How to Create Planets in Unreal Engine: Ground to Space Transition UE4 Tutorial

[@UnrealSensei]

Important! At 6:29 100 billion should be 100 million I misspoke whoops

[@abdelrahmanmohmed3185]

Thanks so much ,but generally can you make it in 3dsmax for animation movies like ue4 for games ??

[@imbiiew]

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[@imbiiew]

@@abdelrahmanmohmed3185 ล( าคคก,,ผ

[@dereksmall4311]

how can i apply this to an rts game like planetary annihilation

[@aleortega6169]

hola, el proyecto esta genial, gracias, solo queria preguntarte, como corrijo el problema con el pivote para que no se deforme?

[@KaustavMajumder]

12:00 - Dot product, to put in simple terms is "how much" two vectors (or directions) are aligned. The resulting value is a scalar (directionless) value indicating how much the directions are aligned or apart. If we are working with unit vectors (essentially just the directions and not their magnitudes) to begin with, then the resulting value will be strictly within the range [-1,+1]; -1 implying that the directions are exactly opposite to each other and 0 meaning they are at perpendicular and +1 meaning they are absolutely aligned. So, when we are taking the dot product of the light direction and the vertex normal, we are basically asking, how much is the light aligned to the normal. Technically, if we are at a perfect alignment then the light source is hitting the exact underneath side of the geometry's face (the face that's nearest to the vertex normal that is) and thus making the face darkest, so we would get 1 as the result if we are considering unit vectors or a clamped result. For our usage though, we want this dark area to be represented by 0 for usage as a mask, hence we flip the value with an One Minus to get the Darkest area (analogously the vertex) as 0 and the brightest area (analogously the vertex) as 1.

[@defonten]

You're just another evidence that not all heroes where capes! Thank you so much for this beautiful and clear break down!

[@wizard4599]

This is the clearest and easiest to understand explanation of what a Dot product is I've ever seen! I need to bookmark this somehow in case I ever forget or need to point someone else in the right direction!

[@Vonsteffan]

Thank you, Zak. You deliver an incredible amount of information without making it overwhelming to folks new to Unreal. The pace and level of detail is perfect. I also appreciate that you get right to the subject rather than wasting time with a pointless and rambling introduction. Please keep doing what you are doing.

[@BadassRockets]

this so much, right to the point, on task for duration

[@ajking913]

In UE5, make sure to choose Subdivison Type>LatLong when creating your sphere, or the spherical texture maps won't apply correctly. Also, I had to set my Earth sphere scale to 4,000,000 rather than 2,000,000 as the tutorial says, for some reason.

[@DarylSpeedman]

When scaling it up in UE5 it doesnt look like its been subdivided at all. I'm still getting the jagged edges like he demonstrates at the beginning. Did you encounter this as well?

[@DarylSpeedman]

Nevermind. I didnt give it enough slices.

[@luismkts]

Thanks so much bro I was getting crazy cause of the same issue!

[@marced2751]

Thanks - spent ages trying to figure this out

[@deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee6925]

THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@justusvega]

At 32:35 he says "Let's go into Foliage Paint" and means to say "Landscape Paint." I am clearly an auditory learner here and didn't see the visual cue of him clicking into landscape paint mode. Thought I would throw it in the comments in case anyone else wondered why their texture brushes weren't present. Also very grateful for these tutorials. Thank you for this quality content!

[@hanzulu586]

Omygorsh... I was blown away in just the first 7 minutes. A whole friggin' planet... First, the new modelling tool, totally amazing. But then.. a planet with atmosphere. Love it!

[@jaysprenkle1026]

at @15:00 the box that magically appears used to set the emmissive color is a 'Constant3Vector'.

[@litchi8300]

thx

[@ReginaldusGaming]

One of the best Unreal Engine 4 content on youtube hands down. I liked n sub'ed. Keep up the great work. Trouble shooting - for anyone not seeing the plugins "Modeling Tools Editor Mode" its because you are most likely not using a updated project. Opening your project through 4.25.3 which will tell you that your project was created with a older version of unreal blah blah hit yes create copy and when your project loads you'll see the plugins Edit>Plugins>[Click]Built-In>Search Bar~Modeling .

