How are made terrain / ground in video games ?
node
Hello !
I'm planning to get on my very first environnement piece, in Unreal Engine 4. So I found my concept, but a the stage of the blockout, I'm wondering : what are terrain in video games made of ? I mean ... I doubt i'ts like a HUGE mesh with a 32k texture resolution on it, so how do I setup my terrain ? Are there a bunch of litte modular piece set together ? Is there a main piece that "support" the world, then you add plenty of modular piece to cover it ?
Also, I've seen people using World Machine, or Subtance Designer to create height Map, wich I understand, but how do you make a 200*200m terrain with a height map ?
For exemple : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oAJKZz
We can see there is a kind of "base" then the artist add the meshes he made. How do you control that base ?
On this another exemple : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/68v66O, second picture, I really don't get it. Huge meshes set so the player can walk on it ? Are there some fake perspectives used on non-playable areas ? Like this example : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVo0A5. Is the castle in background in fact just really small to simulate it is far away from camera ? On this last example we can see many levels in the floor composition, what do you believe this floor is actually made of ?
So much question.... Thank you for your answers !
I'm planning to get on my very first environnement piece, in Unreal Engine 4. So I found my concept, but a the stage of the blockout, I'm wondering : what are terrain in video games made of ? I mean ... I doubt i'ts like a HUGE mesh with a 32k texture resolution on it, so how do I setup my terrain ? Are there a bunch of litte modular piece set together ? Is there a main piece that "support" the world, then you add plenty of modular piece to cover it ?
Also, I've seen people using World Machine, or Subtance Designer to create height Map, wich I understand, but how do you make a 200*200m terrain with a height map ?
For exemple : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oAJKZz
We can see there is a kind of "base" then the artist add the meshes he made. How do you control that base ?
On this another exemple : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/68v66O, second picture, I really don't get it. Huge meshes set so the player can walk on it ? Are there some fake perspectives used on non-playable areas ? Like this example : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVo0A5. Is the castle in background in fact just really small to simulate it is far away from camera ? On this last example we can see many levels in the floor composition, what do you believe this floor is actually made of ?
So much question.... Thank you for your answers !
Replies
Other engines do basically the same thing although implementation details might be different
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/LevelStreaming/WorldBrowser/index.html
Default resolution for height maps in ue4 is 1pixel per metre (ish). You can increase that but mostly you'll find people place modular meshes to get higher frequency detail.