Unreal Engine 5.2 - Displacement & Nanite Tutorial

Topic: Nanite Displacement In Unreal Engine 5.2+
In this video we look at how to utilize Displacement Maps in Unreal Engine 5.2+ to produce more detailed Nanite Meshes that can efficently display high quality geometric details. We will go over the steps and workflow to setup and apply displacement maps as well as the settings for producing a fallback mesh if Nanite is not supported.
Additional Info:
- Red Channel is used for Displacement, Greyscale Maps will work but if you Pack Maps, you can use the Red Channel for Displacement.
If your interested in other new features in Unreal 5.2 check out:
Intro To Substrate Shading - • Unreal Engine 5.2 - In...
Unreal Heterogenous Volumes - • Unreal Engine 5 - 3D V...
Patreon:
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Discord:
/ discord
Tags:
Unreal Displacement, Displacement Mapping, Nanite, Virtualized Geometry, Nanite Fallback, Displacement LOD, Nanite Meshes, Game Development, Unreal Engine Tutorial, UE5 Beginner Tutorial, Unreal New Features, Unreal 5.2

[@HammerdownProtocol]

Thanks very much. This has unblocked a major pipeline blockage for my project.

[@prushlas]

Thanks! Great little tutorial!

[@Greenman4890]

im glad they finally added a solid way to add displacement again, I hope terrain will one day be able to use this easily again aswell :)

[@renderbucket]

For Terrain you will want to utilize virtual heightfields. Props on-top of the terrain and additional kitbashed pieces could be nanite with Displacement.

[@eriryuukai]

one day we will get nanite skeletal mesh and nanite landscape

[@gil6970]

@@renderbucket can you make a tutorial of this on terrain pleas if you have time

[@Sae-ez3dx]

Still there is not any option for accesing nanite displacement through material

[@monsterinsane2228]

A litle help here if you want to use nanite + ray traced shadow workflow UE5: r.raytracing.nanite.mode 1 r.nanite.viewmeshLODBias.min -1 (range -1 to -5 eat perf heavily) r.raytracing.normalbias 0.8 (range 0.8 to 2 offset shadow so you won't see tiny artifact shadows)

[@MonsterJuiced]

Legend, thank you I will try this

[@LudvikKoutnyArt]

r.raytracing.nanite.mode 1 is a bit of a double edged sword. It basically means the full nanite scene is being sent to the ray tracer every time nanite topology changes, which happens almost every frame if you move the camera. Rebuilding acceleration structure for ray tracing every frame is very expensive. So with r.raytracing.nanite.mode 1, you will get correct ray tracing effects on nanite meshes, but at the expense of severe FPS drops when moving the view/camera around (unless your scene has only very little topology).

[@nematelier1379]

You can also deactivate raytraced double sided geometry shadows. Works fine for me

[@nematelier1379]

r.raytracing.shadows.enable two sided geometric 0

[@nematelier1379]

Not perfect but works best for me

[@ntonAnton]

Thanx a lot!! It is so important u explained and fixed the amount of vertices!!! best! Also, let me ask please, how to do if displacement pam is not downloading and not exporting to U5? there are other maps but no displacement

[@torgath5088]

Very useful! Thank you!

[@PrivacyEnt]

Awesome video! Thanks! Hearing Nanite not supporting ray traced shadows makes me sad every single time

no it is wrong idea the black spots fixed by console r.RayTracing.Shadows.EnableTwoSidedGeometry 0 you have to add this you your project

[@factchecker2179]

It works for me

[@krinodagamer6313]

THIS IS HUGE!!! I DONT THINK PEOPLE REALIZE, THIS IS A BIG PART OF SYSTEM IMPACT

[@Greenrobotvp]

Very cool! Does this still work with blend materials?

[@thedivinesagastudiosllc4818]

The best explanation I have seen on this feature you are awesome. Can you do a video on saving and loading items to Game Instances. I try to set my system as to event driven on things like health, ammo and such but I can't seem to figure out how to both save and retrieve this information. All I have found are tick related and not a real good explanation. Just a request.

[@Drahoslav_Lysak]

Great :)

[@peterallely5417]

So by displacing the mesh with this method, am I seeing this correctly on the wireframe, did it generate more polygons where the displacement map is more detailed (like as the recesses bevel) and less polygons where the the displacement map is less detailed (flats of the pavers)? Cos that’s amazing if so, compared to just evenly subdividing a mesh in the modelling tools and the using the displacement tool.

[@user-pd1tg1nz2y]

This is awesome! Love it. But I just found its shadows on itself so unreal, which really frustrates me. Have you met the same problem? Do you have a solution for that? BTW, I have turned off Support Ray Tracing on this asset and turned on Virtual Shadow Maps feature.

[@lost-spirit-exploration]

Thanks a lot! but there is still a problem when using this on cubes. any idea to fix this?

[@hpbecraft]

I tried a few settings and I either get no details or it's unbearably slow. I really like the non-destructive nature of it so I'll continue to fiddle with it and wait for updates.

[@istealpixel7371]

Thank you, that was very informative. I hate flat roofs. I will try this...

