Blending environment materials to avoid harsh mesh intersections
polycounter lvl 11
Hello, I'm planning a mid-scale environment project for the first time in a long time and using realistic materials. I want it to be reasonably realistic so I'm looking at substance materials and probably Unreal engine, but would also consider Unity.
From the last time I worked on something like this, I remember being very frustrated at how hard it was to avoid harsh borders along meshes that intersect, whether they intersect with a terrain mesh or with other neighbouring assets (like a tree and a rock). For example, if I had a bunch of tree and rock meshes randomly placed over a terrain mesh, there was very little I could do to "blend" the bottom of the tree with the ground. The best solution was just to create a bunch of small rock/grass assets and throw them around the tree to obscure the line created by the intersecting meshes.
Are there any good resources on current best practices for creating large areas of terrain (perhaps half a kilometer square) that aren't too repetitive and somehow manage to avoid this issue? I want to create a terrain with a river, rocky outcrops and vegetation that is as seamless as possible. I have a feeling that using displacement maps will help this a bit but I'd like to read up on it before diving in.
Thanks in advance for any answers.
From the last time I worked on something like this, I remember being very frustrated at how hard it was to avoid harsh borders along meshes that intersect, whether they intersect with a terrain mesh or with other neighbouring assets (like a tree and a rock). For example, if I had a bunch of tree and rock meshes randomly placed over a terrain mesh, there was very little I could do to "blend" the bottom of the tree with the ground. The best solution was just to create a bunch of small rock/grass assets and throw them around the tree to obscure the line created by the intersecting meshes.
Are there any good resources on current best practices for creating large areas of terrain (perhaps half a kilometer square) that aren't too repetitive and somehow manage to avoid this issue? I want to create a terrain with a river, rocky outcrops and vegetation that is as seamless as possible. I have a feeling that using displacement maps will help this a bit but I'd like to read up on it before diving in.
Thanks in advance for any answers.
Replies
Also, in Unreal you can kind of fake a smooth transition by using TAA dithered pixel depth offset in your material.