans, the textures labeled Nanite are 8k!

I’ll try to get some pictures to post. In the meantime, the journey coninutes.

 

[Renzatic]

I’ll try to get some pictures to post. In the meantime, the journey coninutes.

Water is 90% shader effects, 10% vertex effects. I think this tutorial would give you a good foundation to build off of.

 

[Huntn]

Water is 90% shader effects, 10% vertex effects. I think this tutorial would give you a good foundation to build off of.

What is interesting is that everything requires a material, ie programming, which of course makes sense.

 

[Renzatic]

What is interesting is that everything requires a material, ie programming, which of course makes sense.

Well, it's programming, but it's nicely simplified through the nodes. You don't have to get down to the nitty gritty in a text editor.