Let's Build the RPG! - 7 - Landscape Material Tutorial in Unreal Engine 5

[@NumenBrothers]

if you're having the issue where textures from the surfaces you download (from Quixel Bridge) aren't able to be assigned to the material, it's probably because they are virtual textures. You can tell this if it has a subtle 'VT' in the bottom right corner of the texture icon. To convert a Virtual Texture back into a normal texture (which will then work in this tutorial), right click on the texture and select 'Convert to Normal Texture'.

[@brokenworld542]

did something change at 2:00 ? when i select all the landscape proxies it just has the location scale and rotation option for me so i tried selecting the parant landscape and there was an option to assign the landscape material but if i select the M_Ground_Moss nothing happens also the quixel ones not working :( also tried using a material instance of M_Ground_Moss but also nothing happens :< edit: turns out there was the general search filter active on the proxies but not on the parent somehow, found the right option now :)

[@definitelyadarkangel9225]

Hey i'm having a similar issue to this, except it's not a virtual texture, in fact it worked when it was the only one plugged in but once it's included in the layers it just turns black. i've had this happen with multiple textures at a time, and it's never the same ones on previous projects. Any idea what's going on? I made sure to use the RGBA for the texture category on all the layers.

[@OpinionatedHuman]

I've been experimenting in UE5 for months now and have watched a ton of video tutorials, but this one is by far the best I've found. I hate the "do this and it just works" tutorials because I'm someone who wants to always know, Why?! This series does it for me, you have made the sky NOT my limit. Thank you for that! I'm following along but making my own type of level/game, can't wait to see what the rest of this series will teach me. Honestly, thank you so much!

[@NumenBrothers]

Glad to be of service!

[@KRob811]

I’m in the same boat. I came here for the audio tutorials but I have decided to start the whole series from scratch because I was loving following along (plus the later tutorials aren’t as easy to just jump into without a lot of this prior setup.)

[@MrEarbuckets]

you're a great communicator. Great job sir. subscribed.

[@ChristopherMartone]

Still loving this series. I learned one tip to pass on for other newbies: You have to click "Save" when you do anything to the M_MS_GardenLandscape texture. I forget the first time this tripped me up, but the second time is around 28:43 where he mentions having to set a different texture as the default, and then go back in and set the new one we created. I did it 3 or 4 times and it didn't work. So I went back in and made sure all the nodes were connected and hit Save then went back and the layers were showing up. Just had to hit that darn Save button! Finally finished this episode. I really appreciate the comments at the end. I had to pause to replay a bit and keep up so I'm glad this was a harder episode. My rivers look way worse and in-game when I jump into the river I get a crash and says "CANNOT EDIT LANDSCAPE IN PIE" which I can only assume is due to the fact that it is so deep.

[@NumenBrothers]

awesome! yes, this one was a beast. Regarding rivers, I've heard of some weird behavior of the landscape when it gets below a certain -Z threshold. Might be the issue

[@pic0_enri]

Same issiue and solve it by checking all basecolor are connected by RGBA, safe all and switch from landscapemode to selectionmode to Landscapemode back

[@haithamsweilem]

@43:40 Squashing a 3D texture into a 2D one, is called UV unwrapping. It is exactly the same as unwrapping a colorful cover of an Easter egg. The cover is actually a square-shaped texture which is comprised of 2 dimensions U and V, which are aliases to X and Y in space for textures.

[@TheAero]

Love how analytically you go through every topic. Not slow but explaining intuition. Great work!

[@mathysvandermerwe6094]

At 29:00, I found that it is easier to just reload the map to see those missing layers.

[@TheSlayerCompany]

51:43 OFC i gonna stick! Holy moly what a Part.. this was actually crazy but something i had 0 knowledge in.. thanks for that bomb of information!

[@peterdavies8807]

Glad that you said this was a 'beast' of a tutorial! Things certainly sped up towards the end! Thanks for all this info, much appreciated!

[@mooisesable]

I just discovered your channel and can't believe how much it fits with me. I'm a 33 years old brazilian guy that decided to turn my love for games and creativity energy into something "real", was strugling to get the bascis done with my kind of RPG game and your channel is realy helpful, gonna watch the whole series for sure! It's hard to find something so well done about this subjects in the internet. When the game is ready I hope it succeeds enought so I can make a nice donation to thank you!

