Any Unreal Engine Experts Here?

[Renzatic]

Of interest, once you get a good material you really don’t need to know that much about it, other than you become more aware of the choices that are available.

Pretty much. When it comes to those texture based ones, the only thing you really need to know is where to plug the images into. Though you can do fancy stuff, like if you don't like the color of the diffuse, or you want to make the heightmap a little more shallow, you can add in some extra nodes in between the image and the output to tweak things to taste.

Even procedurals aren't all that complicated when you get right down to it. At it's most basic, you're just making noise patterns, mixing other noise patterns on top of it, coloring it in with gradients, and BAM! You've got an infinitely tweakable wood texture. All the math stuff underlying it is just telling the noise patterns how to shift, or when to appear.

Also, here's a couple of newer trees. I made a big brush stroke to show what I use to make the leaves.

 

[Huntn]

Pretty much. When it comes to those texture based ones, the only thing you really need to know is where to plug the images into. Though you can do fancy stuff, like if you don't like the color of the diffuse, or you want to make the heightmap a little more shallow, you can add in some extra nodes in between the image and the output to tweak things to taste.

Even procedurals aren't all that complicated when you get right down to it. At it's most basic, you're just making noise patterns, mixing other noise patterns on top of it, coloring it in with gradients, and BAM! You've got an infinitely tweakable wood texture. All the math stuff underlying it is just telling the noise patterns how to shift, or when to appear.

Also, here's a couple of newer trees. I made a big brush stroke to show what I use to make the leaves.

View attachment 13887

And I’ve become very aware that if creating materials which includes texture creation you are reliant on a third party graphic program if you plan on creating your own textures from scratch. Fortunately there seems to be huge libraries of ready made textures available so unless you are a purist, as in I want everything in my project made from scratch, it’s likely that you don’t have to do this.

I think that creating a texture from scratch say a rocky surface that you plan on having it tile, would be quite the challenge because just like wall paper it would have to fit together like a puzzle on all sides.

However some aspects of texture creation are not so hard if you have the starting image, like creating a height map if one is not included in a texture package. It seem to be relatively easy to make if you have the photo-program to simply create a gray scale image which is all that is needed to create the illusion of texture height. It makes a huge appearance difference when it comes to texture blending.

 

[Renzatic]

However some aspects of texture creation are not so hard if you have the starting image, like creating a height map if one is not included in a texture package. It seem to be relatively easy to make if you have the photo-program to simply create a gray scale image which is all that is needed to create the illusion of texture height. It makes a huge appearance difference when it comes to texture blending.

There are also programs that allow you to create entire PBR stacks from a single image easily. Like Materialize.

 

[Huntn]

There are also programs that allow you to create entire PBR stacks from a single image easily. Like Materialize.

The more I learn the more I realize I don’t know.

 

[Renzatic]

The more I learn the more I realize I don’t know.

And thus you have learned everything you ever need to know. Socrates would be proud!

Seriously, it's not an entirely automagical process. You need a properly colored image to get good results, where the highs are light, and the lows are dark. Otherwise, it ends up looking mushy and weird.

 

[Huntn]

And thus you have learned everything you ever need to know. Socrates would be proud!

Seriously, it's not an entirely automagical process. You need a properly colored image to get good results, where the highs are light, and the lows are dark. Otherwise, it ends up looking mushy and weird.

The primary reason I see height maps used is to fill in the cracks with an alternate texture, but I’ve seen some that make the grass look taller. More learning!

 

[Huntn]

Six months later still playing with and educating myself with Unreal Engine Materials. This is on a hobby basis for me, so I'm not devoting 8-12 hrs per day, more like 1 or 2 hours 5 times a week. This is the kind of stuff I'm looking at and annotating. Those comments are mine added. Still having a good time. Look forward to soon start laying down some virtual land.

​

 

[Renzatic]

I just now came across this. A very short and sweet explanation of what UV mapping is.

 

[Renzatic]

I make trees from magic! A swish of my hand, and BAM! SWEET TREES!

 

[Huntn]

I make trees from magic! A swish of my hand, and BAM! SWEET TREES!

Is there a variable aspect in these drawings for the leaves?

We are traveling for 2weeks, I brought my 2016 MBP to try to run UE and it’s on the edge, slow, the fan runs, the tutorial project I was working on, did not copy over correctly to a portable hard drive, plus not having 3 screens is a real hinderance.


At home, I have 2 computers, one the laptop, other PC and a total of 3 screens. One to watch the tutorial, one to manipulate UE while it’s running (PC) and one to take notes (MBR). W. For screenshots it’s much easier to grab them from my UE project that is mimicking the tutorial, than it is to grab a good shot from the tutorial.

So I guess I’m on hold till I get back…

 

[Renzatic]

Is there a variable aspect in these drawings for the leaves?

