{"id":583,"date":"2024-05-03T21:15:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T20:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/?p=583"},"modified":"2024-05-03T21:19:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T20:19:30","slug":"getting-started-with-landscaping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/?p=583","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started with Landscaping"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I enabled the water plugin and restarted Unreal Engine to get this basic body of ocean and sculpted the general shape of the island as a start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For reference of scale, I placed a mannequin down to determine the size of the island and added indentations in the cliff to start detailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All the textures will be adapted from Quixel Megascans (n.d) to make the environments more realistic, starting with the island landscape (GOUGED ROCK CLIFF<\/em>, n.d; SCARCE GRASS DETAIL TEXTURE, n.d; SOIL DIRT<\/em>, n.d; THAI RIPPLED SAND<\/em>, n.d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I wanted to try and attempt something new by applying some vertex painting to the textures (Epic Games, Inc, 2023; Scorpion Venom, 2021). Here is what the window looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’ve set the directory of the plugin to be located inside of the Engine’s directory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Next, I wanted to experiment with how the materials would blend with the vertex blend material built into the plugin (Quixel, 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I had tried to get something desirable to work, but the blend material would even not respond or break depending on the circumstances. In the end, I had settled on painting the textures manually. To do this, I have created a landscape material blend along with its instance and applied the latter to the landscape to change the values and then began painting the island to start bringing it to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I attempted to set up the texture displacement correctly by following through this setup (Poliigon Documentation, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I began the tundra landscape by mapping out the area of the tundra I would start at and sculpted the natural features like the hills and the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’ve added a river that cuts through the landscape. I would go back to modifying the water later so that it doesn’t look basic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I got started carving out the area around the river using the Flatten and Erosion landscaping tools to create the abrupt drop-out in relation to the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’ve also expanded the river to make it flow across the environment by using the splines feature in the plugin. By doing this, I was able to create turns that wouldn’t be possible with its original shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have gathered a few more textures (MOSSY ROCK CLIFF<\/em>, n.d; MOSSY ROCKY GROUND<\/em>, n.d; ROCKY GROUND<\/em>, n.d; FRESH WINDSWEPT SNOW<\/em>, n.d) and I’ve painted the landscape using various terrain tools to randomize the gradients, such as the snow for the mountain summits. I also had to scale the textures enough to make this happen (Taylor, 2017) .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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References:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Epic Games, Inc (2023) Quixel Bridge<\/em>. Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/bridge [Accessed 25th January 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FRESH WINDSWEPT SNOW<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home?category=surface&category=snow&category=pure&search=snow&assetId=ugspafgdy [Accessed 9th March 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOUGED ROCK CLIFF <\/em>(n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home?category=surface&category=rock&category=cliff&search=rock&assetId=vlcpcbc [Accessed 20th February 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOSSY ROCK CLIFF<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home?category=surface&category=moss&category=rock&search=mossy&search=rock&assetId=vmbibbgg [Accessed 4th February 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOSSY ROCKY GROUND<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home?category=surface&category=moss&category=rock&search=mossy&search=rock&assetId=vewmeehlw [Accessed 4th February 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poliigon Documentation (2018) Using Poliigon displacement textures in Unreal Engine 4<\/em> [Video] Available online: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1GkS9-94k80&t=385s [Accessed 25th January 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quixel Megascans<\/em> (n.d) Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home [Accessed 18th December 2022]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ROCKY GROUND<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home?category=surface&category=ground&search=rock&assetId=vjdqcba [Accessed 5th February 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SCARCE GRASS DETAIL TEXTURE<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/home?category=surface&category=grass&category=patchy&search=grass&assetId=sexfecjf0 [Accessed 18th December 2022]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scorpion Venom (2021) How to install Megascan Plugin for Unreal Engine 4 26 <\/em>[Video] Available online: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lHWcv-9cpe8 [Accessed 23rd January 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOIL DIRT<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/collections?category=environment&category=natural&category=dry-grassland&assetId=pkcbq20 [Accessed 1st March 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor, M. (2017) Unreal Engine 4 – Quick! How To: Scale Materials<\/em> [Video] Available online: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DXK1pdvBUAM&t=183s [Accessed 26th March 2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THAI RIPPLED SAND<\/em> (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https:\/\/quixel.com\/megascans\/collections?category=environment&category=natural&category=tropical-beach&type=surface&assetId=tjmndf1dy [Accessed 8th February 2023]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I enabled the water plugin and restarted Unreal Engine to get this basic body of ocean and sculpted the general shape of the island as a start. For reference of scale, I placed a mannequin down to determine the size of the island and added indentations in the cliff to start detailing. All the textures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dev-log","category-major-project"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}