World Creator 2. Export to Unreal Engine 4 + Brushify. Part 1

Hello! With you - Andrey Krivulya Charly and I continue to talk about interesting features in World Creator 2. This video is released with the support of “BiteTheBytes”, which created World Creator. In it - we’ll talk about how to: Create another landscape - using “World Creator 2” and using the sculpting tools, as well as - different filters. Create a special sand mask - near the ocean. Import this terrain into “Unreal Engine” and “Brushify”. Assign auto-material. Configure “Distance Tiling”. And turn on “Triplanar”…

00:51 - Add a sand layer and apply the mask from “World Creator”. Well? Are you ready to absorb some interesting information? Then let’s go! So, as usual… Open up “World Creator” and then set the terrain size = 2017 * 2017 specifically for “Unreal Engine 4”. You can do more if you want. But I will show this resolution to make shader compilation faster. And the developer himself advises such a resolution - for optimization.

01:22 - Leave the “Precision” value at its default to equal the size of the terrain. Then go to the scene settings - in the “Environment” tab. And activate the option - “Show Ocean Plane”. In order to properly set up the area with the beach. Next - go back to the “Base” tab and enable the “Custom Base Shape” option. After that - click on “Edit Shape” and go down below to increase the number of points for editing. To do this, simply decrease the value of the first two “Level Step”. That is, it should be zero. After that, click on the “Flatten Entire Terrain” button to make the landscape flat. Personally, I prefer to control the whole form - this way. And the extreme points are lowered in such a way that this part of the landscape goes underwater.

02:24 - To speed up this process, you can even select a second tool and adjust the radius of influence. As a result, we get some kind of shape. Now again we return to the first tool and some points, on the contrary, are pulled out of the water. And of course, we edit the rest of the landscape. Once finished editing - click “Done Editing Shape”. If you are not satisfied with working with points, you can add an area for sculpting using the “Area”. To do this, go to a special tab and add such an area. To activate the sculpting mode, you need to activate the “Has HeightMap” option. Go down below and activate the tool - “Edit HeightMap”. I think you remember this tool from the previous lessons. Therefore, I will not go into all the details about it.

05:13 - Let’s do some quick sculpting and start adding filters. In order to add filters - you need to go to the “Filters” tab. Add a layer and click the “Add” button. To run the library with them and preview. The first filter I want to add is the Mountains. And it’s in the “Hills” category. To add a filter, click the “Add” button. Before clicking it, you see only a preview of the filter, without adding it. The next filter is “Sediment”. Then add “Erosion Fluvial” And the last filter is “Canyon Eroded”.

06:47 - After that, let’s start configuring these filters. So, I love what happened after adding them. But the original form was broken. Which I created with points. So I’ll probably add another sculpting area and completely redo the entire landscape. This workflow is perfect for those who don’t like custom points. Go to “Area” and activate the “Fit to terrain size” option. This way you will align the area with the size of your landscape. But the same action will remove all bulges and concavities. Which we did before. Next - do “Clear” in “BlendMap Properties” and “HeightMap” To start creating the “displacement” map - completely from scratch. And after that, we sculpt the shape of the landscape with all available tools. I also talked about them in the previous lessons. As a result, I got such a landscape.

11:58 - Now let’s create a beach mask and export it. And also - height map for “Unreal Engine”. So. To add a sand texture and mask for the “Unreal Engine” - go to the “Textures” tab and click on the “Add Layer” button. Then click the “Add” button. Select “World Creator”. And in the appeared library - click on any texture of the sand. Then click “Add” and then “Back”. Next - go down and activate the “Height Select” option. Then “Relative to Ocean”.

12:33 - Temporarily turn off the ocean and fill the black space with sand. To do this, pull this manipulator to the left. Until that moment, until the area under the ocean is filled with the texture of sand. So, we have filled the space underwater. Now you can - turn on the ocean again to check the result. Now, the challenge is to blur this sharp line a little. To do this, in the tab with textures, drag this manipulator to the right. Thanks to this action, you will get a more real mask. Now, let’s export this mask. To do this, go to “Export” -> “Heatmaps” Then change “Filters” to “Textures”. As a result, you will see the texture from which the mask will be created. Turn on the option - “Global Flip Y” and press export.

13:33 - After that, go to “Surface” and export the heightmap. In most cases, the “PNG16” format works better than “RAW”. On the latest versions of “Unreal Engine”. Be sure to remember the “Scale Z” value. Also, be sure to enable the “Flip Y” option. Now, we are ready for the “Unreal Engine”. Be sure to save the scene. For it is possible - you will want to make some changes in the future. To do this, click “Save as”, select “Folder Structure”, specify the save path, write the name of the project, and click on “save”. Then close “World Creator” and open “Unreal Engine”. For this tutorial - I’ll be using version 4.25.4. And I recommend doing all the actions - in this version. And then, if you want, on yours.

