Intermediate Landscape Design in UE5

Name: Intermediate Landscape Design in UE5
Author: Ken Geary

Create landscape materials, floating actors and World Partitions

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Course: On-Demand

Hello. Welcome to this lesson in Unreal Engine. In this lesson, we will learn how to create landscapes and landscape layered materials in Unreal Engine. First, create a new project. We'll select "Games", the "Blank" template and make sure you select "Starter Content", make sure that's checked on. We will need the extra content for this lesson. Search for the folder you wanna save your project into. And we'll name this project "Intermediate" and we'll be using this project for the remainder of the course. Click "Create". Create a "New Level". We'll make this level "Basic", this way we could include the lighting. We'll delete this floor object. We'll save this level, "Save Current Level As", navigate to your content folder, right-click, create a new folder, name it "Maps", and we'll call this level "Landscape". Before we create the landscape, we'll first build a custom landscape material that'll allow us to paint details such as rocks and grass, using layers. Create a new folder in the Content Directory and name it "Materials". Open that folder up, create another new folder. Name that "Landscape". Open the "Landscape" folder, right-click and create a new material. We're gonna name this "M_Landscape". The M designation's for materials and it's a standard formatting for naming materials and other things in Unreal Engine. Double click the material, to open up in the Material Editor. Notice Material Editor has its own Content Drawer. For our landscape example, let's search for sand and drag the "T_Rock_Sandstone" diffuse and normal map, into the material graph. So open the Content Drawer. I'll go to Starter Content. I'll search for "sand" and there's the "T_Rock_Sandstone". I'm gonna drag in the diffuse texture, as well as the normal map texture. And I'll just organize those a little bit. Now we want a grass texture. So we're gonna search for "grass". And I'll drag in a grass diffuse texture and the grass normal map. I'm gonna keep them all grouped together, sort of a category they're in. So it's easy to recognize them. Next we wanna blend these all together and to do that, there's a special layer blend, called the "LandscapeLayerBlend". You're gonna right-click, search for "landscape" and select "LandscapeLayerBlend". At the moment, the layer blend has no nodes and no layers assigned yet. We need to add some layers to this. To do that, in the Details panel, click the plus next to Layers, to add an element. And we'll click it a second time for our two layers. To rename them, twirl open, go to the Layer Name. By naming the layers, they can be identified in the Landscape Editor. We'll name this layer "SandStone". I'll scroll down, open the other layer and rename this "Grass". Notice now on Layer Blend, the layers are named. But we need two groups of Layer Blends, so we're going to select it. We're gonna select the Layer Blend node. We're gonna hit "Control+D", duplicate. And by the way, in Unreal Engine 5, that's an updated function. Now we're gonna wire our diffuse into the top Layer Blend. That's my diffuse sand, my diffuse grass and the output of that blend, will go into our base color. And now we'll take the normals and we'll wire those into the bottom blend. And then we'll take the normal out, the normal channel. Because it's landscape, we don't want it shiny. So let's fix that by hitting one, clicking in the graph, that'll give us a scalar one node. We'll drag that into the Roughness and in the Details, we'll change the Value to one. Now click "Save" and exit the Landscape Editor. Now we'll create our landscape. So in our modes menu, we'll go to the Landscape menu. We want to "Enable Edit Layers". We also wanna edit material, well, the material we just made, this is in our Content Drawer. Go to Content. You might need to cross out the search. Go to "Materials" folder, "Landscapes" folder, and here's our "M_Landscape". So now click "Create". Once your landscape is created, you will now be in the Sculpting tab. In the view port, add a Cube. We use this as a reference point. We'll go to Bookmarks, Set Bookmark, Bookmark 1. This will be our close-up bookmark. We'll scroll out using the scroll wheel. We'll come out a ways, so we can see most of the landscape. Go to Bookmarks, Set Bookmark, Bookmark 2. So now one gets us close, two gets us far away. Open the Paint tab and under each material layer, click plus and select Weigh Blended Layer. Click "Save". Then under the grass, same thing, click plus, Weigh Blended Layer and click "Save". Now by default, the landscape's gonna be painted with the sandstone layer, being that's the top layer. So I select grass, I could actually start painting in the grass layer. I'll hit one, to go to my bookmark, get in closer and I can paint in grass. If your brush is too big, you can change it, by changing brush size here, or you can hit the bracket keys. The bracket keys are located next to the P key on the keyboard. Left bracket makes it smaller and right bracket makes it bigger. If I wanna go back to my sandstone layer, I can draw on paths, different areas for my sandstone and grass. Now click the Sculpting tab or Sculpt tab. There are several sculpting brush types and functions. We could click and drag with left-mouse brush. This will start adding detail to our landscape. I'm gonna make the brush larger, by hitting the right bracket. And we'll just make some general landscape in the distance. And right here on the outer edges, I'll just try drawing some landscape. If I hit the Shift key, that'll actually remove some landscape material. Let's explore a few more brush types. The noise brush, will add some randomness to the landscape. This will give you a series of hills and valleys. The smooth brush, as its name implies, will smooth out your landscape. So using the flatten brush, and I'll make my brush a little smaller, will flatten an area out, such as a plateau. So let's save all. We'll actually go back to our Select mode and we will Save All. In the next lesson, we're gonna learn how to add Quixel Megascan assets to our landscape, in Unreal Engine. Thanks for watching.

Intermediate Provider : Ken Geary 5 Lessons · 43m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

In these lessons on Intermediate Landscape Design in Unreal Engine 5, you will work with landscape brushes and layered materials, add mixed foliage, add water effects and buoyancy and learn how to use world partitions in Unreal Engine 5.

These lessons will go further into landscape creation by first reviewing the many sculpting brushes to create detailed mountains, hills and valleys. Then you will create a custom landscape material that uses layers to blend textures such as grass and dirt.

We will also explore the new Quixel Bridge to import high resolution assets to add realistic textured rocks, as well as plants to add to the foliage editor. We’ll review water effects and utilize the new buoyancy plugin to make actors float. Finally, we’ll explore the world partition system, where assets can load and unload dynamically in your level.

What You'll Learn

Sculpt detailed mountains, hills, and valleys using landscape brushes
Create a custom landscape material that uses layers to blend textures such as grass and dirt
Import high-resolution assets with Quixel Bridge to add textured rocks and foliage plants
Add water effects and use the buoyancy plugin to make actors float
Build a floating actor using the buoyancy plugin and Blueprints
Set up a level template that utilizes the world partition system

Key Takeaways

The course goes further into landscape creation by reviewing the many sculpting brushes used to create detailed mountains, hills, and valleys.
A custom landscape material can use layers to blend textures such as grass and dirt.
The new Quixel Bridge can import high-resolution assets, including textured rocks and plants for the foliage editor.
The new buoyancy plugin can be used to make actors float in water.
The world partition system allows assets to load and unload dynamically in your level.

Frequently Asked Questions

What topics does this course cover?

It covers landscape brushes and layered materials, mixed foliage, water effects and buoyancy, and using world partitions in Unreal Engine 5, across lessons on landscape creation and sculpting brushes, working with Quixel Megascan assets, adding foliage, adding water, and using world partitions.

What are the main learning objectives?

You will learn how to create a custom landscape material, create a floating actor using the buoyancy plugin and Blueprints, and set up a level template to utilize world partitions.

What tool is used to import high-resolution assets?

The course explores the new Quixel Bridge to import high-resolution assets, adding realistic textured rocks as well as plants for the foliage editor.

What skills are associated with this course?

Associated skills include Environmental Simulations, Simscape, Unreal Blueprint, Unreal Development Kit, Unreal Engine, and Landscape Architect License.