Terraforming Tool

Development Modding ARK: Survival Evolved
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1

hi all

do you think it’s possible to create some kind of a Terraforming Tool?
(player gets something like a shovel to change terrain height inside a given, small radius. can we access the level ground static mesh vertices in game??)

how would you go about it?

cheers
j

2

Nope, that’s not possible without code changes to the engine and game code.

3

I do not believe that is possible at all within UE4 as it requires voxels, while the landscapes we have and use are like thin sheets of paper

4

Everything is possible if you have the right people. :smiley:

Well, and full access. :smiley:

5

@Kenturrac
i think this was exactly the game which brought up my idea. it’s made in UE too and it clearly uses polygons, not voxels.
as i’m pretty shure this should work in a more basic form for ARK, i guess it won’t without full access, as you said…

6

What makes you think that these are “clearly” no voxels? No saying it is but how can one tell by looking at a gameplay trailer.

7

You can still raise and lower points on a standard landscape, and you can still generate procedural geometry for stuff like caves. The problem isn’t the capability, it’s the return on investment for the sheer volume of work it would require.

You can’t do this with the mod kit, you need to make significant changes to the engine.

8

thanks ambershee for clarifying that.

well, i just guessed. if you look at a polygon surface you can see triangles. voxels are little cubes. the higher the resolution the smaller they are.

9

Actually, you wouldn’t be able to tell. Just because it’s voxels doesn’t mean it has to look like Minecraft (if that’s the reference you’re going of). There are plenty of voxel games that don’t look like it (e.g. 7 days to die).
There are algorithms (e.g. marching cube) that generate geometry for voxel engines.

Engines like that (that allow you terraforming like that) are almost always done with Voxels nowadays.

10

Yep, CryEngine is a classic example - voxel based terrain that gets triangulated by the renderer. Ark doesn’t use voxels though, it’s Unreal 4’s height / point based landscape system.