How To Realistic Blend Terrain Layers in Unity HDRP | Step by Step Tutorial

Hi :) Very often in my videos, I use height-blending when creating terrain, and I also often get questions on how to set and use it. So this time I decided to prepare a tutorial about Height- based blending, that anyone who doesn't know this technique yet, can create even more realistic terrain:)
Have a nice week:)
- This is a tutorial for beginners, so probably most of you already know this technique, but I also wanted beginners to learn how to use it :)
- My English is not very good but I hope it won't disturb you too much:)
- 4K is only there to increase the bitrate of the movie, and to prevent KZbin from completely killing the details of the scene.
⭐By buying this assets you support the channel :)
►[HDRP] Day/Night Cycle: assetstore.unity.com/packages...
►Drag&Drop Volumes: assetstore.unity.com/packages...
How To Realistic Blend Terrain Layers in Unity HDRP | Step by Step Tutorial
📝 Assets used in this video:
►Landscape Ground Pack 2: assetstore.unity.com/packages...
►VIS - PBR Grass Textures: assetstore.unity.com/packages...
🎵 Music from:
Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/?referral=to-xh35s
🎬Timeline:
Soon...
Other Tutorials:
🌄Realistic Lighting in Unity HDRP: Dawn
• Realistic Lighting in ...
☀️Realistic Lighting in Unity HDRP: Day/Noon
• Realistic Lighting in ...
🌆Realistic Lighting in Unity HDRP: Dusk / Sunset
• Realistic Lighting in ...
🌙Realistic Lighting in Unity HDRP: Night
• Realistic Lighting in ...
🌲Reflection Probe Tutorial:
• Let's... NatureManufac...
#unity #hdrp #tutorial #lightingtutorial #unityhdrp #unity3d #seta

[@aedanmckee8698]

Finally, this is what I have been looking for.

[@SetaLevelDesign]

I'm glad the video helped you:)

[@HomelessHermit]

I never knew it was this easy, Thank you so much for this well put together tutorial.

[@SetaLevelDesign]

I'm glad the video was useful:)

[@thongtran5407]

this is a really helpful video. I hope to have more video tutorials in the future. Thanks a lot😍😍

[@SetaLevelDesign]

On average, every two videos with projects is a tutorial :) With time, it's possible that they will appear more often, but it all depends on how much time I have to create them :)

[@thegrey448]

fabulous tutorial , welldone .. thanks

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Simple thing but significantly improves the quality of terrain:) I'm glad it was useful:)

[@akisuke1370]

Awesome video, thank you

[@SetaLevelDesign]

You're welcome:)

[@maxkmh]

thanks for nice tutorial :)

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Maybe it will be useful for someone :)

[@b_r_a_d8569]

Awesome tutorial great job. I just wanted know is it possible to make stylized enviorement via HDRP or URP because it's really hard to work lightning or etc on different level.

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Thx:) I think that you can easily make a stylized environment in HDRP, and even more so in URP. The only problem is that very often stylized assets don't have shaders that work with HDRP:/

[@thomaslefebvre5848]

Your are the best :)

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Thank you:)

[@piyushgaur14]

great tutorial ..relayy helps a lot , sir can you tell how to create the mask map or texture packing in channels

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Thanks :) I'll try to make a texture tutorial soon:)

[@seemantadebdas294]

Thank you for the amazing tutorial! Can you make a tutorial on HDRP shaders like Lit Tesselation, Layered Lit Tesselation and Layerd Lit. I've seen this being used in the "Meadow Environment Dynamic Nature" asset. One such instance is for the R.A.M Spline path that makes use of a Layered Lit Tesselation material. It would be awesome if you share your knowledge on this topic as well. Thank you

[@SetaLevelDesign]

I will try to prepare such a tutorial:) You more interested in how to use it using resources from nature manufacture or rather a tutorial on what these shaders are for?

[@seemantadebdas294]

I'm glad you got back to me! A tutorial on this topic(the HDRP shaders) just like in this video would be amazing. Maybe towards the end of the video you can add information regarding the Nature Manufacturer shaders as well. I tried going through the docs about these shaders but didn't understand much. So glad I found your channel. Binge watching all the videos multiple times XD This channel is a gold mine of information Thank you

[@serkillz6426]

What if there is no mask map at all? and terrain is looking very blurry

[@SetaLevelDesign]

You can create a mask map yourself, as shown in the video, if you don't have a normal map, the Materializer tool (search in net) is useful:)

[@nc737]

Hey what does the amplitude affect? 04:40

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Amplitude defines the range of values for the height map, so I set it to the same value on all materials because then it is easier to adjust the base if the range of values ​​on all textures is the same:)

[@lapisthehuman]

Hey anybody can I do this in URP or only HDRP project?

