Landscape physical material Ouput does not work in UE5. How to get physical material output on an auto layer for autolandscapes?

General Feedback & Requests
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Hi there,

I am trying to get a Physical Material surface output in an Autolandscape layer. (So they are all in one layer). Therefore I use the node: “Landscape Physical Material Output” which is added in UE4.26.

I’ve been able to get the surface output in 4.26, but I have not been able to get the output in UE5. So I think it is broken in the last update.

I’ve used this simple test case: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/1027003/how-do-you-use-the-landscape-physical-material-out.html

Have I missed something? Rebuilding physical material layers does seem to do nothing.

If somebody knows a workaround to get physical material outputs in an auto landscape layer I would love to hear it!

Much appreciated and with kind regards,

Eric

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I could not even get it working in 4.26, it only ever allows me to get different physical material if i manually paint them, i’m still trying, but it sucks not a single person who has got it working has made an actual tutorial, though they say it is simple to use like grass node, it’s just not working for me. I’ll let you know if i find out anything that gets it to work.

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Have you tried building/packaging a test map? It could be an editor only issue.

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Yes I did, no change. I even manually build the “Landscape Physical Materials” I can easily reproduce it via the test-case. I think it is a bug in UE5.

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Yeah, i’ll try to remember to report it once i’m back at my PC. I got it working once in UE5 but just switching the landscape material messed it up and never got it working again. So I didn’t know if i messed something up or if it was the engine being buggy.

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I have filed a bug report:

Title: Landscape physical material Ouput does not output in UE5

Steps:
Prerequisite: A simple test trace to the landscape to return the physical material surface.

  1. Create a landscape material
  2. Create a simple mask (e.g. slope) so we have two different outputs on which we want a different physical material output.
  3. Output the mask (and the inverted mask to get the opposite of the slope) into the “Landscape Physical Material Ouput” node
  4. Create a landscape and apply the landscape material and make sure both masks are visible (in case of slope mask, heighten the landscape a bit).
  5. To be sure the landscape layer is filled and clean:
    a. Clear the layer
    b. Rebuild Layer Material
    c. Fill the automaterial layer
  6. Try and trace the physical surface of the landscape on the masked area and non masked area.

Results:
The output stays the same. It physical surface is not updated. In UE 4.26 and 4.27 it works as intended. It does not in UE5

Expected:
After these steps, you should get the physical material output result on the trace to your landscape based on the mask.

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Update: it seems to be fixed in the newer releases by rebuilding the physical landscape materials!

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Hey everybody! My problem was related to the “No Foliage” layer, the Landscape is actually trying to get the physical material from it. I will try a workaround this

Hope this help someone!