Optimal workflow for large landscapes in a single workstation?

[Yabab]

Hey, guys. First time posting a question here, I have developed using Unity and other tools in the past and I’m just starting my journey with UE5. I’m looking for help in what would be the best way to handle large landscapes while I’m working on my personal computer. I have a requirement for a large landscape in my project (not because I wish to make a large game, but because I’m looking to make my relatively small playable area very vertical) and would like the player to be able to see the horizon as if he was really standing on top of a mountain or climbing its side. The idea is that most of the landscape would be unreachable and just for looks.

I’m aware of HLOD and plan to use it at runtime, but my question is really centered around the editor: right now I’m struggling to model an 8k landscape whether I’m using blueprint brushes or the built-in landscape editing tools. My rig has an i9, 32 GB of Ram and I’m using a 3080 Ti. I constantly run out of memory when trying to work on the entire landscape during the modelling process.

Have you guys got any tips to go around this problem? Should I be importing the landscape from an exterior software? Are there configuration options I could toggle to make editing the landscape feasible in engine? Are there ways to automatically tile a larger landscape while working on it? Should I be using more than one landscape?

Any pointers and ideas are much appreciated! Thanks!

[ClockworkOcean]

Just from your first paragraph, I would say, don’t look into landscapes

Large landscapes are really going to eat a chunk out of the frame budget, and if the player never goes near it, it’s a waste.

I’d recommend finding out about HDRIs.

You can get amazing ones for free, you can buy them, you can make them in the engine easily. You can use a decent HDR to make it look like there’s a huge landscape surrounding the player, at virtually no cost.

Here’s a quick intro

How to use an HDRI in unreal engine 5 -Micro tutorial for beginners

[Yabab]

Thanks, @ClockworkOcean ! Will check out the video!

[TheRealBiomes (RealBiomes)]

Like @ClockworkOcean suggested it sounds like landscapes isn’t what you need. I would suggest looking into distance meshes, think like landscapes but as a simple static mesh with a material on it. Much cheaper performance wise and you get the 3D.

Not sure I would recommend HDRIs unless you’re going for a very old school lighting setup as HDRIs has a lot of baked information that will clash with a real-time lighting solution.

Regarding your problems running out of memory, this is a known issue in 5.1 and has been mostly fixed in 5.2. Memory usage as a whole has been very poor in UE5 but getting better now.