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Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

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Teromen
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Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

Just playing around with the static meshes and sunlights in the Unreal 227i patch. Thought it was neat enough to show on here. Here's some screenshots and the test map for those interested.

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https://gofile.io/d/qwhuow
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Buster »

Nice
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Skywolf »

Only at what cost? What's the framerate like? In my experience static meshes like this kill the performance.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Buster »

Having the ability to make such a detailed terrain is still a good thing. When I started playing with the editor there wasn't a terrain editor until somebody made one. Using 227 to make test maps that would lag as full maps is a great thing. Let's you work stuff out so it looks better and lags less.

Also, the lag on a newer pc is minimal in comparison to what it was like 15+ years ago. I'll take the lag of only 60 fps. Better than the 15-20 fps I got when I started to play Unreal.

Anyway, I like how the terrain looks, overall. Nicely done.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Stead-Z »

I noticed no frame drops whatsoever on my absolute trashcan of a laptop.

Nice work on this, though I prefer the other included terrain skin - just my personal preference though as I hate the default Unreal textures lol
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Dr.Flay™ »

Very nice, though bare in mind you should add zones or blocking volumes of some sort in hills or sounds travel through them.

Also there is an old tutorial and example map by Silveribex that may interest you
http://web.archive.org/web/200705190807 ... 00043.html
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Buster »

But using the Unreal terrain textures also means they'll be covered by the HD textures you may be using already. That's a really good thing. A higher poly terrain and HD look.
:)
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by ahaigh01 »

Looks really nice.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Pitbull »

But using the Unreal terrain textures also means they'll be covered by the HD textures you may be using already. That's a really good thing. A higher poly terrain and HD look.
:)
The downside being texture usage. It would be nice to make that kind of terrain and be able to paint it like in UT2K4
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Hellkeeper »

The downside being texture usage. It would be nice to make that kind of terrain and be able to paint it like in UT2K4
At this point, all that should be dropped and the terrain tool from UT2004 ported to Unreal. :-X
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

I think it is such a big improvement to have what they gave us. The static meshes, sunlights and high res dds textures. With baked textures and lighting, static meshes should be capable of looking really nice for the age of the engine. I kinda want to update my old dm-grandcanyon and dm-greenland maps to this. We're stuck with the older versions of Infiltration obviously but that cant be that bad. I'll work on a port of my maps and see if anyone is interested in playing them. GrandCanyon was really pretty for back in the day but lacked gameplay... Eye candy though. Greenland had a little better gameplay I guess. Im not really a very good mapper heh. Just like to play with terrains. I've been adicted to the unreal engines for decades lol. Cant be the only one either. Anyway. Maybe if someone wants to work together to create a cool map someday we could do something cool. If they wanted to lay out things and have me make the terrain.

Seems the link was taken down. Here it is.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/b5iuynk94 ... b.rar/file

Also someone on here made a really neat mod of my level. I hope he is willing to share it on here.
Last edited by Teromen on Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by yrex . »

I modified the map to make it a bit cooler.

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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Kajgue »

Good stuff :)

Just some feedback/insight for anybody going down this route though, when using static meshes, remember that meshes don't cull things rendered behind them, and if you are running accross a large single terrain model, remember that whenever a single part of that model is in view, the whole thing will be rendered.

Good strategies for this are to use multiple meshes for various 'parts' of the terrain etc, so perhaps if you find a way to cull the rendering of things behind objects, it gives you more chance at saving performance, also works when those smaller meshes are out of view. Also consider some sort of levels of detail system, even if that system is totally unrelated to LODmeshes (since there's some morphing that could cause problems with that method). And in regards to textures, remember that textures will loop/repeat, so it's a good idea to break up the repetition with maybe by alphablending overlay meshes ontop of the base colliding objects. They also use such methods in a veriety of modern games, though some games have this done very rushed/sloppily (like GTA 5 where you can see the graffiti as some floating sheet about a hands distance away from a wall).

Texture repetition is also very distinct when it comes to grass. From a birds eye view, or from the perspective of a helicopter looking over fields, grassy areas do have their distinctive look which an upclose texture would not capture due to the constant repetition, consider having grass on a detail texture layer, a medium scale layer of grass and then a macro grass coverage to cover huge areas of grass.

