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Not a problem. These are highly optimized. The entire 16km terrain is only 500MB of static mesh and 5 million vertices. Each 1km mesh in this test set is only 20,000 vertices. A 1km set of four World Partition Components in Landscape is 1 million vertices, in comparison. If you wanted to create a second lower triangle count LOD and use that for LOD1 and for collision that could just as easily be done. It looks like Epic removed the Collision Memory info from the stat commands so I couldn't find a definitive comparison answer for actual use between Landscape and TINs.

Part 6 video is out with the foliage test.

The next video is coming up shortly...

TIN is an acronym for Triangulated Irregular Network, it is a type of optimized mesh used for terrain systems. It has been used for decades for flight simulators and driving games, because it uses less storage space, less memory, and renders faster than heightmap-based terrains like Unreal Landscape and Unity Terrain.

@@demenzunmedia and how do you activate tin, or use it? I make a small game, that may dont need it, but maybe for optmization?

@@Punisher1992 - If you go back to the Part 1 through Part 4 of this "Mesh Terrain" video series that I have released in the past few weeks, I show the exact Workflow that I am using to get the TIN Mesh Terrain system. I am using TerreSculptor 3 and Autodesk Max to create the required assets for Unreal Engine. I am also looking to see if any other software has similar abilities to also create the assets. Part 6 of the video series is coming out shortly.

@@demenzunmedia so basically its just a normal mesh still.

@@mindped - Yes, it is a static mesh. It is simply created using a specific process to make terrain creation simple with it. TINs are typically created with a specific mesh optimization technique called "Delaunay Triangulation with Excluded Edges". This allows the meshes to be used for terrains with significantly reduced triangle counts and good optimization. Flight Sims have been using these TINs for years. There is no special actor role in Unreal Engine for it if that is what you were asking, in UE it is a "static mesh", so all of the mesh tools can still be used on it including Materials and Mesh Sculpting and more. I have developed tools in TerreSculptor that allow for easier creation of TINS since the mesh tiles are properly geolocated when exported, so the entire workflow is simply drag-and-drop in Unreal. Previous workflows required manual tile placement which could take days. I am working on additional tools in TerreSculptor to allow for large TIN sized Splatmaps and more, to make the workflow rapid and easy.

The Landscape system in UE converts the heightmap into a mesh already, Nanite doesn't change that. Landscape is already a mesh, it is backed by a heightmap constructed set of DXT textures. Nanite isn't required to get the Landscape to be a mesh. Nanite is just a different rendering path for the same Landscape mesh. And converting a Landscape to Nanite doesn't make it render faster, I have performed this test already multiple times and documented it in my Nanite video. A Nanite converted Landscape typically runs slower than the non-Nanite version. I have already performed these tests before using Nanite for both systems. TIN still easily wins. The issue is that Landscape is based on a Heightmap converted into Textures with MIPs as the backing data source for a terrain mesh, and that type of terrain system cannot compete with TINs. TINs have been used for decades for Flight Simulator games and Driving games, it is used because it is smaller and faster than a heightmap backed terrain mesh.

Thanks. So you already have a TIN Terrain system set up that you are using? You have tested splines and foliage and they work on the TIN terrain as well? Do you have any documentation or video for Blender showing how to make the optimized mesh TINs? I have people asking if Blender can do it. If you get a locked 60fps then your computer has VSync Enabled. Disable VSync and that should fix the frame cap. If you search for VSync and Frame Cap you should get information on how to change this setting. Usually you have a setting in your GPU Software that toggles VSync.

@@demenzunmedia 1. yes i setup TIN terrain system 2. splines and foliage working fine nd i also using procedural foliage, rocks, grass etc. its working great nd i also apply some mask on it for foliage via material it's also working 3. i use simple method to make optimized mesh it's so simple no need any documentation or tutorial for it 4. nd i already check VSync it's not enable actually i working with unreal default landscape at same time unreal default landscape giving me 260-280 FPS nd 300-400 draw call after some optimization but the TIN meshes landscape create problem on FPS nd i also pack my project because some time unreal bugs to show wrong FPS after i check but same result low FPS nd i also do lots of optimization work but still FPS problem nd last i also try on nanite but same result

@@demenzunmedia 1. yes i setup TIN terrain system 2. splines and foliage working fine nd i also using procedural foliage, rocks, grass etc. its working great nd i also apply some mask on it for foliage via material it's also working 3. i use simple method to make optimized mesh it's so simple no need any documentation or tutorial for it 4. nd i already check VSync it's not enable actually i working with unreal default landscape at same time unreal default landscape giving me 260-280 FPS nd 300-400 draw call after some optimization but the TIN meshes landscape create problem on FPS nd i also pack my project because some time unreal bugs to show wrong FPS after i check but same result low FPS nd i also do lots of optimization work but still FPS problem nd last i also try on nanite but same result

so finally i decided i use unreal default landscape system but some scaling method nd it's working fine TIN method is also good but most of the things was take so much time nd for only landscape u change lots of things of ur project but the landscape scaling method was work great for me i made 8kmX8km map nd Unreal gave me 300+fps nd only 120-140 draw call now I'm happy nd thanks to u u try on a new method this was great hope in future or after lots of more research so keep it up i follow u for ur new achievement on TIN mesh method but still I'm using scaling method for my game because of time issue

@@shahmaarbaba - Good luck with your game. I hope that you have success with it. Landscape is in many ways easy to use simply because Epic has added a lot of features to make it easy. If your Landscape is scaled XY larger than 100 cm per vertex then the detail will drop accordingly, so I never scale it as it looks worse. Regarding your 60 fps maximum lock, that has to be something on your specific computer setup, I am easily getting 200 fps on a 16km x 16km TIN terrain on my computer.

I do plan on taking a look at Blender and Maya and other 3D software to see if they can actually create TINs. It requires that the inner triangles of the mesh plane be optimized by standard high quality decimation, but the edges/borders have to remain as fully triangulated regions, otherwise the result is cracks and holes along the mesh tile seams. This is called "Protected" or "Excluded" Borders/Edges in Max Pro Optimizer. I show some screenshots in my earlier videos on this series. The Pro Optimizer in Max is really nice. It's one of the reasons why I pay for it. But I plan on looking into other software because not everyone uses Max. The issue is that most optimizers/decimators, even the Epic Unreal Engine HLOD system, are full mesh decimation, so they have unusable results with huge cracks. The HLOD system in UE is just terrible. Also, if other 3D software like Blender allow for decimating a "triangle selection" of a mesh grid plane, then it might be possible to just select all triangles except the outer edges, and decimate the inner area.

