What do you actually use to sculpt landscapes?
polycounter lvl 4
Because I won't believe if you tell me that you only use basic UE sculpting tools. They look extremely barebones to me and I can't imagine sculpting anything realistic with them. Well, ok - I can imagine, I can also imagine painting Mona Lisa in MS Paint, but it doesn't mean I want to go through that. UE sculpting tools should be fine for making small changes, maybe even sculpting a stylized landscape, but what is the modern workflow for reallistic mountains and stuff?
Replies
I don't have any professional experience in creating landscapes, but from what I gleam, a lot is the simple tools. Also like most answers to most questions, it depends. If you're creating a large open-world environment where the player can go anywhere then you use something like World Machine or some other terrain/heightmap generator. World Machine lets you generate the terrain heights and masks for major features like water and erosion.
You import the height into UE when generating the terrain. You then create a landscape master material with layers that correspond to rock, dirt, grass, snow, etc. That's where you can then use your masks. After that you would go in with your super simple UE tools and refine everything to make it look good. You wouldn't rely only one the generated terrain mesh though. You would have modular rock/cliff kits and other stuff to add detail where you needed it. Then you have your foliage tools. The terrain tools aren't meant to create everything about a terrain, just the underlying mesh and landscape material. A lot is adjusted by hand to make it realistic. It also relies on how you use static meshes and foliage.
https://www.world-machine.com/
https://www.world-creator.com/
pretty much that, yes