Dynamic Grass System | Unreal Engine

Now on Marketplace: www.unrealengi...
Feature list + starter guide: goo.gl/b0NSqj
DISCORD: / discord

[@S.Krezel]

DISCORD: discord.gg/qWHeGuNbXh Hey, thanks for all the feedback! There's too many questions to answer all of them individually, so here's a tiny FAQ: First some general info: The video's purpose is not to show the art/final effect (I'm glad that you like it!), but all the dynamic system possibilities of my UE Marketplace product for other devs. For example, grass & FX can look totally different (it's swappable) and still have the dynamic features. More info: goo.gl/b0NSqj Q: Does it require two Titans to run at 30 FPS? A: No, it requires GTX 760 to run at stable 60 FPS in this scene :) The info is shown in the video by the way, but still many people ask this. I don't remember the exact ms, but if some other devs are interested, hit me up and I'll do some tests. Q: Optimization techniques? A: For GPU: Minimized overdraw by cutting grass planes to match their texture shape as closely as possible. Some tips can be found here: goo.gl/aHKDIi . Grass plane meshes have LOD set up. Then, of course, a hierarchical instanced mesh component is used for the grass. The main grass material shader is quite lightweight too. It also casts shadows from grass only at the closest LOD, which helps to boost performance with dynamic lighting. For CPU: It uses a custom foliage component + foliage manager that automatically divides all the grass into chunks. These chunks activate their logic (interaction detection) only when player is near them. All their logic is also executed from timers with dynamic intervals (so the further from camera, the less often they update). There are more things on top of that, e.g. for fire propagation and other effects, but in general that's how it works. Q: Music name? A: That's my own music, I haven't named it yet - it's from one of my older beattapes, no. 12: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnLOaqiCe6uahrcm ... I'll get back to music production after I finish my game and then I'll probably release most of my previous tracks in full versions. Cheers!

[@dogshithandle111]

S. Krezel aah I noticed something that is completely incorrect. From the footage we see the fire going into the direction of the wind .This is wrong , fire always advances towards the wind because of the fresh oxygen. So if the wind is coming from the left for example it is not going to push but rather pull the fire to the left . It looks amazing but the general idea is made wrong :)

[@S.Krezel]

Sure, this can be easily changed via one value if you want to make it 100% realistic :)

[@DanielDavenportWins]

gentle breeze, maybe somewhat, the theory isnt wrong, but the wind will indeed push a fire as well because its moving that heat onto new fuel with wind providing oxygen.

[@Batmansmokesdope]

S. Krezel this is relly cool cool nice work

[@SeanJTharpe]

The only suggestion I have is to have different, or even randomized lengths of grass, weeds, etc. in some areas; otherwise, it will look like someone mowed the grass at mid-waist height. AMAZING job, and I hope you see this comment!

[@dragonsofdawn6644]

I like the shockwave effect of the bombs

[@ThereWasNoFreeName]

but IRL shockwave travels way faster. Explosions are still unrealistic. With that much of a shock it should rip some ground of or shouldn't cause that strong shockwave.

[@alduincosplays5162]

you can tweak both speed & strength (or turn it off) in the system. ... Games are not always meant to be realistic btw :)

[@prestongarvey343]

ThereWasNoFreeName Who cares if the shockwaves look realistic? the point of video games is to make things look *unreal*. hence the name *unreal* engine.

[@daniyil4843]

+Preston Garvey No

[@ayosurah9154]

so wtf you think fantasy, action, rpg games are? the realistic ones are fps ones, and they're the least popular

[@polypixel3d]

Brilliant stuff. So satisfying to watch the path being cut through the grass.

[@S.Krezel]

UPDATE: The system will be available on Marketplace on December 7th!

[@S.Krezel]

... Here it is! www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/dynamic-grass-system

[@sincefortin2997]

Where can I get Lamborghini, Mclaren's car to add in games?

[@fkknsikk]

Official Licensing from Lamborghini and/or McLaren. Good luck.

[@adolfsbeautypalace5594]

S. Krezel lol my birthday 😁😀

[@elizeugerlach2954]

I'll definetly buy it, sooner or later;

[@Maverick99]

Clever stuff.

