Real to Unreal: From Real World Height Maps to Unreal Engine 5

This tutorial outlines the workflow of taking real-world location height maps into Unreal Engine 5. In this workflow, we use Quadspinner Gaea to add detail to the height map and create material and foliage masks. Then, using those masks, we quickly texture and populate our Unreal Engine landscape.
Height Map tool　⇩
heightmap.skydark.pl/
Gumroad Link to project files　⇩
natedotfbx.gumroad.com/l/Gaea...
0:00 - Intro
1:31 - Height Map From Satellite Images
6:10 - Download Gaea
6:40 - Importing Height Maps into Gaea
9:22 - Recovering Lost Detail
11:30 - Referencing Google Maps
13:30 - Creating a Water Mask
18:53 - Adjusting Water Nodes
22:00 - Adjusting Foliage Nodes
29:11 - Adjusting Details
35:21 - Exporting Masks from Gaea
36:50 - Creating a Landscape in Unreal Engine
38:54 - Importing the Height Map
39:55 - RVT Settings
41:19 - Landscape Material Settings
42:28 -Confirming the Landscape Height
45:42 - Importing Material Masks
48:04 - Using Quixel Bridge
49:00 - Importing Detail Masks
49:51 - Converting Landscape to Nanite
51:08 - Changing Landscape Textures
54:40 - Adjusting Grass Maps
58:18 - Final Result

[@MohammadSalem]

This was a perfect tutorial for using masks created in Gaea. I love your landscape creation method ❤ Thank you 🙏

[@pgjohnson5504]

Great tutorial! Very detailed Gaea explanation and clear explanation of the transfer to UE. Thanks for that ! I learned a lot. Can’t wait to see more tutorials

[@arturrosa3166]

Very thorough tutorial, well explained and with all the details. Great work!

[@blackntan]

Cheers N8 - Easy flow, the added download... well worth it for the learning curve and TIME :)

[@T0xPaC]

Hoping for more to come on your channel !😊 Thanks a lot for the excellent tutorial 👍

[@INTIAMAUTA]

Congrats, best of all tutorials of real landscapes

[@jessejburton]

Hey great tutorial! Thank you. I would definitely love to see a texturing tutorial from you!

[@imiparerau432]

Hi, where did you get this Gaea build tor file @ 6:45 from? I noticed we didn't download any tor files from the satellite image, so how do I obtain this? Thanks.

[@thealtaccount2794]

Yeah I got to that too and have no idea what to do now

[@pepo_inc]

Same here, let me know if you find out something!

[@calprowe]

Just click on the Gaea dropdown in the top left, import -> Image, and select the heightmap file

[@agauerm]

Also, it would be great if you created a Gaea tutorial so we could create any landscape from scratch, you seem to know it very well.

[@Artbyhew]

Would love to see a breakdown of your Auto landscape material and what it does

[@Native_Creation]

Same

[@NoCoArts]

where do i find inital Gaea file you open at 6:50 ??? i cannot find it for the life of me

[@MrElfVR]

me neither

[@Natedotfbx]

Any .tor in the build files will open in Gaea. Or do you mean that landscape specifically? It may have been overwritten by an updated landscape. You can find the older landcapes in the second pack for Sytlized workflow. It is a part of the same gumroad download.

[@rcafilmproductions1640]

@@Natedotfbx where is it dude? you say go to a file with no mention of how or where you got it. Am i missing something??

[@Natedotfbx]

@@rcafilmproductions1640 @MrElfVR @NoCoArts The exact file is in the GaeaUnreal_StylizedScene download on Gumroad, "Gaea Build" folder named "GaeaBuild.tor". The .tor file in the Gaea_Real gumroad download is the completed revision that I showed in the video. I wanted to save you all some time, so I saved over the gaea file that you see at 6:50. I apologize for any confusion. Please download the Stylized version from the gumroad page if you want the original file. It is included with your purchase.

[@SpookySkeletons]

@@Natedotfbx so we need to pay 9 $ to get the file?