@@demenzunmedia I've tried decimating terrains in Blender 2.8 and now in 4.2 with the Decimate modifier. But it introduces shading issues (kind of thin triangles in odd angles here and there I guess). This problem occurs very sparsely if you do 50% reduction, but it grows when you use bigger reductions. I wasn't able to do the amount of reduction you were doing in your videos without plenty of visible problems...

@@peacesells2847 - That isn't good news. I was hoping that Blender worked for this. You really need decimation down to at least 98% reduction for the lowest LOD resolution. The Pro Optimizer in Max creates very clean decimated meshes with good triangle layouts. If you look at the mesh in wireframe view it is very clean and well laid out. I haven't had any triangle or lighting issues and I have created a lot of TIN setups already. I wonder if Maya has a good decimator. What I will probably do is offer a TIN Creation Service, using my Max Pro Optimizer. For terrains that are 16x16 1k meshes, the OBJ Batch optimization only takes about 3 hours, so I could do it for a few hundred dollars per tile set. I would have to charge more though if I have to also create the OBJ geolocated tiles. But before I get to that point, I want to continue my work on seeing how all of the Unreal Engine sub-systems work with static mesh TIN Terrains. So far I have tested Collision, Nanite, WP Streaming, AutoMaterials, Vertex Sculpt, and others have tested Foliage and Procedurals which I will be doing as well. I will have another video with a bunch more tests of various engine systems shortly.

@@demenzunmedia from what I have read TINs are a special kind of mesh optimization, not just a decimation/reduction you may want to look at Houdini's remeshing and polyreduction tools if you want I can do some tests to see what the results are

@@_goldfarb_ - Yes, that is correct, I have been involved with this technique for years in previous game development, I am trying it now on UE5 to see how successful it is there. :) The actual optimization method used for TINs is called "Delauney Triangulation". The SubDivide Modifier in Max 2021+ can do that format, but I am using the Pro Optimizer instead which is a similar triangulation system, simply because Max includes a Batch Pro Optimizer feature, so that I can batch optimize a set of files using automation. I really don't want to manually edit 256 to 4096 mesh files individually. :) Autodesk doesn't seem to have the technique that the Pro Optimizer uses published anywhere that I could find. So the Max Batch Optimizer does a job that creates "close-enough-to-actual-TINs" that are good enough for game use, and makes it easy to run automated. The main point with creating TINs is that the resulting optimization or decimation technique cannot create thin long triangles or the mesh will not correctly render and light. Apparently the Blender Decimator does that mistake, and the results won't work. If Houdini can do actual Delauney Triangulation, and if it can batch prepare a set of mesh tiles, that would be awesome. If you are willing to spend the time to check this out, I would be grateful as I would be able to inform people that they can also use Houdini for this task if it supports that type of decimation, and batch conversion. We could also compare the resulting decimated meshes between Houdini and Max to see which has better vertex layout and better optimization level.

Link to the original Project file and a Packaged file is in the video description. It's on a Google Drive. This isn't a plugin or script, this is a technique for creating TIN terrains in Unreal Engine, so GitHub won't be used. I show complete workflow steps in my previous videos on this.

⁠@@demenzunmediathanks a lot, I will download the files and follow your steps in the videos 👍🏻🙏🏻😀

@@TsingYiTube - You are welcome. This is Part 5 of the video series on TIN Terrains, so you might want to watch Parts 1 through 4 as I cover what tests I have done and what the entire workflow is from terrain download, to heightmap resizing, to exporting mesh geolocated tiles, to decimating the TIN meshes, to importing into Unreal Engine. Note that I have developed some of the tools for this workflow in my TerreSculptor 3 software, these workflow steps may not be available in other terrain software. Also, I don't currently know if Blender or Maya can decimate proper TINs, I used Autodesk Max for that step. I plan on looking into other 3D software next. The really great thing with this system is that it can create massive terrains, and the system requirements are much lower than using the existing Landscape system. I am still working on this TIN technique though, so I still have to explore further optimizations like TIN Decimation Percent, Mesh Tile Distance Culling, Material systems, Physical Materials, Mesh Painting, and more. I will be creating new parts to this video series as I get further along with the TIN design system.

@@demenzunmediaI am interested in mesh tile terrain too, but I wonder if it support CDLOD, dynamic loading/unloading of meshes on terrain?

@@TsingYiTube - LOD: When you create the TIN meshes using the Max Pro Optimizer, you can specify multiple decimation levels. So for example, you can have it automatically batch-create a set of TIN meshes that are 65% decimated for LOD0 and 95% decimated for LOD1, and use LOD0 for 0 to 2km view distance and LOD1 for 2km to infinity view distance. The Max Pro Optimizer actually supports creating of up to 9 LOD Levels for each mesh. This is really easy to do. I do plan on testing TIN LODs with Unreal Engine 5, the only real hassle is that UE5 no longer supports the "_LOD" mesh name for auto loading of LOD sets, so what I have to do is re-load every pair of LODs back into Max and place them into an LOD Group, and then export that as an FBX. A real hassle for 256+ meshes. So what I might have to do is look for an existing UE5 Plugin that supports LOD0/LOD1 mesh naming, or write my own plugin for importing mesh groups that have "_LOD" mesh naming suffixes. Dynamic Loading: The World Partition cell system in Unreal Engine supports dynamic mesh loading and unloading. Also, the Culling Volume should be able to perform Distance Culling of the mesh tiles for less memory and better performance. I am going to play with World Partition cells for dynamic loading, and the Cull Volumes next, to see what type of further optimizations I can get on this TIN terrain. I will be posting that into my next videos in this series. If you are using other game engines besides Unreal Engine, then you would have to research what they have for features like this.