[@andrinSky]

Great, but how can i enable this Displacement on a Landscape-Material?

[@Transcriptor]

Its interesting that if you export the successful object as an fbx file to blender you get a Blender EnvSamplerTex image with a “complex” but shaped mesh (editable) UV map. Better than Blender! Mac metal only has a nanite api but works a treat.

[@silmusashi]

Hi guys, I need your help on confirmation of 2 techniques. One is using this method and the other method is using Displace deformer in the modeling module. With this method, the displacement map need to be on 3 channels and Displace deformer, we can use directly the Blue channel of the ORD map from Bridge. But in the end result, what is the pros and cons between those?

[@Kozlov_Production]

It's not original displacement. It's not like when you apply tiled material on an infinite plane and it generates geometry only near camera

[@nothankyoutube]

Sorry if im way off but did you do unreal instruction courses for think tank?

[@huanghuihu2046]

VeryGood video . But it makes me missing tessellation more

[@maschinelab8598]

Pretty cool!! Do we have to change the Height map to mask or something? Thank you!

[@thomasdickerson7770]

Looks like there's currently no way to assign these per-material-slot, so if you import an FBX with the combine meshes feature, this approach won't work. Is that accurate?

[@beachmobjellies]

2 gripes though....first its very very slow to calculate and megascans displacement map is buried in the ord map and you cant specify which channel is the displacement map which results in a painful workaround :(

[@nathanbollman]

Bolts? Screws? NAILS! lol... Amazing deck model for someone who has a apparently never picked up a hammer

[@renderbucket]

😂 As you can see I'm just winging these videos. Nothing's prescripted.

[@edenassos]

Displacement is far more expensive than just modeling geometry and culling the under side. To render a displaced model, the renderer must first calculate the surface normals at each point on the model. The surface normals are the directions that the surface is facing at each point. Once the surface normals are calculated, the renderer can then use the displacement map to distort the surface of the model. This process is more computationally expensive than simply rendering a model with its original geometry. The renderer must calculate the surface normals for every point on the model, and then it must distort the surface of the model according to the displacement map. In contrast, modeling the geometry only requires the renderer to calculate the vertices and faces of the model. This is a much simpler process, and it is therefore less computationally expensive. Also, use bent normals for better effect.

[@ghw2402]

bruh this method changes the actual geometry, its not "fake", so for example you can't use texture painting to paint different materials to add variations..etc

[@edenassos]

@@ghw2402 Sorry, I disregard every comment that starts with "bruh". It just tells me you are lacking in basic English skills.

[@ghw2402]

@@edenassos bruh Im a seppo just like u

[@edenassos]

@@ghw2402 Seppo? You assume I'm American just because I speak English? English is not the only language I speak. Bad news for you, my English is better than most Americans so that statement doesn't mean anything.

[@ghw2402]

@@edenassos im american and i can confirm your english is betta dan mine Congrats bruh

[@richardlo7165]

Does not work in path tracing?

[@peterallely5417]

Also - search “5.3 Nanite Tessellation” - that’s their endgame. Saeed found it and posted a video a couple days back. It’s not POM (stuff is protruding even at glancing angles), but it’s not real geo either, it seems.

[@benblaumentalism6245]

I’ve displaced meshes using the modeling tools that I’ve subsequently converted to Nanite. Am I fundamentally misunderstanding something?

[@ghw2402]

@@benblaumentalism6245 you changed the geometry it self, so for example you can't animate the diceplacement or change it in real time, e.x foots on snow..etc

[@benblaumentalism6245]

@@ghw2402 It isn’t how I’d do that anyway. Even if it was, I still prefer the material to be world-aligned in most cases.

[@ghw2402]

@@benblaumentalism6245 also for example we can't use texture painting, like if i have a wall of bricks material, then i can paint over it to add variations and cracks..etc because the diceplacement is the geometry now so the other material will not change it and it will look ugly may I ask how you would aproach those 2 examples? I'm strugling with that now :( Thanks

[@SLPCaires]

shame its not generalized so that you can author the displacements inside materials.

[@polybend933]

Yep. This was basically possible before this update, just in a more roundabout way. I am sad at how long this issue is taking to solve. We just want the ability to use tiled materials and displacement in a generalized way. This method will also still have the same issues it always has. If you tile nanite meshes, you get noticeable seems at a distance due to the way it reduces the mesh density as you move away. Again... why I want a single floor piece with a tiled material on it.

[@katanalevygames]

I wonder if it's possible to use a render target texture for the displacement slot and then you could use the output of a material graph to write to the render target. Stupidly costly but if the displacement could happen it realtime then it could produce some cool fx. They really need to sort some kind of material dispalcement again working with nanite tho.

[@polybend933]

@@katanalevygames yeah, I get why they want everything nanite, and tiled meshes. It works way better with lumens mechanical defaults. I wonder if the solution could be as simple as giving artist the ability to customize how specific sections of a mesh react to nanite. If I could tell tiled floor and wall meshes to not reduce as readily on their outer edges, that would solve most issues.

[@Earanak3D]

r.RayTracing.Nanite.Mode 1 / 0 resolve shadow bug