Alright, it will need a bit longer to gather everything, but for now a couple of insights I got along the way:
- I definitely recommend using .r16 for the heightmaps, but other formats work too. I tried png, jpg, and raw variants and that did not seem to affect functionality. The format of splat and weight maps also does not matter in terms of functionality.
- Make sure not to have forbidden symbols in your tilenames. This includes spaces - which are part of the standard naming convention of worldmachine. Change this beforehand in your output node, or you will have to rename the files afterward. If you don’t do this, the “Levels” window will only show one tile. If you try to load that tile UE will crash.
- You might think, your splat and weight maps can have a different resolution than your heightmap. That’s reasonable to assume in your 3D workspace, but in UE it only returns a pitch-black Material.
- Choose your tile sizes from this list of recommendations: Landscape Technical Guide | Unreal Engine Documentation this will make the transition between your world-editor and UE much less painful.
- The Problem of this thread: Leave your first layer empty. I could get it to work by importing nothing as the first Layer of weight tiles, or pure white images. The latter achieved better results.
If you input anything in there it messes with the material in ways I have yet to figure out, but if I leave it blank the other layers do not seem to be affected. (more on that once I know more.) - Your weight maps can be exported by either using Worldmachines bitmap or height output. Both work. They can overlap. Though there is a limit of layers you can have layered on top of each other at the same time. Once this limit is violated the tile will return black.
Hope that helps anyone. I feel like I managed to fall for every possible mistake one could make along the journey. But at least that means I understand a lot more about landscapes now ^^
Regards