[@maximeboudet7446]

Merci pour les vidéos et les cours, par contre y a-t-il un moyen d'augmenter la taille du landscape pour avoir un massive world sans BUG? merci

[@brunocandia9671]

Thanks for sharing this ! ..

[@crisislab]

Great video, and great sample projects from the Gumroad. Thanks for all this! I'm trying to figure out the logic of the layers-- e.g. Flow A, B, C? Care to expand on the thinking there at all? I see you have a bunch of Gaea Arboreal nodes set up to give those different patterns. But I don't have a good sense of what you're trying to accomplish with them.

[@Natedotfbx]

Those are just placeholders for various low laying shrubs and grasses that are near bodies of water. They can be replaced by anything or ignored.

[@KUBE.archvis]

This is probably a dumb question, but how did the heighmap file we downloaded from darksky turn into a .tor file to import into Gaea? Is there a step I am overlooking? Great presentation, btw. :)

[@rowlandsracing9282]

did you find a fix? im stuck here aswell

[@KUBE.archvis]

@@rowlandsracing9282 I inserted a file node into a blank graph and uploaded the height map I downloaded from dark sky. I tweaked the values so that the mesh generated by it looked somewhat normal, the scale is all wonky by default. Then, when you save the gaea file, it is saved as a .Tor file. Did anything I say make sense? Lol.

[@imagos67]

Hi, there are some errors on texturing masks from your Gumroad Gaea file. They not disappear clicking on it, with refreash node or if I recreate the problematic nodes from scratch! Node with Portals (Vegetation and Texturing) give errors, no problems on nodes with Portals Masking.... last Gaea full version... OK solved with files substitution...

[@musicallylite7045]

can't find gaea build folder... plz help

[@davidstapleton1536]

Me too mate. Wtf

[@grangerhighschoolvirtualre7070]

Thank you for the tutorial. This is great, but the heightmaps are low res? Is there a way to fix that? Thank you for any advice.

[@Natedotfbx]

From skydark? I do not think there is a way to increase the resolution natively, but Gaea is capable of exporting at higher resolutions with the paid versions.

[@soravisnawbhanich]

Hi Nate, thanks for the tutorial. I have a question in regards to changing material from what you originally put. at 52:03 I tried to replace a quixel bridge material, but it wouldn't allow me. Can you please help and let me know how to fix this issue please? thank you

[@Natedotfbx]

You might need to right click on the textures and select "convert to regular texture". If it is set to texture streaming, it might not work properly.

[@soravisnawbhanich]

@@Natedotfbx thank you. It solved the problem!

[@soravisnawbhanich]

@@Natedotfbx Have you tested with Unreal 5.3 yet? I wonder if you can add displacement/tesselation since UE5.3 allow to add displacement/tessellation on metascan material. If you can please do share/update! thank you

[@Justalittle0ff]

Love the video! However, I'm having issues with Errors in the nodes all along the top of the outliner at about minute 10:57. Not sure what's happening, but my landscape won't show any trees or grass or other elements other than the terrain....

[@Natedotfbx]

Happens a lot. Gaea can be a bit buggy at times. Try right clicking on the tree node and turning off underlay, then recompute the scene and turn on underlay again. Sometimes with Gaea I just have to click nodes in sequence until it fixes itself.

[@robinberl4216]

Somehow the workflow from the downloaded file looks different to the one used in the video. Under the Tab "Landscape Shaping" there are few notes with "Water texturing" which were used at the Tab "Texturing" if i am not wrong. I get different errors as i click on the "00_Minimap" as i follow the video and delete the notes in the beginning under "Landscape Shaping" i tried different version of Gaea but doesnt helped. Is there a fix for it? i am totally new to gaea. Thanks! @@Natedotfbx

[@mholly1389]

Hey mate, i see at 6:50 the files are on your Gumroad, but how do i get them for my terrain area? i cant find anything for exporting a .tor file

[@mholly1389]

Hey all, a .tor file is a file that comes out of Gaea when you complete steps to export a terrain chunk. If you're having issues like I am go into a youtube video looking at creating terrain data from Gaea.

