I was aware of the strong reflections and have fixed that for update 2 (still awaiting epics response for update 1).
The flickering is an that after returning to the project I have noticed as well. It can be fixed by going to your main light source and turning off shadows. That gives a great result to the grass, but isn’t a great solution if you’re using a directional light with other meshes in the scene (most of you probably are). The next best thing to fix the is going into your foliage settings and turning off shadows. It gets rid of the flickering but doesn’t have that nice AO you can see in the picture below. I’m going to see if there are any other workarounds to get the best of both worlds.
I have also implemented the baseline color changes based on world coordinates (as you can see in the previous images) as well as far better wind . I’ll upload a video soon to show it in effect.
After much testing I’m still working out the kinks on the flickering shadows. It appears to be an with dynamic lights/shader and how it operates. The is non-existent with 4.7’s new foliage shader. The previous solutions I mentioned are still valid and I’m working on trying to find a more proper solution to 4.6 and below. If anyone has any suggestions I would be more than happy to have to help to get taken care of swiftly.
Honestly , I’d spend a little more time on your wind shader rather than try to find a more optimal solution for people buying your grass who won’t be moving to 4.7 when it releases. 90% of the UE4 community will move to 4.7 when it’s out, and for people who are buying grass, it’s basically a requirement to upgrade to 4.7 anyways simply because of all the performance and lighting gains on all foliage. The other 10% who are locked into an older build have been presented with two semi-decent options (by you), so even they aren’t left out to dry.
Your wind is really good but I think it affects a bit too much of the grass. I see your grass asset bending with the wind near the base of the stalks, which is giving it an ocean wave/underwater effect. I think your wind effect is 90% there - it already looks really nice - but you should try to drop the influence of the wind a little more as you near the grass root (especially with your video showing such thick grass, which im sure a lot of it would block wind from its neighboring blades)
Hi ! ( Sorry reminds me some old video from youtube Hi Jack! - YouTube )
My opinion is: you should fix the shadow and fickering bugs on 4.6 , I am going to move to 4,7 in some time, but assets should be usable on all current engine versions. Regards
Haha! I figured out the. The reason for the horrible artifacting is because I have the mip gen settings for each of the textures set to none. should instead be set to something else (I got really good results with sharpen 10). will be in the update to follow the one that should be going online any time, but in the meantime you guys can change the texture mip settings as well.
I also feel it’s important to note that you should use FXAA instead of the default temporal AA ( can be found in camera/post process settings under misc and click the little arrow under blendables).
I made some adjustments to the colors, contrast, and the wind blend weights to try and attain a greater sense of realism. I felt like the underwater feeling mentioned was stemming both from the bending he fix he suggested and a much too slow wind speed.
I have rendered out a video using a dominant directional movable light, along with a skylight in 4k. Let me know what you guys think:
Can you post here when you know the latest update has been uploaded to marketplace? I’m not in a rush to buy the grass right now and I’d rather just download and import to my project once if possible, so I’ll wait to purchase until the updates are in.
I will post here every time I know an update is live on the unreal marketplace. I accidentally sent my request to the wrong email before, so I should be receiving further information on Monday or Tuesday regarding the first update with the LOD’s.
Thanks again for the suggestions and support everyone!
@wielkiczarnyafgan - I did some research and I think it’s possible. I’m not making any promises as I have the latest updates to get online, but I will definitely give it a shot as the next update after big one.
Also here is an up to date render of the scene in the video (just in case some of you don’t want to watch or want more time to analyze the piece):
I was told by an epic employee who shall remain nameless that the first update will be going live sometime at the beginning of next week. I’ll update you guys when I know when it is online of course.
The updating isn’t the best right now from my understanding. You will have to re-download the package from the launcher and re-implement it into your particular package. I do believe that is how it works anyways. If any marketplace content creators who have gone through would like to chime in it would be greatly appreciated.
Also I have spoken to other content creators who have made foliage for Unreal Engine 4.6 and lower. The flickering is something that sticks around no matter what but can be reduced to something that is nearly not visible (as seen in the previous 4k video I published). I have already told you the biggest contributors to the problem, but I did leave one out. The cascade settings under your primary light can also be adjusted to minimize the effect if you’re still having the. Once all of those are in full effect as you saw in the previous video the flickering is unnoticeable unless you were to be inches away from the base of the foliage.
@danielpeles - I honestly wish I knew when the first update is releasing. Just looking at the marketplace it is clear the update isn’t online. Approximately a week and a half ago I was told it would be online at the beginning of the week and it clearly isn’t. I imagine Epic is having a difficult time handling updates, marketplace submissions, plus their own game projects. Basically what I’m saying is it should be up any time based on what I was told, but they have not “kept me in the loop” so to speak beyond the initial estimation. If it’s not online by Monday I’ll be following up with Epic to see what is happening (I think it’s just that they have yet to get a grove on updating marketplace content).
That said I’m hoping to be finished with update 2 by Tuesday or Wednesday, and I’ll be pushing to submit that update. Just to be clear I’ll outline what the next foreseeable updates will include.
Update 1:
LOD 0 (Just the normal grass): 108-144 tris
LOD 1 : 72-96 tris
LOD 2 : 48-64 tris
(should be online any time)
Update 2:
Low material: What’s already there with just wind and world location based color changes
Med material: What’s there, wind, world location based color changes, and soft edge blending to fix the harsh plane intersections
High material: What’s there, wind, soft edge blending, world location based color changes, and sub surface scattering.
update will also have the “fixed” textures where they will no longer be set to incorrect settings causing flickering with lighting.
will also include a few extra textures, but it shouldn’t greatly increase file size from what I know.
Update 3:
Individual texture improvements
Update 4:
A surprise (I will reveal the update when I have time to research if it’s possible and how to do it)
Any way some of your more enthusiastic purchasers could get Update 2 sooner? Given how long it’s taken them for Update 1, you’ll probably be finishing Update 6 by the time 2 goes live.