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Yes you can, but you must remember that when using this in URP you can only use 4 textures:(

[@lapisthehuman]

@@SetaLevelDesign thank you so much I appreciate it your vids help a ton 💕 have a great day

[@juliaalder2007]

Where do you get the mask texture from? Could you please show this in a free software like Gimp? I am totally lost.

[@SetaLevelDesign]

In GIMP, it's almost the same as in Photoshop: 1) Open GIMP 2) Open the texture with the image (albedo) 3) Go to Colors > Saturation and set the Scale to 0 4) Go to Colors > Levels and set the input levels as shown in the video 5) Select the entire image with Ctrl + A and copy it with Ctrl + C 6) Open the texture with the mask map that is missing data in the blue channel, or simply create a new image with the same dimensions as the albedo texture 7) Go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Channels 8) Uncheck the eyes in the Red and Green channels by clicking on them and unselect those channel by clicking they name (they should be light gray) and make sure the Blue channel remains dark gray 9) Go back to the Layers tab and press Ctrl + V 10) Go to Layer > Anchor Layer 11) Return to the Channels tab and click where the eyes were to reactivate the channels 12) Go back to the Layers tab 13) Go to File > Export As and save the texture as, for example, a TGA file Done:)

[@juliaalder2007]

Thank you so much for this explanation. I will try this. But I'm still confused. Is this related to tesselation? Does tesselation has anything to do with this? Is this the base for tesselation? Do I have to create a mask texture for every material I apply to the terrain? And one main mask texture for the whole terrain? Oh, I am sorry, but this doesn't fit into my brain yet. 😅

[@SetaLevelDesign]

To explain it better:) tessellation works like Pinart (type it in Google), i.e. using a height map (e.g. your hand) you can modify the material so that some of its elements are extended on the object even though the model mesh in this place is flat. And tessellation simply creates a new material mesh and bends the material according to the pattern from the height map. Unfortunately, this function does not exist in the standard terrain shader. Height base blending it's a, for example, road made of only by stones (first texture), each stone has its own height, so if you start to sprinkle sand on this road (our second texture), it will start to fall between the stones first, because its height is much lower than stones. But if we start adding more and more of it, it will start to cover the stones more and more. If you now take a photo of such a road from above, you will have a flat image of these two layers. The point of height base blending is that you have two textures that have different heights at different points, and if one texture has a higher height at a given point, it will be displayed as visible. And the photo we took is nothing more than the final appearance of the terrain because the textures will still be flat on it:) And so there must be a separate mask for each texture because we need to tell Unity what height specific elements on the texture are and so that it can calculate which element to display first:) I hope you now understand how it works:)

[@juliaalder2007]

@@SetaLevelDesign O, my god. Thanks so much for your patience with me. ❤️ Is this available in URP? I have no option to add grass texture in HDRP. It's greyed out. Also my grass detail mesh with a wind shader (shader graph) doesn't work in HDRP. I am close to give up. But I would love to have clouds. 🫠 Do you know any tutorials which could help me? I am the girl who just needs a little bit of terrain around my temples, ruins, castles, etc. I can't use anything that is not creative commons 0, if you remember me. It's really frustrating. 😪

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Yes, it is available in URP, but unfortunately it is limited to only 4 terrain textures:( HDRP doesn't support Grass texture either :/ If the grass shader is created in Shader Graph, I think it could be easily converted to HDRP, sometimes just 1 click is enough:)

[@iiropeltonen]

What are those maskmaps? I've never heard of those?

[@SetaLevelDesign]

HDRP uses channel-packed textures to store multiple material maps in a single texture which is called a Mask Map. For example, the green channel stores ambient occlusion information and the alpha channel stores smoothness information:) In the build-in render pipeline it's split into few material maps, here all the information is contained in this one:)

[@iiropeltonen]

@@SetaLevelDesign Okay. I've never used HDRP 😌 Do you always have to add the masks manually yourself?

[@SetaLevelDesign]

No :) most assets that support HDRP already have a properly prepared mask map. Here I showed how to deal with, if the maskmap is missing the channel we need :)

[@testt3134]

how do it with tilemap2d?

[@SetaLevelDesign]

Unfortunately, as far as I know, this cannot be obtained on titlemap:/

[@testt3134]

@@SetaLevelDesign it's a shame... is there another way?

[@testt3134]

@@SetaLevelDesign or... can i use terrain in 2d games?

[@SetaLevelDesign]

@@testt3134 If you would like to combine 3D terrain with tillemaps, i.e. turn it into a 2.5D game, check out Octopath Traveler, everything is combined there quite interestingly:)