[@undisclosedpolitics]

I just switched from Unity to Unreal Engine and this just saved my project. Thank you.

[@IgraphyRupage]

This is pure gold

[@TheBelrick]

Hi! I too was inspired by the video you mentioned. I picked up a 2 tricks keen folk can try. 1. Add an infinite postprocessvolume and change bloom method to convolution. Check out the sun then! 2. Epic have created a procedural planet we can use! The beauty of this is that its like kerbal and has surface lod. (farside of planet is low detail, highest closest to cam). Enable volumetrics plugin . restart. Enable show engine content and show plugin content under Content view options. Now you can file open level. Volumetrics content/sky/maps and either of the two levels. (oh and you get volumetric clouds to play with too!)

[@UnrealSensei]

First tip is good! probably should of mention that for some nice lens flares. Second tip is really great to see where Unreal is going! Their planet is very glitchy right now but once it is officially released and they expand on it then I will make a tutorial on using it

[@heejoonkwak]

Where can I find the procedural planet from Epic?

[@UnrealSensei]

@@heejoonkwak Bel Rick explained it but go into plugins (on UE4.25) enable Volumetrics. Then in the the bottom right of the content browser click on the eye and select "Show Engine Content" and "Show Plugin Content" then find the folder prntscr.com/u1bwqt

[@tidexu3]

@@UnrealSensei ty

[@user-cw3nb8rc9e]

@@UnrealSensei Your help and dedication os better than Epic Games. Thanks a milion. Could you make another video with procedural planet and zoom from ground to deep space? or Moon surface please, mars surface.

[@tonycarpenter-Makzimia]

I'm trying to get up the motivation to get into this, videos like yours make it a LOT easier to consider. Last time I built anything was with the Neverwinter Nights toolset. Things have come a LONG way since then.

[@badashphilosophy9533]

It's Unreal Sensei! I was pleasantly surprised when I opened this video. You do the best tutorials for beginners like me.

[@jaymike5062]

It would be nice if landscapes 'adhered' to the surface. In real life the average distance to the horizon from the human eye (if the ground were flat) is only about 4km. This also helps give a sense of scale and position.

[@heyfonnin]

Something you can do is paste together several topography maps over a large distance then use this as a heightmap as a landscape to get a massive area to potentially get around this issue. I re-created roughly a 40x40 mile span around Los Angeles using this method. I say paste together multiple topo maps because you can normally only get low res if you are zoomed out too far. I took closer shots (9x to be exact) for best results and create a large heightmap image.

[@gandalfthegreen1827]

@@heyfonnin You could probably even use the lower res ones as a different LOD no?

[@heyfonnin]

@@gandalfthegreen1827 Yup!

[@mridulsarmah8709]

Sensei is Andrew Kramer of Unreal Engine. The beginner tutorials have really made me a huge fan.

[@pennaverdeful]

You even showed how to implement it in a gameplay scenario, you are amazing!

[@easonxie6780]

What a great tutorial! Hope Zach can make a same one but for UE5 :)

[@swarmsovereign5158]

Sensei, would you happen to want to remake this tut up to date with UE5? that'd be rad

[@jimyrji]

Восхищен! Очарован! Создатель программы без преувеличения гений.

[@Celticninja011]

what a beautiful spear.. very nice work

[@eliotskinner9550]

LOVE these videos man. You do a great job! Can't wait for the next one

[@SeanLake3D]

The very beginning selection in the Modeling Tool, is different now in 4.26.2 and 4.27.0. You have to select a specific primitive from the selection, and thus the details also change e.g. shape settings>Polygroup Mode>per face, single, per quad...so the menu as well as the selection isn't the same. Which sphere would equal what you created?

[@yoman9446]

You deserve Epic Megagrants

[@Phoenix_VR]

Agreed, he is concise and clear.

[@kripansh8673]

ooh ,so this is where they got the idea for earth 2 xD

[@gabrielsandstedt]

At 15:32, I would mask the clouds by brightness not opacity since there should still be clouds during the night. They are not just as bright as during the day :)

[@stevenranck5478]

Nice! If you modulate the city light mask by the inverse cloud texture, the clouds will block out some of the lights on the shadowed side of the planet.

[@scottcourtney8878]

This. Is. Incredible.