You are welcome. There is now a Nanite build of the 64km Project on the Google Drive if you were interested in testing that. I still have a lot of further tests and design ideas with the TIN-based system. I will be testing Partitioning, Streaming, Culling and other options, plus I want to see how it fares with foliage on it. I also want to do a good comparison of memory impact for TIN versus standard Landscape at 16km size. A lot of people with 8GB GPUs cannot create 16k Landscapes as they run out of GPU memory. But TINs should be able to be done easily, the entire 64km x 64km TIN setup static mesh memory size in UE5 was only 4GB, so 16km x 16km as TINs should have a memory footprint of only 1/16th that or 256MB, which is great. I put a few additional computer system benchmarks on my Discord server in the TerreSculptor channel for anyone who wants to keep up with the development notes there.

@@demenzunmedia Thanks a lot, I'll follow this closely

I don't follow exactly what you are asking. Sorry. Are you asking if this TIN system is the same performance as World Partition Landscape? Yes it is. And this TIN system can create much larger terrains. Or if you are asking whether this TIN system will work with World Partition system for streaming and partitioning, I have yet to fully test the TIN system to see how I can get it to work with World Partition, Mesh Streaming, and other features. This TIN testing is pre-alpha and I have a lot of testing still to do. Or if you are asking whether Non--Nanite versus Nanite are the same performance, I just uploaded a Nanite version of the 64km TIN system to my Google drive, link in the video description, which will actually play on systems with 4GB and 6GB GPUs.

@@demenzunmedia Thank you, reason I asked was that I created a huge heightmap in gaia, tiled it and imported in directly into ue5, with fairly varying results, at 8gb of ram on my gpu I was hitting memory limits constantly. I couldn't really get it to perform. At that time nanite was not available to use on landscape. Only meshes. I would love to see some "apples to apples" comparisons.

Oh and to actually aswer your question it would be tin system vs directly importing the heigtmap into ue5 with world partition. Through the landscape tool, import from file, using heightmap file.. and so forth

@@mojiitek - What size was your Gaea heightmap? An 8GB GPU is really limited to only around 4k Landscapes in UE. 8k is pushing it. And 16k heightmaps will usually fail. I did some tests earlier which I documented on my prior videos on this Mesh Terrain system, where I was using a standard static mesh that was full vertex count (NOT a TIN), and the static mesh terrain performed just as well as the Landscape did, both Nanite and non-Nanite. So right now I am making a 16k TIN terrain that I am going to compare to a 16k Landscape, I should have it completed in a day or two. I will release a video on that, plus I will put the project and meshes onto my Google Drive. I am expecting the 16k TIN terrain to easily beat the Landscape, since it is optimized meshes, and the Static Mesh Memory Load for the TIN terrain will only be about 512MB, significantly less than a 16k Landscape, so it should work well even on 4GB GPUs.

@@mojiitek - OK, I understand now. The TIN terrain versus a regular Landscape Heightmap system. As mentioned in my other reply, I did do comparisons of just regular static meshes versus Landscape, and static meshes were just as good and just as performant as Landscape. So I fully expect the TIN terrain system to beat Landscape both for performance and for memory use. The memory pool requirement for TINs is really low.

Sounds great, thanks. I will be testing this packaged build on my other computers here and posting the results on my Discord. The TIN Terrain system that I am working with here is only in pre-alpha test state. I have been working in the game industry for a few decades now, and I've used TINs before, I just wanted to see if Unreal Engine could manage them well enough for a large terrain system. They should by rights out-perform Landscape, and not be limited to the small World Partition maximum Landscape size. I still have a lot more testing to do, and looking into what features the Unreal Engine can support on this type of static mesh terrain.

The systems that I am assembling and testing the mesh terrains on are: - Intel Xeon W7-2495X, ASUS W790-ACE, 512GB DDR5, RTX-3090 24GB. - AMD R9-5950X, ASUS ROG X570, 128GB DDR4, RX7800XT 16GB. - Intel i3-12100, ASUS TUF B660, 16GB DDR4, GTX-1650 4GB. Once I get the workflow going smoothly and have initial tests of the TINs working, then I will also test on my other computers that I have here which are various systems with a variety of processors and GPUs. If this 64km x 64km TIN test works good, I will also make that project available to people to download from my Google Drive.

Collision works, this is just standard static meshes. You can build an entire terrain with static meshes.

@@demenzunmedia but how to apply material on it custom landscape material

@shahmaarbaba - You apply materials to the static mesh sections the exact same way that you apply materials to any static mesh. If you have 64 static mesh sections then you would create a Master Material and 64 Material Instances with the individual textures in them. You can see by my videos that I completely textured the terrains, it is not difficult. It is using Static Meshes, and not the Landscape, so it doesn't use the Landscape Layer system. This is a TIN Static Mesh terrain, so it is textured and uses materials the same as any static meshes do.

@@shahmaarbaba - For example, if you had a Satellite Map Texture of the terrain region that was 16384x16384, and you were working with 64 static mesh terrain TINs, then you would split the Satellite Map texture into 64 tiles, and apply each one to each static mesh piece of the terrain.

You have many choices when texturing Static Mesh TIN terrains. You can use an Auto-Material the same as a Landscape, or you can use a Master Material with Material Instances for each terrain section, you can split a satellite map into tiles for each terrain section, etc. You should also be able to use the UE Mesh Paint but I haven't had time to test that yet.

This is just standard Static Meshes, so anything that you do with static meshes works with this. Even Landscape AutoMaterials work.