[@rowlandsracing9282]

can someone explain why i haven't got the 00_unreal folder? tia

[@DevilFruitJourney]

me neither

[@justinheinzig9135]

You are incredible man. I can't fathom how you received your education; you're pulling rabbits out of hats and tweaking settings I've never heard of. Perhaps it's my inexperience, I am new, but where did you learn all this? Just random KZbin videos? Or do you have a book list you recommend? I'm dying to know the secrets.

[@Natedotfbx]

Thanks for the kind words. No secrets, just a lot of KZbin videos, forums, and a healthy dose of ADD. Just keep at it and enjoy the learning process!

[@robertoromano-net]

Hi Nate, i downloaded you gumroad archive. I'm following your steps in Unreal Engine but I'm stuck on importing materials, It seems the Engine is not seeing the mask layers layers. This trouble occours just then importing heighmap and edited RVP settings. how can I fix?

[@Natedotfbx]

Is your landscape black? If it is the RVT is working, but you are missing some settings.

[@michaeleber4752]

Nice job. But know that in the latest version of Gaea that DropToFloor is a checkbox inside the Fluvial node. Took me a while to get this one figured out.

[@Natedotfbx]

Seems like every software likes moving UI around between updates... it can be frustrating sometimes

[@michaeleber4752]

@@Natedotfbx Trust me, I know. This is not the first tutorial where a function is shown and it takes 30 minutes of "where the hell did they hide it now?"

[@SixSided]

Is there a way to do this at a smaller scale with higher detail? Im thinking the size of a park, for example

[@Natedotfbx]

That would probably require some Open GIS data. But that stuff is hard to get a hold of depending on the region...

[@agauerm]

This the best/easiest way that I have found so far to build realistic landscapes without the need to sculpt from scratch. I just wanted to know how to grab a heightmap from somewhere and create an already sculpted landscape in UE5 so I would just need to paint it and add assets, you delivered so much more in this tut. Where is the file though? At 06:50, with the nodes template. Thanks!

[@Natedotfbx]

The files are available at the gumroad link. I'm glad it helped!

[@agauerm]

@@Natedotfbx hi Nate, alright. I wanted to ask you if you are gonna update your files when Gaea 2 comes out. I went to their sit to purchase the indie version and I see that Gaea 2 is about to be released, on discord they say early february. So If I buy your files, they might not work on Gaeae 2.

[@Bruno-tc8xt]

Hi, where is the GaeaBuild folder???

[@TolisPiperas82]

Which landscape material you use?

[@Natedotfbx]

It is one I put together over the span of a few months. I will make a video about it soon, or you can pick it up on my gumroad.

[@tim_bayer]

Won't scaling by that much break terrain physics? Or is this not intended for game use?

[@Natedotfbx]

You may be right, there is no issue with a character, but there might be a problem with very small objects (I havent tested it). If you are intending to use this for a game, I would recommend dividing up your heightmap into smaller sections. 1009x1009 resolution is 1km at standard scaling. Conversely, the paid versions of Gaea can export heightmaps at larger resolutions. Using world partition and a lower collision mip level will also help.

[@tim_bayer]

@@Natedotfbx Thanks! I've been attempting to do a tiled export from Gaea and make separate landscapes in UE using those tiles. However, the tiles never match up correctly in UE. I didn't want to import as a single tiled landscape though, that seems to have issues/limitations. Curious if you have ever tried anything like that? It's basically world composition, except doing it manually using world partition.

[@Natedotfbx]

I think the "add adjacent lanscape function will help you if gaea isnt exporting perfect tiles. forums.unrealengine.com/t/sculpt-on-multiple-landscapes-align-height-on-multiple-large-landscapes/135924/6 Take a look at this thread.

[@SI00000]

This may be a newbie question for anyone who can answer. How were the exported nodes from Gaea converted to material layers in Unreal?

