UE5.2: PCG - Using Splines for Content Distribution

[@unrealitybites763]

IMPORTANT NOTE - In the 5.2 update, they changed the name of the PropertyToParamData node. You should now use GetActorProperty instead (does the same thing)

[@peterallely5417]

Hello friend, have you managed the time to rework this one for current Engine versions?

[@brandondunbar9448]

For those using 5.3 and wondering why your debug points are along the spline despite setting "On Interior", make sure you've selected "Unbounded". Also, DensityNoise was replaced by AttributeNoise in 5.3.

[@SBBBurney]

Thank you SO MUCH.

[@MrLynxOblivion]

holy cow, thanks been goin crazy looking for this shit......legend

[@moosenasturtium9583]

Annoyingly, that doesn't seem to have any effect in 5.4

[@An0therR0gue]

i remember watching a "Ghost Recon Wildlands" GDC talk a few years ago showing how UBI Soft used Houdini to do large scale procedural landscaping tools for creating the large openworld, and thought god I am never gonna learn that. I even tried Houdini a few times (unsuccessfully). I'm glad Epic put PCG in the Engine/plugin, so even amateurs have a chance to create some truly great worlds using procedural tools. And thanks to KZbinrs like ourself who teach us how we can use them (in this case PCG). Cheers for the video. Look forward to seeing more.

[@GreyManFaustus]

Feels so good to be adressed as an artist or developer as if you were an artist or developer

[@alexgomez-bi2bk]

You have such a great clear and concise voice. No skipping over anything either. Explanation of nodes and all.

[@isitrealynews]

Epic should hire you to do all there guides!

[@motiontofu3519]

Thnx for great tutorial! One thing i have to add: usually u want to transform points before projecting them on landscape to avoid any weird flying rocks or other position bugs.

[@motiontofu3519]

oh wait, i was wrong, sometimes u want, sometimes u absolutely dont :D sorry!

[@sifudarryl]

I love your videos and voice. You not only do things but explain why you are doing them which is refreshing for tutorials out there. I had a question though. Has anyone tried this in 5.3 (final release) yet? Everything works in 5.2, but when I set up my spline in 5.3 and set the spline sampler to "on interior", the debug points follow the spline path, not the interior.

[@unrealitybites763]

Try setting the "Spline Sampler" node to Unbounded. I think that must be a new option.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

This is absolutely amazing!! It has everything I wanted to see (project to landscape from spline, and parameters), thank you.

[@meskalation]

Indeed. Everyone only showed spline pcg on a flat landscape - so projection on landscape wasn't in any video i've watched before. Thabks! :)

[@joserororo9240]

It is a very powerful tool..., Unreal never ceases to amaze me..., thank you very much for sharing it, un Saludo

[@demetherios571]

Amazing Clear and concise tutorial. An absolute pleasure to learn in such methodic manner. Thank you!

[@natxmctavish5639]

Excellent tutorial, it has helped me to be efficient in my workflow when creating virtual scenarios and biomes. Thanks ! you're great UnrealityBites !! 😎🍾

[@archichampin]

Really nice and straight to the point, well done and thank you for helping us

[@xirtus]

I love your lessons are you putting your work up? I'd sub to a patreon if I had to to get some of these sandscapes already blueprinted, I hope you start sharing / selling them!

[@gameof.football]

This is truly great tutorial, thank you very much for sharing you knowledge with all of us :)

[@ParikshitBhujbal]

Thank You UnrealityBites , by watching this video I was able to create my very first Circular Forest environment. :) The only thing I decided to add was to put a fence around my brand new Forest (I dl a modular fence mesh from Megascans & put it on the circular spline itself , with the distance between two points equal to length of the fence). However I have encountered a problem , My fence are not fitting each other , there are angular gaps in between, and if I try correct that using Z rotation , say I made it look nice and proper at 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock of the circular fence perimeter, then that also works for its diagonally opposite 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock but for any other directions, ANGULAR GAPS start appearing between the fences again. How does one make it so that there are no angular gaps and that the fence fit each other properly? Thank you for creating these videos, You make it so that even a beginner can understand UE now, keep up the good work :)

[@samuelkilik8233]

wow thnks

[@J4FThunder666]

really helpfull for a Beginner like me. really ! My Problem is, is it possible to insert a "Slope" Filter ? I tryed it but no way :(. can someone explain it or make a short Tut please ?!