Hi. Hopefully you can follow this if your English isn't good. Ask more questions if I am not clear. Digital Elevation Models typically come in meter pixel sizes, such as 1-meter pixels, 5-meter, 30-meter, 90-meter, etc. This does not affect the heightmap pixel data itself, it just changes how the terrain mesh is rendered based on that scale. In TerreSculptor you change the Terrain Properties Spacing X,Z and Y to the actual meters values. This will then draw the terrain mesh in the correct size and aspect ratio. If you have the TerreSculptor Settings for Dimensions set to centimeters, then the Spacing X,Z would be 2000 for 20 meter data, for example. If you have heightmap data that is different meter values on the X and Z axis though, that will not be rendered correctly. I am currently separating the X and Z properties in TerreSculptor 3.0 to correctly manage heightmaps that have differing meter values on X and Z. That change will be in the next update release. Note that Y is the elevation range on TerreSculptor, and XZ are the width and length. This would also be done for example in Unreal Engine 5 using their Landscape Scale XYZ properties, you would set the Scale to the meters values based on centimeters. This would then set the terrain mesh to the correct scale. TerreSculptor 3.0 has significantly better Digital Elevation Model management and importing than 2.0 has. TerreSculptor 3.0 correctly manages heightmap scale and can automatically calculate the correct Terrain Properties Spacing X,Z and Y for you. I am also splitting the Spacing X,Z into two separate values to correctly manage digital elevation models with different X,Y sizes for the next release. TerreSculptor 3.0 has tens of thousands of new features compared to 2.0.

The short answer is that TerreSculptor 3.0 will be correctly managing different spacing values for the width and length on the next update coming out in a few days. For example, heightmaps that are 20 meter by 30 meter will be correctly scaled on the next update release. I release updates usually every one to two weeks with many new features.

The latest release of TerreSculptor 3.0 for 2024-211 now has support for different X and Z axis Spacing. It will support heightmaps that are for example 20 meters on one axis and 30 meters on the other axis. TerreSculptor 3.0 is on sale until August 7th.

Landscape Heightmaps are converted to RG 16-bit Textures with full MIPs, which means that they still require a large amount of memory for all of the MIPs from 512x512 down to 2x2 per Component. Epic just does a good job of streaming the texture data into GPU Dedicated and Shared memory, whereas they don't do the same things with mesh data streaming. I often run into texture streaming pool size errors when working with 16km and larger size Landscapes, so the heightmap texture size is quite large. Just the texture streaming is managed differently and much better than mesh streaming. I can see in the Unreal editor that my Nanite meshes have really good compression of the data, the top-view of the terrain mesh tiles shows the deconstruction really well. I should show some Nanite data screenshots in the videos, maybe the next one, it will probably help to visualize what is going on. Nanite will still use compressed data when in memory, my understanding is that it decimates the mesh down to no more than one triangle per pixel. So this will effectively "LOD" the mesh in the distance so that it is lower resolution and no more than one triangle per pixel in screen-space. And the framerate that I am getting for the 16km x 16km 1-meter mesh tile terrain is better than what I get for Landscape, so it is rendering really fast as Nanite, especially since I am pushing huge numbers of triangles. I don't think it is a Nanite streaming or resolution issue though, I think that Epic just preloads too much Nanite data into GPU Dedicated memory. It needs better memory streaming to Shared and System memory. The issue that I am running into with the Nanite is the same thing that I have with the Epic Nanite Demos, it just runs out of GPU Dedicated Memory on 4GB and 6GB video cards. Which I want to avoid, as the most common GPU right now according to the Steam Hardware Survey is 4GB/6GB sizes. So while this Mesh Tile Terrain is a usable technology and technique, I want to improve it for lower-end hardware. So after my 64km x 64km test that I am working on now, I am going to try using Mesh TINs instead and see how Nanite works with those. I should be able to reduce triangle counts in the center of the tiles by at least 10 times, which will reduce the mesh memory footprint significantly for larger terrains, with very little change to visual look.

@@demenzunmedia That's good to know. On the frame-rate side, I remember doing some comparisons too in the past (UE 5.1) and I noticed that meshes bigger than about 250 m (25000 cm or unreal units) don't go into the "Lumen Scene" and thus are ignored by Lumen as I understand. You can check this by changing your viewport from "Lit" to "Lumen Scene". I suppose this heavily contributes to the difference in performance, because Landscape components do go into the Lumen Scene...

@@peacesells2847 - Thanks. I will have to check that. However, what I am doing is splitting the terrain mesh into tiles that are about the same size as World Partition Components which are 511x511 / 1021x1021. My tests so far have been 1024 and 2048 size tiles. The reason why I am splitting the mesh terrain into those smaller tile sizes is for better frustum culling and render management, even though they are contributing to a higher mesh draw call number. I will check the Lumen Scene though and see what it shows. I can easily change the size of the mesh tiles to any value that I want, since TerreSculptor supports exporting up to 1,000,000 tiles per terrain (1000 tiles X by 1000 tiles Y). So additional optimization tests could also be performed to determine what tile size is the most performant and optimal for any given terrain size. I have been testing with larger tile sizes such as 1k and 2k at this time simply because going with smaller 256 and 512 tile sizes rapidly increases the number of meshes that I have to import and place into the scene, especially for 16km and 64km terrains. But that tile number and size can easily be adjusted for each project, it just depends on how much work you want to do assembling the mesh terrain. :)

Also, with regards to mesh tile assembling, I designed the Mesh Tile Export in TerreSculptor so that the Origin of each Mesh Tile is correctly at 0,0. So even though you may have a large number of mesh tiles to work with, they are as easy as dragging them all to the viewport and they automatically correctly position themselves relatively in the world. So each tile is correctly offset on its location with respect to the origin, for its placement. If I am making sense. As you drag and drop the meshes into the scene, they are correctly positioned. The biggest time spent is waiting for UE5 to import all of the meshes. When I am working with high mesh tile counts, the editor will run out of memory and crash, so it seems like there is a memory leak with the OBJ mesh importer. My workstation has 512GB of memory, and it will consume all of that just like a memory leak, so I end up having to restart the UE5 editor over and over between batch imports of 16 or so meshes. So frustrating. This needs to be fixed.

I also see a lot of people using World Partition, who will change the Scale XY to massive values like 1000+, on a 2017x2017 heightmap, in order to get larger terrains. RUclips is filled with videos of people putting up click-bait that claims to create terrains up to 1000km x 1000km, but they are simply using a 1k or 2k heightmap at really large Scales. So if Lumen is limited to smaller mesh sizes, those massive components on the World Partition mesh will now be too large.

For these mesh tile terrain tests I am using real earth Digital Elevation Model data, downloading that is fast on my fiber internet connection. TerreSculptor has a built-in tool for downloading earth data called Mapper. And the satellite maps for the textures are also downloaded right in TerreSculptor using the Topography Explorer, which can download satellite data, street view, and topo maps.

