Thank you! The amount of work and learning that goes into these short videos always amazes me.

Thanks for the tip! That's a great idea as well. One thing about many of these creative software is that you can set them up the way you like and save it becomes your default setup. Many of them also have 3rd party plugins that give you more control as well.

Quixel has changed their base materials and are no longer using the MSPresets. I just made a new tutorial where I show you how to make this same material, but it is also paintable. Here is the link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGWnpH2uZsmIn80

I'm glad it was helpful.

@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz you have any tuts on metahuman/Character interaction with SM's, foliage etc in sequencer cinematics?

@@CEODeliveryBoy No, I have not done any tutorials with Sequencer. I'm guessing this would be for an animation sequence. I have not experimented with it yet, but I did just see a demo for 5.5 where the character walked around some dangling static meshes, like vines, and the meshes moved as the character got close to them.

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz ok thank you. I've looked all over. It seems pretty hush trade secret like

I’m glad I was able to help.

I just checked it out. The site had not been working for a month or so and now I know why. It stinks that it is "free", but you have to give your credit card to sign up. I wouldn't give them mine either. Thank you for letting me know. Unfortunately, I do not have a good free alternative that works any more. In video 3 I show you how to make your own from satellite imagery, but it is a bit more involved.

Wow, I had not used the plugin for water in a while. I was using it in a much smaller environment as I demoed that had not run into that issue. I have to take a look at it and see what I can find. It might take me a few days to get to it and get back to you.

This method limits you to 3 basic materials. The best way to add more is to use flow, slope, and height maps from a landscape creating software like Gaea or World Machine. Then you will create a blended material and add in the material functions like we created in video 1. I show how to modify the material functions a little in video 4 and then create the blended material. In video 3 I show you how to make height maps from satellite imagery and then use World Machine to make the height and slope maps. You can also make your own landscape in Gaea or World Machine and create the height and slope maps. I don’t have a tutorial for that, but there are some out there on KZbin. Gaea is Quadspinner.com.

So, I have had this question a few times. I had time this week to experiment around and see if I could make a landscape material both procedural and paintable using layer blending. Turns out you can and it is only a slight modification from the material you made in the tutorial. I just finished recording a new tutorial and will be posting it later today. I hope this didn’t come too late to help you.

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz I appreciate the response and I will definitely be looking for that new video.

I think I might have kit bashed those out of the Park demo project the is free from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. I also use Turbosquid.com and Sketchfab.

You’re welcome. I’m glad you found it helpful.

Wow, that’s another tutorial level discussion. I would set up some other enemies like we did and the use Sequence to run parallel spawning to get started, but I’m sure it is not that easy. I’d have to work through it.

That scene was just a demo I did for the classes I teach. I never put it out there on a link. I will look around for it and put it on SketchFab as a free asset if I find it. Here is the tutorial playlist where I showed my students how to make it. It was a simple week 3 or 4 project for the class. They were made in Maya, but the same steps could be used in Blender. Just a cube, reshaped, extrusions, and then UVd. The textures are free downloads and applied in Photoshop. Gimp will work as well. Nothing fancy.

Thank you for the comments and feedback. You have some great ideas. The ability to load and save games was another feature I intended to demonstrate but didn't have time to create videos for it. The wave game and the roller game sort of were developed on the fly while I was teaching the concepts to my class. I have never been super happy with the flow of the videos and some of the mechanics. I will probably create a better thought-out demo for teaching the concepts here on KZbin. Something that will flow much better from start to finish. I am sorry, but that will not be for a few months.

I followed you videos and implemented it as is. I must say my game works great, I don't think you need to change anything. The save and load system would be great though. maybe a system with load and save widget, on slot names, through the pause menu. That would be perfect. This is the last issue with my game. Thanks for the great tutorials. I couldn't have made this game without you videos.

Wow, I had all of that planned out and then got super busy and never circled back around to do it. I will add that to my list for future videos.

Wow, that is really ambitious. Sorry about the late response. You should be able to modify the Increase Wave Difficulty variable to get the number as the multiplier or set it with a fixed number at each level. You could also use the BP_StoreGameVars_Inst to set your level variables. Unfortunately, I do not have time right now to make any videos. I will be wrapping up classroom teaching this year, and I intend to create more Unreal Videos after that.