[@mooisesable]

And to sculpt the river bed I sculpt down how deep i wanted the river in just one point and then used the flatten tool with a low strenght and brush falloff = 1 in the bottom of it so it was easy to create a uniform and smooth river with a single brush stroke

[@NumenBrothers]

Awesome- exactly why I started this. You should join our Discord if you can- we would love to have you, Moisés. We meet every Friday, 6-7pm EST.

[@mooisesable]

@@NumenBrothers Thank you man, I will look foward to it

[@hazen-kain]

Amazing tutorial, you have a talent for teaching, I specially loved the last bonus trick with blending textures together, it's amazing even if getting into advanced techniques, and it starts to show how deep one can go with landscapes & texturing in general. Thanks a lot!

[@noceanstudioGC]

So far it is one of the most efficient and informative series about UE5 i've watched, and I watched TONS of videos) Ben Cloward level of detail) Thanks a lot, man! Sended to every single UE5 dev i knew, hope you'll not gonna stop. The structure, when we create actual game and learn everything we need to complete this task is THE BEST way to learn!

[@tingknow]

Thanks for your work. I was overwhelmed, watching tutorials, understanding a fraction of what they make me do. But thanks to you i'm doing my own project following yours.

[@jatinderarora2261]

This tutorial is truly outstanding, especially when it comes to materials and utilizing the material function. It's definitely one of the best tutorials I've ever come across.

[@sebastiannaitsabes1962]

Dude, thank you. I've been following on, but building my own world. And I ran into the problem where the textures weren't compiling - the problem where I was running out of texture memory or whatever. So I had paused your video when the problem occured, and have been troubleshooting for like 24 hours now before I just decided to watch out your video. Share Wrap, now all good. I'm learning a LOT from you. Thank you

[@brandonsteyn1486]

Thanks Ran in to the same problem now reading your comment reminded me about the memory

[@andrzejmikolajczyk9561]

This series is just amazing! Thank you!

[@thelightwielder]

Another great video, I like how you show us how to do something, then show us how to do it in a way so that we can repeat it with less work

[@NumenBrothers]

It's one of the advantages I think with doing a series- able to show how pieces build on top of each other to make the end product much more viable

[@Axel0689]

Fantastic tutorial I would say. Very interesting Height-based and Randomized Blend Materials. I already knew how to use Landscape, but these two tips are very important and useful. Thank you.

[@nickprice6644]

Thanks for this session. Took me a couple of days to do but got there. Still some touching up of the river beds, I expect but that can come later. Nick

[@Gabesodyssey]

holy sht maaaaaan, behold the next ultra mega dev here, you made me addicted to this, non stop. I messed up with painting, and was painting the whole square of the landscape. Rewatch the class and did it correctly now, the feeling of accomplishment.

[@paulshelkov7956]

At the end, you can actually Ctrl+Click all the texture samples and change them all to 'Shared: Wrap' at once.

[@LuxAlibi]

Thank you for your great tutorial! This time there's actually a little mistake: the third file in Megascan is not just Ambient Occlusion, but is a mix: usually it is called AORD and has Ambient Occlusion in the Red channel, Roughness the in Green Channel and Displacement (that is not used any more in U5) in the Blue Channel. So you should change your function to break it and use the Red and Green channels separately.

[@NumenBrothers]

Oh man, I really appreciate the info! Sad to say I didn't even know that, but it makes complete sense. Will keep that in mind for the future with materials.

[@cjmartin2427]

I was going to share that bit of info on the ORD Mix Maps, don't suppose you know what is in an ART Map? I'm guessing A=AO, R=Roughness, just not sure of T=? .

[@LuxAlibi]

@@cjmartin2427 If you can, the best is to ask the artist who made it: it could be everything! Anyway, if you have a look at the file channel by channel, sometimes it is easy to guess.

[@kalenlarsen]

bro you make really good tutorial videos, youre really good at it! you speak so clearly and concisely and theres just so many videos i cant even watch but this whole series is making it pretty easy to learn this program so far. thats all i wanted to say.

