Hello! I am new to unreal and learning it’s many tools. I figured I’d start in unreal 5 as it’s pretty awesome in many ways. However learning has been a bit challenging due to some gaps in learning materials and changes from older versions.
Tessalation seems to have no direct replacement. I’ve seen some tutorials on some ways of replicating its affect, but they aren’t direct replacements and I can’t figure out ways to make the landscape or water have proper displacement. it all looks flat
The water tool looks beautifull in vidoes. showing how waves can hit land, foam, etc. However I can’t seem to find any good tutorials on how any of it actually works. I’ve probably spent days messing with it. Things like Foam aren’t activiated by default like it seems they are in UE4 (according to videos). I’ve watched lots of videos that cover the basics, but none that really give a good explanation of all the tools and how to activate them… If anyone has found some please let me know!
There are a few other topics like skeletal meshes with metahumans that have frustrated me, but I have found some videos I can watch on those later. I really want to get the “world features” down pat because I can use them in my current profession as well as in game design learning.
This topic has been moved from International to Getting Started & Setup.
When posting, please review the categories to ensure your topic is posted in the most relevant space. Hopefully, this new category will help you get an answer.
Hey there @rexalbel! Welcome back to the community! Tesselation’s deprecation has been a bit of a fun one while trying to get it’s replacement fully integrated. Nanite is intended to be able to be used on all geometry in the engine eventually. As of 5.1 there is (early beta) support for Nanite on landscapes, and there’s room in the future (since world position offset is now functioning on nanite meshes) to possibly expand to SKMs as well.
The water tool uses dark magic and powerful chants to make it do as you want. As the tool itself is still beta, the documentation is still being put together. That said I can get you resources for most of it’s features, and I can show you specifics if you ask the right questions.
Disclaimer: One or more of these links are unaffiliated with Epic Games. Epic Games is not liable for anything that may occur outside of this Unreal Engine domain. Please exercise your best judgment when following links outside of the forums.
FluidSim Foam:
Water Deep Dive:
Nanite Terrain (8 minutes is when he enables nanite for the terrain):
Water docs: (I know there isn’t much yet but I always link them!)
Thank you for the response! I’ve watched the first 2, though I’m not sure I fully watched the deep dive as it was a while ago. I tried to follow instructions to the T in unreal 5.1 but don’t get foam or even any affect when I put the “sample” sphere in the water and test on simulation. I did sort of get it working in unreal 5 but it crashed back then, and I never got a chance to redo it. So, I’m not sure it’s 5.1 or me somehow missing a step. I even retried today with no success. The force sample does nothing when moving it in the water. I have simulation on, changed the settings as described, added the simulation BP and am using the dynamic force sample. nothing
As for nanite on landscapes, I watched the video but seems it doesn’t currently help make textures not so flat. Also, upon incorporating it I keep having issues with my landscape material disappearing and the landscape turning to a super reflective surface so not sure if I should use it yet.
Am I correct in assuming there is currently no good way to do that for landscapes? How about water materials?
I came into learning in an awkward time when the tools are getting much better but also changing. I like that unreal is making it easier and easier for designers to jump in and do things easier!
A few years ago, I looked into how I could use my skills in architectural software in unreal for games but was informed that revit models would be too heavy to use realistically in games. I am hopeful that nanite fixes this and if not yet, there is a process towards taking highly accurate models and bringing them into unreal. I prefer modeling buildings in a parametric environment like revit where I can easily draw lines and use vectors and parametric parameters. Sorry off topic.
Thank you for your help! Any additional guidance on getting tessellation effects on water and landscapes while still using foliage types with landscape paint, would be greatly appreciated.
No worries! I’d assumed you’d probably already seen them considering you were looking through all the content, but always have to post them for both the answer and future forum users seeing the post.
I’ll give it a quick run through tonight and tomorrow to see if it’s all working fine in 5.1. If it is, I’ll produce a little demo video for you for the foam. Last time I tried it was 5.0.3 but I’m not sure what changed.
Basically the idea is with Nanite landscapes and the (Beta) world position offset working on nanite materials, now you can have (almost) proper displacement again without handling the tessellation location. Basically it let’s nanite handle it. I haven’t seen how effective it is, so if nanite doesn’t add more tris on it’s on on WPO (which I believe it should due to needing to be integrated with WPO) then it may not be quite ready yet in that regard. I’ll also give that a test for you as well.
That’s where I’m not entirely sure. The way the water mesh is generated and handled isn’t something I’ve looked into, and I’m unsure if it can be transferred to nanite, but if it can be the same rules should apply. I’ll do a bit of hand research on the matter as well.
Since we’re in a time of transition the docs aren’t really caught up and the resource materials around are going to be in flux for a while until it’s all solidify.
I understand! I used to do CAD work so I’m pretty comfortable there as well. Thanks for sharing! It may be a bit but if I can make each of those things work I’ll respond here probably with a video or small guide on it. That said Nanite WPO is early so it may have issues.
Thank you so much! That’s very helpful and greatly appreciated! I’d really like to know if it’s me or if maybe 5.1 breaks things. I know with architecture programs it happens all the time lol.
Hey there @rexalbel! So I see the issue with the foam, but not a fix for it as of yet. I have an idea of where to go with it but it has to do with the old method changing a bit. I’ll have more info soon!