Sorry for the late response. I have been trying to find a working alternate site as well. I am teaching landscapes in my class this month. It looks like the site is down and I cannot find a good replacement. If you've already moved on to video 3, I show you how to get satellite imagery and convert it to heightmaps. It is a little bit of a process, but it works.

Unreal can sometime be stubborn. If you have your material set up correctly and you are applying the material instance to the Landscape Material slot, they should show up. I have had to save, close, and reopen to sometimes get Unreal to cooperate.

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking me here? I think you are asking if you can add additional materials or just a little bit like paining it. In the blended materials tutorial, I show how to use the material functions we created to make a blended material. In it we will use the height maps we created as a way to add the 3 basic materials and then you can paint over those to add additional details with other materials. The methos I show is just one method. There are so many more ways to add materials to your landscapes and objects.

I’m glad they are useful to you. Good luck with your project!

I’m glad it helped. Keep on creating!

I know, I just can’t help myself. I start showing how to do something in UE and then I include more and more. LoL. 🤣

I have had this happen to students in my classroom. Here are some common thigs to check: Make sure in your MF_Rock all of the Param2Ds are labeled using Rock. Another possibility is kind of an odd glitch in Unreal. Even though you saved it, or did a save all, sometimes the individual Material Functions do not update, or the Material Instance does not update. With the MF_Rock open, go to the File Tab and manually save it. Do the same for the Material and the Material Instance. Whenever I see what you are describing, this is the problem about half of the time. If one of these two things do not fix it, let me know here in the comments.

Not yet. I am sorry, but it has been a very crazy summer so far. I do want to add it soon and thank you for reminding about it.

Would really appreciate a tutorial on underwater for rivers

I really do not know if you can or not. I have looked at the website and cannot find an archive link. I sent an email to their help link and asked. I will update you once / if they answer.

I'm glad the video helped. As far as the blueprints that are on the MetaHuman before you transfer the mesh, these are mostly for animating the MetaHuman. Using Live Link and ARKit is a way to capture facial movement from an actor and applying them to your MetaHUman. You don't really need these blueprints using the MetaHuman as a player character, but if you intend to have cut scenes in your game, you can use the original MetaHuman BPs to animate these. As you pointed out, the Actor Class and the Character Class are different which is why we are moving the mesh only from the MetaHuman to the Manny or Quinn so that you can use the input system to control them. These two pages help explain the difference between Characters and Skeletal Mesh Actors. dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/characters-in-unreal-engine and dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/skeletal-mesh-actors-in-unreal-engine. Thanks again for the question and for watching my tutorial.

Without seeing what is happening, I can only guess at what the issue might be. It sounds like you may need to adjust your character mesh inside of the capsule collider. Select the character mesh and drag it down until the feet are even with the bottom point of the capsule collider. If this is not the problem, please let me know and give me a little more information.

Yes, the interface did change, and you did do it correctly. I have also run into this issue about the white screen. I was hoping it would get resolved with a patch or update, but it has not yet. I will reach out to the developer and see if they know about the issue. I'll keep you updated here. Thanks for the heads up!

Also, if you wish to get rid of the GDal popup, go to this site to install OSGeo4W. trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w. Under the Quick Start for OSGeo4W Users section there is a link to the installer. Download the installer and follow the instruction for an Express install. As you install OSGeo4W, there will be a choice for which server to download from, I usually choose the top one. After that there will be an option to download 4 or 5 packages. You only need the GDal one for this. Once installed open up Microdem and point it towards OSGeo4W.