Also when J releases, as that includes some improvements, it should make some things easier and more effective with these methods. :)
Last edited by Kajgue on Sat Oct 03, 2020 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Kajgue »

Took the chance to upload some examples in regards to scaling levels of detail, particularly when it comes to grass. Thought this would be better in a separate post to atleast break up the information to make it easier to absorb.

If your terrain is quite big aswel, consider that the examples below would illustrate some features expected of the appropriate layer (depends how large you want your landscapes/terrains to be). Don't forget to include some changing and fluctuating colour tones on larger scopes of the grass, can also base this on how well these areas are irrigated.
_________________________________________________________
Here is an example of what would be expected on a detail (closest) layer of scale. I made this texture a while ago for a map testing this (can't share it though yet though :( )



(4096x4096 texture, feel totally free to use this but it may be wise to scale this texture down)

You can set this as the detail texture and it should look fine.
_________________________________________________________

Mid Layer

Can't seem to find where i put my mid layer from past experimentations, only a 512x512 texture.



Here's a photographic example of a grassy landscape from a helicopter for a more physically based reference.

Image
_________________________________________________________

Macro layer:

(Another 4096x4096 texture, feel free to use/edit this too.)

In my experiment a few years ago, i used this as the largest layer. I think alot better can still be done rather than just using one of these alone, as there would be alot of changes over large areas based on all sorts of factors (like irrigation again, expect vegetation to be more dense and lush near closer to water etc), so would be good to have multiple textures in this kind of scale.
_________________________________________________________

Hopefully i provided various bits of food for thought for anybody reading this thread and of course Teromen. :)

Actually looking forward to seeing if you go further with this!
Last edited by Kajgue on Sat Oct 03, 2020 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Teromen
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

I played around with a macro layer on my Unwheel level im working on. The lighting has to be included to render correctly in UT2004.

Image
Image

Thanks for the idea of macro textures. Wasn't taking it very serious for my level till now. I've tried this before but never got it to work good. This time I tried again and am very happy with the results. What do you think? Btw once I finish this map I have no idea where to upload it. Unwheel is pretty much dead it seems. Our day has passed us lol. I figure since it's for an old unreal version it'll be ok to show on here.
Last edited by Teromen on Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Kajgue »

Nice :)

I think i've heard of Unwheel before, is it an Ue2 based racing game?
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

Ut2004 racing mod. I've been playing it a bit. Its pretty fun. I picked it cause its for the unreal engine and ive always wanted to make a racing map.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/unwheel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pktl93nVlYw
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

I ported my old ut-inf map DM-GrandCanyon to 227i. I converted a bunch of stuff to static meshes. Had to eliminate the INF 2.85 turret... Shame really. I don't know of a turret for U1. If anyone knows of one please let me know. Before I release it I want to add some grass and other little details. If anyone wants to try the current version let me know. Its basically the original map ported to 227i. Nothing new added, I average 600+ fps on a i5 2500k at 4.3ghz and a rtx 2060. Here's what it looks like.

Image

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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Kajgue »

Sweet :O
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

I found this post that should help me enable my turret. Its about turning 227i into UT. I hope it enables the newer version of Infiltration :D

https://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 1374313749

and this

https://ut99.org/viewtopic.php?t=5540

News to me. Really cool stuff.


Edit: Blah, tried to port the turret... Doesn't work...


Edit: Been working on the hd update to DM-GrandCanyon. Not having much luck so far. Im not happy with it. The original has a much more organic look. That's what im going for. Here's a screenshot of the current map. It's much higher resolution but just doesn't have the right look...
Image


Edit: Update. Looking more organic. What do you think?
Image

Edit: Worked on the textures and lighting. Im happy with this. Now I can move on to other stuff on the map. :)
Image
Last edited by Teromen on Sun Oct 11, 2020 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Teromen
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

Found out something interesting when adding grass. I was getting 30fps with all the grass I added. Then I converted it to 1 single mesh and the frame-rate sky rocketed lol. My best guess is that it only renders 1 texture for the entire mesh. But i'd have to check memory use in game. Honestly I have no idea why.

