The render quality is bound to be different since this was done in C4D/Octane, but how to achieve a similar result of texturing the landscape? I’ve watched almost every tutorial I could find online and none of them come even close to this.
NOTE: Obviously I am aware that Octane render will look better than UE render, I am talking about texturing only, and wondering if it’s possible to achieve similar greatness in UE5.
Ue5, probably not. Or maybe if render time doesnt matter.
Either way texturing is just like anything else.
Step one, forget lansacape. Those are meshes.
Step 2, you can’t have auto materials and automated stuff and expect them to look precise and perfect.
The best way to get from 0 to something is to scuplt and use the Zbrush polypaint, as it allows for an insane amount of details at relatively OK costs.
You then just bake the poly paint to a texture and simplify the model - plus produce a normal map - before export.
Alternatively, if the model is set and all you need to do is texture…
Quixel Mixer is getting rather good at being a suitable replacement for Substance:
Its not as quick, because its absolutely painful to make your own decal/atlas/materials from your files, but it does work in the end.
Your third option is photogrammetry.
With a decent resolution camera drone you can source the shots to have a program (such as meshroom) automatically produce a model with texture.
The end result is often a disjointed texture UV that looks good but makes no logical sense… if you want the UV to also look good you have to modify the model, change the UV and then allow the program to re-bake the texture onto it (this works great for character/people face scans btw).
Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I got some questions however:
If I understood you correctly, since these meshes (from the video) are exported from World Creator, your suggestion is to take them into Zbrush and then sculpt the details there? How would that affect cavity/slope etc maps (that contain the information of erosion, flows, rock placement etc) from WC, since you’re changing the mesh?
But wouldn’t Mixer just export an 8k map for an entire landscape that’s kilometres long? How to obtain the extremely detailed textures when moving closer to the landscape?
Yeah, pg is amazing. However, all landscapes shown in video were generated in World Creator and somehow made to look 100% realistic with megascan materials.
You just have to slice the mrshes up in separate parts that allow the detail at the distance you want.
At a distance, its always easier as the world creator textures are usually enough.
Getting closer you need better textures.
You can replace the texture used by the camera distance. However it’s easier to just sculpt and have the scene “set” how you need the render if you don’t require to run around in realtime.
If runtime mobility is a requirement, you have to settle for a slightly less than perfect look…
the texture heatmaps are made using World Creator. Then you just make a landscape material in unreal to apply them. Nothing fancy just time and attention.
You dont need the automaterial slope detection stuff though, that’s what world creator is for.
Use megascan textures and tesselation/displacement for up close detail if you need it.
Any of these sample scenes you’ve shown should easily run at 120fps with a large (8km+ terrain) in unreal. It’s not difficult to do just adjust landscape lod and keep texture sizes not larger than needed.
Except the question was about how to texture with High Detail, not how to wing it and get somewhat acceptable results.
Your answer is pretty much the same as: “well, you just do it by trial and error”.
With added speculation about runtime performance to boot. Something which is real easy to compromise by using landscape materials…
Can it be done looking 99% real and running in realtime? Probably. Not by a novice. NOT with landscape. NOT with the engine tools.
Using Houdini would already give you a boost at trying to make it somewhat better…
you learn how to make the material, then you put it the hours to make the landscape. its a tutorial showing how to make a material. Realism takes time, you cant escape that.
There is plenty of examples of landscapes looking as good as your images and running interactively in realtime… You have free examples on the marketplace you could download right now and test for yourself.
