Affordable Landscapes: An Unlimited Solution to All Your Terrain Needs

Community Showcase Game Development
47

2/24/15 WIP Update
Snow Map

Going to play with a bit. Just wanted to give you guys a heads up in the direction I’m working in.

://8pic.ir/images/0uaeuc78i364rur6964q.jpg

://8pic.ir/images/wkpc5ws6z8ehp219o0bt.jpg

://8pic.ir/images/jptq48uisdtkrpvq5eyh.jpg

://8pic.ir/images/0zg6tgtx1vb1lq79u5kq.jpg

://8pic.ir/images/1f16jpwpukmg3v1h2qu3.jpg

://8pic.ir/images/mp8cuxyxdw8tbxop7tyt.jpg

48

Seems there might need to be a bit of normal slope difference from the snow to the dirt/grass. Right now it looks kinda weird. Not sure how you can manage that though.

EDIT: and maybe a modulation edge mask to blend it in organically.

49

Thanks . That’s a good catch. I’ve been staring at for so long that it was getting hard to see the changes and adjustments I should be making. I’ll keep chipping away. :slight_smile:

50

We’re getting some media attention for our work!

://www.dsogaming/screenshot-news/-wide-open-landscape-map-shows-what-open-world-games-could-look-like-in-unreal-engine-4/

52

Sorry about that. All cleared out!

53

If you want to be viewed as an amateur who happens to sell products, you can act anyway you like. If you want to be viewed as a professional, the path is much straighter and narrower. E.g., your “we agree to disagree” is tactful and how a professional responds to an insinuation. There’s nothing wrong with just ignoring someone, if they’re being rude or aggressive or the like.

Yes, it sucks. Just keep in mind you’re the one who’s going to get paid. :slight_smile:

Okay, lecture over. No hard feelings, and sorry if I came on too strong.

54

4033x4033 is a bit small map. Can we join pieces together to make bigger?

55

**WIP **

://8pic.ir/images/uahsh37hkz3uj6ucdzkm.jpg

56

I’m sorry but terrains like these should be FREE.

They are not realistic enough (or high quality as you put it) and look very generic as I’ve seen better maps made from terrain editors before which I assume you’re a beginner when it comes to terrains?

I’m only commenting here because you claim to offer high quality terrain, which is not true.

57

Looking great!

If you make the sky dense clouded like it’s winter or winter storm would add a lot to the atmosphere and feeling

58

Ignore the jabs, , and make me some pacific island landscapes :smiley:

Also, there was a good point from protegedev, could you go bigger than 4k on these or somehow make them fit together? I’m hoping you’re doing these as landscape components and not one landscape.

59

These terrains are free. I haven’t charged anyone a cent. That’s why they’re said to be WIP. They’re not worth selling in my opinion yet. :slight_smile:

61

F*** it. Lets do it.

My pulling that off landscape components will infinitely increase the value of pack so why the hell not, right?

Hadn’t thought of Pacific Island landscapes. Good idea!

I also want to add that there will be a freely included asset pack-in with these to help improve the value. Any ideas what you may want to have included?

62

Your best bet is to avoid distraction and confusion within the asset pack and just make those materials more powerful and flexible than anyone else. You need to not be swayed by the minor price differences being thrown around on the forums lately. Landscapes are like characters - why would I pay $10 for a landscape if I could get an even slightly better one for $50? It’s not a simple prop - it’s something the player will spend a vast majority of his time around within the game. As with game characters, most people will always pay a little more to get the best quality.

With that said, I would be ecstatic if your materials had distance blending, fresnel falloff, and tessellation. Also, most people don’t realize for some reason, but the components thing is really a hard requirement for 4K and up terrain sizes. When you add foliage and buildings and 10k other props and AI and networking and persistent world data, you’ll need the landscape to be broken into components for streaming. Even packaging the game with a single large landscape is dicey given the 2GB limit. More than one company I’ve worked with in UE4 has had when just displaying a non-component landscape + grass that was foliage painted. It’s not something that comes up early in development but it would be a somewhat crippling when you’re trying to package demos and ship product.

64

Same limit. You can easily get around it by streaming, but that requires a little thought and planning (and most indies never consider it). Also, if you use a huge landscape, streaming won’t matter because the finished product will push you over the 2GB limit anyways. It needs to be in components.

65

A couple questions. Fresnel falloff (confused on what is exactly)? 2GB limit? Also, when you are streaming landscape components, do they have objects attached to them or are you literally just streaming the components?

Sorry for asking, but clarifying those things might help me and other people understand what you are talking about.

67

Surely it’d be simple to export the heightmap into a 3D package and import as puzzle pieces and fit them accordingly? Each in their own streaming level?

69

But you could add more mountains and whatever to hide what’s behind the mountain and use that to load in the next part, Surely?

71

I don’t want to derail the thread here so I’ll only respond to the questions now (further questions I can answer via PM or in another thread). I know if you’re working in WorldMachine there’s a simple way to export for components. Someone made a wonderful youtube video documenting the process but the link eludes me right now.

  • Fresnel falloff, in my broken artist language, is when your landscape material’s detail fades out and is replaced by a solid color over large distances. The Stylized Rendering demo can be found under the Learn tab in the launcher. It uses .
  • The 2GB limit is a package size limit. It doesn’t mean that your game can’t be larger than 2GB (that’d be silly), but unreal chunks logical things into packages during the compile process. If you divide your map into sub-levels, UE4 will automatically package each sub-level separately. You can stream those sub-levels together (and even set them to always stream) and bypass the 2GB limit. The problem arises when you add foliage onto your 4km landscape via the foliage paint tool. Your landscape increases the file size dramatically and of course foliage does even more so. If you break them into components, you can stream chunks of your landscape.
  • You are literally just streaming components unless you group the objects to them. You have flexibility here - it’s all about what you want to put in each sub-level. My advice is if you’re nearing 1GB package size, split it. You don’t ever want to be anywhere near the limit if you can help it. Again, takes some planning though so you know how to balance your sub-level sizes and locations (especially if you want to actually stream stuff in and out rather than setting it to always-on, which is always good for performance).

You can set your sub-levels to always stream so there’s no load time. Also, the load time (‘delay’ as you described it) is completely determined by what you’re loading and how. The proper way to stream levels is to have it always happen just beyond the player’s view so there’s no concern over popping assets.

@: you don’t need to sew anything back together. It also doesn’t look broken up in any way - there’s no visual indication you’re using components vs. a single landscape actor.

Actually I think is accurate for setting your landscape up with World Composition (coming from WorldMachine): https://wiki.unrealengine/World_Machine_to_UE4_using_World_Composition

75

Did you use World Machine to do ?