Create Large Environments Using Splits

[Hugh]

I want to take a heightmap and make a larger scale environment. I want to cut a heightmap into smaller pieces to then putt together to create a vastly more larger environment by streaming each them together. Anyone know how I can do this. I see L3DT has a mosiac feature is that what I want to use. If so how can I not get seams to show after adding them together.

[Ben Apuna]

Here ya go! (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TerrainAdvancedTextures.html#Expanded%20Overlay%20 Multi-Tiling)

[Hugh]

ok thx its kinda confusing at first had to read over a few times. could this be applied to a source that is larger than 8192. Doesnt this only apply to terrain texturing not the actual terrain itself.

Or is it somehow tricking the engine to render a 512 heightmap into 4096 tiled to create a 8192 ?

[Ben Apuna]

Oops! :poly136: You're right, that example was just using a 512 displacement for the terrain with 4 really large diffuse textures.

I haven't messed with UDK's terrain in quite a while.

Importing a 4096 or a 8192 is possible just change the LOD_Group of the imported texture to TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget.

Hopefully works.

Keep in mind though that a 4096 displacement map would be displacing 16777216 verts, that's A LOT! might be too much for UDK to handle.

[Ben Apuna]

I'm sorry I think I've run you in circles here.

If I'm understanding you correctly what you want to do is place a bunch of smaller terrains in UDK but keep their textures aligned so you don't have seams?

If that's correct you may be able to use a World Position (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsCompendium.html#WorldPosition) node in your material to keep the textures aligned between the different terrains. Here's a tutorial (http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UDK_Asset_Position_Offsets_Texturet_Tutorial.html) about it. I haven't ever used this technique with terrains though so I'm not 100% sure it'll work.

So many terrains might still be bad for performance though. You might be better off using smaller displacement textures along with Super Masks (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TerrainAdvancedTextures.html#Super%20Masks:%20Incr easing%20terrain%20detail%20beyond%20the%20vertex% 20level) and tiling diffuse and normal map textures get more detail onto your terrain.

I personally like to use static meshes in UDK rather than actual terrain. It allows you to have more control over the "terrain's" mesh and also use vertex color based blended materials like this one (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67447) to achieve very crisp details. You can read more about such materials in The Snow and Ice of Uncharted2? thread (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66952) if you're interested.

I hope that helps.

[Hugh]

thnx man will help