Thanks. It is fun to see just what I can accomplish with the software. Next is a 64km x 64km test. I just finished tiling out the meshes, now to import them into UE5 and then build the terrain. I'm hoping that my RX7800XT 16GB and RTX3090 24GB GPU systems can load a Nanite terrain of that size.

since i have 20gb ram. i use a 128gb SSD as ram swap/pagefile. it also solves most UE5 memory issues.

@@upc9887 - Unfortunately that won't help with GPU memory. GPU's can only use Dedicated and Shared memory, they cannot use Virtual Memory. I don't usually run into memory issues myself since my main UE5 editing system has 512GB of RAM and a 24GB GPU. :)

Thanks. This is a fully 100% Static Mesh Tile Terrain system. It is not using Landscape. This Mesh-based terrain system easily out-performs Landscape. I am using the features in TerreSculptor 3.0 to create a tiled OBJ format 100% Static Mesh terrain, with texturing. TerreSculptor's new features make this very easy to do. FYI I just completed initial tests of the 16km x 16km 1-meter-vertex-spacing mesh tile terrain, and I am getting 150+ FPS on my R9/RTX-3080. That video is coming up next, as soon as I complete the texturing. Followed by a 300km x 300km mesh tile terrain system. I am also going to look into creating a TIN Mesh system from these Mesh Tiles, for ultimate performance. Just to emphasize, this is NOT using the UE Landscape system. It is 100% Static Mesh.

@@demenzunmedia Great to hear that! Cheers!

@@demenzunmedia So I guess the TIN mesh would be expected to perform better due to the lower triangle count... It will be interesting to see the results! I guess the downside of using static meshes instead of Unreal's Landscapes would be the absence of the editing tools like Landscape splines, layers, foliage, etc... Looking forward to see the results!

@@peacesells2847 - Yes, the TIN optimized mesh can have a 10:1 to 100:1 or more reduction in triangle count depending on how optimized it is. TINs are used in almost all open world racing games and flight simulators. I'm going to see if I can do a mesh grid center selection and turbo optimize in Adesk Max, and if it can do it, I will try out a TIN mesh terrain as well. I'm not expecting higher framerates, I am expecting a significant decrease in GPU resources and project file size due to the much smaller optimized mesh assets. So 4GB GPUs would be able to load up a lot more scene assets with the TIN meshes, for a much greater view distance etc. The UE5 Landscape actor simply cannot compete at all with TINs. Yes, you lose the Landscape editor tools that Epic has developed for the Landscape system, such as Edit Layers, terrain sculpting, etc. AFAIK you can still use Splines with Meshes, but I haven't tried them for mesh deformation. And multiple foliage systems should still work fine with mesh terrains. With a mesh terrain system, you end up having to effectively create the final terrain before importing the assets into UnrealEd. I am going to see what I can do with Material Systems for mesh-based terrains once I have a better understanding of what I can and cannot do for terrain size. The biggest advantage to the Mesh Terrain system is that I should be able to easily go up to 300km x 300km and larger, whereas World Partition is limited to 16km x 16km with Edit Layers enabled. And the updated tools in TerreSculptor for Mesh Terrain creation really allow for easy asset development. TerreSculptor also has complete high quality "alpha brush" stamping tools built in, so that eliminates that feature in UE5 Landscape as well.

@@demenzunmedia Thanks a lot for the rich response!

It looks similar but isn't Google Earth. TerreSculptor 3.0 has the ability to download and use Earth Heightmaps (DEMs), Earth Satellite Maps, Earth Topography Maps, and Earth Street Maps. All of the assets are completely sourced within TerreSculptor and open license. The Satellite Map texture was downloaded right in TerreSculptor, split into tiles using the TerreSculptor Tile Creator, and rendered using standard UE Texture Materials.

will it work with 8gb vram?

@@upc9887 - Definitely yes. The performance results that you see in this video for the i3/GTX1650 system, the GTX1650 only has 4GB GPU memory, and at 1920x1080 it gets over 50FPS on that low-end card. I will be doing performance tests on the same systems with the 16km x 16km mesh tile terrain in the next few days, and I will be releasing a video on that as well. So I will then be able to see how well a low-end 4GB GPU memory card works with a 16k mesh tile terrain. I will be testing the 16km terrain system with more systems here, to get a better idea of total performance on multiple computer hardware levels.

@@demenzunmedia i hope i can create 200km terrain with 8gb vram because with normal landscape it uses more than 10gb of vram and crashes

@@upc9887 - Watch my channel over the coming days for my next videos on a 16km and a 300km mesh tile terrain system. I will have development and performance information on multiple computer systems with 4GB to 24GB GPUs. I am fully expecting the mesh tile terrain system to outperform the standard UE Landscape system. As I get further into the mesh tile system, I will be releasing videos on material setups and more. I would also like to get into a workflow for TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network) mesh tiles, which will easily beat UE's Landscape.

1. In UE5 World Partition the Landscape is using the standard texture MIPS Distance-based LOD mesh system, but Components beyond the view distance (which is relatively short in meters) are only rendered when using HLOD meshes that you have to manually create, otherwise the terrain just stops rendering Components beyond the view distance. The HLOD build system is a real memory drain though and wants many GBs of memory, and simply takes way too long. You can also simply set all LandscapeStreamingProxies Spatially Loaded settings if you want to see the entire landscape rendered, but that typically kills framerate, although that is the easiest way for Viz work if you are doing that. 2. Whether you choose original Landscape plus HLODs versus Nanite Landscape depends entirely on your level design. Nanite Landscape by itself in the scene renders typically 10% to 20% SLOWER than original Landscape plus HLODs. Nanite only gives benefits if the total number of mesh triangles are typically "around" 200k to 400k minimum in the scene frustum. So if you are also using Nanite foliage, then you may see a render performance improvement going with all Nanite on everything. If you are making a dune world (no foliage) with a few large rock meshes and some scifi sand buildings, then you may actually see a performance drop or no net benefit by going with Nanite Landscape. The only way to tell is to profile each setup, and if you choose to test both, I strongly recommend making a copy of the project for the Nanite changes. I also found Nanite to perform really badly on lower end systems, for example, the Steam Hardware Survey most common system tanks on Nanite Landscape with typically 2FPS on a 4k or 8k terrain (4C/6C 16GB GTX1060/GTX1650). So make sure you have systems there to test on at the level that you are supporting for your game development.