14:25 - Because then, you have 100% - everything should work out. And there won’t be any errors. I recommend doing this in order to avoid the questions: “Why doesn’t this work for me?” And… please… watch this video carefully, take your time. Because I noticed that many questions in the comments arise only - due to inattentive viewing in pursuit of the final result. So. Launch “Unreal Engine”. Select the “Games” preset. Click “Next”. Next - click on “Third Person”. Click “Next”. And in the next window - specify the path to the folder in which this project will be saved. Write the name of the project and then click “Create Project”. As a result, you will have such a scene.

15:13 - Now the task is to add all the Brushify assets needed for this tutorial. So. First, you need to go to my blog page. charlytuts.blogspot.com And there choose - “Material4Tuts”. We go down below and there we find a link to “Brushify Packs”. As a result, you will see the “Joe Garth” profile and the entire library of assets for “Unreal Engine”. In this tutorial, I will be showing the assets from the Country Roads Pack. “Natural Roads Pack”. “Tropical Pack”. “Environment Shader” which is needed to create worlds and auto- material.

15:50 - Since this is the main pack that you need 100% to create the world. And of course - “Forest Pack” for creating a forest. The rest of the packs - buy at your discretion. Once you get them from the Epic Games Store - In the Unreal Repository - you can type “Brushify” in the search bar. Select these packs and add them to your project. After that, they will appear in the “Content Manager” in the “Brushify” folder. Since I downloaded these packs in advance, they are in my cache. And under each pack - their size is indicated. So, I add all the assets to the created project. I do the same with the rest of the packs. If a warning pops up, I click OK. If an installation error suddenly popped up, I close the “Unreal Engine” project and try again.

16:47 - Then, after all the operations are done, I launch the project. As a result, in the “Content” folder, you can see the “Brushify” directory. Go straight to the “Edit” menu and turn on the procedural vegetation. Next, go to the “maps” folder, which is located in “Brushify” and create a folder with any name. This will be the folder of our project, into which we will place all the necessary folders and files. For example, immediately copy the entire contents of the “Starter Level” folder. To do this, click on this icon to open the list of folders on the left. In this “Content Manager” go to the “Starter Level” folder and drag all the content into the created folder. Next, select “Copy”. Thus, in your new folder, there will be a “Starter Level” with which we will work and the necessary material for the landscape. Another thing to do right away is to open the “MI Landscape” material from the “Material Overrides” folder.

17:57 - Go down below and copy the “Parent Master Material” into this folder. That is, click the magnifying glass icon and copy this material into our folder. This is all done in order not to break the structure of what the developer has created. And I always - prefer to work with copies. As a result, your folder should have such a structure. But that’s not all. There is also an Ocean folder in the Brushify folder. Which also needs to be copied into our project. Next, find “Meshes” and copy the “Roads” folder from it - there too. As a result - you should have such a folder structure. Please keep in mind that if you have not installed a pack with roads, you will not have the “Roads” folder. Now let’s run the “Starter Level”.

19:26 - As a result, you will have a full-fledged level loaded with a tuned sky, lighting, and post-effects. You can even launch “Play” and run around it. You will immediately notice the problem with the shadows. But in reality - this is just optimization and everything can be customized. A little later I will tell you how to set up this moment. Now let’s start importing our landscape from “World Creator”. To do this, delete the “Landscape” object, and also delete this cube. Select “Player Start” and “Location” for all axes, reset to zero. Then - select “Landscape” mode in “Modes”. Next, click on “Import from File” and click on this icon.

20:18 - After that, select the desired file and enter the value for the “Scale Z” axis, which was remembered. If you have forgotten, I remind you that you need to look at it in the “World Creator” during the “Height Map” export. I have this value - 58.9 I enter it here. Then click “Import”, since everything else is automatically configured. And as a result, we get such a landscape. For this terrain, reset the Location on all axes. Then select “Exponential Height Fog” and do the same.

21:08 - After that, we lower it a little to get the following result. Next - let’s add the ocean. It is located in the folder of the same name and is called “S_Water”. Drag it into the scene. Also, enter the same coordinates for “Location”. And after that - we increase its scale with a closed lock. For example, up to 10,000. And we go up a little. At that moment - I just realized that I imported the wrong heightmap. And so I will show you how you can fix this error. To do this, select “Landscape”. We pass to the mode of the same name. And in the “Layers” tab, right-click on “HeightMap”. Then select “ImportFromFile” and specify the desired map. This way - I imported the correct terrain. Now you can continue working. We lower the ocean in such a way that it looks like that. what we had in “World Creator”. We don’t pay attention to the haze yet.