[@yalcin1234]

Perfect ❤

[@aeroljohn3331]

How do I not get shurbs inside the mountains they spawn inside

[@nov3000]

great thank you

[@dinamicasvisuales]

Geni!!

[@ahsanmunir3286]

Thank you so much for this! Quick question.. is it possible to confine the spline to a masked area in the landscape? if yes, could you share how?

[@BubuRuzu]

But can you project on a mesh instead of the landscape?

[@yieau]

Hello Sir ! I'm using 5.3 and the projection node doen't seem to work (i followed every single step from the begining of your tuto) Any idea ?

[@KLANGFABRIKART]

Is it possible to project onto a static mesh instead of a landscape?

[@wise.advice]

Thank you for your great tutorials. Do you know how to create infinite landscape using world partition and pcg? Something simple, for instance dunes landscape with some rocks from your previous videos.

[@porterdesignandmotion]

This is a great tutorial and super easy to follow. Curious. I am running into an issue where after I have generated my pcg (in my case a forest of trees and shrubs)...I want to render my scene in sequencer, but unreal crashes upon render. Without the pcg graph and BP created in this demo, my scene renders just fine. Curious if there is anything specific that needs to be set up to support rendering with movie render queue with pcgs. Thanks!

[@samuelkilik8233]

WHEN I PUT DEBUG ON NOTHING SHOWS ON UE5.3... i got this working on o 5.2

[@unrealitybites763]

In the Spline Sampler node, they added a new field in 5.3 called something like "Unbounded". Make sure to have that checked, otherwise the interior points don't work.

[@ivanbonavick227]

Hey! How can I project points inside a spline onto a mesh and not landscape? for example I have an iregular mesh as ground. Thanks!

[@ivanbonavick227]

I have been able to use mesh sampler to spawn them directly on the mesh, but it limits the amount of point to triangles/vertices, or maybe there is another way to increase the number of points other than subdiving the mesh?

[@TheTruScipio]

Not sure if I've missed something but my BP won't even show the points existing in debug mode when I've set it to debug on the Projection node but works fine spawning meshes and debugging if I skip the Projection node. If you've an idea why that is and I might be able to rectify it without scrubbing the whole BP and starting from scratch that would be great. Either way fantastic tutorial as always, thanks for helping the little guys understand some incredible technologies

[@unrealitybites763]

A couple of things spring to mind: - Have you connected the Input Node->Landscape Pin to the Projection Node->Target? - Sometimes the points are too small to see in debug. For the Projection Node, in the debug settings, change the debug type to Absolute, Scale between 0.5 and 1

[@Project_Erasmus]

It may be a silly question but, would it be possible to make a "variable" of the meshes for the blueprint? Just to quickly input trees instead of rocks, flowers for shrubs etcetera?

[@unrealitybites763]

It's not a silly question, I would also love to be able to do that but I haven't been able to figure it out yet!

[@unrealitybites763]

I have now figured out how to make a variable of the meshes for the PCG blueprint so you can quickly swap out the meshes and try new ones. It wasn't trivial, took me a few hours to figure it out, but I will share a video tutorial in the next few days as I've seen quite a few people ask the same question on forums

[@unrealitybites763]

Here is the video for setting static meshes as variables in your PCG blueprints: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2TTY4itnJaBjas

[@alexm666]

@@unrealitybites763 you rock! Thank you!

[@FatalisArx]

HI, can you do all new features for UE5.2 in your videos ! also what is your PC specs ! thx

[@andrinSky]

Hello, thank you very much for this helpful Tutorial. I have one Question: when there are some houses on the Ground: how can i change the Code, that there are no Plants or Rocks inside the Houses?