Something that you may be interested in if you are working with large landscapes 16km and larger, is that I have been testing out mesh-based terrain systems with UE5, and that is looking promising. As of today I have only tested smaller terrains, and the rendering was great. I am currently working on a massive terrain system that is 300km x 300km all completely mesh-based, and I will be posting a video with the results on it in a few days. Currently it has taken UE5.4 more than twenty hours to import the meshes on my Xeon 24-Core 512GB RTX3090 workstation. I have to batch load since UE5 wants more than 2TB of memory to do all 256 files in a single import. If this test is successful, it opens the path for such things as TIN mesh terrain setups with UE5, which should outperform even Nanite. The first video on the Mesh Terrain is already on my channel.

@@demenzunmedia Great info and appreciate your insight and invaluable research as i've only recently hopped on to 5.4 from 4.26 development. As you've stated, it's probably going to take me a good amount of testing to provide the best solution for my 16km map and traditionally i'm used to generating landscape LOD's, exporting and even further modifying to eliminate seams during world comp streaming. On paper Landscape + HLODS from LOD Distribution makes the most sense in terms of translating approaches from 4.26 to 5.4 but might not be necessary as I do load only certain regions for various scenarios/levels as you will in the large map. I'll definitely follow your advice and now know what to look for in profiling. Appreciate your quick response!

@@jasonk7984 - If you are jumping from UE4 World Composition to UE5 World Partition, keep in mind that WP does not use tiled import like WC does. WP has a set number of heightmap resolutions determined by the 511x511 Component Size. For example, the 16k size is 16321x16321. If you use WC tile sizes you end up with a padded stretched edge terrain in WP. WP is also limited to a maximum of 32k with Edit Layers off. WC can easily create terrains much larger than that, I have created WC terrains up to 260km x 260km. Also, since it is a single heightmap file import for WP, the memory requirements are higher. A 16321x16321 heightmap import is going to require typically 64GB RAM and a 16GB GPU or there-abouts. Landscape plus HLODs works for most use cases, I would only go with Nanite if I also had a large amount of foliage and wanted a long view distance. Just be aware that creating HLODs for a 16k terrain can take up as much as 300GB of memory, but Virtual Memory is supported, so you might have to increase your Page File size, otherwise you will get memory crashes. You are always welcome on my Discord if you have questions that can be more easily answered there with screenshots and images.

@@demenzunmedia I'd be happy to if you can point me where (I couldnt find it in your description) There has to be a way to iteratively generate HLODS by tile, or regions, no? I have a heavy page file set and utilize 128 GB RAM along with a 4090 on my workstation.

And also. Deepest gratitude for all of your ongoing work. I don't believe I would have started learning UE if it wasn't for your software / tutorials.

If you wish to retain the real-world scale of the DEM files, the only way to get them to 4k and 8k sizes is to crop them. If you resample (resize) the DEM, then you will throw off the 1 meter spacing values, with the amount of variance directly in relation to the amount of size change. For example, if you were targeting World Composition, you could crop a 10km DEM into 2x2 of 4033x4033 tiles. Which is an 8066-1 size split into 2x2 tiles with Shared Tile Edges. If you are targeting World Partition, do not use tiles, that will result in a padded extended Landscape that is not the same size as the tiles. World Partition has zero benefit to using tiles, it isn't like World Composition. WP doesn't use less memory or have any benefit to using tiles. If tiles are used with World Partition, then they are simply immediately stitched back together by the importer, and then the next larger valid World Partition size is used with stretching on the edges. So you end up with a messed up landscape that is not totally the same as the original heightmap. So if you are using 10km DEM files and targeting World Partition, your choices are to crop the DEM to 10201 or 10711 whichever is closest to your 10km size, or crop to 8161 or 8129 if you want the old Landscape sizes. Then import the heightmap as a single file into UE5 World Partition. For example if you are working with USGS NED DEMs in GeoTIF format, which are 10012 x 10012 then you would crop them to 9691 which is the closest UE5 WP size, or alternately resample to 10201 but realize that you are now slightly off on the 1 meter size. When you import the DEM files, be sure to use the Terrain Properties GeoScale to get the correct GIS scaling, and then the Spacing XZ Y are the same values that you use in UE5 Landscape Scale XY Z.

@@elganzandere - Thank you!

@demenzunmedia apologies for my poorly worded explanation. By tiled, I meant the process you outline in Video #10 of your World Partition Series. Either that, or converting them to meshes as you highlighted in a more recent video. I've yet to test either method.

​@@elganzandere - No worries! There are too many options. :) If you are using the Landscape Add Component "Extend" process, then you can use the World Composition 4033 size sets in the TS3 Landscape Size dialog to determine your heightmap sizing. Since you are typically using 4033 tiles to extend with. Those sizes just happen to be the same for both the Extend process and for World Composition. So for example, if you had a 4x4 set of 10012x01012 USGS NED tiles that you stitched into a 40048x40048 terrain, you would look up the next smaller size in the World Composition 4033 tiles, which is 9x9 tiles of 4033x4033. Crop to that size, then split the tiles out using shared edges. And spend a few hours doing the Extend process. If you are using a single 10km heightmap, it is easier simply to import that directly into World Partition. You only need to use the Extend process if you are working with a heightmap that is larger than 32k as WP supports up to 32641x32641 maximum.

Thanks! TS3 is on sale for the month of July. The demo mode is also being extended to 10 minutes for the next release in a few days. I am also working on some additional videos for UE5 Mesh Terrains that include texturing, splatmaps, foliage, LODs, etc.

Thank you! The grass in the Example Screenshots from UE5 on the website? That is from the Epic Kite Demo. You can download that demo free from Epic. If you can't find the demo download, let me know and I will make a project with the grass for you via Google Drive.

@@demenzunmedia sweet thanks for the quick response! I mean, how is the foliage dressed to the terrain? is it procedurally scattered according to the material properties?