Have a look at it for yourself

It's made of multiple procedural parts, with leaves being instanced to the twigs, the twigs being instanced onto branches, the branches being instanced onto the limbs, and the limbs being instanced to the trunk of the tree. If you want to play with the lengths and sizes of each part (save the root instance), just look for the quadratic bezier node, and start messing with the numbers.

Right now, it's more or less a work in progress. I want to be able to instance everything, rather than using a few predefined parts like I am now.

Also, I just have the one computer.

 

[Huntn]

Have a look at it for yourself

It's made of multiple procedural parts, with leaves being instanced to the twigs, the twigs being instanced onto branches, the branches being instanced onto the limbs, and the limbs being instanced to the trunk of the tree. If you want to play with the lengths and sizes of each part (save the root instance), just look for the quadratic bezier node, and start messing with the numbers.

Right now, it's more or less a work in progress. I want to be able to instance everything, rather than using a few predefined parts like I am now.

Also, I just have the one computer.

My MBP has been relegated to just note taking, which is pretty sad in the macho graphical Mac dept. Now I do wonder if a new MBP with integrated graphics would handle UE any better?

Does you link run via Blender, or installed as part of Blender?

 

[DT]

Now I do wonder if a new MBP with integrated graphics would handle UE any better?

An M1 Pro or M1 Max machine? Hell yes.

(The "integrated graphics" aren't what you're thinking of in the older Intel context))

 

[Renzatic]

My MBP has been relegated to just note taking, which is pretty sad in the macho graphical Mac dept. Now I do wonder if a new MBP with integrated graphics would handle UE any better?

Does you link run via Blender, or installed as part of Blender?

Apparently the M1 is a decent performer on the GPU front. It won't win any awards compared to some of the higher end PC laptops, but it's far superior to anything Apple's offered in the Macbooks previously.

Make sure you get a lot of RAM though. You can get by with 16GB, but I'd go with 32 just to be on the safe side.

Also, it's just a regular .blend file. Open it up like you would any model. I'm working on version .02 of it right now, which should hopefully be easier to use and customize.

 

[Renzatic]

Hey Huntn, you should consider getting this!

 

[Huntn]

Hey Huntn, you should consider getting this!

I’ll check it out. Thanks!

I’m back home now. I found that without being able to play with UE while composing notes, was a handicap. I made a copy of a particular tutorial project on an external drive, but it dissapeared on me somehow on the trip.. I’ll finish up my pesky notes then start actually creating an environment. I need to play with landscape layers to see how the textures actually lay down. I’m not clear how much of a boundary there is between layers without more experimentation.

 

[Renzatic]

I’ll check it out. Thanks!

Hey, Huntn. I want you to help me out with something here in the next few. I'm making a tree generator in Blender, which you've already seen a preview of, but I'm trying to make it more intuitive, and easy to use.

Since you're a relative newb to the 3D scene, I figured you'd make an excellent test bed. Your feedback can help me clean some stuff up, and show me where to focus the most when I'm writing a tutorial.

What you're gonna get will look something like this. I'm almost done with it now, but I've still got a couple more nodes to clean up, and add input features to.

Are you up for it?

 

[Huntn]

Hey, Huntn. I want you to help me out with something here in the next few. I'm making a tree generator in Blender, which you've already seen a preview of, but I'm trying to make it more intuitive, and easy to use.

Since you're a relative newb to the 3D scene, I figured you'd make an excellent test bed. Your feedback can help me clean some stuff up, and show me where to focus the most when I'm writing a tutorial.

What you're gonna get will look something like this. I'm almost done with it now, but I've still got a couple more nodes to clean up, and add input features to.

View attachment 14960

Are you up for it?

Sure as long as it is not time critical for a response and it does not take a lot of time to figure out. Remember, I am barely a Blender novice. Plus I need setup instructions.

 

[Renzatic]

Sure as long as it is not time critical for a response and it does not take a lot of time to figure out. Remember, I am barely a Blender novice. Plus I need setup instructions.

Here you go. GeoTrees 0.3. There's no setup required, just open the file in Blender as usual, and start playing with the nodes.

What I want you to do is look at it for a second, and see if you can figure it out. Play with the sliders, change numbers, do whatever you want to do. I'll give you more detailed instructions if you ask.

GeoTree_v0.3.zip

drive.google.com

 

[Huntn]

Here you go. GeoTrees 0.3. There's no setup required, just open the file in Blender as usual, and start playing with the nodes.

What I want you to do is look at it for a second, and see if you can figure it out. Play with the sliders, change numbers, do whatever you want to do. I'll give you more detailed instructions if you ask.

GeoTree_v0.3.zip

drive.google.com

This is what I see:

​

There are nodes I can change values on. What I don't see is a way to initiate drawing and get something on the screen. There is a line which maybe the guide for trunk in the middle upper area. Need more hints.