[@xiuanz4646]

A smile can change a day

[@lautarocg5739]

Thanks for the tutorial! I learned a lot! I wasn't convinced with how you worked the clouds so I found another way around. Basically I wanted the clouds to be visible if there was some bounce light from the dark side. What I've done: I set the material domain as Deferred Decal, with blend mode translucent. White base color, and the texture applied to opacity (with the panner so it spins). Now If I have some light source (bouncing light) from the dark side, clouds will be propperly iluminated.

[@RiccardoParrino]

Hi Lautarog, did you find the soultion of your "bouncing light", by chance? I have the same issue, not sure what to do for fixing it.. cheers

[@lautarocg5739]

Ugh, it's been almost a year since I haven't touched it. Have you tried the solution I explained in my previous comment? @@RiccardoParrino

[@patrykloan9057]

wow, guy, you're awesome

[@infinitehush]

These tutorials are all amazing. Also cutting back to yourself with a keyboard and mouse is both humanizing and hilarious, I love it!

[@koraybirand]

Amazing Tut !!! have a quick question. After building the light the earth land has disappeared .. Any ideas ?

[@RNDM-nd7tj]

Rotate the planet slightly or move the light with CTRL+L

[@danlan1727]

@@RNDM-nd7tj Thank you I had the same problem ;)

[@jackmann1478]

46:28 The ground view is at 1-3 FPS. Space is around 20 FPS.

[@ElricTheFullMetal]

First time on this channel, and your tutorial is amazing! Thank you.

[@DonEsteban3D]

what a nice new channel xD keep it up!

[@MikeDUtah]

I wish I understood 1/2 the words you were saying, amazing stuff man

[@armondtanz]

I feel confindent in the texurind i feel very confident in the keyframing but, jeez, them nodes!!!.... WHAAAAAA!!!!!

[@jeanclaudedelaronde]

Dayum! That's a sweet tutorial for planet creations. Thank you for showing us the Magic!

[@PiagaFurya]

Stunning!

[@goony_man]

I created Mars using your technique thank you! I have one question though, how do you add a height map to a static mesh?

[@hyrohyken5823]

I think you can apply it directly to the material, it will be easier than adding vertex to your model

[@baharimeli]

Mr. Sensei you are the best!

[@Shinjitsu_84]

Excelent tutorial, thanks!

[@hal-lr8pw]

Dude this is exactly what I've been looking for for the last 3 months! Thank you so much!!!!!

[@EvanXDev]

@Unreal Sensei think you could make this exact tutorial again but with UE5's latest techniques and updated features?

[@PixelsLaboratory]

At 05:41 you don't need to do that, as there's a setting right there under the Sky & Atmosphere, called "Transform Mode" and if you set it to "Planet Center at Component Transform" it'll basically shift the whole atmosphere around your planet so that the planet is now at the center of the atmosphere's sphere. Also, at 15:22 there's no need to re-use that Dot product trick, as the reason why your clouds are illuminated at night is because your clouds material is using a Lighting Mode that doesn't take into account Directional information. Try changing that and see it'll get fixed. And if you'll still have a weird white ring around the earth in the night portions, just uncheck the "Two sided" option, as it's strange seeing illuminated clouds through their backface, from the dark side of the earth.

[@jaredsimmons5583]

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Appreciate it brother, this is fantastic.

[@ohmcodes]

I guess make a series concerning all about orbital and rotating day and night with this transitional gameplay, also fix the spaceship :D but thanks this will answer my question long time ago

[@LAxemann]

So crazy - Today, a game engine can generate full-scale planets within MINUTES. I remember when I was blown away by Space Engineers' planets and thought this would stay "unique" for a long time. I was wrong. Amazing.

[@Rossilaz58]

Well this planet is just a texture, so it has no detail. The only other games with things like space engineers are Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen

[@허성경-s3e]

I'm sorry, but I would like to ask how you zoomed in / zoomed out at the 5:58 video position. thank you

[@blackheartgaming6121]

It’s been awhile since I saw one of your videos

[@JamalBakari]

Well done and good luck with the new channel, subbed!