[@TLDRHistory]

Best unreal tutorial series I've found, and I've tried quite a few. Thanks so much man

[@NumenBrothers]

I appreciate it!

[@4tee2]

Quick Tip: When re-wiring the texture samples, it is far less error prone if you line the new texture next to the old. Then hold ctrl and hover over the rgb node of the old texture. When the icon changes to a hand image, you can then left click (holding ctrl all the while) and drag that rgb wire over to the rgb slot of the new texture.

[@nobertstanel9428]

Thanks Neal.

[@Preirin]

Dude - you should write a book on these tutorials (if you haven't already). I can already tell I'll be going back to reference these multiple times. It'd be GREAT to have a written source of reference.

[@NumenBrothers]

just keep a document of bookmarks where you link to the episode at the precise moment in time you want to keep. Regarding books, I suspect that in retrospect the early to mid-20th century will be regarded as time period where books ceased to be the primary means of communicating complex information, as the advantages to high quality video and audio became apparent.

[@joeanrachelmiller6529]

I think i remember hearing somewhere that a material function also precompiles it shaders before it enters the material allowing it to be rendered more optimally if used in more than one material... I think thats how it was explained...

[@patriklind545]

This is very good. Thanks for the tutorials.

[@avrahamrosenberg2905]

great tutorial bro i love that instead of using base layer middle layer top layer naming system that ive seen most people using u just said avatar!

[@avrahamrosenberg2905]

​@@TheConspiredOne what does that evan mean

[@cjmartin2427]

Just to give something back, if you haven't already found it out. You don't need to go back to the scalar parameter node to make changes, every time you add a Scalar Parameter in a material, these are added to a list of all the parameters for that material. Just look for the Parameters tab next to the Details tab when you open the material and tweak away.

[@celinedrules]

I just figured out a shortcut to create a constant and a scalar node. For a constant, press and hold 1 and left click on the graph. For a scalar, press and hold S and left click on the graph.

[@marialuizazettermann5217]

adoro suas aulas, são bem explicadinhas. 💯💯💯

[@jfour6591]

Great series! For my project I had to reopen the editor in order for my layers to appear around 29:00 minute mark. I tried changing base landscape material a few times and it didn't work for me.

[@NumenBrothers]

hey J Four, if you would like to join the Discord, we meet Fridays at 6pm EST. Should be able to help you troubleshoot if you join next Friday.

[@jamesonvparker]

Thanks J Four. Mine isn't working with resetting the material so I'm going to try closing and opening the editor again.

[@jamesonvparker]

Actually, I just changed from Lanscape Mode to Select Mode and back to Landscape Mode and then the layers popped up.

[@Rehd66]

@@jamesonvparker Oh shit, that worked for me! Thanks!

[@shawnboundy3716]

General note or 'heads up' : I've updated to 5.1.1. I have been finding that some of the steps you take do not update properly. I have to do a 'save all', exit the editor all together, restart and reload the project, and THEN it updates. In this latest case, at about 28:22, updating the layers, my layers did not update. Restarting the editor then properly updated the new layers. I've noticed this has happened in other situations as well. Hope this helps anyone having similar problems.

[@DnlMysticGoku]

@16:33 Getting Error on the multiply node. Details are: [SM6] (Node Multiply) Arithmetic between types float3 and float4 are undefined which creates an error on the Make Material Attributes node [SM6] (Node MakeMaterialAttributes) Error on property BaseColor. Has anybody else had this issue?

[@AntiCheatBot]

19:11 is there an easy way to see which texture is which? As a noob it's confusing because they're all labelled as "Texture Sample"!

[@paulshelkov7956]

I had an issue where my character would disappear randomly when going into the lake area. When I made mine, I decided to make it a fair bit deeper and wider than yours, so apparently my character was being killed by the 'KillZ' setting. I just had to change it to about -1500 (World Settings panels on the right side).