[@Natedotfbx]

UE landscape materials can have several sub materials within the graph. The masks from gaea act like spray paint stencils to tell UE where to apply each individual sub material.

[@keithbarker239]

How did you set up the river and lakes for this map in unreal?

[@Natedotfbx]

Just a plane with Unreal engines default water material. Animated materials dont work with Landscapes unfortunately.

[@christopherpoterson1734]

This does not work with Mac, is there any other I can use?

[@keithyakouboff8755]

Cannot load up the skydark site.

[@hemantkekane2526]

Sir can you add multiple maps created in gaea to an unreal engine project can tell me ?

[@Natedotfbx]

Yes, you will need to copy the landscape material and apply it to a separate landscape.

[@50shadesofskittles9]

It's been 3 months. I plan the buy the asset from your other video today but do you plan to do that walkthrough for your landscape material?

[@Natedotfbx]

Been terribly busy lining up a job and moving countries. Maybe in a couple months...

[@mr.darkshark6875]

Lost connection after you add material. How to export material from gaea to unreal?

[@joespaulding6155]

Hey man, I just bought and downloaded the unreal to real file and was following along with exactly what you were doing here but i have a bunch of nodes spitting errors at me in the masking and texturing section, do you have any idea why this could be happening?

[@Natedotfbx]

Most likely one of two things, there is a missing link to an external file within the first graph, or Gaea is just being buggy and needs you to click on all the nodes sequentially to help it parse through.

[@joespaulding6155]

@@Natedotfbx I think I managed to figure out enough to fix it. I got the errors to go away but it completely nuked away a bunch of nodes that i could see you had in the file but i did not. I tired my best to replicate what you did and I think i managed it enough to get to export but now its saying that all my masks are not greyscale and wont let me import them so thats proven to be a very frustrating thing to overcome. I've tried using 3d photo editing software to fix it but it doesn't appear to work. I've been reading online and it appears some people are saying that using a FX node is needed with Gaea mask exports to avoid this issue but I am not quite grasping where those nodes would need to be added in your setup.

[@joespaulding6155]

@@Natedotfbx Did you ever make a video on how you set up the mask graph? If so I cant find it on your page, At this point I dont think I can use what i paid for without really thoroughly reviewing what is broken in the graph and the these videos dont really highlight the inner workings of the mask.

[@Natedotfbx]

@@joespaulding6155 I have never gotten that error before... Did you change the export file type in gaea? You can reply to the gumroad email if you have more in depth questions.

[@blackklopi2497]

when i build in gaea my height map is exported in .tir and i just cant make it change to png

[@Natedotfbx]

You need to change the export type in the build tab of Gaea before you export

[@marcapouli7805]

The heightmap I download from the generator is really bad. Not usable in Gaea for me. Maybe I didn't select a US zone, my bad

[@Natedotfbx]

I used it in a variety of locations with no issue. Are you auto calculating heightscale and base level. at 4:00

[@marcapouli7805]

@@Natedotfbx Yes I did, I also tried several settings. My zone was only 10*10 km, too small I think I have to take at least 300 km to get details. I can get a big mountain, I can't get rivers. I began to ty to use earth datas many years ago, I retry each time I find a video with a new method. Never managed to do anything, always the same issue. Anyway I can't use world partition in UE, so I guess I should'nt try to make a game without a landscape, too ambitious and anyway I don't have a good water asset, I don't have good landscape materials...

[@storiedknowledge]

When I click the calculators the progress bar never finishes.

[@RustinPlays]

Everything in this tutorial has been great. but for some reason i get a bunch of aqua/green ish spots on my landscapes. and red in my water... Not sure whats been happening

[@Natedotfbx]

Could be the detail masks. Make sure to plug in number 19 and 20 in the landscape manage tab. Or change the color in the landscape material

[@RaneMstSage]

Not sure what's going on with the file, as i was following along it stops working when i go to look at the textures.

[@Natedotfbx]

How do you mean? Unreal Engine crashes?

