Procedural Nature Pack Vol.2

Community Marketplace
1

**— Update - 10/30/2017 — **

  • Demo Scene has been updated with the new features and settings
  • Added ability to switch between seasons in real-time
  • Created the “seasonal_landscape_master” material to allow build up of snow directly on landscape in real-time and puddles freeze over into ice
  • Added optional fog to the Global blueprint to make the seasonal transition more believable
  • Created “seasonal_background_mountains” material to be used in the background which also has real-time snow accumulation based off of the global blueprint “Snow_Coverage”
  • Fixed grayed out landscape squares by using “wrap mode” on the texture nodes
  • Optimized landscape material functions to reduce texture count

Full Video to come soon!

  • As well as slope based landscape painting to create cliffs with ease!
  • And bringing over spline tree and wind updates to Procedural Nature Pack v.1 are on their way soon!

Here is a little preview video (not a full production trailer for the updates) but a simple preview of the dynamic season switch.

  • Now includes height fog that switches dynamically as more snow and cold enters the scene
  • Background mountains build up snow from height point to lowest point in real-time and first because of their altitude
  • Terrain and assets build up snow on top of them slowly as the season gets colder and the snow coverage slider is increased
  • Ground puddles slowly freeze into ice now
  • Ground puddles can also be painted with (non-weight blended layers) to actually create a puddle on top of any landscape surface now. Making the most realistic and cheapest puddles

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx…EE2NVRmZWh4TTQ

**— Update - 4/18/2017 — **
Hey everyone!
I’ve put together an optimization video for both the Nature Pack Vol. 1 and Seasons Pack showing you how to export and import Spline Trees and use them in a much more optimized way. I hope you all enjoy it and get some good use out of it. Cheers!

**— Update - 3/02/2017 — **
The first round of updates to the Nature Seasons Pack are now live on the Marketplace! Here is the list of updates applied to the pack this time.

  • Added auto-populating foliage to the pack based off of the landscape material painted layers
  • Added non-weight blended paintable landscape layers to remove auto populating foliage
  • Optimized Grass cards more to reduce polycount and increase scene performance
  • Adjusted Foliage fade-out distances to also increase performance of pack
  • Added Pine Tree 01 - Distant Card LOD 2 to help with performance of many pine trees on screen
  • Updated Puddle color and roughness values for a more realistic puddle feel
  • Added missing lightmaps to Pine Trees
  • Added new Screenshots to show off high resolution textures and seasonal switches better
  • Created a fly through video to show an overview of the pack
  • Created a full tips and tricks video that covers many of the features and optimization techniques for the pack

**— Update - 2/27/2017 — **

I have finished the Fly Through Video and Tips and Tricks Video for those interested in checking them out!
Fly Through - Overview Video

Tips and Tricks - Walkthrough Video

**— Original Post - 01/21/2017 — **

Hey everyone!

Long time no see, I hope you all have been well and enjoying working on tons of Unreal Engine projects for yourselves!

The Procedural Nature Pack Vol. 2 has recently released. I wanted to start this thread for any of you that may have questions or are interested in information on the pack. There have already been a few questions and emails for some of the currently missing information on the pack and I will be sharing all of that here to help everyone better to understand the pack and its features. I am also working on a Demo Fly Through Video and Walkthrough Video to talk about the pack and show off its features as well. Here are some pics of the pack and a link to it on the Marketplace for those unfamiliar with it. Enjoy!

Unreal Marketplace Pack
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketp…re-pack-vol-01

As well as the support page for the pack on my website.
http://www.purepolygons.com/procedur…sons-pack.html

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_01.jpg

FAQ’s

Q: Is this the same as Procedural Nature Pack Vol. 1? If not what is different or new about it?

A: In one word… Everything is new about this pack.
The new pack has entirely new assets, with a whole new set of features, blueprints, materials, and more. The only thing that is the same is the name and the spline tree features, but even the spline trees have been entirely upgraded to a new and better system from the last one. Some of these features I will be porting over to the previous pack as promised, like the new spline tree blueprint and I will see what others might be possible. The amazing thing about this pack that actually gives it an incredible value to you, is the fact that it includes both a summer set and winter set of assets. The Landscape has a full range of dry, green, beautiful summer materials, and a whole set of winter, muddy, ice, and snow covered landscape materials for winter. So there is definitely a lot of work and quality assets in this pack.

Q: How do I adjust the wind or the snow coverage on the assets?

A: All of these features are controlled by the Global Parameters Blueprint:
A Blueprint is included that can globally adjust the parameters of the world with some simple sliders. Increase the wind speed or intensity in any direction. It will seemlessly affect the foliage, snowfall, and water surfaces without you having to worry about a thing. Adjust the “Snow Coverage” and you will see snow falling and starting to build up on all of your assets in the scene, as well as ice starting to form on your water and lakes. All controlled by a few simple values. If you are looking for the “Global Parameters Blueprint” and it’s features, please checkout these screenshots for more information on navigation in the pack.

Q: Does your landscape material include paintable layers for the different materials?