[@The_Eno]

When you're an idiot pretending to be a game designer than yes it's extremely clever in comparison 😂

[@sykoo]

That's incredible, I'll pick this up as soon as I start making my level designs on Unreal Engine too!

[@minhnguyen5888]

That's a really good performance on a GTX760

[@kaki00105]

that's because there are no other performance hits. it's a blank world that only calculates the stuff they showed.

[@alejandrohe08]

Kaleb Kilfillen Thats why he say it (?

[@msmachine7253]

I have a 760 in my office build lol

[@boblol9345]

Kaleb Kilfillen well,if I add loads more stuff,would my 1060 hold the 60?

[@kaki00105]

Bob Lol sure I don't see why not

[@TwistyFreshNips]

That's truly the most amazing thing I've seen on UE4

[@zaccharybedardchenier]

Amazing ! The amount of work that must have gone into this just for some grass is mind blowing ! Keep it up who ever did this !

[@KyngShadow]

This is so beautiful, the music just makes it so much more epic lol. Many thanks for this, once I get a thorough handle on UE this is something I'll definitely want. So much to learn.

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate that! I'm finishing this tool for UE Marketplace right now. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. BTW. KZbin compressed this video a lot, because there is a large amount of animated grass all over the screen (it's a common problem) - this blurred the overall look of the video a bit, but there will be some new screenshots available soon. Cheers!

[@ForgeGames]

It's cool! How is your grass consumes more resources on computers than a standard "Foliage" and "Grass output"?

[@S.Krezel]

Thanks - on GPU it's no difference to the standard foliage, since the system also uses hierarchical instanced static meshes, just like most of the regular grass out there. Grass material is optimized (example stats on my GTX760 are visible at the beginning of the video) but can be always modified/replaced with your own. The more interacting actors, the more CPU ms it consumes - but it's well optimized and realistically you shouldn't notice any performance hit if not going crazy with amount of simultaneously interacting actors. Cheers!

[@ForgeGames]

Thank you

[@S.Krezel]

It's submitted with the same price as the Dynamic Tree & Plant Generator: www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/dynamic-tree-plant-generator - Release date is up to Epic, I'll post any updates as I have them. Cheers!

[@AngryPenguinStudio]

i have been checking the dang marketplace for like 2 weeks, every day lol. Gumroad an option?

[@bigjermini]

0:35 - 1:06 some men just want to watch the world burn... Great and awesome job on this!

[@cameronedwards751]

How did you optimize this grass so well? Thanks!

[@S.Krezel]

For GPU: Minimized overdraw by cutting grass planes to match their texture shape as closely as possible. Some tips can be found here: goo.gl/aHKDIi . Grass plane meshes have LOD set up. Then, of course, a hierarchical instanced mesh component is used for the grass. The main grass material shader is quite lightweight too. It also casts shadows from grass only at the closest LOD, which helps to boost performance with dynamic lighting. For CPU: It uses a custom foliage component + foliage manager that automatically divides all the grass into chunks. These chunks activate their logic (interaction detection) only when player is near them. All their logic is also executed from timers with dynamic intervals (so the further from camera, the less often they update). There are more things on top of that, e.g. for fire propagation and other effects, but in general that's how it works.

[@technoM4niac]

lol wat

[@ThePppp89]

Basically a lot of hard and meticulate work, along with a few clever tricks regarding how it's loaded and stuff. I think...

[@fozze9456]

hahaha i dont understand a shiit i feel dumb :(

[@xerospacious4024]

cause the only thing in there is grass xD not much else to render.

[@pennyman10]

While running through grass on foot don't make all the grass in your path fall down, only where the feet touch, it will make it look a lot more believable and realistic. Good work!

[@catpaws3266]

Great work. I really enjoy the look and the flow of the fire and the way it spreads. Really professional look, and a really satisfying feeling. As a developer / artist you have successfully done your job with this project. AAA+ Work. May I ask how long you spent on this?

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you very much! I didn't record the exact time, but it was about 1/2 months from project start to finish - not regularly developed though, so hard to tell.

[@i-never-look-at-replies-lol]

This has got me real excited for Grass Simulator 2018

[@saibamoe]

beautiful work - and all done with blueprints

[@wasterick]

considering that this runs on 760 this is pretty neat.