[@RaneMstSage]

@@Natedotfbx no the Gaea file.

[@Natedotfbx]

@@RaneMstSage ah that happens sometimes. Gaea has a few bugs when processing lots of nodes. Try clicking on nodes in sequence from the beginning and letting your PC process.

[@vindicidesign9423]

@@Natedotfbx I'm getting an error where it won't load the textures for me too at the 10:50 part of the video

[@vindicidesign9423]

I got around it by using the stylized file from his gumroad

[@DavidAcevedoFotos]

Just downloaded the project files, but when coming to the texturing tab, the app gets stucked on the process, and a bunch of nodes are marked as ERROR. Exactly the combine ones, so I can't keep going with the tutorial at this point. Any solution?

[@Natedotfbx]

Yeah this is a common bug with Gaea. Sometimes the computation gets stuck and needs assistance. Just click the nodes one by one to help it parse through.

[@DavidAcevedoFotos]

@@Natedotfbx I've been doing what you say, but not only errors continue, but new ones appear after clicking the nodes, I also have errors in ColorFx, Multifractal, Noise, SatMaps... I could send you captures but couldn't find an email address

[@DavidAcevedoFotos]

when I load the project they are working, it's after loading my own heightmap when things go wrong

[@DavidAcevedoFotos]

@@Natedotfbx and I have another issue, when arriving to the masking Tab, the node configuration in the video is not at all like the in the file, so I don't know where to connect the choak node

[@DavidAcevedoFotos]

specificallyt, the two big blue nodes in the beginning are not connected to anything

[@rodas2121]

Is skydark down? Website is full white and I get the message "Server not responding"

[@Natedotfbx]

Seems that way... hopefully it comes back soon.

[@thomasferreira306]

Hi this tutorial is great, but i've a problem, on the fact that the trees are based on masks even folliage I have somes trees, grass etc under water for the grass i don't care but trees come out water somebody knows how to fix it ?

[@Natedotfbx]

If your deadzone and grassmasks are set up correctly this shouldn't happen. Double check that you have updated the mask.

[@kevinbuckley9745]

@@Natedotfbx great tutorial. Is there a section in the video I should look at for fixing that piece?

[@Natedotfbx]

@@kevinbuckley9745 Open up the landscape material instance and update the deadzone, tree, shrub, and grass masks that you exported from gaea

[@Th3MadCreator]

Would be nice to know what the folder I'm supposed to navigate to even came from... I don't have a gaea_real folder or that file. The fuck?

[@jayhop960]

BRUH you cut out a whole step! where did you get the GaEa ReaL GaEA BuiLD from :/ bruv how did you get the .tor

[@user-qz7nr9lt5y]

make a tutorial of gaea to unreal... an indepth tut..

[@baronvonbeandip]

Sorry for being the 667th subscriber

[@Natedotfbx]

haha how could you!?😅

[@digitalrandomart3049]

website no longer works

[@anwarpalliyalil2193]

I THINK THE BLENDER ALSO DOING THIS /.

[@ZorlacSkater]

The software is great, but they only offer a few payment methods and I can't buy it. I was about to spend money for the professional license.

[@Natedotfbx]

Ah thats a shame. The free version works well enough for UE maps under 1 km in size.

[@buster5661]

okay, but what about buildings?

[@racerx1777]

oh i see...so this isnt how to make a map. it is only meant to use your files that you hold hostage behind a paywall for MONEY! Dont waste your time with this tutorial its worthless unless you BUY HIS map

[@lordgeely]

Hi Nate! Is there any faster way to download from gumroad? (just bought it) The 5GB takes a while 20+ hours, i dont know for what reason. Can I contact you?

[@Natedotfbx]

Seems like when Gumroad servers are busy they get extremely slow... sometimes it takes 10 min sometimes 20 hours. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[@lordgeely]

@@Natedotfbx W tutorial! - Thanks for the fast response

[@mae2309]

make a tutorial of gaea to unreal... an indepth tut..