[@CAPEDCRUSADER3900]

If you kept the Sky Atmosphere at 6360cm which from what I can tell is a 1:1 scale of the atmosphere of the earth. Then the size of the 256 side sphere at the default 50cm should be scaled up to 12,720,000 if you want a 1:1 scale Earth

[@ranger2671]

Thanks! This was an amazing tutorial! I am trying to make a video game and this was very helpful. I didn't do the surface and animation part, but I did make the planet. I also went a few steps further and set the angle of the Earth to 23.5 degrees, made it rotate, and overall made it look a little nicer.

[@arkmoni8983]

15:00 What is name this color node "0,0,0" ? Can you tell me the name please ? Because Sensei made the node with keyboard shortcut

[@arkmoni8983]

solution : Its the Constant3Vector Shortcut: node hold down 3 and left click

[@matt7253]

Love the passion, thanks for getting me started!

[@midimusicforever]

Good stuff!

[@mr.robert1416]

This channel deserves 6M subs. Can't thank you enough for how inspiring this was to me.

[@cyberfeedforward4032]

It's not glitchy. Your space ship just has its warp drive engaged.🚀😊

[@benkeyse1288]

at 16:30 you created two nodes for the append vector, but didn't show us what they were called or the shortcut you used to create them, this halted my ability to follow your tutorial, is there anyway you could explain what you did there to get speed X and speed Y to show up?

[@UnrealSensei]

Thanks for a timestamp. This tutorial is assuming intermediate knowledge of Unreal. Those two nodes are called a Constant 1 Vector and all they do is hold one number. The shortcut to get a constant 1, 2, or 3 vector is to hold down 1, 2, or 3 respectively and left click

[@benkeyse1288]

@@UnrealSensei excellent, thank you. Yeah I'm still learning UE4 but planetary stuff makes for some awesome scenery and I just wanted to get stuck into a good, descriptive tutorial. I'll try to continue the tutorial with this knowledge.

[@kbravo5287]

Thank you for the video! Really nice tutorial!!

[@ShturmanShturman-wp5yc]

great tutorial!

[@PDesigner]

This is really nice bro :)

[@TheRedeyes222]

Commenting before this channel reaches a million subs.

[@jetsakuga3140]

TheRedeyes222 facts

[@devlogerio]

Thanks bro, done on my side, works like a charm, learned a TON

[@cg.man_aka_kevin]

Thank you for the tutorial!!!... 🙏🙏🙏 Amazing and Mind Blowing!!!... 🤯🤯🤯

[@EthanFilms]

Thank you for showing the setup for the sun over the night sky...I was struggling with that in my current project and this saved me haha!

[@richardturner1175]

Thisis a brilliant tutorial. thanks for the demonstration!

[@mattsebastian6534]

How are you zooming out so fast? I've tried with the alt-z / alt-c, no love. I've also tried the numpad arrow keys but I'm still spending like 5 minutes to get anywhere at these scales. Thank you. Great video.

[@mikem-zz4ui]

This guy has me saying “spear “ lol thanks for the video this is awesome!

[@dandee1197]

I'm new here I've subscribed and turned on notifications, I'm about to go through your channel for more extremely useful (seriously this is very useful) tutorials. Hope you keep making more tutorials like this. Thank you

[@dimaworld2448]

Unbelievable !

[@PavlikGyra]

Thank you for the video! I've been looking for this for a long time!

[@DonEsteban3D]

Hey Mr Sensei, cool tutorials, thus We are waiting for more:D:D pls

[@skippyzk]

I can't believe this. I'm trying but I literally can't belive it.

[@makumiru1]

32:20 Gravel nodes not working with my UE4 4.26.0.. I don't know why but it can't load gravel texture so I can't paint on my landscape. Please help.

[@hitemup7950]

Same here, did you find a solution?

[@hitemup7950]

I found the issue, in the "Gravel Tint" paramjeter you had the output being multiplied by its alpha, and alpha by default is 0 thats why it is black, so in MI_Landscape set it to something between 0 and 1, or higher even, that way you can easly match the colour. You can see Sensei adjust it to match the colour at 36:54 . So my advice is that when you watch these tutorials you watch at least a minute in advance an then replicate, as the solution for most problems is ussually in the next minute or so.

[@justusvega]

@@hitemup7950 THANK YOU

[@christedstone4457]

Amazing tutorial! Can't wait to give this a try some day.

