Best way to create good looking, large scale terrains

Hey there,

what is you guys favourite way of doing realistic and good looking, large scale terrains in UE4?
I find it very unintuitive and clumsy by just creating a big terrain and sculpt it all by hand inside Unreal Engine. My terrains tend to don’t look very realistic but instead look very hand-created and artificial.
What is you way of doing thing? What software do you use?

Luckily I’d just seen this a few days ago, and ya can be very intimidating to get right, so hope this helps: How To REALISTICALLY Hand-sculpt Landscapes | UE4 Tutorial - YouTube , and so as you sculpt try and do so from point of view of what you want to convey as games purpose. I often, not just in terrain but one of largest hand made meshes in my game , sculpt and ideas come given my purpose. I also get ideas of supplementation from the world around me and clearly for me anyway the life unfolded to become me. Like Harry Potter books author and you may do as I’ve done similarly with great cause and joy, reach from within if it suits you and draw from your own experiences in various meaningful ways and those around you, family or otherwise. This may not suit you but its certainly the path taken in part at least by http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201…d-harry-potter, but that is only part of the story, as seen on one of harry potters bluray extras, she also drew from her own stories as it were.

I draw upon that for you here as the world she drew was mesmerizing and not just magic, but magical for me anyway in its core message. YMMV, pick what suits you.

For me it’s using World machine 2 pro, to create a block out. I then go in and and hand sculpt everything to get the flow and design elements right.
If my terrain can’t be completely done in world machine as many can’t be done, or if it’s a basic floor with complicated rock formations that slope acutely then I simply do that stuff in a sculpting program and then import. Alternatively you can just create your entire landscape custom in a sculpting program. I think this gives more flexibility for the block-out and speeds workflow. However- considering how powerful ue4’s sculpting tools are I stick to just using ue4’s sculpting tools now and only use world machine to give biomes a more believable rock structure.

One big thing to take in mind is what your game is going to be networked for. Large servers that support more than a hundred or so players will likely need World composition. Check out lets make an MMO series. I know the guy who makes those videos he made his own networking solution if you need advice on that they have a discord. As for single player level streaming and occlusion culling will likely be enough. Although initial load times will be much longer you won’t have to worry about load screens in-game. I highly recommend this solution for single-player/co-op if possible.

Note:* It would be an absolute dream to see world machine get bought out buy ue4 and all their procedural generation tools available in some new blueprint scripting window called “world machine blueprints” or something like that. Or even just a new pipeline that integrates world machine to ue4 so that you can tweak the procedural graphs from within ue4.
That might never happen though so for now I’m totally happy with my workflow and I feel it gives me maximum control. So glad to see ue4 sculpting got allot of love from the devs, though i would love to see it continue to get support in the future. *

Just a reminder for those of us very or slightly fiancially challenged, L3DT PRO IS FREE now,and in likely zero way incapable to other programs mentioned here , L3DT - Large 3D Terrain Generator . That extra hundred dollars or so can go somewhere else,and yes L3dt pro does of course having tiling output needed for those large worlds.

is this “Let’s make an MMO Series” you are talking about available on YouTube and are you able to provide me a link please? :slight_smile:

Thanks for the input so far!!! :slight_smile: