Unreal Engine 5.4 - HLOD intro - Optimise Landscape #3 -

[@LuxAlibi]

Thank you! This is the first video that explains, really and practically, how to make some HLOD. And I say that after having searched a lot and watched several of them from many different channels! HLOD is a topic where official documentation is very vague and not practical, so your tutorials are really important. It would be absolutely great if you make more videos about making HLOD of big meshes (buildings and rocks) and vegetation/foliage.

[@mootzartdev]

Thanks for the kind words. I will for sure be getting to that. So far I've been getting things properly tested as I go and do them for my game. I like to make sure I have a decent grasp of things before I record. But I will be getting to more complicated HLOD stuff soon.. I also work in the industry.. so time is a bit taken at the moment

[@WatchingTokyo]

You can unload everything in the World Partition minimap and then everything outside of your loading range will be using HLODs. It's a good way to preview what it looks like. Thanks for the videos!

[@mootzartdev]

Thank you for the comment. I did realise this later on and wished I had it in the video.

[@logananderson8246]

man if you can make videos more often this is the kind of info we need no one else talks about this stuff and its needed so much to make games at this scale work right

[@mootzartdev]

I will try my best to. I do work in industry as well. So there is a time issue for me vs reward etc. But I will definitely push out what i think i can achieve for you all :)

[@rgsdevlog]

The whole problem with HLOD is the large amount of RAM when generating them. On my computer, when creating an HLOD for a large card, it takes more than 60 GB of RAM and at the same time the HOLD grid itself turns out to be uneven, and sometimes even without separate regions. Moreover, the grid generation occurs all the time from scratch, removing the already created HLODS. I do not understand why the Unreal Engine developers did not make it possible to generate HLOD for a populated region without deleting the already created HLOD, so it would be possible to safely generate a complete HLOD for a large map without the possibility of consuming such a huge amount of memory.

[@rgsdevlog]

I also studied HLOD for a long time, it is a simplified grid with a smaller number of polygons, a low-quality texture and a baked shadow. What you got is the best HLOD and it makes no sense to reduce its field of view, since it is designed purely for the background at long distances.

[@mootzartdev]

While i agree in some cases. I do not agree with all. There is a balance to made across different projects. Different projects with different sized maps will require different solutions. If you're using world partition, ideally you do not want to stream the entire map if its extremely large with a high runtime loading range setting , (you need to have unloaded streaming cells)... You want to stream partitions as you come within a specific range. Doing this obviously stops the benefits of standard LOD's at distant ranges. Building HLOD's allows you to maintain that functionality at far distances whilst reducing things such as draw calls, texture resolutions and shadows. You may pay in geometry terms but you save elsewhere. As long as you balance it correctly.

[@elganzandere]

Why is that music creeping in? I'm tripping.

[@RickHenderson]

I really like the detail you went into with your tutorial. But how did you get such amazing 16K (or even 4K) landscapes? Gaia? Blender? I kind of want to use real map data but it's either hard to find or complex to get into the right format.

[@mootzartdev]

I will do a video on creating heightmaps soon. But yeah I used Gaea for my heightmaps. and some edits in GIMP/Photoshop if i need to adjust after they are built.

[@Intranduan]

Amazing tutorial!

[@blanketparty5259]

I would love to know how to make HLODs for trees. Would you be able to cover this? FOr exaple i'd love to use them with nanite. far distance ones at billboards and mid and close as nanite. I cannot wrap my head around this

[@mootzartdev]

Sorry it took so long to reply. I am working through various subjects. But i will of course get to this. I would suggest looking into PCG for trees etc firstly.

[@blanketparty5259]

@@mootzartdev No worries at all. You have some of the most impressive tutorials ive seen in unreal, take all the time you need ! As for PCG I am familiar with it. But HLODs really are tough to grasp due to lack of digestible info in specific cases. Especially considering nanite trees. I saw a great video presentation from unreal using this technique but they gently glossed over it. The presenter had LOD billboards baked into the HLOD, and at a certain distance the HLOD would pop in to replace the nanite mesh.

[@TheWeeky]

Is there a possibility you could in the future talk about the water shader that's visible in the first 30 seconds? Looks really nice, especially how the wave shape follows the coast

[@mootzartdev]

I can indeed. Although that would be more of a showcase really.