[@vidvaaninsaan1503]

Can you just point in the right direction as to how you made all of that? Just a high level approach

[@S.Krezel]

It's a hybrid between GPU material displacement and CPU based mesh instance manipulation. For more persistent interaction effects (like the trail that player leaves behind, trample, etc.) it checks for near grass instances (from hierarchical instanced static mesh) and transforms them in a timer with optimized intervals (less ticks when far from camera, etc.). For temporary quick effects (grass bending near actor location, impulse force shockwave, etc.) it utilizes GPU displacement driven by parameters controlled by blueprints. Interactive actors have special components that feed their location into global material parameter collection - this way the main grass material knows where to apply all the GPU displacement effects.

[@vidvaaninsaan1503]

S. Krezel Thank you sir! Interesting ways. And I would say, amazing grass.

[@SizzledBeef]

That grass is so tall and lush. Be sure to check for virtual ticks when you get back home for virtual dinner.

[@liuzhang8600]

incredible effect

[@alanshteynberg2108]

What kind of affect does this effect have on graphics performance? Any benchmark tests? Thanks!

[@karinulll]

the explosion in the grass at 0:36 is amazing

[@jbway86]

wow graphx have come allng way. I remember the days when grass was a flat texture map with no individual blades, I remember when shadows were just circles underneath the player model and lastly I remember when player hand models were just this 2 blocks (one for wrist other, fingers) in shape of a hand and the only individual finger was the index lol.

[@ArnoldSig]

slimjay Yep, Harry Potter for PS1 for example I remember didn't have separate fingers, which is very funny when I think about it now. That game was legendary, good memories...

[@jackson.2171]

Early "Witcher 4" gameplay

[@deathekidgaming]

Devon Giarratano This comment had literally nothing to do with Skyrim or farcry

[@AlexyTousignant]

Skyrim > Farcry Primal .. Farcry Primal is 2016 and Skyrim is 2011 .. no one is talking about Farcry Primal anymore but Skyrim is still used in most comparisons haha.. Skyrim isn't visually more impressive though, obviously because the game is over 5 years older but the game is still better anyway.. The Witcher 3 destroy them all though and this thing made me wish to see The Witcher 4 be even better than everything I could imagine of a video game :P

[@xerospacious4024]

Eh it's completely subjective Alexy.

[@FloppyDisk893]

*alpha

[@soonts]

Unreal indeed. Looking at the grass, there’s very strong gusty wind changing directions. Looking at the frame and smoke, it’s very moderate constant speed wind, blowing same direction all the time.

[@kaizen2445]

OH JESUS LORD ...im a huge lover of the grass and this is the game Ive always looked for!!!!!

[@H4mmerfall]

They're really serious with this engine. Almost everything so far looks amazing,

[@pedrox8388]

Now we just need people to make games that don't suck ass.

[@nekoons]

Acredito que você não seja uma delas

[@JasonandaCamera]

Damn, the michelin man got ripped

[@drevialzerathustra5336]

so crazy how advanced these effects are.

[@DBHHellhound]

impressive on a gtx 760

[@alexfornell]

This is absolutely brilliant...

[@itworkss]

this is insane. how the fire spreads through the grass, with the combination of the wind.

[@andrewtabak4893]

This gets me hyped for all the newer games, they are gonna look amazing and have good fps :D

[@nonyabusiness665]

This is just a proof that you can optimize a game properly and make it look fantastic, hint hint every game developer ever.

[@carver7585]

Finally! Now I can make my realistic field burning game.

[@HOUSERecordings]

shows an epic engine, stunning mechanics. And gets added to a game only 10 years later.

[@lumencipher7558]

Oh wow this is even better than I was hoping for. I can't wait to put this to use

[@user-ow4jd5ws9y]

Can you help please. I buy full version and try demo build, but all windows white, nothing... Help me!

[@rungoranga6341]

Oh shiet, that looks so cool, especially the spreading fire.

[@Nithian]

I can imagine some superhero game where you can run really fast and there is just a trail of toppled grass just like in the movies!

