Looking for some clarification on Vertex painting vs landscape layering, both feature displacement, why is one better than the other, why would you choose one over the other?
My impression is a landscape material is better for large landscapes, but I’m not sure why it’s better. A landscape material might have 6 textures, but I see no reason why a vertex painting material could not have 6 textures too. Thanks!!
Hello!
As the material specifies, the landscape material is designed for large landscapes, and is better optimized for them. Vetex paint on the other hand is designed for props or objects that are not going to be always rendered. Another difference is that you can create an Automatic landscape material depending on the height of the terrain.
Yet if you want to make a more controled or a a terrain that is not a landscape, I recommend using vertex paint as shown in the following video
Hope this helps!
Interesting enough, the first project I made in UE was to mimic this video. At that point I learned just what I needed to know to get it done, yes with Vertex painting. What I ended up with did not look nearly as nice, but it was acceptable and provided the motivation to continue.
The type of projects I want to create initially are intimate outdoor interactive scenes. On a casual basis I have spent the last 6 months working my way though a variety of environmental tutorials mostly here at Epic. In hindsight, a dedicated structured course would have been better. At best the courses here expose you to a lot, but are not complete and comprehensive as a dedicated learning course.
So I am creating UE landscapes for these scenes, but as I said these are not large levels, at least not at first. The mechanics of painting terrain whether by Vertex Painting or Landscape layers seems to be the same process, pick a texture and start painting. and so I’m trying to be sure I understand what the limits of each method are, of if I should just go with landscape layers?
Thanks!
The last project I did using Unreal Engine 4 and in that project I used Vertex Painting along with when I did the Forest Road project highlighted in your video link. I used Vertex Painting for both the mesh part of the road and for the landscape portion.
So I’m getting up to speed with UE5 and found this that says you can’t use Vertex Painting on a landscape. I guess my question is answered. I did not realize this kind of change had taken place. Also I did not get very far trying to mesh paint a landscape. 
Thanks.
Hello! sorry for the late reply
It seems that UE5 made it so you can not use vertex painting for landscapes as you said.
I have found some great free tutorials to understand more about landscapes, materials and folliage, you can check it out in the following link
Hope this helps!