[@unrealitybites763]

Yes, watch my earlier video here on how to create exclusion zones for your spawned content: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHOpp56cj919gM0

[@andyseabrookUK]

So I wonder if you have any insight in how we can tie PCG points to particular landscape layers or textures, and if the later if we could bar particular textures, for the water layers for instance.

[@unrealitybites763]

This video from Freetimecoder gives the broad outline of how you would do that but it involves some coding. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZ3Kfnl4mNiKgdU I hope Epic add landscape layer masking to PCG soon.

[@minomaru-gttasukuminoura5967]

Hi I can't find propertyToParam in UE5.2 and I can't parameterise the PCG values. Do you know of an alternative node? Thanks.

[@unrealitybites763]

Yes, PCG is every evolving and they changed the name of this node to GetActorProperty. I'll pin a comment at the top as a reminder

[@DronX_]

is possible to use landscape blend material for distribute static mesh?

[@unrealitybites763]

KZbinr FreetimeCoder (who did an excellent series on PCG) figured out how to do it in the video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZ3Kfnl4mNiKgdU I'll probably do some future tutorial on how to do this but it won't be for a while as I'm concentrating on my structure building series at the moment

[@lolaswift111]

can you show how you sculpt the landscape in this video?

[@avistryfe4534]

Go to landscape. Press sculpt. Mouse over the landscape terrain and press lmb. Raise the land to the height preferred. Now select flatten. Move mouse to create a flat area for your content. There you go.

[@lolaswift111]

@@avistryfe4534 Thank you very much

[@cookieClarke]

Hi. I was wondering if you could advise me here. I've set up the blueprint and spline sampler just as you have it but Im getting a circular pattern as if the points are set to spline in spline sample . I have it set to interior. Im using 5.3. Its a bit confusing. Ive gone back through the BP setUps and I have it just like you set it up. Any ideas why this maybe happening? Cheers

[@unrealitybites763]

Yes, unfortunately PCG is changing all the time (still experimental). In your "Spline Sampler" node, if you set Unbounded to true, the interior sampling should come back.

[@CeloyG]

How does "reverse culling" work in pcgs? I want to use nanite grass up to a certain distance and then use billboards in the distance to improve performance, but i can't find a way to make static meshes or foliage only render after some distance, and not render next to the camera/player.

[@openworldtools]

Probably not possible with PCG but you can do that by putting the billboard as last LOD for your grass mesh. Even if you use Nanite, it still switches the LODs if you have them.

[@makoado6010]

just a simple question. there is a way filter the too close points? i mean i need this resolution what the first scan make, to span grass, shrubs like foliage, but when i span trees, rocks i want to make sure that there at least 10..30m between spawns or more to avoid clipping big trees. and also how to prevent spawning grass inside rocks and trees?

[@unrealitybites763]

For the first part of the question, use the Bounds Modifier node to add change the size and spacing of your points. For the second part of the question, use the Difference node to exclude one set of points from another.

[@LanciaSiluri]

does it deform the terrain, or adhere to it?

[@unrealitybites763]

Adheres to it

[@avistryfe4534]

Adhere

[@lichbane01]

Could you do a step-by-step on how to do this? kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZ3Kfnl4mNiKgdU I'm afraid I'm still too clueless.

[@gearsofwarfenixedition3720]

Pc specs?

[@unrealitybites763]

CPU - Ryzen 9 5900X GPU - RTX3080 RAM - 32GB

[@Trinhxuanluc]

[@LanciaSiluri]

Would be possible or wise to get one base material on the landscape, and have materials added tot the pcg that will project on the landscape?

[@TheMadKid91]

the spline is closed loop but the spline sampler when adding the density curves gives me warning that my spline is closed loop with points and wont apply, but the spline is closed loop with 4 points how to fix it ?

[@unrealitybites763]

Make sure that you have at least 4 points in your spline in the main PCG blueprint component. Hopefully, that will solve your problem.