Image

Image

I know... I need to stop posting screens till its done lol.
Last edited by Teromen on Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Kajgue »

Woah, really mint terrain there :)

Like just a tip about those seams where the terrain is segmented into 4 parts, can try overlaying that seam gently with some alphablended static meshes, where the opaque parts of that overlay would cover up those seams but would also not be a harsh texture seam due to the alphablended gradient (where the overlay skin fades out to show the terrain under it).

Really love it :) Also you probably have it in the pipeline, but would be cool to see more terrain pieces, like unique rocks and features etc!

A good technique to make assets with is obviously by baking generic and static lighting on common assets that get placed in various areas. As for more specific, oneshot or unique models, you can position the other geo that's going to be around it in the modelling prog (if some meshes and objects have localized positioning in the unreal map, remember that you can check the properties of each asset or placed object, and under movement it should give you the position of the exact object's origin in the X, Y, Z co-ordinates, that way you know how to put those meshes around in the modelling program), and then you can bake all the shading/lighting that you intend the map to have onto the skins of those unique map objects. I know for sure this is easy to do in Blender, if that's what you use.

Hope this feedback is easy to read and understand btw, feeling a little tired so the structuring of the post maybe a little sloppy :P

Keep it up!

CRUCIAL EDIT: You know i just noticed that it looks like you have the main terrain parts baked, nice! Like kinda looking forward to more :)
Last edited by Kajgue on Sun Oct 11, 2020 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Teromen
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

Thanks. You mean how I kept the original terrain mesh and baked onto it? I highly modified the original terrain to 2048x2048 and used that for the texture. The original is 32x32 I think. Right now the dds files are 40mb total. 4x 4096x4096. Not sure when zipped. I'm gonna slightly enlarge the scaling of the texture and then move/pan it around slightly to match up pretty well. That's what I did with the original map. Man... adding and stretching/moving those 64 original textures back in the day... That was fun lol. That was a huge texture file for circa 2000 hardware.

I searched google for a way to have the equivalent of alpha maps for decorations in 3dsmax to place grass randomly according to the alpha map but couldn't find anything :(
That would really save a lot of time and look more organic.

If I double the resolution from here it will mean 16 huge textures instead of 4. Gonna have to make a judgement call here lol. 4 it is.
Last edited by Teromen on Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Kajgue »

By the alphablended overlay i kind of mean, a combination of sheets (mesh) that overlays ontop of the seams (can make it 1 uu above the ground or something), in which the skin of those sheets feature a opaque pixels over the part which covers the seams, and slowly flows into full alpha the further out the overlaying sheet is from the main terrain chunk seams.

:)
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Teromen
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Re: Playing with terrain static mesh in 227i

Post by Teromen »

I rendered a large texture in world machine. Included lighting(light-map from 3dsmax), all details, etc. Then I added a sun light in unrealed and used ambient lighting to match up with the baked lighting. I applied the texture to the original terrain mesh. No layering. Though that is a neat idea. You have a lot of great ideas.

Edit: I'm having trouble with alpha textures in 227i. For instance, the grass and trees have to be set to masked to render properly, instead of alpha-blend. You can see through parts of the mesh using an alpha. Im not sure if 227 unrealed has a alpha blend option like in ut2k4. You know, front to back or whateber. I'll look.

Of note. The 3ds file is 1gb lol. For the lighting mesh. Im like... damn. Not used to that.
I made it in world machine, then told it to render the high res texture onto the low res model so. I used two terrains in the program.

The detail lighting is based on the 2048 mesh while the ray tracing is based on the low poly mesh. Did this in max with bounced lighting and quicksilver render-er (gpu based). Worked out pretty good.

With your idea about alpha blending I could have much more texture detail up close. I'll take it into account. Sounds like a lot of work though. I'll play around with that idea in max a bit. The terrain mesh is so low poly that it might be do-able. My colorizer(overlay) in world machine is pretty detailed though, idk if it'll work right. Everything is baked together right now. I think the original map was 2048x2048 btw, not 8192. I split it into 64 textures.

Found this.
https://www.tonytextures.com/tutorial-h ... h-3ds-max/
I think that'll help me do my grass. Much lower poly than the tutorial though.
Last edited by Teromen on Sun Oct 11, 2020 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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