Okay, this should be the fix. Please let me know. Updates to the video because of software changes: 1) With the new Microdem download you will get a popup telling you that GDal is not installed. If you wish to get rid of the GDal popup, go to this site to install OSGeo4W. trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w. Under the Quick Start for OSGeo4W Users section there is a link to the installer. Download the installer and follow the instruction for an Express install. As you install OSGeo4W, there will be a choice for which server to download from, I usually choose the top one. After that there will be an option to download 4 or 5 packages. You only need the GDal one for this. Once installed open up Microdem and point it towards OSGeo4W. 2) When you go to Reinterpolate the map to 1 X 1 meters the menu and process has changed. First, you will need to know the UTM Zone for your map area. This is found under the Info tab and pick Map. Look for Map Projection parameters UTM (ellipse), zone=. After the equal should be a number and alpha letter combo. Mine for Palo Duro was 14N as an example. Then go to the File tab and under the Save DEM/grid hover over Reinterpolate DEM/grid and pick Reinterpolate, pick projection. A menu will pop up called Set grid parameters. Near the top on the right side find the Force UTM Zone and in the empty box put in your UTM Zone number. XGrid and YGrid should be default set to 1. Leave everything else default and press the close button. Your new reinterpolated map should pop up after a few seconds or so. Follow along with the video from there.

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz Yes it's worked. Let me try rest of steps <3

I saw your message about the white cube in World Machine. I tested it and I have the same issue. It looks like the data is there, but it is not complete. Under Project Setup in Project Settings you can change the colors used in the project and it is there, just not very usable as is. I went back in and just exported the 4km Cropped Map in Microdem as a GeoTiff and skipped the rest of the steps from the reinterpolate through the Mean and Median smoothing. Then opened that in World Machine. That works, but you have to change in the File Input Properties where you import the GeoTiff under Elevations from Natural file elevations to Specify range. Then use the Map Data Z range in Microdem to fine tune your map for the correct elevation range. This skips the reinterpolate and the smoothing. But it will allow you to move forward and create your world for Unreal. I will keep working on why the data seems to be getting lost after the reinterpolate step. Once I have this all figured out, I think there have been enough changes I will need to make a new video. Let me know if this worked for you.

Thanks for the info. I’ll have to check it out to see what’s happening.

I’m not exactly sure of the issue you are having. Are you talking about the scale of the landscape or the scale of the water? If it’s the water, the scale for each spline should be adjusted, not the water as a whole object in the transform scale.

I’m glad that the tutorial was helpful. Thank you for the great feedback!

Hey Sad_Salad, I have had the same issues with the plugin lately. The more I try to fix it, the worse it gets. I put together a quick surface tutorial as an alternative, but I need to revisit it this summer break. If you need a better water solution now, Ben Cloward has several on his channel. I’m sorry I don’t have a fix.

@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz Don't be sorry! It's experimental anyways.Thank you for the channel recommendation, I'll check it out. Keep up the good videos!

Hi Aletta, is it flicker using the UE water plugin or from the tutorial where I show you how to make your own? If it’s the plugin, I don’t have a fix. If it is from my tutorial, double check your blueprints for the numbers set in the panners. I have not had this issue in my classroom, so I don’t have a fix yet.

Thanks, I did check my numbers in the panner, maybe it's just my display, I have noticed the flickering on my metahuman characters as well. Great tutorials, love it. doing a game now.

Hi @aletta. I tried answering this question in your other question. I hope it worked.

I’m not sure why it is crashing. There could be multiple reasons. If you are willing to do more blueprint writing, look up Ben Cloward on KZbin. He works with shaders and has several tutorials on making your own water.

I’m not sure what is wrong with their site. Here is another that works like theirs. You may need to hunt around a little to find the settings. Make sure to download as a PNG. terraining.ateliernonta.com/

I am using unreal 5.3 does that make a difference?

Hi Aletta, I’m sorry you are having issues. I just had my students go through that lesson on materials with 5.3 and it still works. Would it be possible to take some screenshots of your blueprints and post them or share them with me?

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz Thanks Fritz, I have resolved the issue, It was a small silly mistake actually. Keep up the great work. You have inspired me to do an amazing poject. Could I call upon you should I need further assistance in other unreal engine matters?

@@alettamsmith1908yes you can always ask me questions.

Once you have modified the imagery and go to save it, the option for Current subset should show up. I just downloaded the current version and of Microdem and tested it. Try zooming in and then go to the File tab, Hover over Save Dem/grid, then Current subset, MD DEM will be there. I hope this helps.

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz nope. I still don't have Current subset, MD DEM

Hello again! I was struggling with Microdem for the last 2 days and I can say for sure that the last build slightly differs from the build on this tutorial. I stopped on interpolating DEM stage, can you help me somehow please?

