Regression in Terrain Detail layers

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hello,

Unless I'm mistaken, detail layers in Editor 1 could take advantage of the alpha channel of the albedo map for a cut-off effect with Value/Width/Threshold layer parameter.

In Editor 2, there is no longer this possibility: the alpha channel of the albedo is simply ignored.

Is it a true regression or does the workflow have changed?

Thanks for your suport

[morbid]

Hi!
I'd like to note that currently we have two types of terrain: ObjectTerrain and ObjectTerrainGlobal.
ObjectTerrain is moving to deprecated state and most of its features are not supported in Editor2. 
ObjectTerrainGlobal (created via Landscape Tool) supposed to replace the old one without significant drawbacks\regression.

Could you please specify what exactly you'd like to do with detail mask? And what do you mean by saying that alpha channel is simply ignored?

 

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hello,

Sorry if my message was unclear. I'm refering to ObjectTerrainGlobal, created with LandscapeTool. Here, in the Detail layer, you can not partially mask the layer based on an height texture as it was possible with Editor 1. This was very useful to break the tiling pattern by having multiple detail layers but each only partially visible. This is the technique that is being used in the Tank demo:

Threshold, Width and Contrastparameters allow you to control the blending of the detail according to the mask.

Thank you.

[morbid]

You still can control blending here:

The logic is the same.
As I can see there is an outdated picture in documentation, we'll fix this soon.

Is this what you were looking for?

By the way, you can cut mask by height (Visible Height group) to create details for such things as snow caps.

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hi,

No, this is not the same behavior, but it has the same wording.

In editor 1, you could specify a custom "height" texture to use as a cut-off for the layer. In editor 2, you are restricted to use either the tag as a mask, or the terrain albedo as a mask. I am missing specifying another texture that would come in multiplication to these to use as a mask.

Editor 1 capture of the Tank demo:

Use case in Editor 2:

- have an area tagged "soil" in LandscapeEditor

- add a DetailLayer "soil_base" in TerrainGlobal for mask "soil"

- assign an albedo/normal for it ("soil_base_a", "soil_base_n")

- add a DetailLayer "soil_detail" for the same mask "soil", maybe with slightly different width/threshold

- assign an albedo/normal for it ("small_rocks_a", "small_rocks_n") along with a masking texture ("mask") which you can control value/width/thresold independantly from the "soil" mask. The goal is to break the tiling pattern by patching small details on top of the base material.

Sorry again if my wording was confusing, I'm still fresh on this software.

[morbid]

Hello!
Thank you for the patience.

Well, you really can do this with parameters I've mentioned above. Instead of Value slider you can change Contrast. Also to add detail textures you need to press "Update Texture Arrays" button (just scroll to the bottom of TerrainGlobal Parameters). So, there is no regression in details features.

Also I have to warn you that currently to update existing arrays you have to manually delete previously created arrays (3 .dds files).  You can find these files in Project folder named like "Landscape_array_postfix.dds". This will be fixed in the future release.

I've attached video that briefly shows how different detail layers affecting the final look of terrain. This example is taken from demo that is currently in development.

If you need any advice on details workflow we can ask our artist team for help. In this case I'd like to ask you for the test scene.

details.mp4

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hello, I'm really confused now, because your video does show exactly what I'm trying to do (so good news for me, it's there!), but my tests fail miserably.

Your video @00:16 clearly shows the mask used is the alpha from the grit texture.

In my tests, mask threshold/width/contrast don't use that :( but instead use the terrain Albedo LODs matching with the "Mask by Albedo" color.

[morbid]

Okay, I guess we're close to solution :)
Considering your test - could you please give us test scene with terrain and textures?

Just to make sure:

1. have you updated texture arrays after configuring details layers?
2. have you noticed how hierarchy of details works (layer order matters)?
3. have you tried overlap option?

[Amerio.Stephane]

Hi, thanks for keeping up with me on this :) yes I manually removed and recreated the texture arrays, I understand the hierarchie of layers for masking and the difference between overlay/overlap (well I hope I do) , and I tried overlap :)

Here is attached a minimal test scene (bin and core removed for size consideration)

 

Sidenote: it would be great to have a "pack project" menu to easily minimize the size of a project for exchange :)

Thanks for your help

test_detail.7z

[morbid]

Hi,

Sorry for delay, here some thoughts of our artist:

1. To avoid blending of imagery lod (albedo) with detail you should set Alpha channel to 0. When Alpha = 0 masking by albedo is disabled. See the screenshot.
2. You need a height map for best result with grit detail. This texture should help to display some grit through the grass.
3. You may want to avoid tiling on long range. Creating 2-3 layers of details with different visible distance should help.

Please let me know if this works for you.

[Amerio.Stephane]

Okayyyyyy :) Now I understand, I was lacking the Height texture. I thought it was only used for the Displacement !

Thanks for the tips, maybe consider detailing these a bit more in the documentation for future references :)

Thanks again, and have a nice WE.

[morbid]

Glad to help you.
Have a good weekend too!