but that will capture a mask that is Red, green and yellow, no? The max function just gets the maximum of those input channels.
What I personally perfer for n color masking is using the distance node as the base. Or more specificially, one minus the distance. 1-Dist(target color, mask) You can then set some arbitrary color and whererver its zero you'll have an exact color match. If you are sure you want hard edges then just run that through a floor() function, but be aware, only values of EXACTLY one will stay white. Its often more useful to add a sort of fuzz factor to the output then floor it, so you have a range that gets clamped to one.
Alternatively you can use some other mathematical means of upping the contrast.
Does someone know a really good resource for Architectural master Material building? I really struggle with mking my architectural stuff (kind of worn down dark sously architecture) look good enough.
Quick technical question regarding Landscape generation via a Height Map.
I really like to start blocking out my terrain in Maya, via the sculpting tools, so I can get a nice feel for scale, proportion with the props on my terrain etc. Once the blockout is done, I bake out a Height Map from this sculpted terrain, onto a square plane. I usually bake out a high-res image to get as much detail as possible (8k .png Height Map in this case). The problem occurs when I use this Height Map to generate the Landscape from. This Landscape ends up being approx. 10 times larger than my sculpted terrain mesh, which is not ideal at all, because my scene is set to correct scale. I'm interested in knowing what the technique is behind blocking out a correct scale terrain in Maya and then taking that into via a Height Map to continue the work in the engine.
Higher resolution doesn't result in higher precision when it comes to landscapes. Most game engine landscape systems (same as UE4) use 1 vert per meter so 1 pixel equals to 1 meter square in UE4 and basically when you import an 8k map it gives you a landscape that's about 8,000 x 80,000 meters.
Higher resolution doesn't result in higher precision when it comes to landscapes. Most game engine landscape systems (same as UE4) use 1 vert per meter so 1 pixel equals to 1 meter square in UE4 and basically when you import an 8k map it gives you a landscape that's about 8,000 x 80,000 meters.
Thanks for the reply! Hm, that makes sense. My lansdcape is about 300m x 300m , actually. So, would I use 253x253 heightmap and scale it, via the Scale values to match it up with my mesh landscape?
Also, I am getting this "stepped" landscape result after applying my .png 16-bit height map. I am using XNormal to bake the map and whatever I seem to try I get this stepped result. I also baked out a .raw file, but UE moans that the resolution is incorrect. Problem is that XNormal can't bake anything other than square root textures and opening up a .raw file in PS to resize it seems not to be working.
Yep. Though its kinda funny and tells a lot how amd announced their equivalent of the tech really soon after the nvidia announcement. I believe this was ready for some time now.
Hi guys, I am completely new to 3D art or even digital art at all apart from one test piece (Still unfinished and linked in the post) and I'm looking to learn how to use Unreal Engine for landscape creation and character creation.... Anyone willing to help me through the basics???
I want to make a traffic light with around a 40 second loop? what is the easiest way to set this up? I was thinking some kind of linear sine material, texture panner or gif?
I was thinking I could just rig some lights that scale from zero to one just in front of the glass, but that feels so dirty and hacky
Would love to hear your thoughts, I have attached my material so far if anyone fancies a crack at it. I think I am over thinking it and just need to sleep on it.
Here you go. I used the texture from the post above. The x resolution of the texture needs to match the length of the animation. So one pixel on it corresponts to the content of 1 second from the animation. I went with 120 seconds loop. The texture also needs nearest neighbour filter.
Or if you want the anim length to be independent from the x resolution of the texture, you could do this:
Or this, so the x res is automatically determined:
Result - squished the anim to be 10 sec so you dont need to wait for long for anything to happen on the gif:
I didn't uv the spheres 100% correctly so there is a little bleeding between green and yellow... They just have to be scaled down slightly on the uvmap.
Anyway, I would recommend the third setup. Good luck!
I've been meaning to say X1000 thank you for a while , what you posted is 100% what I was looking for. I've just been so busy with work I never get the chance to sit down and fix the light and post the update. So I just wanted to say thank you now and I promise to post the update very soon. :)
Project Titan is an in-house tech demo designed to production test Houdini's procedural workflows while creating a 3D environment that leverages the latest technologies in Unreal Engine 5. The tools and techniques created for this demo will be shared with the community as learning materials and downloadable content.
To support the procedural tools, geometry from Kitbash3D played a big role in providing textured models that could be reconfigured using the Houdini tools.
Thanks again, I finally sat down tonight and fixed the traffic lights as you suggested above, it only took me a year, lol! Your material worked a treat.