22:21 - Since it can be configured at any time later. As a result, we got the following result. And now let’s move “PlayerStart” to this area for example and run “Play”. Thus, we can already walk along this landscape and look at the water. But there are no textures yet. Again, we see the minus of using 2K resolution in this area. But do not forget that if this is a game, the developer himself advises such a resolution. And the rest of the detailing will be done by “Brushify”. Now let’s finally assign the material that comes with the pack. To do this, select “Landscape”, go down below, and find the option “Landscape Material”. And there is a special slot in which to load it. I think you remember that we copied the “Material Ovverides” folder and there is just the right material. Just drag it into this slot.

23:46 - But after this action - the textures still did not appear - this is because they need to be turned on. To do this, go to “Landscape” mode and activate the “Paint” tab. Here you will see all the materials added by the author. In one of the next tutorials - I will tell you how to add “Megascans” here, but for now, let’s work with what we have. So, to load textures with grass and rocks from the first material - first, before that, create a folder in our project for “weight_info”.

24:19 - Then click on the “+” opposite the first material “Grass” and select “Weight Blended Layer (normal)” For it, specify the created folder “weight_info”. Click OK. As a result, you will have your first auto-material. Which already includes rocks and grass. Yes, the texture is still stretched on them. But this can be corrected with the “Tri-Planar” option. And I’ll show you how to do this a little later. Let’s hit “Play” and see what the terrain looks like with this material - from the player’s perspective. As you can see, there is already quality grass on the landscape. The rock material is set up and the “slope mask” is working. By the way, if you now switch to the “Lighting Only” mode, then you will see additional details that are automatically created on the landscape with this material. “LODs” work and so on. That is, everything is already configured and optimized.

25:10 - In my opinion, this is very cool, especially for individuals with a creative mindset, and not a mathematical one… That is, you do not need to rummage through the nodes, write something there, and so on. Usually, it takes a lot of time and not always everything turns out as you want. It’s better to focus all your attention on creating the world, rather than digging into nodes. So, we have a material and it already has a special function “Distance Tiling” configured. That is, when the camera approaches or moves away, different tiling is activated at a certain distance. And of course - all this can be configured in the material. There is a separate tab here - “Distance Tiling”. Each type of tiling has its own options. By the way. to remove completely visible tiling - the author has provided the “Reduce Tiling” option. By enabling it, using these two options, you can remove completely visible seams.

26:06 - That is, “Joe” has carefully worked this system. Thanks to this, a very high-quality result are obtained. That is, you can already stop at these settings. Of course, there are - a lot of opportunities that I want to tell you about. And this does not fit into one lesson. For example, let’s start with “Triplanar Mapping”. After all, I promised to tell you how to remove stretched textures. In the material - you can find the option “TriPlanar” of the same name. We activate it and immediately see that the texture looks correct. Then let’s talk about adding sand. After all, what, in vain created a mask for it in “World Creator”? So, to set up the sand layer and add the exported mask to it - first, you need to go back to “Landscape Mode”. In the list of materials - go down below and find a material named “Beach”. Opposite it - press “+”.

27:26 - Select “Weight Blended Layer (normal)” and after that, you can paint with this material. But I prefer to use a mask because hand painting on a large landscape is not very fun. With “Shift” we erase what we drew - if you drew, of course. And let’s start importing the mask. To do this, right-click on the sand layer and select “Import from File”. Then we indicate the desired map. In the window that appears, click “OK”. As a result, you will have sand in the place where it was in “World Creator”.

28:14 - Now you need to lower the water to see the same result. And now, if you turn on “Play” and run to the water, we will see a fairly high-quality beach material. At the same time, thanks to the mask - the grass gradually disappears and the water also has a smooth fading. But underwater - of course, there is nothing. Since this is a normal plane with ocean material. But I just decided to show you that the mask works there, as in the World Creator. So, that’s all I wanted to tell you in this part. I decided now not to do huge parts for 2 hours. Since you then very poorly assimilate the material for me too, working with such material is not very convenient. So in the next lesson, we’ll talk about setting the water… Changing the “HDRi” lighting. Adding forest and palm trees.

29:43 - Settings for dynamic shadows from clouds and high-quality shadows from objects and the character himself. And about adding roads from the “Road Pack”. Thank you for watching and wish you a good mood. .