How to Create Mega Assemblies for Realistic Landscapes in UE5

In this video we go over what are mega assemblies and how to create them from scratch in Unreal Engine 5
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[@3dmonkeybizz]

Great insight tutorial! Many thanks.

[@MR3DDev]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Q_B..]

Nice to hear that you like icelandic stuff 😀 Greetings from Reykjavík and thanks for fantastic content 🙃

[@MR3DDev]

Love to read people from around the world are watching :)

[@shaezbreizh86]

Rock simulator 2022 edition gonna be rocking ^^

[@MR3DDev]

Agree

[@metulski1234]

Love your Keyboard-Sounds. It sounds like an old typewriter.

[@MR3DDev]

thanks, those are the blue cherry switches, I like the sound is very satisfying.

[@DrZou28]

Thank you for this Tutorial.

[@7_of_1]

Nice one, thanks.

[@MR3DDev]

No problem 👍

[@cookiiking]

omg, thank you so manch, i think this way is more easier especially if you don't want to sculpt the landscape.

[@qazzi2436]

How did you made these beautiful ground fogg? There is not a lot of tuts from other creaters. Would love to see from you.

[@MR3DDev]

I just grabbed those from a free Epic project, is called Particle Effects.

[@gud_]

👑 👑

[@superochoo]

do these need to be worked on terrains? we are using non-terrain geometry for our planetoid based shapes

[@MR3DDev]

Depends, if you are using a bit open space terrain is gonna help a lot, for smaller shots like this one is all geometry.

[@superochoo]

@@MR3DDev we have non-flat planetoids with arbitrary shapes

[@tien4326]

This was very Helpful 👍 I had a question, what to do if I have to edit the assembly in the future ? I tried editing the level instance but it makes no difference ?

[@MR3DDev]

usually you would edit as if editing a blueprint

[@zbynekjuracka9664]

May I ask, what is the difference between using blueprints and mega assemblies to build houses from several parts? Thank you

[@marcusjohnston3138]

Essentially no difference as far as I'm aware. In essence mega assemblies are just a bunch of assets packed together, much like you could do with a blueprint

[@yantingye1677]

hi,MR3D-Dev,I don't understand the difference between static mesh and level instance,between BP and BPP?

[@MR3DDev]

BPP is just a name, no effect on the asset. A static mesh is just that a mesh in your scene with textures, this level instance is a way to combine various static meshes to create a much larger asset

[@matek7523]

Hi, has anyone managed to migrate megaassemblies from valley of ancient to your project, seems like assets get messed up when attempting to do that.

[@DamienRamirez]

In Hindsight I actually knew all this, But until you went through it all I was not 100% sure how they did it.

[@blakegt.7326]

Question: Isn't this process, the same as just making an actor blueprint and adding several assets to it? or is this something different? I thought this was actually a bad idea, because you are now also adding several actors to the scene with all options a BP has, like ticks, etc... and it was better to just add these assets and group them, than making Blueprints.

[@MR3DDev]

It is a similar process but not the same so I guess the engine doesn't process this the same way

[@blakegt.7326]

@@MR3DDev That leaves me with uncertainty, I'm telling this to you, because when I started in the industry, people said, it was a good idea to create this bluperints with lots of stuff, to latter populate the environments easier, lets say, build a house inside a blueprint, and then just duplicate the blueprint, instead of making the house again and again.... BUT, in my 7 year experience using the engine, this causes an FPS drop, becase on top of adding the mesh, you are also adding Blueprints with unnecesary features; BUT... In UE5... not sure, still, when you see the entire process it feels like just making a blueprint out of several assets....... and believe me if you work like this and latter in the process you figure out these blueprints are causing your game to drop from 90 FPS to 75... redoing the entire thing, is pain, I didn't even finish... this process of removing soo many unnecesary blueprints after months reworking scenes, specially because most of this blueprints are unique, not childs..... yet still, UE5 has a poor performance in my experience, I stay with UE4 for now, UE4 starts with 250FPS plus, UE4 starts with 90FPS and without content... for me, useless, hopfully the final version isn't that bad.