**A: **Yes there are actually two sets of Landscape materials, a summer version with grass, mud, puddles, and a forest floor. As well as the winter time landscape material with ice, snow, rough walked on snow, melted snow on mud, and forest floor materials as well. The two materials use the same landscape layer information and can easily be swapped to switch between summer and winter scenarios. Of course all of the layers are paintable for each type of surface.

Q: You mention Procedurally Generated Snow Build-up on assets, what specifically do you mean by this?

A: There is a Blueprint included with the pack called the “Global Parameters Blueprint,” Once this is added to the level the user can simply adjust some of it’s values to add snow on top of the assets in the level. As you increase the “Snow Coverage” values on the blueprint more and more snow is added on top of the assets and at one point they become entirely white and covered in snow. These same settings can help to control the amount of snowfall, wind speed in any direction, and wind intensity across all of the assets.

Q: Is the Realtime Ice Formation customizable on a blueprint, so you can for example blend a mix of ice and snow?

A: The ice formation is integrated into the water material and the ice is formed also as the “Snow Coverage” value is increased on the “Global Parameters Blueprint” that is placed in the level.
If you know that the “lake” is always going to have ice on it, you can simple paint ice onto your landscape using the landscape materials. Then it is very easy to blend the snow on top of the ice no problem!

**Q: For the tire marks seen in this screenshots, how are you achieving this snow deformation effect? **

**A: **The Landscape currently has tessellation applied to it, which helps to sell the deformation of the landscape and the snow on top of it. It also helps to push the tire marks deeper into the ground and really make everything in the scene pop. Of course it can all be turned off or disabled on the material to increase performance.

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_02.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_03-0.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_03-1.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_04-0.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_04-1.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_04-2.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_04-3.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_05-0.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_05-1.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_06.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_07.jpg

http://images.purepolygons.com/ue4/proc_ntr_v2/PurePolygons_ProceduralNtrv02_08.jpg

2

This looks really great, but I do have a question regarding your last pack. Will it receive any more updates? I know there were a couple feature requests that were made and it didn’t receive much attention after release.

3

you said that you will add this pack to the old one as an update i won’t buy another one again when the last one was abandoned

4

promises are always broken when it comes to money

5

Hi Joshezzell,
Yes it will definitely receive more updates. Part of what I had talked about with the last pack was that some of the features like new spline trees will be added to the previous pack, as well as less flat looking tree branches, and falling river water FX. These features will still be added to the last pack, but as for the river water FX I have been wanting to add them since the pack released, but after many attempts I was never able to get it working properly for multiple reasons and so I had to move on to continue other things.

Is there any updates in specific that you are looking for that I hadn’t addressed yet? Many of the initial concerns and updates requested I took care of anything I could.
You can look at the Support page for the list of updates and features resolved from users requests. Or the Unreal Forum thread as well.

Hello Axxi,
I believe there may have been a misunderstanding as to what would be carried over from this pack, back to the previous pack. I am absolutely porting some of the features of this pack into the previous nature pack as well. The spline trees have been updated and I will be bringing the new spline system back into the previous pack as well as some of the updated wind features that work with the old pack.

All of the assets though and many of the features are entirely new entities that in no way relate to the previous pack. I apologize if the naming convention I used for the packs is deceiving. Because they are all meant to be used together I made them vol. 1 and 2 etc, but just as each volume of an encyclopedia can be considered an extension of its previous volume, it is still its own individual product with new information, features, and knowledge to be shared. So don’t worry, I am providing more updates and adding some feature to the last pack, but if I simply had two entirely different named packs like “Procedural Jungle Environment” and “Procedural Forest Seasons” I don’t think we would be having the same conversation. Because I imagine you wouldn’t expect that just because you bought the jungle you can also have the forest seasons pack and all of its features?

If you don’t agree with that I am very sorry to hear that. I am doing my best to address peoples concerns and hold true to the promises I made on the last pack. I would be very sad if I lost you as a customer, but it is your own decision of course.

I’m sorry that you feel that way GeoDev. I am doing my best to finish updates, fix bugs, but still provide new content for people. I like to do this for fun to create packs for the community and contribute to the many projects that people are working on using the Unreal Engine. I feel as though some people are unhappy with how things have been going concerning PurePolygons and this was not something I was aware of. That’s unfortunate to hear. I hope as updates are released your opinion may change.

Thank you everyone,

  • Jacob
6

I have finished the Fly Through Video and Tips and Tricks Video for those interested in checking them out!

Fly Through - Overview Video

Tips and Tricks - Walkthrough Video

7

Hello Jacob,
It is really great! awesome.
I tried to find any VR information related this nature pack vol2. But there is no.
Do you think it is possible to use and customize this pack for VR?
(I mean that scale of VR content is a little large outside nature VR stuff kind of.)

8

Nice work, I’ve been wanting to pick up your nature pack for quite a while. Also, you should message Stephanie or Adam about getting a marketplace tag. =)

9

Thank you itsjhlim!

