Has the way layer blends work changed fundamentally in more recent engine versions? I have been following several tutorials for using splat maps to use color channels to define the heights of landscape layer blends in a landscape material. The issue is that the landscape only renders black in the editor. All these tutorials are a bit older, I assume something has changed in how landscape layer blend works, because if I use multiplies and adds to do the same thing I get expected results, but once I have anything to do with defining and using a landscape layer blend it renders the landscape as black in the editor. I have defined layer information sections for each layer defined, still nothing. One tutorial mentioned they were using 4.5. All the tutorials follow the same approach so something must have changed. Anyone have success using a splat map and could you show me an example where you also successfully defined landscape layers. I am particularly interested in using splatmap from World Machine to UE4.
If your tutorial says to connect a multi-colored weightmap to the “height” inputs on a “landscape layer blend” node, it is and always has been wrong. That is not what the height inputs are for.
The correct way to handle it is to disable height blending in the material, and import the layer weights through the landscape editor UI instead. You will need a separate grayscale png image for each layer, and you can either import it when you create the landscape (assign a material in the import dialog and it allows you to import the layers that match that material) or later by right-clicking the layers in the “paint” tab of the landscape editor.
Something has changed recently (in 4.13), in that unpainted landscapes now correctly render as unpainted instead of showing the preview weightings from the material editor.
Can you show me the tutorial you followed?
Thanks for the quick reply. Here is one of several tutorials that all use the same technique in the layerblend node. I’m sure you already know this, but just in case please note that each of the channels in the colorized splatmap are infact grayscale, but the RBG full channel shows colors. (In other words when they connect the red channel of the splatmap to a height in the layerblend, it is a grayscale image that is being communicated). The tutorial hits the main process, which imports each individual color channel as grayscale image into its respective heightblend within the layerblend node, at just past 14 minutes in. Please let me know where they are getting in wrong and how you would recommend doing it, as nearly all the tutorials I have been able to find show nearly the exact same process
Yeah that video is just wrong. The height inputs on the blend node are not for landscape-level blending like they have done, they are for local details (like individual rocks).
Import your layers through the landscape editor and turn off height blending.
See the docs on importing layers: https://udn.unrealengine.com/docs/ue4/int/engine/landscape/Custom/index.html
(although I would recommend using the landscape layer blend node instead of cascading weight nodes like they have there, that’s an older style, I’ve requested the docs be updated to use a blend node)
@Gareth Martin: I need to be able to blend layers based on a splat map inside a same material, is this still possible and if so, how? Thanks.
What about tiled landscape? Same process?
Hey did you find a solution to this or is there another way to use RGB splatmaps?