It seems CryEngine are releasing some really powerful improvements to their engine tools that would go a LONG way if implemented nicely in UE4.
A good overview of these features can be seen in this video: https://youtu.be/53LG-63uZ00
These features include decal based blending (as seen in the video above, a single decal projects snow on to any objects under it, with control over the angle and thickness of the snow - both easier than a per material based setup and seems much more consistent over many objects (what's going on with their projection method, I see no seams?)).
Also they seem to have really nice features that allow material sampling from a given object (eg. the terrain) to provide really seamless transitions with custom geometry- perfect to add detailed shapes like jagged cliffs to the soft terrain but use only the terrain material and make it appear to be part of the landscape and not a unique mesh with an obvious seam.
I know there are ways to get almost similar results currently in UE4 but they are usually either too expensive or have glaring issues, having a properly implemented approach from Epic for really powerful, performant and easy to use blending is definitely the number one feature request I have on my list by far.
Just think how much this simple change could have (if implemented so almost every piece of geometry in the scene could blend nicely with terrain/other objects)- level design would instantly get a lot more fun and powerful, moving things around and having everything update seamlessly instead of having to tediously paint or place objects to hide seams. It instantly give a big layer of polish to a level for "free".
Please consider adding some nice native support for this, all the new VR features are great but I really don't think the number of devs that benefit from those specific platform features come close to the amount that'd benefit from this global change.
DICE have also had this tech in their engine since Battlefront, and you can see how useful and amazing this feature is here: https://youtu.be/wvWAz_mEy8Q
A good overview of these features can be seen in this video: https://youtu.be/53LG-63uZ00
These features include decal based blending (as seen in the video above, a single decal projects snow on to any objects under it, with control over the angle and thickness of the snow - both easier than a per material based setup and seems much more consistent over many objects (what's going on with their projection method, I see no seams?)).
Also they seem to have really nice features that allow material sampling from a given object (eg. the terrain) to provide really seamless transitions with custom geometry- perfect to add detailed shapes like jagged cliffs to the soft terrain but use only the terrain material and make it appear to be part of the landscape and not a unique mesh with an obvious seam.
I know there are ways to get almost similar results currently in UE4 but they are usually either too expensive or have glaring issues, having a properly implemented approach from Epic for really powerful, performant and easy to use blending is definitely the number one feature request I have on my list by far.
Just think how much this simple change could have (if implemented so almost every piece of geometry in the scene could blend nicely with terrain/other objects)- level design would instantly get a lot more fun and powerful, moving things around and having everything update seamlessly instead of having to tediously paint or place objects to hide seams. It instantly give a big layer of polish to a level for "free".
Please consider adding some nice native support for this, all the new VR features are great but I really don't think the number of devs that benefit from those specific platform features come close to the amount that'd benefit from this global change.
DICE have also had this tech in their engine since Battlefront, and you can see how useful and amazing this feature is here: https://youtu.be/wvWAz_mEy8Q
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