I am always telling my students to post questions for any problems they might have over the holidays and I will be sure to use this as an example :)
Replies
What I personally perfer for n color masking is using the distance node as the base. Or more specificially, one minus the distance. 1-Dist(target color, mask) You can then set some arbitrary color and whererver its zero you'll have an exact color match. If you are sure you want hard edges then just run that through a floor() function, but be aware, only values of EXACTLY one will stay white. Its often more useful to add a sort of fuzz factor to the output then floor it, so you have a range that gets clamped to one.
Alternatively you can use some other mathematical means of upping the contrast.
How it was made
Quick technical question regarding Landscape generation via a Height Map.
I really like to start blocking out my terrain in Maya, via the sculpting tools, so I can get a nice feel for scale, proportion with the props on my terrain etc. Once the blockout is done, I bake out a Height Map from this sculpted terrain, onto a square plane. I usually bake out a high-res image to get as much detail as possible (8k .png Height Map in this case).
The problem occurs when I use this Height Map to generate the Landscape from. This Landscape ends up being approx. 10 times larger than my sculpted terrain mesh, which is not ideal at all, because my scene is set to correct scale.
I'm interested in knowing what the technique is behind blocking out a correct scale terrain in Maya and then taking that into via a Height Map to continue the work in the engine.
Thank you!
Higher resolution doesn't result in higher precision when it comes to landscapes. Most game engine landscape systems (same as UE4) use 1 vert per meter so 1 pixel equals to 1 meter square in UE4 and basically when you import an 8k map it gives you a landscape that's about 8,000 x 80,000 meters.
So resize your baked heghtmap to the scale you want it to be in UE4 i.e if you want the landscape to be about 1x1 kilometers then resize your heightmap to 1009x1009 pixels. Here are the recommended landscape sizes: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Landscape/TechnicalGuide/index.html#recommendedlandscapesizes
Thanks for the reply!
Hm, that makes sense. My lansdcape is about 300m x 300m , actually. So, would I use 253x253 heightmap and scale it, via the Scale values to match it up with my mesh landscape?
Also, I am getting this "stepped" landscape result after applying my .png 16-bit height map. I am using XNormal to bake the map and whatever I seem to try I get this stepped result. I also baked out a .raw file, but UE moans that the resolution is incorrect. Problem is that XNormal can't bake anything other than square root textures and opening up a .raw file in PS to resize it seems not to be working.
Interruption
Andy Serkis Digital Human & Osiris Black Blended Performance | SIGGRAPH 2018 | Unreal Engine
Digital voice actors, its totally amazing!
I want to make a traffic light with around a 40 second loop? what is the easiest way to set this up? I was thinking some kind of linear sine material, texture panner or gif?
I was thinking I could just rig some lights that scale from zero to one just in front of the glass, but that feels so dirty and hacky
Would love to hear your thoughts, I have attached my material so far if anyone fancies a crack at it. I think I am over thinking it and just need to sleep on it.
Also do US lights work like this?
- 1 - green
- 2 - yellow
- 3 - red
- 4 - green
[video=youtube;yJrW8werMUs]
Simple and effective. If you want blinking as well, draw some black bars in the texture where the blinking would occur in time.
Or if you want the anim length to be independent from the x resolution of the texture, you could do this:
Or this, so the x res is automatically determined:
Result - squished the anim to be 10 sec so you dont need to wait for long for anything to happen on the gif:
I didn't uv the spheres 100% correctly so there is a little bleeding between green and yellow... They just have to be scaled down slightly on the uvmap.
Anyway, I would recommend the third setup. Good luck!
Hi Obscura,
I've been meaning to say X1000 thank you for a while , what you posted is 100% what I was looking for. I've just been so busy with work I never get the chance to sit down and fix the light and post the update. So I just wanted to say thank you now and I promise to post the update very soon. :)
Project Titan | Trailer
PRODUCTION TECH DEMO
Project Titan is an in-house tech demo designed to production test Houdini's procedural workflows while creating a 3D environment that leverages the latest technologies in Unreal Engine 5. The tools and techniques created for this demo will be shared with the community as learning materials and downloadable content.
To support the procedural tools, geometry from Kitbash3D played a big role in providing textured models that could be reconfigured using the Houdini tools.
https://www.sidefx.com/titan/
Hi Obscura,
Thanks again, I finally sat down tonight and fixed the traffic lights as you suggested above, it only took me a year, lol! Your material worked a treat.
I am always telling my students to post questions for any problems they might have over the holidays and I will be sure to use this as an example :)