Unreal Engine 5: Advanced Landscape Design

Name: Unreal Engine 5: Advanced Landscape Design
Author: Ken Geary

Create natural landscape textures and using the LandMass plugin

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Course: On-Demand

Hello. Welcome to this lesson in Unreal Engine. In this lesson, we will learn how to create a non-repeating landscape texture in Unreal Engine. Launch Unreal engine, select games, then a blank template. Add the starter content, make sure it's checked on. Browse to your project directory. We will name this one Advanced Landscape. Click Create. We will be starting this project from scratch, so we're gonna go to file, new level, select the empty level, then we're gonna save current level as. We'll create a maps folder, and we'll save this as land mass. Click save. Let's set the defaults to this level in the project settings. So set the game default and start up to land mass. Next, we'll create a materials folder. Open that folder up, right click. Create a material. We will name this M underscore landscape, and we're gonna make an instance right away. So we're gonna right click, create a material instance, MI landscape. Double click to open up the master material, which is the M landscape. We'll make 2 layer landscape material. First, we'll pull in 2 textures and normal maps of your choosing from the starter content. I'll select the grass texture and its normal map and drag it into the graph. I'm gonna search grass and drag in a normal map, zoom out a little bit, make some room. I'm also gonna search for stones. Do my second layer. I'll take this cobblestone, and I'll control click the normal map, drag both in, just arrange our nodes. Next, we wanna add a landscape layer blend. Right click. Search for landscape. Let the landscape layer blend. To add inputs, go to the left column, where it says layers, click plus twice, twirl open and rename each layer. So we'll name one grass and the second one rocks. We need layer blend for normal maps as well, so duplicate this node, and we'll just wire layers up, and the output to the base color, and for the normals, and the output to the normal input. That's all we need for now. Don't forget to click apply. Then click save. Close the panel. We have no lighting in this level as of now, but we can view and sculpt the landscape in wire frame mode. Click to view mode, change it to wire frame or alt 2. Next we're gonna activate the landscape editing mode. Make sure you turn on enable edit layers, raw material. We'll add our instance, as our MI landscape, and click create. In the sculpt mode, we're gonna create some hills in a distance. We'll zoom out a bit, and we can change our brushes. Don't wanna spend too much time on this, just wanna get this started. Next, we'll paint our layers, and look at our texture patterns. Press to change the view mode to unlit. Click the paint tab. Roll down to the layers. Select grass. We need to create a layer options by clicking the plus and wanna select weight blended layer save to its default folder. Notice in a moment, the whole landscape's now covered in grass. Scroll down, we'll select the rocks, same thing. We'll hit the plus to create layer info, weight blended layer. Click save. Before painting, make sure you select your layer. This is rocks. We're gonna click and drag a small amount. Now we can see the two textures. We'll get out of our landscape mode. We'll go to select mode, and we'll zoom in a bit. Getting closer. As you can see, we're seeing our two layers, and there's a blend between the two, just as our layer blend was set up for the material. However, the pattern looks terrible. You can see the repeating pattern, and we needed to make this look a lot more organic. We can do this by modifying the texture UVs with a special node. Open the materials folder again, and open M landscape. and to the left a little bit. Then right click. We're gonna search for variation, select texture variation. This special node has many settings to mix the UV pattern by scaling, rotating, and dithering between the pattern cells. We will set up the most used inputs. Hold down the 1 key on the keyboard, click. Then we're gonna right click. We're gonna convert to a parameter. This will allow us to adjust this value in real time on the material instance if we need. Rename this parameter variation scale. We're gonna set its default value to 3, and we're gonna wire this to variation scale input pin. Now make a duplicate of this node. You control D or command D on the Mac. We're gonna name this mode to variation levels. We'll make a default 6 and wire up to its same name pin. Next, we need 2 boolean nodes. Right click, and search a boolean. We want a static bool. Make sure it's checked on. We want this to be on or true. We'll make a duplicate. We will wire these booleans to switch on used dither, and we'll wire the random rotation scale to turn that on. Next, wire output of a texture variation node to all the UV inputs of the texture sample nodes. Click apply. Save. Close the panel. Zoom out a bit. Now look at the landscape. This makes a huge difference in how the texture layers look. Using the material instance, you could change these values and change the scaling of the texture. Save all. Save selected. In the next lesson, we're going to work with the landmass plugin in Unreal Engine. Thanks for watching.

Advanced Provider : Ken Geary 3 Lessons · 21m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

In these lessons, you’ll learn how to use a landscape texture image to create a custom material that randomizes the texture pattern. You’ll also learn to use the LandMass plugin to create non-destructive landscape details.

Unreal Engine 5 can be used to create realistic landscapes for your projects. You’ll learn how the TextureVariation node in the Material Editor can create random blended texture tiles for a natural look. We’ll also cover the LandMass plugin, which adds details to your landscape that can be re-arranged and modified at will. Learn how to reshape a LandMass randomly, create a plateau using Cap Shape, and even add stair steps with adjustments in number and size. We’ll also explore exterior lighting effects with Lumen, which you’ll use to create shafts of light in a dark cave setting.

What You'll Learn

Create a custom landscape material using a landscape texture image
Randomize texture patterns with the TextureVariation node in the Material Editor
Add non-destructive landscape details with the LandMass plugin
Reshape a LandMass randomly and create a plateau using Cap Shape
Add stair steps to a landscape with adjustable number and size
Create exterior lighting effects such as light shafts with Lumen

Key Takeaways

A landscape texture image can be used to build a custom material that randomizes the texture pattern for a natural look.
The TextureVariation node in the Material Editor creates random blended texture tiles to avoid repeating patterns.
The LandMass plugin adds landscape details that can be re-arranged and modified non-destructively at will.
LandMass tools let you reshape terrain randomly, form a plateau with Cap Shape, and add stair steps with adjustable count and size.
Lumen is used for exterior lighting effects, including creating shafts of light in a dark cave setting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this course cover?

It covers creating a custom landscape material that randomizes texture patterns, using the TextureVariation node in the Material Editor for random blended texture tiles, adding non-destructive details with the LandMass plugin, and creating exterior lighting effects such as light shafts with Lumen.

What can I do with the LandMass plugin in this course?

You learn to add details that can be re-arranged and modified at will, reshape a LandMass randomly, create a plateau using Cap Shape, and add stair steps with adjustments in number and size.

Which lessons are included?

The course includes three lessons: Nonrepeating Pattern Landscape Texture, Using the LandMass Plugin, and Exterior Lighting.

What lighting techniques are taught?

The course explores exterior lighting effects with Lumen, which you use to create shafts of light in a dark cave setting.

What skills are associated with this course?

The course relates to skills including Procedural Texture, Simscape, Texturing, Texture Artist, Unreal Development Kit, and Unreal Engine.