[@Fenestron]

I've got an intersting issue that hasn't been mentioned yet. At 35:40 your material sphere shows the blended material and terrain. Mine for whatever reason does not show the black. All LandscapeStreamingProxy objects are at a Z height of 0. Only B is checked for the Mask node. As far as I can tell, the arrangement of nodes looks identical to yours. I also deleted and recreated the landscape from Ep6, but no go. The only way I was able to get the half black half material sphere was setting BlendSharpness to 1000 & BlendHeight to 44.5. At those values, and with a bit of sculpting, I was able to acheive only the rivers appearing with the proper material. Unfortunately, this isn't a solution because once I get to 39:00 and you start painting on the newly created layer, the water channels get painted too. Any Idea whats going on? UE 5.0.3

[@NumenBrothers]

Feel free to join the Discord to post some screenshots- we might be able to crowdsource it. Some folks more experienced than me with materials

[@Fenestron]

@@NumenBrothers For anyone that experiences the same, I had the A and B inputs flipped on the divide node. The Discord and Niel in particular was extremely helpful in assisting me throughout the resolution process. I definitely recommend the discord server.

[@SithEwok]

I'm at the end of 31:11 Automatic Height-based landscape material, and I can't figure out my issue. If I set the Blend Height to 1 or higher it's all completely flat. If I set to a negative number, it goes all black. And if I set it to 0 it flashes black spots.

[@NumenBrothers]

I suspect the issue is related to the height of your landscape (the z value of your actual landscape). But if that doesn't help, feel free to join the Discord and we can see if we can help

[@brahimnz_]

Hi there, Thanks for your tutorial. it is worth to much info and guide me to develop it. it is work with Adjustments and do not need to add faction input.

[@TheIslandFarmer321]

very cool. is this also called a Auto Material?

[@NumenBrothers]

yep, the height based stuff

[@3dbrasiltutorials495]

I am having problems, after everything is done, when I paint, there are some places the doesn't paint with no texture, just stay with the checked texture. I found a fix but in order to fix it I need to use a texture sample no texture object, so I can get the shared wrap. I now I cant because it is not in texture object.

[@NumenBrothers]

Are you using virtual textures? You might need to uncheck the checkbox for virtual textures. If that doesn't make sense, or if it makes sense but isn't the issue, feel free to join the Discord.

[@bernhardhelbling3412]

You make very good Tutorials ...... especially you explain many details. And your documentation is great! Thank you! But Ambient Occlusion make no sense for a Landscape 😂

[@chickennugget7339]

30:17 My landscape flattens down when I do this, making any sculpting done beforehand useless. How can I fix this?

[@chickennugget7339]

Nevermind, turns out I just need to repeat the process over and over and over and over again until it randomly decides to work properly.

[@TheIslandFarmer321]

oooOOOooOOoo cobbled materials :)_ why does QB always feel like walking into a candy store?

[@Stimulated_Vision]

What would cause the CallMaterialFunction Node to be blank(no noodles), even after the material function is added in the details?

[@Stimulated_Vision]

Yeah there are tons of issues that arise in Epic system because you literally need to follow this step by step to avoid errors. Stupid stuff like you can't copy an input, or you can't add inputs once linked. This shader system is Fragile!!

[@iainswales]

Hello. Firstly why dont you have thousands of followers?! your RVT setup is ace! im having issues with it though, so have come back a couple of episodes to follow you more closely - thing is my quixel master materials look totally different to yours. i wonder if they've changed them since you created the tutorials?

[@NumenBrothers]

Hey Iain, thanks for the compliment! Really appreciate it. I don't think the master materials have changed in the last couple of months since UE5 was released. But really the key question is, what master material are you looking to edit? At the 15:50 mark of episode 8, I'm updating the M_MS_Default_Material from the MSPresets folder. Here's a link to what I'm referring to: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l2KVZomhpt-alcU Check to see if your base M_MS_Default_Material looks the same. Are you updating a different master material? If you want to email me some screenshots of your setup (just email this KZbin account directly) I'll take a look.

[@iainswales]

@@NumenBrothers Ahh - thank you for your reply. You know what - you've highlighted a couple of really basic things I was doing wrong last week. I'm learning such a huge amount of UE in a short amount of time, that I'm making silly mistakes. Yep - I was using the wrong master material! and also, on the tiling nodes, I didn't realize you were using the starter content mossy material as a starter. So that recognized - I shall start again - new week, fresh eyes!