@@gani_makhat it is a little different, but all of the functionality is still there. What is it that you need help with? You said you stopped at interpolating. Did you get it smoothed and saved?

Okay, I had a chance to download and open it here at work. The Reinterpolate does not seem to be working. Once I get a chance I will try it at home since my work computer has a lot of network security stuff and limits what I can do. I’ll update you once I know more.

Thank you! I’m glad they have helped you. I will be making more over summer break. It’s been a busy and hectic school year.

I’m glad the video helped.

Funny, I’m a designer and can’t seem to get my thumbnails right. My wife and her business class students have even told me they are bad. I appreciate the offer, but I need to keep struggling until I get it right since these won’t be my last videos.

I’m glad you found it helpful.

Yeah, it seems every new UE update breaks something. I haven’t had time to work with Metahumans in 5.3 and now 5.4 is out. Hopefully I will get a chance over the summer to make some new videos using Metahumans in 5.4.

😀

That is a good question. I went to the Unreal Documentation and they talk about being able to drag and drop materials on to actors in the viewport, but do not specifically indicate you can on landscapes. I know you use to be able to drag and drop, but I had not tried it in the last couple of years, so I don’t know when or why it changed.

Please tell me what it is that you find wrong? There are many methods in making landscapes. This is just one.

Why would you denigrate the way this man is showing how to do heightmaps? There are so many ways to make landscapes, & yet you are wrongfully accusing this man of using the wrong method. How rude you are.

Sorry, I did not see this before. Yes, and no. The mesh is the complete model that is represented in the scene or game level. I believe what you are getting at is I need more segments / vertices in my mesh. That is true. More segments amount to more vertices in my model / mesh. A model is made up of faces, edges, and vertices. The vertices are points where a model can be bent or deformed from its shape. The more vertices along an edge allow that edge to bend. Since we were using free models from the internet, you do not always get a model with enough vertices to allow the model to bend to your landscape. You can always import it into a modeling software like Maya or Blender and add more edges to it. This will add additional vertices. However, this step was outside the scope of my tutorial. Thank you for bringing this up.

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz yes you are correct, some loop cuts in blender real quick help and also the landscape resolution is good to consider.

That’s a new one I have not seen I don’t think. The water system plugin has been buggy in the last couple updates of UE5. I have had issues with it not touching the landscape on one side. It is a beta plugin and may not have a lot of support. I have stopped teaching it in my classes on campus because of these issues. I will be making a water video soon. Sorry for these problems. I’ll probably remove / replace that video because of these problems.

So, I had a chance to sit down and play today with the water plugin. Try adding in the Landmass plugin. This plugin is a fix to the issues with the water plugin and landscape not meeting up. As far as the water disappearing, I have not been able to recreate the issue. Can you add the Landmass plugin and see if it fixes it? Let me know.

Thanks for replying, I'll try that

@@puttinonthefritz3dvisualiz I'm having the same issue. Disabled Affects Landscape and have the Landmass plugin enabled, but now I just have no water showing up. Did you ever make another water tutorial and if so could I get a link?

@@klutzydragon The water plugin is a prototype and has been buggy off and on. I do not have a great one done yet. I had a quick one that isn't great, and I did not add postprocessing for an underwater effect. I just made an updated landscape material tutorial. I was going to jump into PCG next, but I think I should make a water video, but it won't be for a couple of weeks at the earliest. Sorry.

Hey, thanks for the question. Back when I made this video Bridge and Unreal Engine were separate and you had to have a plugin installed. Good news is that Bridge is integrated in Unreal Now. It is in the Window tab of Unreal Engine near the bottom of that menu. You’ll have to sign in to your Epic account again. Once open, it works the same way as in my video. If that is not the issue, please let me know.

There is a way to get them to be right up against each other. I do show that with the fence section of the video. For things like a forest path I would look at maybe using a blended material so you can paint in the path. In video one I show you how to make Material Functions. That is all you need from the first video. In the 4th video I show you how to use the Material Functions to make a blended material. I am also using Height and Slope Maps for the 3 base materials to procedurally fill in. That is in video 3 if you wanted to use that.

You’re welcome! Hopefully it helped.