Learning UE4

[Pampers]

4.4 is out, comes with the behaviour tree enabled by default along with updates. The marketplace also have a landscape module free to download

[Castle]

4.4 is out, comes with the behaviour tree enabled by default along with updates. The marketplace also have a landscape module free to download

 

Man, as soon as I am done with my GZDoom 2 map I sooo want to live and breath UE4 like a cat on a pile of dirty socks.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Castle

[Steppenwolf]

The material setup for this new landscape demo is just nuts. Wish the material system was a bit more straight forward and intuitive. Or at least if the nodes had tool tips or the demos were commented properly

[Pampers]

Haven't looked at it myself yet, but I'm guessing its full of material functions and tons of material parameters? Just try to isolate one layer and do some small changes and see what happens. They always go crazy with their shaders with 10 different parameters for changing the contrast on some of the pebbles

[2d-chris]

does the material editor not have presets for basic material types like terrain blends? even when I used UDK i had to make the basic shader graph for a terrain setup, surely this could be a preset of some kind.

[Steppenwolf]

Yes you can tweak pretty much everything in parameters. Don't really see what's the point. It's not like you will reuse that material a hundred times in the same level. The reverse engineering is pretty difficult because the material is so complex that it takes a minute to recompile after every change. That whole material setup feels like it's going a bit against the trend of making things easier for artists. I mean i've spent a couple days now already to work out a workflow from world machine to ue4 and i'm still kinda stuck at the basics inside ue4. I don't remember exactly but how long did it take me to figure out terrain layering in cryengine. 1 hours, 2 hours maybe? Granted there is a shitload of control in UE4. It's just that in my opinion it's complete overkill for basic stuff.

 

 

does the material editor not have presets for basic material types like terrain blends? even when I used UDK i had to make the basic shader graph for a terrain setup, surely this could be a preset of some kind.

 

It's easy to set up a very basic terrain layering. The fun starts when it gets a little more complex. I managed to get my layers in from WM and the albedos also blend well from a distance. But on close up there was just one normal for everything. Adding more meant i went over the 16 texture input limits. So now i first have to scale down from WM. Reduce it to 3 maybe 4 layer outputs. Then figure out in UE4 how to blend everything nice and crisp on closeup, make different materials for close and near distance using the same texture inputs and also how to create a couple more diverse extra layers for level designers to work with (also via the same texture inputs and magic).

Edited August 16, 2014 by Steppenwolf

[Pampers]

They put everything in parameters so you don't have to recompile the shader everytime you want to tweak something. I think if you want great detail up close and far away, you should just make a separate landscape and shader for each. They said in the latest stream that they are working on some new solutions for really big terrains though.

[Steppenwolf]

Good point there about the parameters and recompile. Didn't thought about that. It's a new way of thinking about how to texture my stuff after having worked for so long on source engine and only briefly on cryengine.

I read on Unreal forum they plan to raise the texture input limit to 32. That would solve most of my problems.

[El Moroes]

I didn't know where I could post this so...videos about lighting rendering in UE4 :

 

 

 

[Em']

Saw this this morning, the author said all scenes were running around 60 - 80 fps, incredible renders, this is truly what i expect when i hear next-gen.

Solid move in VFX community for this guy

[PogoP]

Well yeah there's nothing else in the scene so if it's running anything less than that I'd be a bit worried!

[2d-chris]

Really good, always loved good lighting combined with simple geometry, this isn't about looking "real" as far as i'm concerned, but rather well directed in terms of artistic lighting. Real life lighting is usually very boring - hence why we have cinematographers and photographers who specifically look for the "right" kind of light for the scene they are working on, often or not if it can't be done naturally it's added in artificially. Very cool and a step forward.

[PaulH]

Interesting reading through his thread on how he put it all together, quite simple lighting generally with some clever tricks (shining a spotlight at a plane facing away from the room to generate indirect lighting/GI within the room for example) and also simple BSP brushwork, quickly unwrapped and textured:

 

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28163-ArchViz-Lighting 

[ZZZ]

Saw this this morning, the author said all scenes were running around 60 - 80 fps, incredible renders, this is truly what i expect when i hear next-gen.

Solid move in VFX community for this guy

 

But the geometry is all static and there is no game logic running.

[Em']

 

Saw this this morning, the author said all scenes were running around 60 - 80 fps, incredible renders, this is truly what i expect when i hear next-gen.

Solid move in VFX community for this guy

 

But the geometry is all static and there is no game logic running.

 

 

That was my point Pretty low FPS for an empty scene