[@DjinnGazoo]

I dont have this Edit Layers who is locked in my Unreal Engine... so i have no way to do some around it... i missing this buttn! Also my pictures from the brushes are shown as None instead of see my painting matherial

[@brandoncruise5340]

How would I go about setting multiple automatic height based landscapes materials? Would I need to make another BP?

[@NumenBrothers]

Each child material could contain different textures, normal maps, etc., so you would keep the master material consistent, and create separate child materials for each landscape combination.

[@angelobermudez5847]

Hey great tutorial but I got stuck after putting in the Automatic height-based landscape material chapter, my landscape is now half textured and the other blank and I notice the ball with the material is going from left to right and not up and down like your ball thing was. other than that, great tutorials.

[@NumenBrothers]

Hey Angelo, most likely the issue is the axis that you are blending in the material. This is done in the component mas k node at the 32:11 mark of the video. Make sure that R and G are checked, and B and A are unchecked there. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZu5hZeJh6uYfLs if you're still having the issue, I recommend joining our Discord- we would be happy to help you troubleshoot.

[@shinobilynxx7063]

@@NumenBrothers This comment helped me so much, I had the same issue. I was going crazy

[@TolisPiperas82]

I want to ask. How we will make auto material layer based on height . If we had a mountain how to see the rocks and not only the grass layer?

[@NumenBrothers]

Hi Tolis, we cover that in this exact episode actually. I don't know if you've gotten up to the rivers- but I do that specifically for the riverbed material near the end of the episode.

[@Shifae_]

At the 48 minute mark or so you connect your texture to the normal, mine is throwing an error, can't connect smaller type 3 to type 4. any ideas how to handle this??

[@NumenBrothers]

I believe the issue is that in the M_Garden_landscape_MaterialFunction, your 'Input Normal' input variable has to be a vector 3 so that the inputs match. If that doesn't make sense (or if that doesn't work) feel free to join the Discord and we'll see if we can troubleshoot

[@GaladorLP]

I'm following along and got an SM6 Error when connecting the texturesamples to the Materialfunction. [SM6] Function MF_Garden_Landscape_MaterialFunktion: Function (/Engine/Functions/Engine_MaterialFunctions02/Utility/BreakOutFloat4Components.BreakOutFloat4Components) call input with index 0 is unset. [SM6] Function MF_Garden_Landscape_MaterialFunktion: (Node MakeMaterialAttributes) Error on property Roughness could this be something because i use UE 5.4? i appreciate any help in troubleshooting

[@GaladorLP]

got it to work. don't know what caused the error

[@urveshkaklotar]

that's great work can i ask you something?

[@eddy-readysteady-go9001]

At 29 min. In 5.5 Its not updating the materials list to the left. Can you help 😫

[@eddy-readysteady-go9001]

I figured it out. Have to hit the "create layers from assigned materials" button. Right above where list populates

[@truespiritualmeditation]

(Hope you don't mind all my questions) :-) So I have an older i7 with 48 GB Ram and an older Nvidia 1070 GPU (8 GB). I have been downloading "Medium Quality" Assets for this reason, in anticipation of future problems (as the project grows). I set my streaming memory from 1 GB to 2GB using that trick where you add "r.Streaming.PoolSize 2000" into the Engine config file in the project folder. So far so good, no issues. However I'm wondering... As more meshes and textures are added, what memory is that using? System Ram or GPU Ram? Also what is my path forward as in workflow? (I don't expect you to explain HOW but IF this is right thinking)... - is it possible to use very low quality meshes, textures etc in the project file, but when it comes to compiling the project into a game file, it uses higher quality? - As the project grows is it more System ram that is needed or more GPU? IS it better to get more system ram, or a newer GPU? - Medium Quality is still 2k which is 2048x2048 px which is bigger resolution of an average monitor, but the texture may be being used on assets that may only be a rock that's taking up 2% of the screen... Is there a way to optimize that? - If nothing else, learning on my older system, will force me to be efficient, but I wonder if that is considered "good practice" anyway? NOTE: I really appreciate the work you have put into this. Your tutorials have set the bar high. I literally stopped doing a tutorial I paid for, to start this course as you actually explain WHY I'm doing something.

