Terrain Foliage removed from latest build - What?!

[fearian]

So I've spend the afternoon working through the 3D motive UDK terrain tutorial (Which I recommend) and due to some problems opening the tutorial packages in the July build, I updated to the latest October build. But come time to add in foliage to the terrain I have a bit of a problem: It doesn't exist! I checked the patch notes and yup, "Foliage volumes and terrain foliage were removed."

Honestly, this seems alot less like an improvement and alot more like a large step backwards. Does anyone know why this happened? Did the features move? Can I set draw distance on deco layers and tie them to material layer now?

Foliage seemed like a great feature, why the cut? :(

[Snight]

Hi Fearian-

Thanks for supporting 3dMotive! It's kinda bad timing that Epic removed terrain foliage a month after our Terrain video went out. You can download the September Version of UDK here- http://www.udk.com/download if you really wanted to try it out. My guess is that Epic is moving towards a different Terrain system. It's just a hunch though! :D I hope you enjoyed the rest of the video, thanks again!

-Mike

[teaandcigarettes]

Can't say for sure, but I'm hoping that it is a sign of a serious upgrade to the terrain tools coming sometime soon.

Compared to CryEngine and Frostbite, UDK's terrain is very outdated and inflexible.

Btw, here's the only official reply I could find.

http://forums.epicgames.com/showpost.php?p=27742560&postcount=7


Personally, I am perfectly happy with Epic removing obsolete features as long as they add more streamlined tools.

edit: Snight beat me :P

[fearian]

Hmmm, i just spotted some poster on the UDK forums mentioned something to a similar effect - a new terrain feature to replace the old in the same way that scaleform came in to replace the UI. first I've heard of it today!

Ah well, I'll just have to do without, I guess! :B Kinda sad if the video turns out obsolete in a few months though. :/

[haiddasalami]

There was something about converting to landscapes and in one of the build notes (think it was September) there was some fixes done to it. Maybe thats the new tool to replace terrain (sounds better :P)

[dhedheahmed]

luckyly I got the 3D motive UDK terrain tutorial just when the september built releases

[Snipergen]

I purchased this video tutorial too, great timing :(

Fantastic tutorial though.