Landscapes - UE4
Hello dear PolyCounters,
I thought I'd share some images here too therefor I can use your valuable feedback.
And yes! I love Battlefield 3, and Andrew Hamilton's work!
I thought I'd share some images here too therefor I can use your valuable feedback.
And yes! I love Battlefield 3, and Andrew Hamilton's work!
Replies
I have few questions:
How dense can be the polygon grid on actual terrain? I mean, in CryEngine 1m equals 1 poligon, which is super blocky result. Is it different in UE 4 ? How detail can you make your actual terrain, from geometry point.
Ofcourse I dont mean little sand dunes or something, but having problem making small bumps like you have here and there, is really annoying on Cryengine.
Second, do you have one master material for landscape ? With all textures albedo/reflectivity/roughness/normal/displace in this one material ? How its working?
Sorry for long post, hope you have time to response.
D.
@Mr Significant, The density starts from 1 poly per meter. But landscape LoDs in UE4 are much better IMO. It's also doing a really good job performance wise and you have way more control over your terrain. Refer to this link for more information. Also yes, I'm using one master material for all the landscape, it's very well documented thanks to Epic. In cryengine I had to paint all the map by hand with switching between a lot of materials. But those times are over hopefully ^^
I'm doing some little work on the surface. Will post new screens soon.
Thanks again to all and remember I really need your feedback here or it's much harder to improve it.
Regards,
Alireza.
Here with an update. I have made more variation to the surface. Feel free to let me know what to improve. thanks.
keep it up
@narticus, I'm using 4.6. 4.7 just came out but I haven't got it yet. Thanks.
BTW here is a little preview of the next map. (Previous one is finished, more screens of that at a later time).
I'm either doing it very well nobody criticize it or I'm doing it so terrible these don't deserve a feedback at all.
About the cloud shadows... are those created within UE4 or is that a custom map you brought in?
@narticus, Just an animated shadow map.
@Poinball, You mean the sand as in texture or the form of dunes in the height map itself?
back with a little update: This has turned into a learning map for me. Working on blending between layers. (Thanks to Andrew for giving the tips). It reminds of a sentence I read in Vertex mag, Saying art is never finished. Now each time I go back to the map I see more ways I could improve it. Until I come to a point of throwing all of this map to recycle bin and start making a brand new one this time with the new things I learned over this one.
Cheers.
How large is your heightmap texture? also, are you using a macro normal map to blend with the individual layer normals (rock normals, snow normals)?
Can't wait to see more updates
Is this created in World Maschine with a Splat Map?
Are these smaller sized uv coordinates?
how snow is blending so well with soil?
@narticus, A tutorial is planned for future but I'm busy with works and packs atm.
@Gazu, Good normal maps play a big role in keeping the details coming. Yep, WM2 but not using WM2's splat map creator. I generate several masks from the height map and tweak them with hand here and there and then put them in RGBA.
(Nice weapons by the way)
@KustomZero, I'm making it very easy to understand, the shader setup and all so when you get the pack you get to learn every bit of it. And of course a break down would be done when I'm finished with these so you get a deep tour into how I did it all (though I'm not doing great). They are half done atm and many things are subject to change/improve.
@Mr Significant, ^ that.
Thank you all.
I forgot to post this ugly island, without water and unpolished but priceless comments of yours really helps a lot while I'm working on it. Thanks.
Thanks dude. Would you make an Tutorial on Vimeo or YouTube for us?
The only thing i need to know how to make these Details because my terrains look so flat
An No, the Island isn´t ugly ^^
AMAZING work dude.
I stopped working on this for the last couple of months to concentrate on some paid work to pay the bills. I need to upgrade my GPU and case and I need to purchase a tablet as well. I should be starting up on this again soon and will have it ready for voting on the Unreal forums by the end of July.
Thanks again.
Do you use tri planar materials for your terrain at all?
Back from the dead, the thread lives once again.
I was working on some freelance works, and then did a small foliage pack for UE4 marketplace. Now back to knock out this landscape pack.
@Goobatastic, Hello, and no. I was working on a canyon once and it was really needed there as the canyon wall were like 90 degrees it was stretching the textures a lot. But here the slopes aren't that extreme and materials look ok so I'm not using Tri-Planar for these.
Update on the snowy map (let me know what you think and how I can improve it):
(Long live Andrew Hamilton) ^^
Best,
Alireza
Edit: Sorry I wasn't around this thread for a long time. Tomorrow I will reply all the posts from first page.
@armagon, I use a slope node to get the rocks, and I use flow and deposition map then as a base to start working on them in Photoshop. My textures are all made out of photos. And thank you.
@Mant1k0re, Right. Not released yet. Finishing it soon.
@SuperAdrianna, When I was using cryengine I always dreamed of such environments and I always failed at my attempts. Thanks to UE4 it gives you all the tools necessary to achieve your vision accurately. Can't wait to see you giving it a try.
@Goobatastic, Hmmmm not I never got my hands on that plugin. Looks interesting though.
@Shrike, You are right. I'm always following a specific style. Will try to make some variety. Thank you for the feedback.
@Mant1k0re, Glad to see someone finds my work inspiring. But the inspiration isn't really coming from me, it's coming from the one who inspires me to do these. ^^
I'm very closely watching this thread, one eye here all the time to use your awesome feedback and learn something new and improve.
And thanks to the rest.
Here is the next terrain. I decided to give Tri-Planar mapping a try and so I need extreme slopes. Here is a WIP shot.
I am currently not using CGTextures for this pack at the moment. Everything is cut out from photos. ^^ (Some from Mayang Textures. They're awesome).
@HAWK12HT, Yes I use splat maps. Terrain itself has a streaming LOD you don't get that by using geometry as terrain.
@Mant1k0re, By default textures are projected on terrain along the Z axis. (or Y in UE4). I mean top down. With WorldAlignedTexture node you can manipulate that projection. For example make it project in all XYZ directions. And yes it doesn't matter how your UV islands are spread out. It's working just like the Tri-Planar node in Substance Designer if you have used. I have not tried this on objects though, Didn't need to, I only used it for terrain up there. As long as I scaled the terrain up and down the textures on it didnt start to get smaller/bigger so it's projected regardless of UVs. Hope that helps.
So, what about the specular/normal maps? Are you using a semi-automated process, with Substance or similar, or are you creating a heightmap from the diffuse, displacing a mesh in ZBrush and then polypainting?
CrazyBump. ^^
Roughness is driven from either R or G or B channels of the Albedo maps. (Usually R and G give better result over B but it really depends on the Albedo itself).
I adjust the normal map strength in engine until I'm happy with it.
Ah, and I was just wondering how to deal with big slopes like the one you have in your latest screen. I really thought you had to actually model those manually, I will poke around and see what I can do with that node. Thanks a ton for the tip dude
@sziada, Thanks.
@Mant1k0re You're welcome.
More screen:
I'm now planning on the fifth map.
Once I'm done with that I'll start to review all the 5 maps and make some changes here and there and prepare it for the marketplace. Once it goes live I will add one map to it per month.