Looking for Proper World Machine Tiled Landscape Settings

[chrisjudd]

Really hoping this my last post ever about this as I’ve been trying to get this right for some time now.

What I need to do:
-16km x 16km Tiled Landscape

Current Settings/Problems:
-Tiled Build Options
–Tile Resolution - 1009 x 1009
–Tiles per Side - 16 x 16
-Render Extents…
–Width/Height 16.144 km
–Resolution - 1009 x 1009 (Although I believe this resolution does not matter for tiled landscape)
-When imported into UE I end up with 257 levels which seems like it would be crazy getting the level streaming sorted out.

Do I have the wrong settings? Should I have a different Resolution and Tiles per side? Does just one of them need to be changed? Anything else need to be set?

I will greatly greatly appreciate the proper answers so I can finally move forward.

Other Info (if its important):
World Machine 2.3.7 Professional
UE 4.11
This is for an open world game roughly the same size if not slightly bigger than DayZ.
I have referred to this: Landscape Technical Guide | Unreal Engine Documentation
but I just don’t understand going off of that with World Machine.

[sixto1972]

perhaps this will help? A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements and Releases - Unreal Engine Forums

[chrisjudd]

@sixto1972;572541

perhaps this will help? A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Epic Developer Community Forums

This is not helpful at all, has nothing to do with tiled landscapes.

[chrisjudd]

@Chariots;572784

Only golden rule is to limit the amount of components per landscape to 64 (check landscape technical guide). Higher than that can cause streaming performance issues. Other than that, it is up to you to find a good balance between landscape size and landscape count.

Thanks for that but it still doesn’t help answer my question or maybe I wasn’t clear. From all the different things I’ve read or different tutorials I’ve watched they all give some different info that makes it all confusing.

From some different things I’ve read the amount of tiles and resolution would change the actual map size, is this correct?

[chrisjudd]

@Chariots;572874

Each tile is a separate level, they get loaded and unloaded as you travel through the map, along with anything you put in those maps (meshes, sound effects that sort of thing). Yes, tile resolution does change the map size. Each pixel on the heightmap is 100 unreal units by default. You can change this during import dialog, but I would advise against it, as you can end up with a landscape that has too many or too few triangles (1 pixel is 1 vertex).

To give an example, using your 16x16km example, you can do:

1k res heightmaps with 16x16 (256) levels
2k res heightmaps with 8x8 (64) levels
4k res heightmaps with 4x4 (16) levels

Obviously having too many levels can prove to be a detriment workflow-wise, as you have to switch between the levels (by selecting make active on levels) to place meshes on that level (so that they get loaded when landscape gets loaded). Making landscapes too big also has its own cost. Each landscape is composed of many components, those components have draw call and streaming costs. Having less of them will be better for streaming, but they are also the base unit for LODs and occlusion culling. There is no silver bullet for it. You have to decide how you need to handle depending on your project. There is no right/wrong setting here.

Highly recommend that you check out the landscape technical guide.

I have read that many times but I think you may have cleared this up for, please let me know if I got this correct.

So If I want to do a 4k Res with 4x4 (16 levels) I would do 4033x4033 for my res and 2x2 tiles?

Or should be doing more like 1009x1009 with 8x8 tiles?

[chrisjudd]

@Chariots;572885

Probably a better way to demonstrate: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1PVk2h6V7Mf3j2fbXe1_r-oCWhn3Bo4loJknamWwx030/edit

4033 has 1024 components in total. As I said above, golden rule is 64 components max for tiled landscapes. If you want 4k maps, 4081 has 64 components.

Really appreciate the help, how exactly are you getting the number for the res?

[chrisjudd]

I think I understand now, we shall see. Thanks again!