Recreating Gilneas in Unreal Engine

[XodusArt2]

I've managed to do the following so far;
1. Export the heightmap with quite accurate detail
3. Export the objects Gilneas uses
4. Skip step 2 because I can
5. Create realistic water shaders

I'm trying to now pull the texture coordinates  from the ADT, not sure how.. I'd really, REALLY like to know though.

[xeriae]

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4873

[samgartell]

http://modcraft.io/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4873

Hey there! My tutorial doesn't cover how to do what he's asking. I'm not 100% what he's asking but I definitely didn't cover porting existing Terrain in there.

@XodusArt2, each ADT as far as I know uses it's own texture coordinates via alphamaps embedded into it, so you'd have to somehow combine every single one (TextureAtlas? :s) for each texture layer, and linear interpolate the textures into a single diffuse but the amount of files needed for this (up to 4 for each ADT) would absolutely kill Unreal in most cases.

I'm gonna be a bit of a dream breaker here but Unreal tends to just be awful for these kinda things, so it's gonna be a lot more effort than exporting the heightmap as one huge file and just importing it to one Terrain/Landscape node.

The best way I've found so far to do these kinda things (Not recommended, Unreal is reaaaally only meant for small maps/Arenas) is to export each ADT as it's own mesh, then do what I said above but instance each ADT's material using texture params and a master material. But even then, you're left with little flexibility, but far more than using one piece of terrain (Because even UDK only supports 12 (?) texture samples per node) and you're also given much more LOD functionality with Meshes, so you can theoretically have a bigger map with less performance impact, AND the ability to paint vertexes, which is actually VERY important for a map like Gilneas, practically every mountain is vertex shaded.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, and if you can find a better way, please share, I've ran into these issues before (Converting Gilneas to UDK, coincidentally) and ended up just realising that WoW's file formats, especially ADT, are so proprietary and optimised for WoW's engine, converting them on a massive scale is just not practical.
 
Sorry for the text wall and good luck! ^^

[XodusArt2]

http://modcraft.io/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4873

Hey there! My tutorial doesn't cover how to do what he's asking. I'm not 100% what he's asking but I definitely didn't cover porting existing Terrain in there.

@XodusArt2, each ADT as far as I know uses it's own texture coordinates via alphamaps embedded into it, so you'd have to somehow combine every single one (TextureAtlas? :s) for each texture layer, and linear interpolate the textures into a single diffuse but the amount of files needed for this (up to 4 for each ADT) would absolutely kill Unreal in most cases.

I'm gonna be a bit of a dream breaker here but Unreal tends to just be awful for these kinda things, so it's gonna be a lot more effort than exporting the heightmap as one huge file and just importing it to one Terrain/Landscape node.

The best way I've found so far to do these kinda things (Not recommended, Unreal is reaaaally only meant for small maps/Arenas) is to export each ADT as it's own mesh, then do what I said above but instance each ADT's material using texture params and a master material. But even then, you're left with little flexibility, but far more than using one piece of terrain (Because even UDK only supports 12 (?) texture samples per node) and you're also given much more LOD functionality with Meshes, so you can theoretically have a bigger map with less performance impact, AND the ability to paint vertexes, which is actually VERY important for a map like Gilneas, practically every mountain is vertex shaded.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, and if you can find a better way, please share, I've ran into these issues before (Converting Gilneas to UDK, coincidentally) and ended up just realising that WoW's file formats, especially ADT, are so proprietary and optimised for WoW's engine, converting them on a massive scale is just not practical.
 
Sorry for the text wall and good luck! ^^

I suppose due to my own will to have this done, it was done. I've successfully recreated the texture sequence that Gilneas uses, the heightmap isn't just accurate, it's exact, the water shaders are 100% done, all static meshes are reacting nicely to lighting, and I've gotten one step closer to the rendering engine fog / mist setting

[samgartell]

You seriously need to share some pictures man! Crazy interested in seeing this. Some WIP shots would really be great!

How'd you go about the textures in the end aha?

[XodusArt2]

I ended up painting them my self after using slope selectors and etc to paint flats, cliffs, etc, so basically, UE4 has a slope selecting system built into the material editor, I simply made some complex kismet set up and got it all made, I exported the heightmap via a top render of an ADT i exported from CASC, imported the ADTs into 3dsmax with Taylor Mouse's script, and boom. Everything turned out nicely, one problem I have at the moment is that the terracing with the heightmap is too intense, I'm sure it happened because of me not using the original heightmaps that are probably hidden somewhere.

[XodusArt2]

http://i.imgur.com/imxd4dL.jpg

[Ohai]

Wow this is so cool I remember seeing that youtube vid of that human zone, damn I get the feeling ill work my ass off for a custom server then see unreal mods avaliable in some other script language Xb

[Skarn]

Looks a lot worse than in wow so far. "Unreal engine".

[XodusArt2]

Looks a lot worse than in wow so far. "Unreal engine".

He asked for WIP shots, the lighting just happened to be bad in that one.

[Skarn]

No, the mountain shaping is just bad one.

[XodusArt2]

Oh, well that's all to do with the LOD, those mountains are miles upon miles upon miles away, so they don't render nicely, It's an easy fix, I think.

[samgartell]

If LoD on Terrain (They moved away from Terrain and went to Landscape in UDK, so presumably that's ALL they use in UE4) is anything like UDK, it can be nitpicky but doable, not recommending changing it too much though, like I said in the other post, UE is primarily Arena/Small Maps oriented.
Global Illumination is easy too, I'm sure you can get this looking way better than in WoW, in no time.

But personally I can't stand UE4, the UI/UX in general is just god awful, it feels like I'm using something designed to teach children game design, not a solid engine. While I know it's definitely just the UX that puts me off, I can't shake the feeling they've gone into some strange "user friendly" uncanny valley, and it just makes me uneasy to use.