The Biome Devices are just 1 of 3 ways to currently create Splatmaps in TerreSculptor 3.0. You can also save the current Terrain AutoMaterial weightmaps and splatmap. You can use the Biome Devices if you please. You can also use the Weightmap Devices and Splatmap Creator to really customize your splatmap layout. And a 4th way that is coming soon is the Splatmap Device for the Terrain Stack.
This is really cool. Definitely want to apply water flow areas to my landscape for an extra level of detail that my auto material doesn't cover. What is better optimization-wise, using splat maps to define all the material areas for the height map in unreal? Or is it a combined effort?
It really depends on how much effort is put into the Landscape Material, and how much work you want to do. It is possible to use a Splatmap setup with additional weightmap Layers and hand-painted Layers and even Auto-Layers. The Material just becomes more complex and requires more render time. A standard RGBA 4-Layer Splatmap or RGBAK 5-Layer Splatmap will render exceedingly fast, since it is a basic texture read for every vertex. Epic internally packs its Layer system weightmaps that are hand-painted into Splatmaps anyway, so it just depends on how many layers you want to render. The main advantage of using software like TerreSculptor is that it can create the weightmaps procedurally, so it isn't necessary to spend days hand-painting the terrain, especially to try to get the intricacy of erosion water flow, etc. You can even use just the TerreSculptor weightmaps directly on the UE Layer system, if you wish to use Epic's internal weightmap combining system. The second advantage to creating weightmaps and splatmaps in TerreSculptor, instead of using the system built into Unreal Engine, is that your Splatmap texture resolution is not limited to the Landscape size. Epic's engine Layer system IS limited to the terrain size. But with TerreSculptor you can start off with a larger heightmap that is 2x the size of your final Landscape terrain, and create a splatmap at 2x resolution. So an 8129 terrain can actually have a 16384 Splatmap, for really intricate detailing. I have a comparison video on the channel here. You cannot do that with the built-in Landscape Layer system.
@@tat2zombi - You are welcome. Note that I am currently upgrading the Biome Devices this week with the ability to choose between the current RGBA mode and the expanded RGBAK mode. Which gives you one more free splat layer. This update might make it into this weekend's public release.
The Biome Devices are just 1 of 3 ways to currently create Splatmaps in TerreSculptor 3.0.
You can also save the current Terrain AutoMaterial weightmaps and splatmap.
You can use the Biome Devices if you please.
You can also use the Weightmap Devices and Splatmap Creator to really customize your splatmap layout.
And a 4th way that is coming soon is the Splatmap Device for the Terrain Stack.
thankyou sir, your work is amazing
Loving these unscripted videos! Super helpful stuff. :)
Thanks! They are much quicker to create as well. so I will be doing more of them.
This is really cool. Definitely want to apply water flow areas to my landscape for an extra level of detail that my auto material doesn't cover. What is better optimization-wise, using splat maps to define all the material areas for the height map in unreal? Or is it a combined effort?
It really depends on how much effort is put into the Landscape Material, and how much work you want to do. It is possible to use a Splatmap setup with additional weightmap Layers and hand-painted Layers and even Auto-Layers. The Material just becomes more complex and requires more render time.
A standard RGBA 4-Layer Splatmap or RGBAK 5-Layer Splatmap will render exceedingly fast, since it is a basic texture read for every vertex.
Epic internally packs its Layer system weightmaps that are hand-painted into Splatmaps anyway, so it just depends on how many layers you want to render.
The main advantage of using software like TerreSculptor is that it can create the weightmaps procedurally, so it isn't necessary to spend days hand-painting the terrain, especially to try to get the intricacy of erosion water flow, etc.
You can even use just the TerreSculptor weightmaps directly on the UE Layer system, if you wish to use Epic's internal weightmap combining system.
The second advantage to creating weightmaps and splatmaps in TerreSculptor, instead of using the system built into Unreal Engine, is that your Splatmap texture resolution is not limited to the Landscape size. Epic's engine Layer system IS limited to the terrain size. But with TerreSculptor you can start off with a larger heightmap that is 2x the size of your final Landscape terrain, and create a splatmap at 2x resolution. So an 8129 terrain can actually have a 16384 Splatmap, for really intricate detailing. I have a comparison video on the channel here. You cannot do that with the built-in Landscape Layer system.
@@demenzunmedia This was pretty much what I had gathered. Thank you for confirming.
@@tat2zombi - You are welcome.
Note that I am currently upgrading the Biome Devices this week with the ability to choose between the current RGBA mode and the expanded RGBAK mode. Which gives you one more free splat layer. This update might make it into this weekend's public release.