I zipped the original 5.3 project and moved it off the disk for space, but when I encountered this, I restored it, but this problem occurred there too.
What I found is that a lot of materials in folder MSPresets - referred to by the materials in foilage - is missing information: For instance in M_MS_Billboard_Material OTS texture and Normal Texture are found to be NULL and a function, labelled “SSS” is unspecified:
Not just in the project I migrated to 5.7, but also in the original 5.3 project.
I re-installed the package but the error has not been corrected.
It’s no problem to correct it manually if only I knew what I should use
IIRC, substrate became the default materials system in UE 5.7, which could have broken something in quixel if things didn’t migrate properly. This is just a guess given what you said abt SSS, but did something happen where the twosidedfoliage shading model is somehow rendering as pure opaque, resulting in a ton of lost energy and that baffling over-occlusion?
Also, how does your geometry proper look different in 5.3 vs. 5.7
I don’t think it has to do anything with 5.7 using Substrate as default, other pre-5.7 materials are just fine. Furthermore, the very same issue appears in the restored, original 5.3 version of the project, it show exactly the same error in the material scripts (The level fails to load, it loops on loading, so it seems, but examining the material definition it is the same as in the migrated version)
Another channel gave me a few hints and that solved the issue
1. Enable Nanite in the world settings
2. Enable Nanite on all foilage static meshes and save them.
3. Fill the foilage list with the assets you need and create the foilage types.
Now foilage is painted without placeholders.
It is a pity that enabling the nanite setting of the assets seems to require the re-creation of the foilagetypes, I found that this change in the static meshes is not reflected in the instances. So if foilage is already painted, this has to be redone. I didn’t find a way to re-save them (once saved, you cannot re-save them, only replace them one by one - so the best way to prevent re-doing all the painting is to create another level, create all the foilage types you need in another folder, and replace the ones in the project with these.
The issue that the brush doesn’t show in a new project has also been ‘solved’. I created it with the basic template - and the brush will not show on the default floor. ANY asset on top of it - even on the same Z-level - will work. I tried landscape and plain - both make painting possible. This is different since something changed - I could paint on any surface before, on a floor without any addition.