[@StankoBeronja]

your tutorials are nothing short of being amazing, really superb... especially with providing assets.... for example didnt know what doest it mean that 1e+06 in divide node, but then I opened it and saw even your comment WHY you did it... giving us the answer to WHY is in my opinion one of the most important aspects of didactic.... now I have a question: would it be possible to make volumetric clouds around the globe? that would be soooooo cool....

[@djmulder]

I would love a tutorial on how to make space in general.. like how to slipstream between "levels" to make it feel like space (so say you fly for 1 hour in 1 direction, how to keep it smooth)

[@shapeshifterstudios884]

Phenomenal job👏

[@orlandocastro898]

You are the Sensei. Thanks, thanks!

[@thomaswindfeld728]

I know this is an older video. If someone can tell me why my day map texture doesn't line up with its self. The polls are all messed up. Thanx. Very solid video. The best Earth creation vid Ive seen so far!

[@zeffster2]

thanks, really great stuff!

[@heatvisuals]

Amazing tutorial

[@AndyTheMartian-626]

this is EPIC

[@lastedit7307]

Thanks for the tutorial, it's a bit hard for a new user to keep up but at 12 mins into it and 3 hrs of hair pulling im on track with the 12 min point lol.

[@peerapongangsuphant731]

Great tutorial thanks so much for explore our idea to creative something future.

[@faisalee]

Amazing!!!

[@Leitin]

a note for some new people, in U.E 5 and i think in the 4 too, you don´t need to put de value of the block at -100000000, you can just go in sky atmosphere and change the box transform mode at the center. this implies that you can change the size of the world and the atmosphere

[@孙大师-x2u]

Very clear, Thank you so much

[@jankowal1791]

Dude tell me, you create this great looking grass or you download from somewere? 23:00

[@尹麒贺]

thank you.it s exciting and fun

[@polski6812]

That Guy Thanks, I will look into it later.

[@christuusgnosis]

really cool tutorial. matches a shot I was working on pretty well I needed to know about that material switcher component for a project It will be very useful thx!

[@yassiraykhlf5981]

amazing

[@confidenceondatrack76]

Awesome content🔥🔥 I noticed UE5's layout was a little different, could you do an update for UE5 for beginners like myself?

[@ruchirlives]

Maybe linked. I couldn’t get the viewport cam to move as fast as the video even at the speed 8 and 128 settings. Obv can’t increase the speed slide per past 8. Any ideas?

[@frogalabasta5876]

This is so important to my game you have no idea. Thank you sensei

[@GISxRayzen]

I would thank your parents because they made you. Thank you for being alive. Thank your for creating this. Thank you for sharing this knowleges.

[@chiefshalot2986]

so at 15:00 min what node is the color picker , video ends here for me since you assume we know every little aspect of this very complexed program

[@AxPlayOn]

Constant3Vector

[@gursimransingh8726]

Wow nice but can you make tut on complete day and night cycle including sun and moon

[@UnrealSensei]

That is a good idea! I will probably do that once 4.26 is released because a day/night cycle would look nice with new clouds. In the mean time check out the Sun Position Calculator plugin and connect the "solar time" with a tick

[@gursimransingh8726]

@@UnrealSensei i have alrealy got ue4.26 dev rendering from github and got to say that the new clouds are just beautiful and also the performance is outstanding its just a milisecond on a 1050 ti with disabled cast shadow on groud another feature is sky light thats also very fast but the only problem with dynamic lighting in ue4 with using sky atmosphere in gerenal is that we are unable to render the moon or the night part of the cycle since in the case of sky atmosphere when the directional light is below the horizon the sky turns pitch black resulting in a black screen since at that time the sky light is not getting any color to capture from atmosphere since it itself is black

[@UnrealSensei]

@@gursimransingh8726 Yes that is one issue. That is normally fixed by adding in a second directional light from the moon with a lot less power and is set to blue. This isn't physically accurate but subconsciously we think night is blue. That would lighten everything

[@ColdBeamGamesChannel]

Excellent video. Thank you!

[@oddstuffcs3296]

how did you get the color at 15:00?

[@UnrealSensei]

Its the Constant3Vector Shortcut: node hold down 3 and left click

[@oddstuffcs3296]

@@UnrealSensei Thanks :)