@@_rufcut - In my AutoMaterial I am using a Landscape Grass Type to define the grass mesh placement and in the Material I am using a Landscape Grass Output Node. I can't post screenshots here but if you would like to join my Discord I can post screenshots of the grass components if you need them.

@@demenzunmedia yeah that wd be great, what's the link to your server pls? Thanks!

@@_rufcut - I'll see if RUclips deletes this comment, they usually delete my comments with links in them... discord.gg/7P29u5GW55

Most GIS Software should have the ability to write GIS Info. Are you using TerreSculptor 3.0? Which DEM format are you using? The TerreSculptor Importers for DEM formats have buttons on them to View the Header or Projection file information or to Inspect the GeoTIFF Tags. And if the DEM file is correctly parsed, then the GIS information will be on the TerreSculptor GIS panel. If your GIS exported file does not contain Header or Projection or Tags, then it is an issue with the file that you are exporting from QGIS or whatever software you are using. TerreSculptor 3.0 supports all of the industry standard GIS files and tags. If this is what is occurring, then I would have to see the DEM file to see if it doesn't have any GIS information. I don't use ArcGIS or QGIS, perhaps there is an option to write GIS Tags that has to be enabled.

@@demenzunmedia i noticed that there is 3 options to import the geotiff, the first one is for general tif file, the second old geotiff is reading the tiff correctly but no GIS info and the new geotiff imprt function includes the GIS information, but the height variation not showing same as the second one (showing almost flat, but there are two mountains there which are showing the old geotiff import function). as per my knowledge, you may need to correct XYZ scale automatically for the second geotiff function and this is the aim for new geotiff importing function.

@@pramodgupta3105 - The TIF/GeoTIF [new] file importer is the newer LibTIF import method for TerreSculptor 3.0 that supports more TIF file formats, and is the one you should be using. If you are importing a GeoTIF file that contains tags which has spacing information, after importing the file, on the Terrain Properties panel on the right, choose the GeoScale button and select the "Set Spacing XZ Y to GIS values", this will set the terrain mesh to the source TIF elevation range and meters spacing. If the GeoTIF has no Voids then it should be scaled correctly. If the GeoTIF has Voids then it may import as a flat white region, in which case enabling Void Fill on the Import can usually fill the voids. The TIF [old] is the original TerreSculptor 2.0 Windows WIC importer for TIF images. The GeoTIF [old] is the original Windows WIC importer that manages raw TIF data such as GeoTIF but has no support for tags. These are only there for people coming from TS2.0 who want to still use those old importers for certain files. You want to preferably use the TIF/GeoTIF [new] since that is the newer LibTIF Library importer that supports more TIF features for TerreSculptor 3.0.

@@pramodgupta3105 - If you import a GeoTIF file using the GeoTIF [old] file filter, it will be normalized to full-scale on import. So it won't be correct real world scale for elevation range and meters spacing based on the TIF Tags, since GeoTIF [old] doesn't support Tags. The TIF [old] and GeoTIF [old] file filters are only there for compatibility with TerreSculptor 2.0, they normally won't be used. Same with the PNG [old], that is the original PNG file filter from TerreSculptor 2.0.

@@demenzunmedia thank you, it really helps for all.

Wut

These are standard static meshes, so the same features available to all meshes are available to these mesh tiles. You could create low-poly collision models for some tiles if you wanted, disable collision on tiles that are unreachable by players, etc. The same options as any other static mesh.

Any mesh deformation tools in UE5 will be able to deform most any mesh including a mesh terrain. So anything you can do to other meshes you can do to a mesh terrain tile. How useful the tools will be on a terrain is questionable though, you usually wouldn't warp or twist a terrain tile with a spline for example. So in most cases you would want the final terrain shape created in other third-party software. The main disadvantage would be that the Landscape specific tools would not be available. So edit layers, the landscape sculpting tools, alpha brushes, etc, would not be available. You also have to do the texturing manually, by that I mean that you have to create the material for each mesh tile. Landscape does that for you under the hood with their Landscape material system, it textures all components by using a set of Layer weightmaps -- but that is also where it is very limited, it is 1:1 heightmap pixel/vertex per weightmap pixel. Again in a comparison, technically you could use a 16k texture set with EACH terrain tile whereas the Landscape can only do a single 16k edit texture and per-vertex weightmap texture for the ENTIRE Landscape actor at 1:1. So any texturing on a mesh based terrain could be significantly higher detail and quality. It just depends on how much work you want to put into it. The UE5 Landscape tools make many things easy, but they are very limiting when you dig deep into it. For example I have created Splatmap Materials for Landscape at 2x standard resolution, for example a 4033 Landscape with an 8192 splatmap texture, and the detail is 200% greater detail than what you can do with the regular Landscape material painting system. On the regular Landscape material system, the finest detail that you can paint is 1 vertex, that is why with a 1 meter scale Landscape you see large 1 meter blocks of texturing weightmap pixels. Ever notice how a path at an angle has the blocky sides? With a mesh terrain you can go much higher resolution to the texturing weightmaps. That said, as mentioned, a lot of games use mesh-based terrains, especially if they are using TINs to greatly reduce the triangle count for large open world systems. The Landscape's heightmap-based system simply can't compete with that.

@@demenzunmedia thank you for the detailed reply. I am very interested in massive terrain generation that maintains very high detail and have found the limitations in UE5 bothersome in achieving my desired results. I've been following your TerraSculptor videos for some time with great interest in the results that can be achieved with it.

@@MichaelMoellerTRLInc - You are welcome. I find the UE5 World Partition system frustrating myself. UE5 requires a computer with 128GB and an RTX-3090 24GB just to be able to import a 32k x 32k heightmap. I did an HLOD Build for a 16k Landscape and it required 350GB of memory! They simply don't write code for average hardware. A computer with 128GB+24GB can work on a 256k x 256k or larger heightmap in TerreSculptor! My next video that I am working on is a Terrain Optimization and Performance video. I will be making a lot of different terrain systems and comparing them on systems as low as a Dual-core 16GB GTX-1650, to see what performs best. I plan on having Heightmap-based Landscape versus Mesh-based Terrain tests also in the comparisons. I would also like to do a video on a high quality texturing workflow for the Mesh Terrain system. I have to spend some time working on this to see what all of the options are, and what techniques work best with UE5. I may develop some custom pipeline tools in TerreSculptor for it.