[@NugrohoPangestu08122002]

this would be awesome if some company use this in their games

[@waynespitsfire8419]

You could make a game off this mechanic alone and call it maze and make the maps big open tall grass where you have to find enemies and use perviously made trails to navigate , i feel it would really take off

[@lishde3]

This looks like some good stuff and seems well optimized. Keep up the good work!

[@offishlgmryt951]

this will make an excellent mowing grass simulator

[@goodnightnathan]

god, this would be phenomenal to have in games.

[@jedi39]

nishtyak) Well done, waiting for the market, be sure to add to your library!

[@TheFlamingPike]

I'll be honest, if the movement of the grass was slowed down, it would be perfect for underwater plants. There is more complexity with "surface" grass, however, that is not found in this video. It's going to take a few more years before we can truly see 100% realistic grass/wind effects, but we're getting there. As for the fire, I've seen this before, I think in Far Cry 3 they already implemented pretty realistic grass burning effects.

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic897]

imagine games with this piece of art

[@seth.topalian5538]

I liked Far Cry because it used a similar system for plant fires. I don't know if it used wind direction, but the fire spread was pretty realistic and it was easy to accidentally start a forest fire

[@jaybyrdcybertruck1082]

This needs to be in every game ever

[@SlippyLegJones]

The fire spread is actually really cool. Only thing that isn't realistic is the fire being totally put out by rain. A large grass fire would be able to almost ignore the rain for about 5 minutes IRL before the grass that it's consuming is soaked enough for the fire to die. I'd imagine that feature is/will be adjustable though.

[@kylerupik4064]

The grass deformation would be awesome for a hunting, tracking game. Hunting animals. Or being a bounty hunter and tracking a fugitive

[@LukaGruby]

Why this looks better than real life?

[@PhilipZeplinDK]

Awesome, looking forward to seeing it on there!

[@lvcifxr]

I love the tall grass, a fine developer could use that for a nice fps chase scene, if you catch my drift

[@medsamikamal6469]

Wow is is definitely some Next Gen Tech right here

[@aureliusp1330]

The graphical fidelity of this engine is unreal.

[@MrLuc420]

That is REALLY nice!! Good job man! Fantastic asset!

[@Shorkiedokey]

Amazing job from the developers.

[@MrMarrow]

Mind Blown 🤯🤯

[@MiLiberator]

This looks amazing! Imagine the possibilities!

[@3sgamestudio]

oh man.. its not out yet?! :D Definately a buy for me. the grow harvest and burn got me good :)

[@S.Krezel]

It's currently under review process on Epic :) Release date depends on their decision, I'll post any updates as I have them.

[@3sgamestudio]

please do! I'm Waiting. It will take a shit ton of work to merge it with the procedural trees I bought though ;) but they need to work on the same wind and grow pattern.

[@3sgamestudio]

scrap that.. I will jsut buy your trees as well. Hopefully they work on similar basis, so it will be easier to merge them into a weather system.

[@CanalHardcorePlay]

Hello friend!! I got the lite version. I placed the "interactiveGrassManager_BP" in my map, but nothing is working.. wind direction, wind strenght.. Nothing. What am I missing here?

[@LotiLaw]

Never has grass been so interesting

[@gamerx112]

this looks awesome, hundred bucks developers dont make the most of it and play it safe

[@skyehimalaya8047]

Holy Shit. That Looks AMAZING!

[@PaulV3D]

Nice work. Looking forward to seeing more!

[@hellothere3430]

Never seen grass look so jelly like before both in games and in real life

[@felixblue5198]

GRASS EFFECTS BEST PART OF ANY GAME FOR ME

[@martijn5848]

Wow, never thought grass could be so intense

[@GordonSeal]

You should set up a email newsletter so we can be notified when it's on the marketplace.

[@gameboy6023]

That will be a revolution!

[@JimmyCakeSon]

Ive seen the future and it is bright !

[@FilipVoska]

I think that with some tweaks, this could be used for snow as well. Do you have any plans for that?

[@S.Krezel]

It could be possible when having many small instances that would act as a modular/seamless snow chunks - but I suspect that it wouldn't look too realistic and wouldn't be very performant. No plans for now, but cool idea, it could work for some stylized/chunky snow.