I have not tested the pack on VR myself, but in the Tips and Tricks video I provide some great tips for optimization for the pack and it should be no problem to get it running in VR for yourself!
I have made sure that the scale works very well based off of the default Mannequin for UE4. So I imagine you should have no issues with scale when it comes to VR.
Hope that helps!

Thanks a lot Jon :slight_smile:
I always love the Sci-fi work you got going. It’s awesome! Especially the last pack you made. Beautiful work. I’ll send them a message. Are they here on the Forums?

Cheers,

  • Jacob
10

** — Update - 3/02/2017 — **
The first round of updates to the Nature Pack Vol.2 are now live on the Marketplace! Here is the list of updates applied to the pack this time.

  • Added auto-populating foliage to the pack based off of the landscape material painted layers
  • Added non-weight blended paintable landscape layers to remove auto populating foliage
  • Optimized Grass cards more to reduce polycount and increase scene performance
  • Adjusted Foliage fade-out distances to also increase performance of pack
  • Added Pine Tree 01 - Distant Card LOD 2 to help with performance of many pine trees on screen
  • Updated Puddle color and roughness values for a more realistic puddle feel
  • Added missing lightmaps to Pine Trees
  • Added new Screenshots to show off high resolution textures and seasonal switches better
  • Created a fly through video to show an overview of the pack
  • Created a full tips and tricks video that covers many of the features and optimization techniques for the pack
11

Thanks man! Yeah you can PM Stephanie or Adam and they should be able to hook you up. There’s a private creator’s hub waiting for you. =P

12

This pack looks stunning 0.o

13

Haha thanks man, I went ahead and messaged her so we will see what happens! Cheers

Thanks a lot! I hope you get a chance to check it out in the Marketplace :slight_smile:

  • Jacob
14

Hey everyone!
I’ve put together an optimization video for both the Nature Pack Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 showing you how to export and import Spline Trees and use them in a much more optimized way. I hope you all enjoy it and get some good use out of it. Cheers!

16

Terrain totally black after adding materials

Hello. I’ve just bought this product and I got a big trouble. :frowning:
My simple goal is to create a map from scratch, so I do exactly the same simple steps of the
The problem is the following: when I add the material the surface is totally black, both when I use the instance material “forest-ground-snow-ice-weighted” and when I use the “forest-ground-rocks-mud-grass”.

[Album] The material is totally black...

I’ve also tried to rebuild to light several times, or adding sky light and spheres or stuff like that, but nothing changed.
It’s pretty weird because all other materials work fine, even those contained in the package. The problem applies also for the two master materials.
The version of Unreal I’m using are 4.16.2 and 4.15.3.
I also tried to add one more landscape to the example map provided with the package, but the problem still remains.
But, if I change the material to the landscapes already placed in the map, it works.
It’s very frustrating being stucked in this way.
How can I solve this problem?
Thank you in advance!

17

Hi There Goddener,
This happens when there is no “Weight Preview” set on the Landscape material. Meaning that when you apply the material to the landscape it has multiple layers and none of them are set to “preview” themselves initially. All you have to do in this case is make sure all of you “Layer Info” settings are all input under your Landscape Layers in the painting section. Then simply paint any layer you like and the landscape will no longer be black.

Have you already tried painting the layers onto the Landscape? This should fix your issues :slight_smile:
Cheers,

  • Jacob
18

Thank you very much for the quick and exhaustive reply.
Now, it works.
Despite this, it’s unclear to me why I cannot paint over Forest_Ground_A/B layers with rocks, mud and other stuff. Viceversa, if I paint with Forest_Ground over grass the whole ground becomes gray.
Are they meant for only fixed grounds?

19

Hi! I was playing with the pack and the quality is really awesome, thanks for this!

Just one feedback / petition:

In order to call this pack totally “Procedural” should be very nice and needed that the landscape can be procedural painted (just a blend by height or slope for example). OR just by a Splatmap.
I am trying to modify the material to accomplish this but since I am not an shader expert, I think I will not get a very good/correct result.

Could you please give us some direction for this or better yet, a material option that blends by height / slope or Splatmap??
Just being realistic, f you have a middle to big landscape is almost impossible paint all by hand and get a good result.

Excuse my English
Thanks!!

20

Hi Goddener,
So this is due to a quick fix that can be accomplished by opening the Material functions for the texture inputs and simply changing the Texture Sample Nodes to “Wrap Mode.” I will be updating this in the pack soon and submitting the fix ASAP. Cheers!

Hi there Alexarg,
That is definitely on my list for additions to the pack! And I completely agree, it would be very helpful. I am working on a cliff material that can be used to blend between for the sloped parts of the landscape as you mentioned. It should be updated shortly along with the fix above.

Thanks so much for the patience!

  • Jacob
21

Question about the spline roads. I see you edit them in the demo scene video, but how do I add them to a scene. If I go into blueprints > spline_blueprints, I don’t see the spline road. I only see the spline tree. I found the spline road mesh in the assets folder, but it is a static mesh. How do I actually implement the spline road? Thanks for the help.