@@demenzunmedia oh that's fantastic. I can't wait to see what you develop. I do have a 13 gen system with 128GB and a 4090 24GB with 24 terabytes of storage. I knew I would need a horse to try and pull off a map of SE Asia at 1m resolution.

@@MichaelMoellerTRLInc - A computer with 128GB+24GB will just barely manage 32641 x 32641 in World Partition with Edit Layers off. Any heightmap size larger uses up all memory both CPU and GPU and just crashes UE5 with a memory allocation error. I have yet to see what the maximum Mesh-based Terrain will be, but the source heightmap in floating-point can be up to 180,000 x 180,000 or so, and more with Virtual Memory. So a Mesh Terrain of around 200km x 200km at 1 meter should be easily doable on 128GB+24GB. I want to do some Nanite tests with a large Mesh Terrain as well and see what the memory and performance impacts are. I bought an Intel Xeon W7-2495X 24-Core, ASUS W790-ACE, 512GB DDR5, RTX-3090 24GB in order to have enough memory to work with UE5. It's a real hog.

There are many benefits, but think of it more as an option to consider rather than a replacement. Which choice you make depends on your game design. A few benefits are: A static mesh terrain system can easily be created with a lower-end computer system (UE5 Landscape is a memory and resource hog especially when getting up to 8k and 16k sizes, creating HLODs, etc). A static mesh terrain system doesn't have the size limits that the current World Partition Landscape has for maximum size (WP max 16k). You can optimize the mesh tiles into TIN's for such game designs as large open world driving and flight simulator game (those types of games almost always use TINs and not heightmaps). You get control over such things as tile size (World Partition Components are fixed at 511x511). A mesh based terrain system typically renders faster and is lighter weight in memory consumption than the Landscape system is. You do lose the in-engine Landscape editing features though. So I am only presenting this as an option for people to utilize. TS3 now fully supports this type of pipeline, which is why I made the video. I do have a Discord. YT usually deletes my comments with links so go to the Demenzun website, scroll to the page bottom links area and click on Contact or Support to get the Discord Server link.

You are welcome! My next UE5 video is on Terrain Performance and will have a Landscape versus Mesh comparison.

This method will still work for 5.4. However I heard that 5.4 supposedly has additional large terrain abilities, but I can't find anything on that on the Epic 5.4 Release Notes or anywhere, and I looked long and hard, so I think people are just making stuff up or confusing features. The only new feature I can find in a search is Large World Coordinates which is something entirely different. Epic's Landscape documentation still classifies 8129x8129 as a "Large" Landscape. I am going to do a large import test on my workstation with 512GB and see if UE5.4 is still limited to 32k on World Partition. I am currently working on a few new Unreal Engine videos including 5.4 New Terrain Features, and Creating Terrains using Tile Static Meshes, plus Benchmarking Terrain Designs. I should have those videos starting to come out this week, they will mostly be live unscripted videos.

I just tested UE5.4, it still crashes trying to import anything larger than 32k on World Partition. So no changes were made to the terrain system that I can find other than some UI updates and changes to the World Partition interface. And I'm using a Workstation with 512GB of memory so that isn't the issue.

@@demenzunmedia would i run into the 32k limitation with this 'section-stamp' approach - or solely tiled / single heightmap import ? also - do you have any experience with OpenTopography ? a lot of the 1m landscape sections i'm looking to download are locked behind a paywall. i'm not against paying the fee, though it's only valid for ~3 months at this point. lastly, did the OpenMaps / Canada repository change recently? i cannot find any 16-bit .png files any longer. swear i was able to acquire them, several months ago. edit - one more thing. what's your recommendation in regards to 'filling voids' in heightmaps?

@@elganzandere - The 32641x32641 maximum size is only on the Landscape heightmap importer. If the Landscape Import Edit Layers option is enabled, then the maximum heightmap size is actually 16321x16321. I know of people who have used this extend/stamp method and created terrains that were almost 90km x 90km at 1 meter scale. It took them a couple of days but they did it successfully. I don't know what the maximum limit is with it though as I have never tried to do that method with anything really massive since it takes days to do it. I'm familiar with OpenTopography but I refuse to use paywall services, and many of the higher resolution DEMs worldwide are paywalled. I have always used DEMs from free sites like the USGS NED 1-meter FTP (although 40% of the DEMs have Voids). I normally use the Mapper Explorer in TerreSculptor to get DEMs as it is quick and good resolution at 3 to 5 meter. I have also been maintaining a list of free DEM Sites in TerreSculptor which includes the web address and resolution and location. The last time I went to the Canada DEM site I could no longer find any DEM downloads, I don't know if they are restructuring the site or if they just moved or removed the data from public access. Void Filling can be a pain, as it will never replace the missing data unless you use low-resolution Proxy Fill. Depending on what software you are using, GDAL has a Fill that is passable but only good on small regions. TerreSculptor 3.0 has a number of Void Fills that can usually fix up most DEMs with Voids. The Fill Holes and Linear Interp algorithms work the best in TS3.

@@elganzandere - And Filling Voids is an option on every DEM Importer dialog in TS3, so it makes it easy to fix up the heightmap on import. Often though you might want to import multiple times trying different Void Fill algorithms to see which gives the best results. Fill Holes works the best for small holes, but Linear Interp can fill large regions with something passable for use. TS3 does have a Proxy Fill as well, but that means finding a 5-meter or 10-meter tile that is exactly the same location as the 1 meter data, to be able to use the lower-resolution heights as a void fill.

The website works fine. Go to www.demenzunmedia.com If you are going to some other sub-page link from someone else's site that someone made, that page address could have changed and they should not have linked sub-site pages. TerreSculptor 2.0 is totally free to use, and gives a good idea on the use of the software. TerreSculptor 3.0 runs in a demo if you don't enter in a license key. 3.0 includes about 5000 new features. TerreSculptor is also less than half the price of all of the competitors, and doesn't have their limitations of small terrain sizes.