[@XcaliburReborn]

all i can think of is that moment in lost world Jurassic park where the velociraptors are hunting the soldiers in the grass. make that into a game, it'll be great. one team of soldiers, one team raptors. raptors have scent trails they can follow, humans have an overhead drone that displays the immediate area on a HUD to help them track which direction the raptors are coming from the grass trails. give them gas cannisters to throw off their scent and the raptors get a jump lock-on when they're close enough to the human.

[@Crittek]

Is the grass made from sprites or is each strand a 3D object?

[@MiguelGuzmanIsAwesome]

The switch Pokemon is gonna be dope

[@BrokenWorldMovie]

This looks super cool. Great job!

[@gabriellarsson9029]

If you want stuff to improve you could try giving each (collective) strand a few points where it can bend, making it look more like they're waving in the air, instead of just leaning. You could also make it so that the first "bend" is much stiffer than the last, since, well, gravity. Really good work though, looks amazing! *Side note: I know nothing about this program or how to use it, if this is not possible, my bad.*

[@garyhamilton7810]

When you leave the area for an hour and come back, after it's been unrendered, is it going to save all those displacements? Could this be used for like, tracking a wild animal in a game? Or must they disapear quickly.

[@PlayOn223]

tried adding your grass to a new level and its not working. I added the grass manager to the level and added grass component to the character as well.

[@tarassos]

awesome stuff what program did you use for the music production?

[@S.Krezel]

Thank you! FL Studio with some orchestral VST's :)

[@brodie9551]

Damn, all with a 760. Awesome!

[@edRookNoc]

now make an ufo game with lasers and than let us draw strange circles on the fields :) good job man.

[@speedfreakpsycho]

How to install it? I get "no compatible project" when i try to add it. Any idea?

[@Rubed0_o]

Well, I'm impressed how grass interacts with other elements. But I have a few questions, for example, if I'll use Quixel's Megascans for my plants and grass, can your tool provide a growth system and interaction with TrueSky (clouds' shadows) and NVidia FlameWorks for them?

[@S.Krezel]

You can use your custom grass meshes with the system and they'll work with all the features. You just have to have your mesh not too big, designed as a small instance (you can see an example in the starter guide). Fire propagation system can use custom particle effects for flames & smoke. I don't know TrueSky, I suspect that it shouldn't be too hard to connect these two by adding some logic - but not out of the box, since I can't add interaction between external systems in a standalone MP product. Cloud shadows use vector value for wind direction and two scalar values for cloud speed & scale - so probably some values from TrueSky could feed it.

[@8BitGanker]

ETA when this will be in the marketplace?

[@S.Krezel]

I'm still waiting for Epic's response regarding this. I'll post any updates as soon as I have them, here in comments and in UE forum thread.

[@CoolUsername69]

Epic's response will likely be in the form of cum.

[@SteamedBunX]

WOW, keep evolving, make game great again!

[@epicwarding]

first time i saw anyhting like this was in a 2002 game called Neverwinter nights, while much more primitive ,it indeed did had wind and creature and explosions effectign the grsas in the game . sure its not the same but yea nice to see how "far" the "dynamic" grass has gone from 2002-2017

[@ibelieveingaming3562]

Could you guys work on the volume of smoke that is possible to run in engine? I notice that battlefield doesn't quite live up to its namesake.

[@kratochvil11]

Wish this was in Players Unknown Battlegrounds.. would be so badass!

[@j.dijkstra9013]

I really want to buy this, and I am going to, just a quick question, does the fire propagation also affect your dynamic trees and plants? Cheers, - Joeri

[@hillmor8635]

AFTER THOUSANDS OF YEARS! WE CAN FINALLY BURN. GRASS! HELL YEAH!

[@garrettsturgeon5112]

OMG! I am going to buy this forsure!

[@niCeIIcux]

It looks cool! Maybe just one thing needs to be changed - grass under the player(IMO)

[@reversebros1510]

what is the name of the music you use in this video?

[@SOYZBEANPRODUCTIONS]

Wow i have no words

[@rtcaleb4678]

I've made something very similar I just want to know how you got it so effcient. I made mine in pure C++ and it can't handle near as mcuh grass as yours appears to.