Hi, i want to use static meshes instead of a landscape, because i dont need the ground or top areas of the terrain. So i will working with LODs, culling etc.
I need 30 x 15 km of space for the positions. Its only for singleplayer.
Is this possible to manage this in a single level or should i use world composition for that? And if i need world composition - how can i create that without a landscape?
Can you be a bit more specific? For instance, will you have cubes ( or whatever ) receding into the distance like some sort of mountain range, or are we talking about level ground?
Just make your mesh in blender and import into unreal.
Blender has support for creating terrain with modifiers, it has perlin noise for mesh and other libraries for such things.
You can also edit the mesh in blender live by pulling on things, edit faces, vertices, then export as unreal format.
Unreal is really not complete without blender when it comes to meshes I think.
Blender is the king of the hill for this.
Yes sure, i need the outlines of the real world in the size of 30 x 15 km. Its in first person. The camera is on a fixed z-position. I also dont need any physics or collisions. I would have many parts for the world outlines ( like a wall ). The meshes have different sizes but if i import them all, i got 30 x 15 km in total. And some people talk about max level size. 20x20 km or 5x5x5 km? I would like to know, if i can place many (like 100 static meshes) in a level on all positions like this way.
Iam working with c4d and i dont need blender. But i would like to know, if i can import lets say 100 static meshes with different sizes but in total like 30 x 15 km or is it too big for a whole level.
I don’t know the maximum size blender supports so go check it out, but it supports massive terrains.
I dont need a terrain. I only need the outlines of the world, which I scale up on the z-axis, in order to have a kind of a wall (billboards) to fake where the land is beginning. You can see these techniques in games like AC BlackFlag for example. Thats only billboards with trees, hills, cliffs etc.
You need a uscenecomponent then that is not visual.
The uscenecomponent is imaginary, you should read about that, it holds the other mesh compnents.
You actually need borders ?
If you want a wall then you can do that in blender and then set it here to static mesh, you create a box and just enlarge it’s size, you cut the bottom of the box and the top, blender has a meter tools to mejure the size of the sides of the box in actual meters , you can mejure height and with of wall.
What I understand that you want a box without a bottom and top, just the sides to define the borders of your world, and to paint something on them to create the illusion that it go’s on.
Yes, exactly. Iam sorry for my english. Yes, like a box without bottom and the top, but in the shape of the real world, so not a simple cube. I know how to do that, so there are no problems. But i dont want import that as one mesh, its too big. So i splitt that border in many parts, but if import all of them, i got a total size of 30 x 15 km. So i ask me, is that too big for a whole level. For example, the player position is X: 15.000.000 Y: -5.000.000
You can import parts and then create relative possitions for them.
One actor is stuck to one Static Mesh Component, the only way you can is to use class refrence to add other meshes to your root component but you got to create relative positions, transform to local space to get relative positions on local space and set each component relative to eachother so they match, so there is no gap between them.
So it’s not easy, you got to know vectoring, class refrencing.
You can create a class for each item and then have them meet in a single class, pull them from that class and then use as I said relative positioning.
You can try with the editor to see if you can, it’s easy just add component there and get your mesh.
And the editor has translation section to move things, but I don’t know how good you will get it with the editor, so in C++ you could do anything to match what you want, you could add as much meshes with add component as you like from editor.
You could also do this in C++ to attach multiple meshes to one component I guess I think, but you can’t have more than one static mesh component
But there are no limits for positioning actors in one level? For example, i can move the player at x: 10.000.000 y: 35.000.000 etc…?
I know the absolute positions for the border parts. Thats not a problem.
I have no idea about that, about the limits of unreal.
Just split it in 4 parts and then add your meshes with add component from the editor, then find a way to set relative position for them, if you want it done in code it is much more difficult
Why relative? I got absolute positions for all meshes. But the positions can be very large. If thats not a problem and the player can move to that positions, then my question is answered.
Well if they are parts, in unreal each item needs to know about it’s relative position to eachother.
Global Position just moves the meshes around, all of them at the same time, if you added all the meshes to one actor then they have to have relative offsets to eachother on local space so you can bind them close to eachother and form your wall.
Go learn vectoring and offsets for unreal and you will understand.
Iam not sure, if i understand what you mean. Lets say, i have the border of australia, in 10 parts/meshes. Each mesh have the absolute position and i place that in my level for example at x: 10.000.000 y: 10.500.000 z: 100 next at x: 10.800.000 y: 10.255.000 z: 100 and so on…
So that would be a problem?
When you import the meshes they don’t import with possitions from the other software, it’s just the mesh.
That is what you said, you want to import parts, to form a picture. So each part is a mesh, you import them in unreal but they don’t have any possition, they are just meshes imported independent.
You have to set their position in unreal
Yeah, i will do that manually. Thats not a problem - if unreal got no problems with those long distances.
So if people talk about max. level size, they mean the size of a landscape?
That I don’t know with max size, you want to fit your landscape inside that box or cylinder I get it.
Then that is what you need to do, set relative location of the parts to get them close on the angle you want to form a container.
Thanks for answer. I will try my plan and hope it works xD
I really would like to know, if its possible to create a world composition without a landscape. I know, there are volumes for level streaming…
I don’t know if there are actual hard limits for level size in Unreal. What I know is that if you get too far from the origin, you will lose precision in the location of objects because you start losing decimal places in floats. The farther away from the world origin, the crazier things will get (it gets buggy).
You should do a test. Create a floor the size you need and put some objects and the player and run around the edges to see if it gets buggy or not.
NeonJones
You got one actor, one static mesh component and four meshes.
Let’s say you are trying to create a box out of your meshes that represent the borders but without the top and the bottom part.
Since the meshes are all part of one actor, you got to set relative location between them on the actor, the offset to the actor. How they are positioned to the actor, the meshes can have offsets from the actor main location, relative location, they are all tied to the actor.
You can set relative with angle rotation, distance from actor and so on.
It’s really simple man, there is the main actor location then the offsets to the actor. The relative location of the meshes compared to the actor location, how far are they from the main actor location and what their rotation is compared to the actor.
The actor has one spot location xyz, and your meshes have distances away from this point of origin, this is relative location to the actor, how things are set compared to the actor main location xyz.