[@findthestones]

Great info! What water are you using for the ocean. Awesome waves

[@mootzartdev]

For this demo im using Fluid Flux

[@sonic55193]

I get error "Build Failed! See log for details". Know anyway to fix this? I'm guessing it's probably my PC not handling the building process, is there a way to lighten the load of building if it's the cause?

[@mootzartdev]

Hmm how big of a map are you trying to do ? It could be the LOD settings you have.. anything close to default settings will use a lot more resources.

[@sonic55193]

@@mootzartdev Hi, I had to upgrade my hardware for this to work. Thanks a lot for your time and effort. I just want to ask one more question. Is it advisable to use nanite on landscapes too for optimization or it's better as it is?

[@mootzartdev]

@@sonic55193 I would say if your landscape is anything over 4k then don't use it. Even below the 4k amount it's not really that great. It really only benefits landscape tesselation etc.. But that is not really easily possible on anything above 4k. So your environments will have to be smaller with lots of details and nanite or use traditional methods with larger worlds.

[@Gladiy]

ty

[@williammorris7157]

1000th sub 😎 nice video

[@mootzartdev]

I will remember you as my first major milestone! Thanks for subscribing

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

So I think I deleted the layers that were created automatically, how do you recommend to proceed?

[@mootzartdev]

So its a bit of a awkward process. I will have to make a follow up video for this. You basically have to find the location for the HLOD layer templates (You can use the premade ones on a new level to find their parent locations), make copies and link them to the landscape. But ill have to make the video to show properly.

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

@@mootzartdev so I can't just make new ones myself? There's not much settings on them 😁😆.. anyways, create new map, find the parent. Okay, so it's the parent ones I need to copy and put on my landscape? So it's just not those from a new level I can use?

[@aimbotRaz]

@@mootzartdev That would be really helpful since i deleted those files, hoping you will make it soon enough

[@alessiobelli]

@@mootzartdev That would help, thanks for the vid

[@pavlom.2024]

Have the save question, waiting for video. In previous versions of UE(5.1+) there was no such problem. HLOD layer assets could be created and assigned, and it worked properly. UPD: I've manage to do that, really copying of templates and repeating the setup of open world level template worked. But it is reall awkward and not convinient process. By the way, HLODs could also previewed if pinned them in outlines and other way is just to start Simulate mode. @mootzartdev , thanks for advice!

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

Will you cover hlod for objects and grass also?

[@mootzartdev]

I will try to get to it soon :)

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

@@mootzartdev amazing!! 🤩

[@KBFNGG]

I'm sorry to say but the most content of this video seems just wrong. To start with, you can have multiple grids in order to control what things you want to load when and how. You can have different actors loading in one grid, and other actors load with another grid. The instanced HLOD layer is for instancing meshes. It's used for (H)ISMs and SMs that can be replicated and are configured to be instanced instead of being merged. Landscape components cannot be instanced as they are ultimately all different. Instanced HLOD layer is used for things like foliage for example. Landscape proxy actors has to be spatially loaded in order to be processed by the HLOD builder. The HLOD builder will merge the components to some simplified mega meshes. In a nutshell, everything beyond your grid loading range has to load a HLOD. It's up to you to decide how to generate that HLOD on the landscape. You can control the min LOD which the HLOD builder will use to generate. If you ramp it up to a high value, you will get a flat plane as a HLOD with a texture. The lower the value, the more geometry you will get back.

[@KBFNGG]

TLDR; Ramping up the loading range of the grid loading range to get back details is exactly the opposite of an optimization. If anything, you added more load for your players with that setup.

[@mootzartdev]

​@KBFNGG I may have been incorrect in the definition of the HLOD layers and I can adress that as I go. But I wouldn't say the rest is wrong. It shows how to build HLODs and change the distances in which they show. Which will be different per project requirements. The video demonstrates having the loading range really ramped with no HLODs compared to having HLODs and lowering the range.. So I don't see your point there. This video is HLOD for landscapes not trees etc. People who have no idea, need to learn in chunks. Also I do show that the LOD settings determine how your HLODs are built.. So you're going over what I have already done in the video there. I agree I'm not perfect. But they will get better as I go. I probably shouldn't really bother though.