[@NumenBrothers]

Thank you for the compliment! It's a great way to make it more likely you get a response ;) But I would have responded regardless because your comments are always insightful with excellent questions. The problem is, as far as I know for game packaging, you need to build the game with the highest quality assets and then it's possible for the player to scale down. But not scale up. Basically the game is packaged with the maximum settings of the game. So, not going to matter for practice projects, but something to keep in mind for the future. My experience has been that for most people, the single most important component to upgrade is your GPU, followed by your RAM. So I would upgrade GPU first (depending on the game, but most likely GPU).

[@truespiritualmeditation]

@@NumenBrothers Just thinking out loud.... I suppose to develop a game I would need a better GPU and perhaps a better system too. But as I think that, I'm reminded of games like "Valheim" where they have clearly gone for low resolution and just made that the graphical style of the game. My son plays Minecraft all the time and those graphics are really low res... so it's possible at least to go lower res if you make that [look like] a deliberate action :-) .

[@TheIslandFarmer321]

love it when it works lol

[@JR-ru5mb]

Wondering if i could get some help, after this episode after saving my blueprint, my level landscape disappeared and i cant sculpt or paint anymore, it says that i need to rebuild it? If if i go to the play button to check my world with my character, everything is still there, very confused as to what i should do, i dont want to lose all my progress! :/ Thanks in advance for your help!

[@NumenBrothers]

hey JR, if you would like to join the Discord, we would be happy to help

[@JR-ru5mb]

@@NumenBrothers oh cool! I don’t see a discord invite in the comments section however!

[@hellad02]

BlendSharpness parameter has value zero?

[@batamur3241]

when i observe map, there is kind of shadows appear and disappear on grounds, how i fix it?

[@batamur3241]

its appear on river mostly

[@NumenBrothers]

Can you post a picture on Discord, Batamur? We can see if we can troubleshoot. A picture would help diagnose the problem.

[@batamur3241]

@@NumenBrothers okay im posted on discord wip room

[@MilanKarakas]

Good bye Unreal Engine. I am stuck after putting foliage and it keeps vanishing. Also, planted some trees and now unable to remove them. I am back to my depression. No need that. Thank you for good tutorial, but I am too old and too stupid to follow.

[@NumenBrothers]

You ever play a game where you hit a point in the game you can't beat, get discouraged, and leave the game. But then it lingers on in your mind, and then after pulling away from it for some period of time, you come back to it, and then, surprisingly, you can do it.

[@iFruitopia]

[@kalenlarsen]

been following allong but now my issue is that i am doing a snowy biome and the variability is just too high, i can drop it down a lot but then this wont really work for the grassy areas. Would you just have a sepparate function for a snowy area? or do you have a sepparate function like this for each level already? not really sure whats the best way to structure the game but id like to future proof it as much as possible.

[@kalenlarsen]

i plan to have steep cliffs with rocks in the same level so maybe i really do need just 2 functions, im not sure if its possible to have a different macro variability setting but still use the same master function. nor am i sure how i would implement it

[@Rehd66]

I appreciate the work that goes into making this video, but Holy Hell this isn't for beginners 😆. I realize you never claimed it was and I'm not even gonna pretend I know what just happened lol. Also you said at the end there if we're following and keeping up, the sky is the limit, but me thinks keeping up and following is two different things. This video made my eyes cross and I think a little liquid brain dripped out of one of my ears...

[@NumenBrothers]

I think one of the common misconceptions of modern society is that you must fully understand something before doing it; I.E., participating in it. In truth the participation comes first, and the understanding comes through the course of participation. This is the first (and in many ways, the most daunting) episode on materials in this series. There are more, and it will make more sense over the course of time.

[@Rehd66]

@@NumenBrothers You always have such well thought out replies to my nonsensical comments 🧐

[@NumenBrothers]

@@Rehd66 I'm hoping you keep the faith 😇

[@toto-h7j]

all my layer in the paint tab have all the names but the materials show nothing but the grey checker pattern. also when i revert the material to non, it revrts back to the moss texture. i tried reloading the materials but no luck? any suggestions? thank you