[@MR3DDev]

@@blakegt.7326 UE5 is a different beast

[@blakegt.7326]

@@MR3DDev Actually I just tried UE5 Early V2 and UE4.26 is better in every sense.... FPS in UE5 is low, UE4 is high, you can import the same assets from quixel at High Quality (no need of nanite) and your FPS will be better in UE4, and there is no big difference with Lumen, you can fake the same results in UE4.26, and actually UE5 lumen lights have a lot of issues, banding and shadow noise with artifacts, but also, Lumen is connected to "effects scalability" wich means, you have to use it in High and up, if not, Lumen is unusable, wich means you won't be able to use it wisely for mobile games with low quality effects... and there are lots of light parameters (details) that do not even work, after so many testings, I'll go back to UE4.26

[@armondtanz]

Im always curious how u lay out a scene with a near infinite plane. Imagine a drone (with camera) shot where the drone went up in the air and you start to see the landscape for literally 100s & 100s of miles. Always curious to learn how to do this? There may be sum hack or im missing sumthing.

[@MR3DDev]

You could do what they did in the valley of the ancients and make huge mega assemblies that can be 1Km each, or use landscape and do "fill world" which will make it infinite, but it won't look as good, there are many intricacies when making such a big terrain.

[@armondtanz]

@@MR3DDev hey great. Thanks for reply.... now to search for "fill world" button :D... You can see the problem in valley of ancient. If you do a verical camera climb. You can see landscape is a illusion. If u were to look 20/30 ft above ground level you will see huge gaps etc. Be good to find a tutorial on this.

[@MR3DDev]

@@armondtanz That's because you only have part of the level loaded, if you load the whole level then you won't have that problem, but you will also need to buy a new computer cause it may blow up after loading the whole thing

[@armondtanz]

@@MR3DDev ha ha... the dreaded "blow up"... everytime that happens i lose my second moniter and have to re install my wacom!!!!.... da fuk!!!... Anymore info on where to find out about this "fill world" option , sounds like a good starting point. Thanks for your answers :D

[@MR3DDev]

@@armondtanz when you go into landscape mode and create a new landscape you will see it ;)

[@talonstride]

Can we make our own assets like prefabs using Mega-assemblies?

[@MR3DDev]

Yes

[@ClouD4CS]

got any better solution for matching colors between different assets ....lets say CANYON SANDSTONE to look more like NORDIC COASTAL CLIFF ...

[@MR3DDev]

You will have to play with the Albedo tint. On the valley of the ancients level they build the material so it will change as you change from one instance to another, but that is some programming yuyu that is way out of my league as an artist.

[@MrTizla]

how do you use fogsheets in ue5?

[@MR3DDev]

I just imported them from the Particle project that is free on the marketplace, after that is all about placement :)

[@MrTizla]

@@MR3DDev are you referring to the Particles and Wind Control System? I can't find anything else

[@gud_]

@@MrTizla i think he's referring to the Blueprints project, just open it with ue5 and take the bp_fogsheets from there

[@MR3DDev]

@@MrTizla no is just a plane with a texture

[@Gregoses]

Why do i have to create a new level? cant i do it in the one i am working in ?

[@MR3DDev]

that's up to you ;)

[@Gregoses]

@@MR3DDev oh nice, thanks for the reply

[@Vectorr66]

Yikes, I am creating a project with it now at 84gb haha

Problem is, UE5.0.1 has a different interface, so it makes it very difficult for a beginner to figure out, where all these menu items are hidden. Why do these appdevs always have to modify working interfaces? Dammit! 🤥

[@Jollyghost]

I know it's two weeks later, but I'm assuming this is about the "create from selection" option is no longer there. For yourself or anyone else It's still in the right click menu but under Level > Then Select "Create Packed Level Actor". The Type option is missing, don't worry, it's already on the Type you want for this. I'm assuming you found this by now anyway, but to anyone just stumbling on this now, here you go.

@@Jollyghost THX! 👍

[@whiskcat3047]

@@Jollyghost thank you, this was helpful. This video is already outdated, lol