I don’t know if you found a solution for this or what. But I thought I would chime in with my experience of the process.
First of all, scale.
A landscape at 100% on the Z axis has a total range of 512meters. 25700.0 to -25500. 1 unit is 1cm.
Knowing this makes everything a lot simpler.
Its also worth baring in mind that landscape is created 10 meters above zero on the Z axis. For whatever reason.
Using the default maximum elevation in WM is just going to make maths awkward. You are just making more work for yourself.
Say you set the maximum elevation in WM to 2048, that would make your terrain 2048 meters tall on the Z axis. So in unreal, this is simply 400%.
If say you wanted a landscape with a maximum elevation of 5km, you could set your maximum elevation in WM to 5120. Then when importing to UE4, you would use 1000% vertical scale.
It’s as simple as that.
As for the X and Y axis. I find its perfectly ok to leave these at 100%, 200%, 400% or whatever. A scale of “743.6787307992955” to me is just nonsensical.
A landscape size of 505x505, is… 504 meters square. Near as dammit to being 1meter per pixel.
So. If you want a terrain of 8km in a single file you would create a terrain in WM with a resolution of 8129x8129. Then a width and height of 8.192km
As you can see here… The detail scale will be 1m per pixel
For tiled worlds. You do pretty much the same thing. Keeping in mind the resolution to meters ratio.
If say you wanted a terrain of about 40kmx40km. I would divide that number by the size of the terrain tile you want to use.
The smaller the terrain tile the less intensive level streaming will be. Think of it this way. If every time you move, the world needs to stream in a 2kmx2km landscape cluttered with objects, its gonna be more hard work than loading say a 505x505 or 1027x107 landscape. I personally find that a world comprising of half kilometre tiles is perfect. Skyrim, (as a point of reference) uses tiles that are roughly 50meters square.
So… a 40km landscape comprising of tiles that are 505x505. I would do a sum of 505 x 80 = 40400. Or 40.4km.
80 by 80 tiles at 505/4 meters each.
I’ve seen quite a few people going on about multiplying your elevation by whatever number, but its completely illogical and you’re just making more work for yourself. The only reason I can see for people doing this math is that they are using the default projects maximum elevation in WM. Change it, make it a multiple of 512. It will make everything a lot easier. There is literally no downside to doing so.
As a rule of thumb, keep your terrain in WM a multiple of 512meters. Then, do the same for your water level. If you have a maximum elevation of 2048 meters, and you set your water level to 512 meters. This would make it super easy in UE4.
Your terrain goes 1024meters above and below zero on the Z axis. So your water plane will need to be at -512meters. And of course… Because all terrain in UE4 is created at +10meters, you need to add 10 meters to the level of your water plane. So, -502 meters, or -50200 units.
I really hope this helps you and others with creating landscape. I also hope it clears up any confusion about scale.
Cheers all!
