I there a way to allow a custom depth to foliage in unreal 4

Zeoger2000 · November 28, 2014, 6:56pm

I am still learning a lot with unreal and I would like to know if there is anyway I can get my foliage to react the same way my other objects act in the zone. I created a toon shader post processing volume and I want the foliage to shade the same way. The only I can get it to work is when I activate apply custom depth to the object but I cant seem to do that for foliage. If anyone might have a solution I would greatly appreciate it.

Zeoger2000 · November 28, 2014, 8:55pm

Thankyou! I’m still trying to find a way to get it to work!

anonymous_user_b9532c9a · November 28, 2014, 8:36pm

Hi Zeoger2000,

I have entered a feature request to expose the “Render Custom Depth” parameter to foliage actors as UE-6061. I do not have a timeframe of if or when this will be made available in the engine.

Nobody · September 22, 2015, 8:28am

Is this still in the works?

anonymous_user_b9532c9a · September 22, 2015, 2:17pm

Hi Nobody,

This is currently backlogged as our resources are dedicated elsewhere. While it still may be addressed, I would not expect this feature to be implemented any time in the near future.

Envieous · February 27, 2017, 5:33pm

Has there been any progress made on this?

This feature is desperately needed for scenes that rely on custom depth for post process effects.

JackP · March 10, 2017, 2:23am

I just checked in a change exposing CustomDepth properties to Foliage for 4.16.

If you can’t wait, it is a very simple code addition to expose the bRenderCustomDepth flag to foliage. The properties bRenderCustomDepth and CustomDepthStencilValue need to be copied from the UPrimitiveComponent class to the UFoliageType class. Then the FFoliageMeshInfo::UpdateComponentSettings function needs to be modified to copy these properties to the component when they are updated.

Cheers
Jack

homembarata · April 13, 2017, 2:37am

You can create Blueprint subclassing FoliageInstancedStaticMeshComponent and set CustomDepth and stencil there, that’s how I did (check the images)

Ohhtxme · April 13, 2017, 6:49pm

is this possible with landscape grass types? if so what are the steps to doing this?

mitjaprelovsek · January 11, 2018, 4:09pm

Hi homebrata,

Could you please explain this a bit further? Specifically, what do you mean by subclassing?

For example, in my environment, I have InstancedFoliageActor as shown on the image below.

What should I do?

Thanks!

mitjaprelovsek · January 16, 2018, 4:20pm

Ok, I’ve managed to find a solution.

Please see this screenshot. It seems you can select ‘Instanced foliage’ in the Get All Actors of Class node and after some conversions and casting you can get static mesh component reference.

The blueprint

The custom stencil

WeylKioz · May 5, 2018, 1:55pm

On your screenshot, what is on the left and right of all of the nodes you showed, mitjaprelovsek ?

mitjaprelovsek · May 7, 2018, 6:05am

I don’t have the original blueprint in front of me, but on the left, I think there was more or less just OnBeginPlay node and on the right, there was the node that sets the custom stencil of the instanced mesh to a Random Integer in Range between 10-50.

Dj_EKI · December 27, 2020, 5:29pm

Best answer. The right last node that cannot be seen is “SetCustomDepthStencilValue”